I believe that the author has made a strong thesis about the difficult situation that the Multi-Bake Corporation was facing. As the corporation began expanding further the need for someone to watch over the new location in Ottawa was completely necessary. The upper management had become aware that the Ottawa staff was lacking leadership and as a result optimal production was not being maximized. Due to this John Stone elected to appoint Hilary Oates with the duty of looking after the Ottawa location. He chose this option despite the fact that others were not particularly fond of her.
Upon her arrival she put her foot down and made it clear that she was in complete control and that she intended to use her power to its fullest. She had a very coercive style of leading others, which is not always negative if some right. But in this case she was clearly on a power trip and did not lead by example. The article mentions how she was consistently late and would generally slack off herself but would not have any of that from her employees. This kind of leadership resulted in the employees to resent her and they began getting restless. Needless to say that the Ottawa location was not performing well as I believe for any structure to succeed the leader must have the respect of the employees and lead by example.
Word of this got back to the head office and they sent someone over immediately to look find the problems. He found that Hilary was the main
