on power and falling in line
SPOILER ALERT! Grey's Anatomy Season 13 or 14.
Dr. Bailey is the Chief now and hired this woman Dr. Minic to lead the residency program with a new teaching style. They've done "See 1, do 1, teach 1" for ages under Dr. Weber, but Minic has the residents operating on surgeries they haven't seen before.
There's some pushback on the program from the attendings, but the new teaching style isn't really the problem.
Earlier on, it was proposed that Minic and Weber would work side-by-side, but Minic said "I don't share authority; I am the authority" so it was either replace Weber, or Minic won't take the job.
So Baily hires Minic, and 3 days before she starts and takes over the residency program, she comes in because there's a mass medical emergency and more hands are needed. This is the day Weber finds out he's being replaced. He didn't hear it from Bailey, his Chief, the one who fired him from the position. He heard it from Minic.
And Minic is a bully. She doesn't propose her teaching plan, or discuss with the attendings, or open herself up to any kind of compromise. She pushes and pushes and pushes and shows nobody any ounce of respect.
But she has the power.
So the attendings resist. They dodge her, and ban her from their Operating Rooms. When Grey refuses Minic's entry, Chief Bailey suspends her.
Then Kepner takes Meredith's (Grey's) job temporarily while she's suspended. Kepner had been totally in support of the resistance.
But, Bailey blamed the resistance for the hospital not functioning and called on Kepner to take the position. Kepner says the hospital needs her and it is her duty, so she stepped up.
But this was all Chief Bailey's fault, and she literally never took responsibility for it. It was Bailey's duty to manage the hospital and lead her people better.
She is the leader, and when she makes decisions, they have an effect. The people she leads didn't support her, and she didn't fix it. She just bullied them, beat them down, and forced her hand. It's wrong.
The actual problem is that she didn't lead, and she didn't work with her people.
She wielded power and forced changes without any attempt at communication or compromise. It was childish, and it was petty.
Over the next few episodes, things settle down, and everybody basically just falls in line.
The new educational program is good; it does a good job of teaching the residents.
But Bailey should have worked with the stakeholders (Attendings and Residents), gotten buy-in, and just taken things a little more slowly, and a lot more respectfully.
And frankly, if she couldn't get buy-in from her people, then she should have let it go. It's typically not appropriate for one person who thinks they're right to force changes onto a bunch of other people who think its wrong, regardless of who is actually right or wrong.
The resistance was being accused of "mutiny" and doing a "coup", which ... sure. But it was framed (by those in power) as bad or wrong. It wasn't wrong. It just wasn't what the person in power wanted, and that person in power had no respect for anybody but herself.
P.S. I still love Dr. Bailey but I definitely was hating her for a little bit. This show makes me hate almost everybody at least some of the time.