Teslacom - Organizational Vision, Mission and Strategy - Case Study Example

Student Name Course Name Study level Date The organization’s purpose My organization is Teslacom, Teslacom works to provide customers with quality IT related products as well as IT services that may be needed. The organization is customer focused and driven by the urge to succeed in its endeavors. The organization has been in operation for the past decade and it has gained useful customer and industry experience over this period of time. The company has had many challenges in relation to doing business and especially leadership issues as a result of many business related and ethical dilemmas it has faces over the past years. The vision of the company is to be one of the leading services and product providers in IT field, the mission is to integrate customer needs on its products and services. The company’s strategy is to develop its internal infrastructure and align them with the business needs that are constantly changing as a result of the ever increasing industry competition. The importance of having mission, vision and company’s strategy is to be able to judge the progress of the company over time. The mission and vision also describes what the company hopes to achieve and be in the near future. It also enhances its brand to the customers. This is basically because the vision and the mission of the company are focused on its market and hence the need to integrate customers in its creation. In the modern day competitive environment, these aspects are growing in importance. This is because customers are also increasingly choosy and hence companies which are not customer focused are likely to face hardship when dealing with the market conditions. The company’s strategy is also an important ingredient for the company. It shows the focus of the company by defining what the company needs to do in order to achieve its organizational goals and objectives. The vision, mission and the strategy of a company ought to be aligned as it focuses on the overall objectives of the company. In summary, the vision, mission and the organizational strategy gives an organization focus. My team role in the company deals with strategic management; this basically entails focusing on various aspects such as finance, marketing and procurement. This role is essential for the company as it forms the basis in which the company can grow through future speculation and ways of increasing business in the future. It also enables the company achieve its vision and organizational goal. Strategic management links various departments within the company, in ensure that the finance department for instance I in line with the procurement and marketing department in terms of its plans and current roles. This is essential because strategic management provides a role through monitoring various imperative issues that directly relate to the performance of the organization as a whole. Team purpose The organizational vision, mission and strategy are the basis of the objectives for my team because of the following reasons. First, the vision gives the future desires of the company, what the company needs; the mission on the other hand describes the organizational purpose. The strategy provides a guideline or means by which the important organizational goals will be achieved; it is a road map to the desired destination. With this in mind, the framework for my team objectives is created from the vision, mission and the strategy of the organization. Since my team is in strategic management, it focuses on how best the company can achieve its vision of being the leader in IT products and services. It also considers how it will be in a position to integrate customer needs to its products. Fundamentally, these are the core purpose of the company and hence its importance cannot be overemphasized. The vision, mission and the strategy provides the framework for objectives such as ways of taking advantage of the market gaps and exploiting it to the advantage of the company, ways of securing potential customers through a well structured customer relation framework. Finally, the strategy which is the roadmap also emphasizes in the need to work as a team in order to achieve desired company goals. As a team leader, I communicated the objectives to the team members by first emphasizing on their importance to the company. Firstly, I created a good environment for discussing the objectives, with an open mind; I also welcomed comments and contributions of the team in order to make them feel included in the process. I also gave the team the responsibility of setting most of the objectives and through a discussion forum, discuss how these objectives should be met in the long run. Since every person contributed on the setting of the objectives of the company, every team member was thus focused on achieving these goals within a set period of time. The importance of communicating objectives to the team members in this way is basically important because it ensures that every member participates and hence leading to the fulfillment of the company’s goals. I was very effective in communicating this common sense of purpose to the team. The response from the team members was positive, since I communicated clearly the purpose of the vision, mission and the strategy and its role in the objectives of the company. My team was satisfied; they especially acknowledged that their involvement in the creation of the objectives was my major strength as the team leader. As from the feedback from the team, the main weakness identified was time taken to create the objectives. The team was however confident of achieving the objectives outlined within the set period of time. It was also clear that the entire team was committed to the vision, mission and the strategy as well as the objectives created for the purpose of achieving the same. Leadership style One specific situation that my leadership skills were put to the test was when I was forced to make a decision on one major investment that demanded a large amount of money. The investment was to approach an oversees company based in Hong Kong in order to start a strategic partnership where the company will use assist us in making strategic foreign presence. This was a tough decision because firstly, our company had not before entered into an agreement with a foreign company. Secondly Hong Kong business environment was unknown at that time. Despite all these challenges, the strategic importance of the deal and the advantages that our company could have possible acquired as a result of this partnership plan were many (Dereli 56). Just like any investment plan, nobody wants to make unnecessary risks and waste precious time on deals that may not succeed, pushing forward on this issue was probably one of the greatest challenges that I faced as a team leader in strategic management. I had to convince my team that it was a necessary undertaking that could prove vital in the end. In order to ensure that my team accepted my concern, I had to first research on economic status of the country, I researched on economic indicators such as the GDP, the interest rates in the country and generally the ease of doing business in the country. In order to ensure that this deal was sealed, I exercised my leadership style, I would consider it democratic leadership style because it basically involved all the members of the team in the decision making process. This ensured that everyone contributed to the discussion and the entire decision making process. I essentially asked the opinion of every member regarding the issue. I gave the time to think about the investment plan and provide their own views which basically included merits and demerits of the undertaking. One thing that I tried to avoid in the entire process is imposing issues on the team; I tried to make the process open and all involving. By using this approach, I shaped the response of the team members significantly in terms of their contribution to the discussion process (Dereli 56). Most of the team members who participated in the process gave their feedback after an intense research on the issue. I must also admit that I indeed gained a lot from the exercise, all the assumptions that I had previously made were corrected by my team member. Moreover, the investment plan was accepted and the team members agreed to participate in the design on the partnership document. I personally could have preferred a more straight forward approach where the team members could only be involved in the planning process instead of the decision making process. I however knew that this approach could be detrimental because the team members could have felt left out and hence fail to give their best in the implementation process. The working practices and the culture of the company also encourages team work and hence the participation of every individual in the company (Dereli 56). The leadership style that I chose, democratic in this case was evidently the best approach because based on the response of the team, every member was satisfied. This was further evidenced by the fact that every team member fully participated in the process, they gave their varying views and best practiced in enhancing strategic partnership. If I had adopted another leadership style, it is obvious that the results could have been more different as the participation of the team members could have been impaired. More so, the leadership adopted basically focuses on the group as a whole and not on individuals, this approach is therefore essential in stimulating team contribution to the process (Miner 123). Having worked in a team as a member and as a leader at the same time, the approach that I adopted was essential, through team participation; I had learnt the need of ensuring that every member was involved in the process (Miner 123). The effectiveness of the adopted leadership style is basically enshrined in its ability to pull people together for a common goal; the participants are made to positively contribute to the overall goal of the company. Unlike dictatorial leadership style, where the team members are subject to conditions, this style fails to include the participants in the process. It normally results in conflicts and eventually rebellion from the team members. Democratic approach on the other hand is effective because it essentially inspired people to work together; the leader is not seen as an imposing figure but rather a part of the team which is aiming at specific goals. In this case, I did well in ensuring that the investment plan goes ahead as planned, I also ensured that the participating team felt as part of the investment plan and that their contribution to the process was indispensable. The major weaknesses of this approach were basically the time that it took to make decisions (Miner 123). Considering that each team member had to research on the issue before a common discussion was held. This process took considerable amount of time. Based on this future approaches on better ways of managing a group is essential in order to save on the time taken in decision making process. Motivating, supporting and developing team Some of the theories of motivation include better communication, greater manager involvement and working in teams. These are essentially the ingredients that were necessary in my motivational strategy. As an example, I used better communication strategy to get the involvement of the team members; I personally improved my communication strategy in order to ensure that I reached to every team member. Greater manager involvement through a democratic leadership style was also evident as I motivated the team to give their contributions regarding the planned investment plan. This approach was effective because the team members participated more effectively in the process (Beck 78). Working as a team to achieve a common goal was also essential in the leadership style that I adopted, most of the members participated because they enjoyed working in an active group, besides feeling as part of the process, and the team was more motivated by the success of their contributions and the acknowledgement of the same (Beck 78). The Maslow theory of motivation reveals that motivation varies from one employee to another. This is an essential consideration because it means that the leadership needs to consider various unique needs of every employee since they are all unique. I ensured that every team member participated by encouraging them to give their own views about different organizational goals, the team participation was immense. This was because of the support and the team development strategies that I adopted as the leader. Individual concerns of every team member were also taken with the seriousness that it deserved (Lussier 23). This ensured that every participant was involved and enjoyed the process to the full. Supporting a team member every time is necessary, this is because of the noted difference in employees needs. In most organizations this aspect is not considered, in this case the worker is left alone and hence leading to less job satisfaction which eventually proves detrimental to the company as a whole. A company should essentially optimize its performance by taking advantage of its employees to achieve its strategic goals. Motivation, good leadership and effective communication enhance mutual trust within the team and a sense of belonging. More so, it empowers as the team members participate in the process in order to ensure that the organizational goals are achieved (Lussier 23). Additionally, developing individuals in a team is necessary because it focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of the individual, this enhances better employee participation as issues faced by this particular employee are addressed in order to ensure individual optimal performance. Works Cited Beck , Robert Clarence. Motivation: theories and principles. Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004.pp.67- 78. Dereli, Mahce. Leadership Styles. New Jersey, NJ: VDM Publishing, 2010. Pp. 56-59. Lussier, Robert N. and Achua, Christopher F. Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development. New York, NY: Cengage Learning, 2009.P. 23-34. Miner, John B. B. Role Motivation Theories. Michigan: Routledge, 2012.p.123-154. Read More