Nova Southeastern University Vision Analysis - Research Paper Example

? Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL VISION ANALYSIS Organizational Vision Analysis Introduction Nova Southeastern (NSU) is America’s seventh largest not for profit autonomous university and has over 28,000 students. NSU has a massive campus of 300 acres at Fort Lauderdale-Davie in Florida and functions in nine countries across the world. In the 47 years that it has been in existence, NSU has developed an excellent standing of academic excellence and continues to develop by way of innovations in its teaching strategies. NSU was initially called Nova University when it opened in 1964 as an institution for graduate studies in physical and social sciences. Gradually, new programs were introduced such as oceanography, computer science, psychology, business administration, education and law and very soon Nova began to be accepted for its high standards. While educational reach was being constantly expanded at Nova, Southeastern University of the Health Sciences was also expanding. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences added learning centers for dental medicine, medical sciences, allied health, optometry and pharmacy between the years 1987 to 1997. It is noteworthy that Nova University became a part of the Southeastern University of the Health Sciences in 1995 and the two merged entities began to be called Nova Southeastern University (Nova Southeastern University, 2011). Main Body The vision of Nova Southeastern University is to be an independent institution without being under the control of any state university system. Consequently, the staff, faculty and administration of NSU strive to provide students and society at large with self-supporting opportunities of higher education. Because of such independence, a large variety of options are available to students and it is clear that in keeping with this vision, the Board of Trustees of NSU intend to continue with this practice. The mission of Nova Southeastern University is to provide a large number of diversified and innovative educational programs that include on campus opportunities as well as distance learning programs to encourage research, leadership, intellectual enquiry, excellence and commitments towards society by engaging faculty and students in a vibrant and life long learning process. A major objective of NSU is to focus on students by transforming them into educated, competent and principled professionals in different fields. The university is committed to the concept that education does not imply that teaching is limited for a given time period for any student. NSU has been enhancing the traditional effectiveness of educational services deliveries by effectively using telecommunication and information technology. NSU continues to consistently use educational resources, emerging technology and other effective delivery systems in demonstrating that education can be provided without the constraints of time, location or learning style (Mohan, 1993). NSU has a consistent goal of pursuing multi-disciplinary teaching approaches and acquiring knowledge. An important agenda is to enhance the integration of education programs from undergraduate to graduation level as well as to ascertain that synergy is achieved between professionals and social issues. NSU encourages the free exchange of ideas wile programs are developed in responding to societal needs so that future professionals can be equipped with conventional competency as well as ethical sensibility and commitment towards enhancing professional and social values. A long term goal of NSU is to tackle present technology in ways that it is compatible with the rapid technological change that is happening constantly, with the basic idea of operating in a culturally diverse environment. NSU continues to be supportive of the crucial relationship amongst theory and practice and plans to create efficient education delivery procedures in impacting the working environment and creating stimulating education structures. The university strongly believes that community service is a crucial element of educational programs that make students to actively contribute to society. Having observed the pattern of leadership behavior at the Nova Southeastern University, it is evident that over the years, leaders in the university have accustomed themselves to the transformational style of leadership in focusing on mentoring and empowering students and colleagues. Additionally, they believe in guiding students so that they improve their confidence levels to execute wide ranging long term tasks. Leaders at NSU have been making attempts to enable action oriented experiences to gain mastery through training and coaching in order to improve students’ competence levels and skills. As leaders they believe that they are responsible to guide their followers, colleagues and members of the community so that they improve their skills and quality of life. They believe that accessibility to required information is the main requirement to unlock personal and professional success. In this context, it is in order to examine the different leadership styles, theories and models, which will then be analyzed in the context of the leadership style adopted at Nova Southeastern University. The Trait Approach was a result of the Great Man Theory that identified the major characteristics of winning leaders. However, the outcomes of this theory were not conclusive in terms of measuring attributes such as loyalty, integrity, honesty and diligence. But in being a behavioral theory, the Trait Theory helped managers in developing specific leadership behaviors. Researchers have concluded that in the present environment, a single leadership style cannot be said to be ideal for every manager in all circumstances. Contingency situational theories were indicative of styles that could be used depending upon contingent factors such as the organization, the tasks, the people and the situations. The leaders and followers models deal with relationship amongst leaders and their followers and their interdependent roles. The leader here is the team leader who is not adamant on being in the front but is also ready to follow, meaning that he does not want to be the master always but can also become the servant. Servant leadership focuses on the leader’s duty to work for his or her followers, which means that leadership is a result of the desire to serve instead of just leading. James MacGregor Burns (2003) focused on transformational leadership which he said is a relationships that deals with “mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents” (Burns, 2003, p.121). He asserted that transformational leadership is evident when the leader interacts with others whereby the leader and his followers uplift each other to a high level of morality and motivation. According to Bernard M. Bass (2005), this approach focuses on humanistic psychology whereby the transformational leader develops and uplifts the objectives and values of his followers so that they achieve considerable change. The Nova Southeastern University has been following the transformational leadership style whereby leaders make use of principles that consistently keep transforming both leadership as well as followers into people that collectively aim at achieving high end value systems. This style develops an individual’s need for meaning in life so that he is always occupied with ethics, morals, values and purpose which rise above daily affairs (Ciulla, 2004). The style makes one to work towards long term objectives while retaining personal principals and human values. Followers tend to focus on the given strategies and missions, which allows for the identification of new talent. Jobs can be designed and redesigned through trial and error in making them challenging and purposeful. Above all, transformational leadership aligns internal systems and structures to strengthen goals and values. The model of performance centered leadership enables a set of required behaviors that improve business performance. This model has been developed entirely through feedback information that is measured relative to competency levels in high performance companies. The parameters are used in evaluating peer performance and to identify growth opportunities through exhaustive feedback. The set of leaderships behaviors that emerge allow for achieving high levels of performance by focusing on customers, improving processes continuously and working together as teams. However this model is not deal for a university set up because the focus here is not on business but on improving leadership skills so that maximum learning is imparted and imbibed (Senge, 2006). Given that the vision of Nova Southeastern University is to remain an autonomous institution and to provide students and society at large with self-supporting opportunities of higher education, there is a need adopt a strategy pf leadership and execution of plans in a way that the goals of the university are achieved in terms of better outcomes, which is very important in a competitive environment that is gradually gripping all parts of the world. The process of change has to be better managed by way of constant challenges emerging from change in leadership and strategic thinking. According to Hersey (1977), adoption of better communication strategies will enable better listening and organizational abilities. In order to achieve its vision it is important for the NSU leadership to focus on collective responsibility, organizational awareness, organizational effectiveness, evaluation and improvement of organizational performance and developing a learning organization. This will allow for focusing on maintaining quality customer service (here the customers are students) and customer focused deliveries thus sharpening customer and service convergence, which is an inherent part of the university’s mission in providing maximum learning to a diversified student community (Fiedler, 1987). Decision making is a very important aspect of working towards achieving the university’s vision. Leaders have to identify, analyze and solve problems and arrive at appropriate judgments. Equality and diversity implies that the leadership has to encourage the adoption of equal opportunity processes and demonstrate leadership in keeping with the implementation of equality, management of equitability and giving value to diversity. It is important to focus on results and to act assertively by impacting and influencing interpersonal skills, networking and partnerships. Transformational style is the ideal style of leadership for NSU, which demands high levels of integrity in terms of demonstrating ethical behavior. Effective information management will require obtaining unbiased information, providing authentic information and communicating the same effectively. The transformational leader has to lead people through appraisal of performance, discipline, people management, training, delegating and valuing followers. He has to demonstrate personal management and drive in terms of political awareness and organizational and project management. The leadership model of senior executive service provides competency levels for senior leaders and deals with leading change, leading people, being results driven, having a strong business acumen and building communication and coalition systems. Leadership at NSU should develop higher levels of thinking abilities and think strategically and have strong people abilities in efficiently managing self, managing and leading people, leading direction and culture and managing relationships. Task abilities imply effective management of information, resources and activities (Adair, 1983). Having reviewed the leadership theory, competency structures and models that are being used across organizations it appears that a fairly strong version of transformational leadership is most suitable for the set up characterized by the circumstances prevailing in Nova Southeastern University. It is also observed that most structures comprise of much more than just definition pertaining to behaviors in considering many of the interpersonal and cognitive characteristics of leaders. But the role of followers can be considered as being relatively one dimensional and undirected. It can be said that leadership is a set of behaviors, qualities and values that are demonstrated by the leader, which encourages commitment, development and involvement of followers. In most organizations, the leader is the holder of the position that promotes him as the leader. Therefore, the leader is the holder of the post that is endorsed as the main source of leadership in the organization. Conclusion Leaders at Nova Southeastern University need to act as energizers and catalyst agents that are equipped with tools relative to decision making, people management, problem solving and communication, which can be used across diversified circumstances and situations. A major objective of NSU is to focus on students by transforming them into educated, competent and principled professionals in different fields. The university is committed to the concept that education does not imply that teaching is limited for a given time period for any student. What is most important is the leader’s ability to be responsive towards adapting his or her styles towards different situations. University leadership should be inclusive, determined and driven by values. They should completely support the distinct identity of the university, be instructionally focused and promote an active viewpoint towards learning. They are required to work towards developing the university as a learning community by using innovative and experiential methods. List of References Adair, J. (1983). Action-Centred Leadership. McGraw-Hill. Bass, Bernard M. (2005). Transformational Leadership, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Burns, James Macgregor. (2003). Transforming Leadership: A New Pursuit of Happiness. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. Ciulla, J. B. (2004). Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, Praeger. Fiedler, M. (1987) A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness. McGraw-Hill. Hersey, P. (1977) Management of Organizational Behaviour. Prentice Hall. Katzenbach, J. and Smith, D. (1996). The Wisdom of Teams. Harper Business. Mohan, Marie Leslie. (1993). Organizational Communication and Cultural Vision, State University of New York Press. Nova Southeastern University, http://www.nova.edu/, Accessed on 30 September, 2011. Senge, Peter M. (2006). The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, Crown Business. Read More