Anger: Between A Leadership Failure And The Triumph Of Common Sense

ANGER: BETWEEN A LEADERSHIP FAILURE AND THE TRIUMPH OF COMMON SENSE

Vince Lombardi, the legendary American Football coach, once said: There are occasions when being hard and being tough immediately is the easiest way and the kindest way, really, in the long run. We have to be hard sometimes to get the most out of people. We have to be hard sometimes to get the most out of ourselves, and what can appear to be cruel at a particular moment can eventually turn out to be a blessing in the long run. (Lombardi 2001, p. 134)

The above quote flashed vividly in mind as I waited patiently for the cars lining up in front of mine moved at snail pace on Jalan Sudirman on a rainy Monday evening in late January 2007.

I was recalling the incident taking place earlier in the morning of the same day. It has never occurred to me before in my professional career that I exploded into an ugly outburst with a colleague at the office. Although I knew that I was wrong for letting such an outrage, I kept wondering whether the display of emotion that day showed my toughness or just simply a display of foolishness. The more I pondered, the more I believed that I committed a serious leadership failure and thought really hard what courses of actions I could take to correct this.

Background:

Last year, Rabobank International Indonesia ("RII") secured a mandate to arrange a syndication loan facility for a big and well-known integrated oil palm company in Indonesia. In this fund-raising exercise, RII teamed up with a multilateral developmental agency ("MDA") to underwrite the whole amount, quite sizeable for the Indonesian standard.

After both RII and MDA agreed to split the responsibilities, we moved fast to speed up the internal process. Internally at RII, my colleague, Sani Effendy (who happens to be also a student in this class), and I agreed that responsibilities had to be split to speed up the process. Sani and his corporate finance team would handle the structuring, coordinated what needed to be done and led the negotiation with our partners and client. My team, which is responsible for managing relationship with RII's customers in the food and agribusiness sectors, would do the proposal writing, streamlining the process and internal coordination.

Given the magnitude of the deal plus RII's stringent requirements of the Corporate Social Responsibility ("CSR") issues, coordination among different units within the bank is of paramount importance. Among one of the units to be involved is the legal and documentation unit.

As in any financing exercise legal documents constitute one of the most important parts of the transaction. That's why the legal documents had to be reviewed and finalized before they are distributed to the other committed participants of the syndication. It is true that both MDA and RII engage a bona-fide external legal counsel to prepare the legal documents. Nevertheless, the support from our legal unit in reviewing and pointing out potential adverse consequence in the legal documents are still very much required. Unfortunately, the commercial team felt that the legal unit had not provided the required level of support. We felt that the legal unit does not have any sense of urgency and felt indifferent as far as the transaction progress is concerned.

How did the outburst episode happen?

RII's legal team consists of 3 legal officers headed by, for the purpose of this case, Legal Lady ("LL"). The team's main responsibilities are among others preparing and reviewing the legal documents as well as checking and verifying the validity of the documents submitted by our clients.

LL is a graduate of the University of Indonesia's School of Law. She is actually a capable legal counsel. Unfortunately, she has attitude problems that gradually consume her ability to succeed. Being a difficult person to deal with, she is well known in the office for her moody temperament, uncooperativeness, and rude manner.

As I mentioned above, the legal team should have played a big role in ensuring that the legal documents are properly in place before the financing is executed. In many occasions during the process, LL just simply walked away without strong reasons although she pledged her commitment to attend meetings and conference calls the commercial team regularly set up with all parties involved. She also often failed to identify potential legal issues and late in coming up with her comments on the draft documents. To adhere to the committed timetable, the commercial team was often forced to intervene by reviewing the documents and negotiating with the client.

Sani and I have reminded her nicely on this. We have also brought up this issue to the management. Apparently, our reminders fell into deaf ears. The situation continued to worsen after she botched a conference call in late January 2007. The following day, we were supposed to have another call but she just told us that she wouldn't be available because of prior engagement. I subsequently checked her calendar and saw nothing written on it.

Although I could feel the rage inside me and wanted to apprehend her directly, I tried to be cool and instead went to my supervisor, the Head of Corporate Banking Division, complaining about this. My boss then summoned Sani and LL to his office to join us. His objective was to get clarification from everybody and solve the issue once and for all.

During the discussion, she refused to take the responsibility and instead blamed her subordinates for her unit's tardiness. This is when my frustration of seeing the whole process derailing culminated. At that point, I felt helpless and did not what else to do to get the results I want. This frustration turned into an outburst and I just lost control of my self. I banged on the table, shouted at her for being such an irresponsible person and demanded her to acknowledge her mistakes.

LL was definitely stunned and on the brink of tears. Although she admitted her wrongdoings and promised to improve her team's performance, I was not proud of the outburst. Such rage was embarrassing and showed my weakness of not being able to control my composure. Not to mention that my rage was directed toward a woman colleague. Later on that day, I went to her desk and apologized for my uncivilized behavior. However, I made it clear that I apologized only for my outburst not for my criticism of her team's lackluster performance. I told her that I wanted to put all this behind