Neda is a top-level manager at a mid-sized financial services company. The number and variety of stakeholders who reach out to her with problems or issues is truly large, and she is having trouble deciding which ones to give her time and attention to. How should she analyze and respond to stakeholder demands?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Although Neda should understand that all stakeholders matter, it is unlikely that
she will be able to attend to all their demands personally, and it is also unlikely that she
should attend to all of them personally. Some stakeholder demands may even conflict
with others. To give her attention to a demand, Neda should consider whether it has
any, or a combination of, three core characteristics: power, urgency, and legitimacy. If
the demand has power, it means that the stakeholder has influence over Neda’s
organization and could potentially cause direct problems if not attended to. A
stakeholder with legitimacy has a high status in the community, or their demand does.
Urgent demands are just that--they need a timely response. It may be tempting for Neda
to give all her attention to high-power stakeholders, but she should not dismiss low-
power stakeholders if they have high legitimacy.