Susan Fowler at Uber 1

Case Study: Susan Fowler's Experience at Uber

Nicole G. Catacutan

College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Arizona State University

OGL 300: Theory Practice of Leadership

Professor Kate McCain

October 23, 2020

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Abstract

The issue is of sexual harassment that is prevalent in many areas within the industry of

technology among large companies, particularly one of Silicon Valley, and how these cases are handled.

Too many cases of sexual harassment have come to light in more recent years without being resolved.

Does the issue begin with the victims, the employees and leaders of the company, or society as a whole?

Paired with companies requiring NDAs and forced arbitration clauses of their newly onboarded

employees, it is predicted among many researchers of leadership that the fault lies among leaders lacking

the capacity to juggle or carry the necessary traits and characteristics needed of a leader in any given

situation.

Keywords: sexual harassment, leadership, problem solving, human resources, engineering, Silicon Valley
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Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………2

Table of Contents.…………………………………………………………………………………3

List of Figures…..…………………………………………………………………………………3

List of Tables…...…………………………………………………………………………………3

A Blog Post That Started It All……………………………………………………………………6

What Went Wrong……………………………………………………………………6

We Need A Skillful Leader……………………….………………………………7

Bibliography.…...…………………………………………………………………………………9

List of Figures

Figure 3.1. Management Skills Necessary at Various Levels of an Organization……...………...4

List of Tables

Table 1: Engineering Employees at Uber in 2015………………………………………………...5

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Figure 3.1. Management Skills Necessary at Various Levels of an Organization, Adapted from “Skills of an Effective
Administrator,” by R. L. Katz, 1955, Harvard Business Review, 3391), pp. 33-42 (Northouse, 2019)
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Employees Male Female

120 6

Total 126 120(95%) 6 (< 5%)

Table 2: Engineering Employees at Uber in 2015

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A Blog Post That Started It All

“Now the story behind one woman’s decision to blow the whistle on culture of

harassment and discrimination at one of the highest-flying start-ups in America” (Nawaz 2020).

To the public, it all started with an open blog post written by Susan Fowler. But to Fowler, it

began during her first day on the job and continued over the course of an entire year while

employed at Uber. On February 19, 2017, Fowler made the decision that doing what was right

was more important than her career, and the security of herself and her family by posting her

blog which quickly went viral and caused a stir up in Silicon Valley. She descriptively wrote

about various incidents of harassment, a toxic work environment, and the lack of support from

her management chain.

What Went Wrong

There are two approaches to leadership: trait and skill. According to the trait approach,

there are ten characteristics positively associated with leadership: drive for responsibility and

task completion, vigor and persistence in pursuit of goals, risk taking and originality in problem

solving, drive to exercise initiative in social situations, self-confidence and sense of personal

identity, willingness to accept consequences of decision and action, ability to influence other

people’s behavior, and capacity to structure social interaction systems to the purpose at hand

(Stogdill, 1974; Northouse, 2019, p. 21). Of the ten characteristics listed, the co-founder and

former CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, displayed a lack of responsibility, originality in problem

solving, and willingness to tolerate frustration and delay when handling the issues that arose
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from Fowler’s whistleblowing. Following the blog post, rather than accepting responsibility for

the previous actions performed by the company and its’ current state, Kalanick hired former U.S.

attorney general to investigate Fowler’s claims of mishandling her sexual harassment claims sent

HR and executives alike and ignored the safety well-being of former employee Fowler. Although

Uber had seen major success and growth as a start-up company while led by Kalanick, traits that

leaders possess must be relevant to situations in which the leader is functioning (Northouse,

2019, p.21). Leadership was once believed to only belong to those with high intelligence,

masculinity and dominance (Lord, DeVader, and Alliger, 1986, Northouse, 2019, p. 20). Later, it

was found that leaders must be conscious of three fundamental facets: context, self, and others

(Shankman and Allen, 2015; Northouse, 2019, p. 29). Kalanick displayed a lack of emotional

intelligence which is described as “the ability to perceive and express emotions, to use emotions

to facilitate thinking, to understand and reason with emotions, and to effectively manage

emotions within oneself in relationships with others” (Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso, 2000;

Northouse, 2019, p.29). Among this turn of Uber’s future, Kalanick did not adapt or attempt to

understand, reason, and manage emotions within himself and others.

We Need A Skillful Leader

As for the second approach to leadership, based on field research there are three

necessary skills: technical (how to deal with things), human (how to deal with people), and

conceptual (how to deal with ideas) (Katz, 1955; Northouse, 2019, p.34 &44). Figure 3.1

explains that top management levels require more human and conceptual skills (Katz, 1955;

Northouse, 2019, p. 45). Social judgement, perspective taking, and social perceptiveness are
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human skills that Kalanick did not possess or utilize and caused Uber’s failure to display

inclusion among its’ low number female employees listed in Table 1. Behavioral flexibility is the

capacity to change and adapt one’s behavior in light of an understanding of other’s perspectives

in the organization and as the circumstances of a situation change, a flexible leader changes to

meet the new demands (Northouse, 2019, p.52). This ultimately led to Kalanick’s departure from

the company.
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Bibliography

Brangham, W., Fowler, S., & Nawaz, A. Uber whistleblower Susan Fowler details harassment, retaliation in

new book. other. https://youtu.be/Jhc77Fj6TRw.

Fowler, S. (2017, February 19). Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber. Susan Fowler.

https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.

Fowler, S. (2020, February 14). Susan Fowler: Why I Wrote the Uber Memo. The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/opinion/sunday/uber-susan-fowler-

harassment.html?action=click.

Fowler, S., & Greene, D. 'One Very, Very Strange Year': A Conversation With Uber Whistleblower Susan

Fowler. other. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/21/808190726/one-very-very-strange-year-a-

conversation-with-uber-whistleblower-susan-fowler.

Northouse, P. G. (2019). Chapter 2: Trait Approach, Chapter 3: Skills Approach. In Leadership: Theory and

Practice (8th ed., pp. 22–72). essay, SAGE.