Management: CEO Role Play - Essay Example

Management: CEO Role Play Abilities, Traits, Experiences that have support my achievements towards my current leadership position Ability In the year 2010, in May at the Stanford Graduate School of Business I was honored to deliver a speech on leadership. The title of my speech was ‘Change is driven by strong leaders’. With a detailed analysis of the central aspect of abilities I managed to include the main skills that did significantly support my ambition towards reaching greater heights in my career (Jeffrey, 2010). I addressed the following qualities of leadership in the aspect of abilities and also gave an explanation on how utilizing these abilities regularly did help in achieving a leadership position and maintain it as well. 1. Have good analytical listening skills. This ability does play a significant role in leadership, for only through listening can one be able to gather as much information as possible. The modern leaders of our society that innovated the prosperity of their organizations, as well as nations, talk less and listen more. This is mainly because in listening to outsiders they can branch out of their comfort zones where everything is alright and learn of the emerging problems being incurred. In my leadership position, I utilize my analytical listening abilities by first surrounding myself with trustworthy individuals who can talk a lot and address problems experienced objectively. From this activity am also able to evaluate all the information that is supplied directly to me and thus be able to analyze how best to use this information. I do not seclude myself to only listening to the positive but majorly listen to the critical information to fully understand the depth of the problem and analyze how it can be sorted out. 2. Ability to persevere, deal with volatility as well as adapt to changes incurred. Great leaders always create a volatility plan in place in order to implement it, should a volatile season occur. This helps to keep them on the alert and also enhance the chances of the organization dealing with volatility in an appropriate manner. In my experience volatility mainly occurs with investments and the ability to adapt to the new nature of the environment is vital and it should be done with a remembrance of perseverance. I do this in order to be able also to support and help my employees towards enduring volatile seasons of investment. I usually do have very tight plans already drawn up to necessitate some business and changes incurred during these seasons. 3. Can conduct open networking and manage relationships. Technology has transformed the modern ways of networking in business and globally a leader should be able to make enriching connections. This will enhance the information a leader can gather and as the old saying goes; ‘the key to knowledge is information’ (Jeffrey, 2010). I highly encourage young individuals looking to become leaders to aspire always to make new connections and manage each relationship with a great level of understanding. 4. Have the simplification ability. This means that as a leader you do need to simplify everything in order make the entire process doable. You need to clearly define all the structures, metrics and methods of accountability in the company as well as facilitate a proper level of focus and understanding among the employees. In my experience, this will always enhance the drive towards creating success every year. Business especially new ones that do not define these areas experience lots failures as a result of lack of clarity. 5. Be a systematic thinker. Any leader in the world would be able to first handedly tell you that having vision does create room for setting up an ideal direction, but it is not enough (Jeffrey, 2010). This is because in order for any leader to prosper they need to have effective problem-solving abilities as this will enable them to take on complex ideas and use them as an opportunity to create great solutions. One of the ways I exercise this ability in my leadership position is through the use of healthymagination and Ecomagination. These two techniques enable even the employees to apply their problem-solving skills and enhance them well enough to promote their overall abilities. 6. Courage and patience are essential abilities for every leader. A great leader does have the patience to ensure that they see through every solution to the very end. They look towards creating the end results that they have the courage to believe to achieve even in the midst of too much time taken to achieve them. The employees may feel bored, and investors would probably have a negative attitude towards everything but the courage and patience of the leader are what will drive the organization towards achieving the much aspired results. 7. The ability to understand how failure is incurred. In as much as, a society is always encouraged to pertain to a positive attitude and environment it is even more important to know how the negative aspect, the failures do occur in every business project undertaken. A good leader will make sure to have conversations as that will provide sufficient information on the risks pertained to causing failure. This way they will be able to design plans and systems that reliable and consistent to avoiding the failures. This is very practical step and one example is with the prevention measures taken by the federal aviation administration towards preventing airline accidents. They investigate past failures and current possible risks pertained to the airlines systems well enough to create prevention plans, as well as possible emergency responses to these events. 8. A good leader should know how to manage individuals that have a different character and personality. All organizations are filled with employees that come from a variety of cultural and social backgrounds. They each have different levels of skills as well potential and the leader needs to understand each of them well enough to enhance their effectiveness in each of their job positions. A good leader will not compare the performance of the employees using criticism over the low performers. They should view the employees’ challenges from the employees’ point of view and support them towards overcoming these challenges while exploring their potential as well. This is done through motivation of the employees to enhance their effectiveness and desire to achieve the goals required. 9. A good leader should always lead from the front (Jeffrey, 2010). A good leader can only be champion of their company by leading from the front. They should set an example of how to configure the right type of reputation as well as accrue a good level of respect for their environment. They should be accountable for activities undertaken by the employees under their care and should always balance the financial aspect of the business. 10. A good leader should increase the productivity of the employees. This is mainly done through the creation of an affable environment whereby the leader cares and respects the employees. The leader should enhance the levels of happiness experienced in the workplace in order enhance the employees desire to be happy. Traits In the speech that I delivered at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in May, 2010; I did also include key points of leadership that were subject to the traits of a good leader (Jeffrey, 2010). 1. A good leader should always remain true to their true- self. A leader should have an in-depth level of self-awareness and not try to imitate others with a quest of gaining approval. A lost leader cannot lead their followers and hence self-awareness is primary in order for each manager to exercise their style of leadership. 2. A good leader should constantly simplify things. As a leader in order to simplify thing I make sure to clearly explain the three main objectives of the company to the employees. This ensures that we are all on the same page as we partake in our daily duties and responsibilities. 3. A good leader does take the time fully to understand the context, depth and breadth of each business project. 4. A good leader frequents their time management over the important things every week. They set the company priorities and measure the overall outcomes as well as reward the positive results. 5. A good leader is constantly learning how to teach as they are always coaching their employees and need to make sure that they enhance the employees’ potential daily. 6. A good leader should be passionate about their role in the company well enough to stimulate grounds for freedom of commitment, trust and teamwork. 7. A good leader is brave and fearless particularly in the intervening on important personal matters. They are disciplined and respectful and instill these same principles among the employees. Other traits that I do possess as a leader and are beneficial for leaders to have included being people-oriented as well as effective- oriented (Jeffrey, 2010). This will envelop new grounds for the development of firmly rooted trust and openness and enhance the quality of productivity in the company. Experiences In the introduction, I did list some my experiences as a leader and some of these experiences did offer an excellent opportunity in developing my current level of success as well as stimulate the passion towards future success. Definition of leadership that I believe the CEO am role playing would support In the speech that I delivered at Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2010, I defined leadership as the primary job duty of a leader in any company. The definition was described as follows: The leader of any company has the major job of driving development and change among other people. The leader is entirely responsible for establishing the organizational values and culture in the organization where everyone in the organization is permeated to follow and adapt to. As I delivered my speech I did manage also to talk about the five big teams accrued from effective leadership and they include: 1. Awareness of the resource enriching markets due to scarcity (Jeffrey, 2010). In the modern market, the enriching resource is more focused on technology and each leader should realize the benefits accrued from including this change in the company every new decade. 2. Application of variety production and costs. Each company needs to utilize the ability to create profits by creating a range of products with different prices in order to capture different levels of the market consumers. 3. Global economic growth and changes. Every company does need to be fully aware that the world economy is always experiencing changes and developments each new decade. The leaders do need to have evaluated the re-ordering and re- distribution of the international finances well enough to create and implement strategies that will favor their growth. 4. Enhancing the ability to network globally. Formation of new alliances will enable the leader to create and provide greater channels of contributions that will improve their opportunities for success. ‘Your’ Preferred Leadership Style In my 2010 speech at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, I managed to deliver an apt message on leadership and leadership style. In my address I said, ‘when it comes to leadership there is simply no shelf life. This is because the future leaders do need to be continually attuned to the modern events as well the predicted future events (Jeffrey, 2010). The leadership skills learned will become irrelevant soon due to the gradual changes in the events that do occur in each new present time. A leader in the GE Company I always have to be on the alert and be creative enough to think of what events could happen. Every company leader does need to have excellent abilities and traits in managing their responsibilities affably and the required timely manner. In order for companies to play a role enhancing the leadership skills of their elected leaders they should encourage the leaders towards continually excelling in their specialized areas (Jeffrey, 2010). This begins by having the leaders master their specialized job duties and fields of expertise and then afterward they are to be influenced to expand their skills. They do expand by first deepening their understanding and then broadening their experience. In my experience, I do utilize a good number of leadership styles when it comes to the criteria of decision-making abilities and they include; facilitative, autocratic, consultative, and delegative. When I utilize the facilitative style, I usually opt to present the main problem to two groups of employees that I classify in two main colors of a blue team and a red team. During this process, I do ask for both teams to make agreements on the main solution that will be created. In using the autocratic style, I do make a decision on my own by utilizing the effective thinking systems to come up with the best solutions. In the consultative style, I conduct this duty by consulting professional such as McKinsey and Company in order to ascertain the solution with viable information and analysis. Normally I utilize the consultative style when it comes to making decisions classified as international matters that I do not have enough experience or familiarity with. The delegative style is one unique method that I use by offering the organizations leaders the platform and authority to make a decision in a specified area. Other leadership styles that I do use in my leadership position are transactional leadership and transformational leadership styles. The transactional leadership style stresses on a ‘carrot and stick’ method, which is more focused on motivating the members of the organization. The transformational leadership, on the other hand, is used to motivate employees by implementing an exchange process that offer extrinsic rewards, compliance and rules. The strengths that have already been witnessed in my leadership style include (Jeffrey, 2010): 1. Am a more approachable leader due to my people-oriented abilities. 2. Innovation- oriented as this is the primary focus of my leadership. 3. Clarity with my simplification abilities. 4. Excellent networking as I do manage to expand the markets of the company to third world nations with greater potential for growth and development. 5. Increased levels of openness and trust due the implementation of transparency in my leadership. Employees do feel that they can discuss any problem and that I will place all the facts on the table for relevant analysis. 6. Promoted the value of social responsibility beyond the nature of the law as I do support green energy and social- economic ventures that are safe for the environment. The weaknesses already witnessed in my leadership include: 1. I have been found to be somewhat meek or rather soft in character. Perhaps this is because I do not believe in threatening employees to brand their level of effective productivity. 2. My approach is always too structured that the employees do need to keep confirming the details to know what to do next. 3. I spend too much time appeasing the stakeholders to ensure a reliable confirmation of the investment. 4. I am not a charismatic as my predecessor Mr. Welch, who was very energetic and passionate in his leadership and this is a major comparison conducted by the members of the organization. A brief summary of the major success and challenges I have experienced and have contributed to my enhanced skills and knowledge as a leader During my inducement period into leadership, GE was undergoing quite a difficult time and the external environment played a significant role in nurturing my leadership skills and knowledge. Utilizing Ecomagination and healthymagination did completely revolutionize the manner in which the employees collaborated with the company’s clientele. The results accrued were remarkable as the product portfolio broadly expanded in the commercial and technical innovations (Jeffrey, 2010). This facilitated the Washington to Beijing policy dialogs that have influenced the future GE leaders from prospective campuses. From my keen leadership styles at GE, the company has managed to facilitate a lot of creativities and organic growth. The leadership activities that I conducted to influence this move include: 1. I managed to tailor in a more conducive corporate structure into the traditional corporate structure of GE that has led to an increase in the company merging into the global markets. 2. I have implemented an imagination breakthrough in the business as there is a wave of new product ideas being created by company members. This has induced a new corporate culture that is continually merging innovative marketing strategies. 3. One of the main challenges I did experiences when I took over leadership in GE was in changing the paramount belief system of the company in number hitting culture. The modern changes are diversely infiltrated with promotions that come mainly from individuals who can adopt more to change and are open minded. 4. GE outsider’s recruits have become a crucial component to my innovative culture in the company. 5. Another great success in my leadership is that GE has managed to increase the investments in markets of high growth industries such as wind power, security, entertainment, bioscience and cable (Jeffrey, 2010). The top 3 thing GE can do to qualify as the best in the field, the employer of choice or in both of these areas of focus. What are the constraints that can be overcome? GE is highly established when it comes to innovation and development of leaders and employees. Highly recognized as a top company by the Forbes media after being presented to be a top company by the Global Hay Group for three years consecutively, GE does need to continually expand its markets as well as promote their innovation levels. The company has in the past decade doubled the research and development expenditure and the results have been positive overwhelming with more new products being invented by the corporation. Expanding in the fast growth market has significantly influenced the companys global revenue with fifty-five percent of the revenues coming from the industrial sector (Jeffrey, 2010). With over twenty thousand patent field by GE and a direct approval of the clean energy patents in 2011 in the U.S alone. GE is a multi- national organization with over thirty thousand employees in more than one hundred and forty countries. The motto of having all the employees behave like leaders has greatly enhanced the leadership qualities of every company member. The main constraining factor for GE is the contingency factor that elements both the external and internal environment of the organization. The main constraint that I as a leader in GE experienced, is the model of making investments especially in resource-rich nations such as Angola that possess emerging markets (Jeffrey, 2010). In my experience and evaluation it is far much better to invest in countries that do possess an excellent history of stability. This does help to reduce the level of risks incurred as we utilize the volatility plans to help secure the value of our investments and overcome any constraints incurred. References Jeffrey, I. (2010). Leaders must drive change. Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHZ9i5Z8RQs Read More