Nature of Work to Be Adopted by the Student - Assignment Example

? Management Leadership of the of the Contents Contents 2 Task I: Personal Development Plan 3 Task II: Self Assessment Process 8 Task III: Reflection 11 References 14 Task I: Personal Development Plan Part 1 i) Vision Statement for a Student for 3 to 5 years The student should aim to utilize his academic learnt skills in the professional field in future. The student must aim to learn from the best performers in the market if he desires to set up his own business. Ethical and moral principles should not be compromised by the student in the professional field in future. The student must aim to be focussed in his career plan within a year and by the end of 3 to 5 years, he must establish himself as a contended performer. ii) Nature of Work to be adopted by the student The student must give equal values to profit and ethics in his working activities in future. He should try to get maximum returns from the work done but should never compromise on the social and moral values in business. In the course of his professional life, the student must try to stay at the highest position in his workplace. He must claim to serve his employer (if he works for someone) or customers (if he owns a business concern) with his best efforts. These goals can easily be achieved by the employees if he suffices the above mentioned vision criteria in future. It is assumed in the assignment that the student here desires to start up his business in future which would be entirely owned by him. This simply hammers on the fact that through entrepreneurship, a person can use his or her knowledge to create services or products for the benefit of the common people with their best efforts. By choosing to be an entrepreneur, a person can have a better control over his future, a better understanding about the differences between value and work, the scale and scope of operations can be altered most efficiently by an entrepreneur in business. An entrepreneur has the best scope for innovation and improvement in work and also gets the best opportunities to learn and improve from the mistakes. It has been observed in the real world that many high-ranked corporate firms in the market had begun harbouring thoughts and inspirations of a single promoter in business. Like Anita Roddik, the lady who was the founder of the popular luxury cosmetics company ‘The Body Shop’. Such successful stories of famous business personalities carves ways to encourage the youth to take part in new entrepreneurship. The development of any economy is not possible without the successful contribution of creativity and invention. Thus it is highly rational on behalf of the student to start up his own business so that he can contribute his learnt to the development of the society and economy in future. It is rather assumed that the student with the best or decent leadership skills should take up his own business as it is the best possible task that he can adopt (Lafer, 1999). iii) Personality traits In the theory of personality development, the Five Factor Model states that there are five types of personality traits. These are conscientiousness, openness, agreeableness, neuroticism and extraversion. The above vision, goal and the choice of work selected by the student clearly explains his personality traits. These are: Openness: as the individuals desires to set up his own business and explore the creative business skills in him independently. Extraversion: as the individual has the energy to reach the highest position in the business sector where he aims to reach. Agreeableness: as the individual realizes and gives much importance to moral and ethical values. He gives importance to social welfare. Conscientiousness: as the person tends to be self disciplined, he assures in his goal to work hard and efficiently in the course of his self owned business. The student asked his common friend Joe Parker to comment on the viability of the personal traits analyzed by the student. Joe Parker said that almost 75% of the analyses made by the student about his personality trails were correct (Wiggins, 1996). iv) Leadership Skills and Attributes There are various skills and attributes that a good leader must processes. The leadership skills and attributes that the student must possess in order to start up his business are: The capability to identify and articulate the visions and goals collectively Having efficient communication skills Professional development and distributing the leadership tasks Building learning community in business through good team culture He should be able to set the balance between leadership and management in business Encouraging the scope of partnership in business if it is beneficial for the organization As a whole, the person would only be successful in setting up his business enterprise, if makes a proper amalgamation of technical and cognitive skills. Part 2 i) Improvement of leadership Weaknesses Through a detailed analysis, it can be stated that the four leadership weaknesses that the student would have at the beginning of his business are: Less spontaneous decision making capacity and lack of knowledge: The lack of proper capability to take spontaneous decisions is a severe problem for a leader. Thus if an individual desires to start up his own business then he should always realize that in the business world, great powers entails great responsibilities. An entrepreneur has to be a multitalented individual. He is the person who has to take decisions often on behalf of many individuals working in his concern. A leader can always adopt the policy of double loop learning. As per this process, the leader can set his business goals and try to arrive at those goals with effective business operations. If the leader follows the mode of double loop learning, then he can modify his business goals as per the state of economic affairs in the external business world. However, education and experience are the two key factors with the help of which the entrepreneur can improve both his business and knowledge. Microsoft officials in the market are well known for their spontaneous business decisions and instantaneously changing their operations according to the needs and requirements of the market (Microsoft, 2013). Considering the current recessionary trails in the market Microsoft have decided to launch products with lower prices. Poor communication skills: It has become extremely important for firms to develop proper communication skills in business. At this juncture, if the entrepreneur lacks proper communication skills then it would be extremely difficult for him to operate his business efficiently. It should be understood that if a leader is not able to communicate with the employees and consumers in the market then it would be impossible for him to mitigate the need and requirements of the business stakeholders. The entrepreneur as a leader can enhance his communication skills if he can improve his educational knowledge. Proper communication skills of a leader can be developed if he can upgrade his knowledge simultaneously practice many spoken training sessions. Many multinational companies like, Procter and Gamble which is a famous company, constantly upgrades its brand and product worth among the consumers by promoting them through different commercials in the marketplaces. Poor forecasting capability about future problems: If the entrepreneur can forecast the upcoming business risks, then that would be an excellent initiative on his path to make his business risk proof. With a proper experience in his work field, an entrepreneur can easily and efficiently forecast the future problems in a business. It has been found empirically that these firms are long established and possess a long learning curve. They are able to better protect their business from external problems than the newly established firms. Thus it is true that in the initial business phase, the entrepreneur may find that his business is subjected to certain types of risks but over time and experience in the field, the entrepreneur would be able to develop the skills needed to forecast the future business problems. The best example of an organization that performs well by efficiently forecasting the business requirements is Samsung. The company has augmented the modifications and introduction of new models of smart phones in the industry by focussing on the high demand in the current marketplaces (Samsung, 2013). Lack of skills to Motivate individuals in business: There always is a gap in capability to work and willingness to work. This gap in the modern business world is bridged by motivation. Just the desire and will to perform better in business is not enough. All the semi skilled, unskilled and skilled workers in a concern must work with full effectiveness in an organization. Even if a leader possesses skills for proper communication, forecasting, and knowledge based attributes in his leadership traits, the state of business affairs would still be highly complex for him if his workers are not motivated enough. Motivation among the workers can be imbibed if the leader communicates and mitigates the needs and requirements in the business. Moreover, a good leader must adopt the policy of feedback-induced development in business. Google is a company which is well-known all over the world for disseminating good motivation among its employees (Stewart, 2013). The workers in the companies constantly work hard for improving the quality of the services and products served by the company (DuBrin, 2012). ii) Rectifying the business weaknesses into strengths to a larger extent after 12 months of business A business firm always improves with time, provided the leader desires to improve on the quality and efficiency of work. Productivity Learning Curve Time (Source: Authors Creation) The above graph shows that the productivity and performance of a business firms largely depends on the learning experience of the firm. The time of a firm’s establishment is directly proportional to the productivity created by the firm. Thus as per the theory of the learning curve, the entrepreneur would be able to improve over the qualities of leadership skills which he had lacked initially in his business. After running the business for about 12 months, the leader would be able to adopt certain motivating and communications skills in business. The leader would also be able to improve his business forecasting and knowledge upgrading skills. With the help of these strategies, the leader (entrepreneur) would be able to improve over these qualities in business and would be able to generate more economic surplus in business. According to the motivating skills, the leader should try to arrange for several award winning programs of the individuals in the company. Different types of compensations and incentives, both in cash and kind, can help the company boost the motivation of the employees. Rather leader should constantly try to improve over the scale and scope of business operations. This would help the business grow and would thus create opportunities for growth of the professionals in the company. If a company provides good scope of promotions and improvement of the workers, then the workers would also be interested to work better. Making the workplace attractive and comfortable is also a way to motivate the workers in a business concern. For instance, all the offices of Google worldwide are sites of creative and comfort zones. It proves that the company tries to make the workplaces more productive and comfortable for its employees. The design and the quality of the interiors of the offices help to create and maintain an aura of happiness in the workplaces. A leader should always try to upgrade his pool of business knowledge as that would help him take spontaneous decisions in business. A good way of learning is to follow the success stories of other business concerns. The leader can always introduce an interactive knowledge sharing session in the concern. Such interactive sessions in the workplaces allows the employees share their knowhow. A good leader is the one who can build good cordial relations with the employees. Being the dictator for the employees isn’t the sole or correct duty of a good leader, he must also learn from the experiences of the employees. The leader can appoint analysts in his business; these officials would train the leader to take spontaneous decisions in business by adopting statistical tools to forecast the possible upcoming business risks. Companies like Motorola and Toyota have adopted the technique of 6 Sigma tool to minimize the defects or variations in business. Such techniques help the companies forecast the possible causes which are responsible for business problems and causes for issues in the work process. The 6 Sigma tool sets that out of the total thousand units of output produced in a company, a firm should permit a maximum of 1.2 defects. For the purpose of this work, the company adopts business models like DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Identity and control) that helps a business forecast the possible business risks in future. Thus a statistical tool of forecasting and analysis helps the business firms realize the upcoming risks in business thereby helps the firms to take spontaneous changes in the stage of operations. Communicating with the stakeholders is an important task to be adopted in any business organization. JPJ Morgan Chase was a bank that collapsed in the market of U.S. and largely contributed to the global financial crisis as its officials did not cater to the needs and requirements of the shareholders. It should be realized that in the current era, any changes of the business decisions largely depends on the views and the powers of the stakeholders. Thus learning from the success stories of different companies like Vodafone, Google etc the leader should modify and enhance the quality of his communications skills. Task II: Self Assessment Process Genghis Khan was a political leader in history who is well known all over the world for his excellent leadership skills and tactics. He was the founder of the Mongol empire and he had also made several invasions throughout the world with the help of the excellent leadership skills possessed by him. In this report, the entrepreneur would self evaluate five of his leadership skills with that of the famous political leader, Genghis Khan (Lane, 2009). Building Perseverance A good leader must always process the quality of self judgement and evaluation. Since he is the leader, he governs everyone else in the concern. The leader should also become the governor of his own self. By mastering this, he would be able to set an example for his followers in the business concern. As stated above, the student in the essay who becomes the entrepreneur possesses the will to become a self evaluating person. Similarly Genghis Khan was a famous political leader who was well known for his self perseverance and estimation in business. In his childhood, he used to take a mouthful of water and run up and down the small hills. After every round, he used to take a breath and try to judge the time taken for the running up and down the hill by him. Even though the entrepreneur in the report comprises the quality of building perseverance in leadership, he does not show any technique of evaluation in the context. Thus it can be stated that the self perseverance quality that was processed by Genghis Khan is much more than that of the concerned entrepreneur. Taking in account this trait of leadership possessed by Genghis Khan, the entrepreneur must also try to adopt a suitable technique for his self-evaluation. For instance, Ronald Reagan, who was one of the famous presidents of U.S., was also well known in the economy as a leader who had promoted privatization and capitalism in the economy. Ronald Reagan was a self esteemed leader in the history of American Politics (Payne, 2010). Never Cease Learning A good and efficient leader must never cease or stop the process of learning in his business. A good leader must constantly adopt ways to improve his skills and knowledge. It was possible for Genghis Khan to carry out so many invasions along with the wars and disturbances in the world, only because he was never contented with that he had got. The thirst of enhancing performances and improving his owned provinces was the primary driving force for the success of Genghis Khan as a leader. The entrepreneur considered in this report initially lacked the skill of taking spontaneous decisions in business. He applies various leadership attributes to convert this weakness into strength. After the first year of business, the entrepreneur decides that, by upgrading his education and experience in business, he would improve this leadership trait in future. Thus it is proved that the entrepreneur lacks the knowledge base which he desires to acquire like a good leader like Genghis Khan. The best example of a leader who never compromised with upgrading the skills of learning was the Steven Paul Jobs, who was the CEO of the famous company Apple, Inc (Apple Inc, 2013). If he was not a leader with excellent knowledge and technical skills, then Apple Inc would not have been able to reach up to its high-ranking position. (Thomas, H. & Thomas, L., 2011). Sharing Rewards and Valuing Loyalty The duty of a good leader does not end at upgrading and enhancing his skills. An efficient leader must know how to manage the employees in the business concern. It has been studied empirically that many famous business firms like Nokia have faced certain business problems due to the lack of good coordination among the employees. In such situations, the growth of the business firm is also ceased with such situations. Genghis Khan was a boy of a common farmer in his childhood. He with his efficient management skills had succeeded to win over a big pool of followers. He always rewarded the good performing followers in his troop and shared the acquired resources with all the followers in his group. This had helped him to create good unity among his troop members. The leader had lacked proper skills to motivate his employees and thus had adopted certain strategies to convert that weakness into strength. Even after the period of 12 months since the inception of the business, the entrepreneur had adopted strategies to improve the motivating methods in business. Thus it is true that the entrepreneur must imbibe this leadership trait from Genghis Khan. A few more can be named along with Genghis Khan like, Jehangir and even R.D. Tata who was the founder of the famous Indian multinational corporation Tata Consultancy Services, well known worldwide for managing a large group of employees (TCS, 2013). Integrating with the Strong Rivals Many business firms in the modern world adopt the policy of mergers and acquisitions in business to perform better in the long run. It has been proved that with proper amalgamation of the resources and technical skills of two firms, they can act as monopolists in the market together thereby winning over a substantial amount of market share in the industry. Genghis Khan had many rivals to face but he was well known for his ability to improve the exchange of views and ideologies with his rivals. Through this quality, the leader desired to learn the good qualities of his rivals and hence enhanced his leadership skills. In the earlier context of the report, the leader has not given much importance to mingling with the rivals in the industry. Following the virtues of good leadership skills set by Genghis Khan, the entrepreneur may decide to improve his talent and quality of leadership by building acquaintances with the potential rivals in the industry. For instance, he can decide to enter into a merger with any other well performing company in the industry and can thereby combat with many potential rivals in the industry. Examples in the communication industry of U.S. are T-mobile and Sprint which are the two companies that have merged their business together to perform better in the industry and provide better competition to its rivals in the market (FCC, 2005). Liberal A good and efficient leader must be liberal to his followers in business. It has been empirically found that those leaders who had processed good liberal views had been popular among his followers. Genghis Khan was a leader well known for his liberal views (Weatherford, 2005). He never discriminated individuals on the basis of caste, creed, religion or sex. In the report, the leader (entrepreneur) has never given importance to the liberal trait in leadership. It is thus true that with the help of liberal views, the entrepreneur would be able to generate better cooperation among the workers in the business concern. The best example of a great leader who was highly liberal in his ruling was Akbar, the famous Mughal Emperor. Among all the various Mughal rulers, Akbar was the one famous for his liberal views on ruling. The emperor was able to win the hearts of many followers and conquered various provinces because of the tolerant method of his ruling (Holland, 2005), Task III: Reflection i) Leadership Theories It has been analyzed by me that the context of the report gives a complete idea about the different types of skills a good leader must acquire to perform well in the course of his business operations. The theories of traits motives and the characteristics of a leader in the academic book referred to has helped me to frame the different qualities of a good leader and to concentrate on the most important attributes of being a good leader. The theories of strategic leadership and management theories of knowledge have helped me to distinguish between the different attributes of a good leader in the organization. The theories learnt in the context of leadership succession and development has also proved to be very useful to me. ii) The theories to be challenged All the different theories of leadership learnt from the context of the report have been very useful and logical for me too. The theory of leadership traits stresses on an autocratic form of management of a business organization which to be adopted by a leader. However, in reality I feel that a good leader in the modern world needs to follow the participatory approach to manage the individuals in a business concern. The idea and contribution of all the employees should be given importance in the modern state of corporate affairs (Karaszewski, 2010). iii) Implications of Future Development According to me, a better and improved business operations can be experienced by the entrepreneur if he follows the different attributes required for a good leader in future. There are: Proper knowledge about the business and capability to take spontaneous decisions. Proper forecasting skills. Good communication skills. Ability to motivate the workers. Mixing and performing joint deals with the rivals. Adopting the skill of constant perseverance. Unremitting the thirst to acquire knowledge. Being liberal. Appreciating good performances. I feel that a democratic or participatory style of leadership is the best style of leadership that can be applied by the entrepreneur for future development of business (Bosman, n.d.). References Apple Inc. (2013). Apple. Retrieved from http://www.apple.com/. Bosman, R. (n.d.). The new supply chain challenge: Risk management in a global; economy. FM Global. Retrieved from http://www.fmglobal.com/pdfs/ChainSupply.pdf. DuBrin, A. J. (2012). Leadership: research findings, practice, and skills. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. FCC. (2005). The Power that Made Radio Realistic. Retrieved from http://transition.fcc.gov/omd/history/radio/power.html. Holland, C. P. (2005), Akbar and the Mughal State: The Quest for Legitimization in Hindustan. UGA. Retrieved from http://juro.uga.edu/2005/Akbar%20and%20the%20Mughal%20State%20edited.pdf. Karaszewski, R. (2010). Leadership in global business environment through a vision creation process. The TQM Journal, 22 .4, 399 – 409. Lafer, Gordon. (1999). Sleight of Hand the Political Success and Economic Failure of Job Training Policy in the United States. International Journal of Manpower 20, 139-150. Lane, G. (2009). Genghis Khan and Mongol rule. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Microsoft. (2013). Microsoft. Retrieved from www.live.com/?. Payne, S. (2010). Leadership and spirituality: business in the USA. International Journal of leadership in Public Services, 6 .2, 68-72. Samsung. (2013). Design Your Life. Retrieved from http://www.samsung.com/in/#mobile-devices-home. Stewart, J. B. (15 March 2013). Looking for a lesson in Google’s perks. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/business/at-google-a-place-to-work-and-play.html?_r=0. TCS. (2013). Tata Consultancy Services. Retrieved from http://www.tcs.com/Pages/default.aspx. Thomas, H. & Thomas, L. (2011). Perspectives on leadership in business schools, Journal of Management Development, 30.5, 526 – 540. Weatherford, J. (2005). Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world. New York: Random House LLC. Wiggins, J. S. (1996). The five-factor model of personality: Theoretical perspectives. New York City: Guilford Press. Read More