Leaders in Transformation - Assignment Example

1) Chapter 2. Leadership is a process of inspiring and empowering people to pursue a compelling shared vision. Good leaders can help employees seehow their individual, team, and collective job roles and responsibilities contribute to the vision. Leadership happens when people believe in what they are doing because they know that these actions will result to something more meaningful and bigger than them. #6. I think it is a better compliment for me to be called a good leader than a good manager because good leaders can inspire important internal changes among their followers that will become behaviors which, in turn, shall begin or continue organizational and social changes in the long run. I want to be called a good leader because I can motivate my followers to embrace changes that are needed to ensure our organization’s long-term success. Being a good leader also means that I can inspire innovation and creativity among my followers. Nevertheless, I think that I can and must be both wherein I am a good leader because I can also be a good manager. Essentially, good leaders should be realistic in their goals and must know how to identify and respond to conflicts that come from introducing changes into their organizations. If they challenge the status quo, they must attain sufficient buy-in that is essential to implementing changes. In addition, good leaders must properly determine (or have reliable people who can do this job) the required human, financial, and material resources and systems, as well as feasible timelines, to enact changes, which are basic management skills. Hence, being a good leader also entails being a good manager who can ensure that people are working hard within the realities of limited time and organizational resources. 2) Chapter 2 # 6. I agree that the consequences of decisions and actions of leaders become visible only after several years, which, by then, could have already made adverse financial or employee morale/retention effects on the organization. In this case, I believe leaders can use hindsight or case analysis to understand the consequences of past actions, so that they can modify present behaviors. For instance, if leaders realize, by hindsight and analysis, that if only they conducted focus group discussions involving mothers (their target market), before they released the TV commercial (which offended mothers), they could have prevented their mistake (the TV commercial). They will then conduct focus group discussions for all future marketing activities. In addition, since consequences are delayed, leaders can still draw the wrong lessons from experiences if they have not fully analyzed the causes, dynamics, and nature of consequences. For instance, they assumed that the TV commercial offended mothers because it suggested that overweight mothers have poor parenting skills, so for their next commercial, they used thin mothers as models. After changing the models, they got another widespread criticism because they did not understand that their market’s main issue is the implication of the commercial on the concept of the “right” parenting. This example shows how leaders can draw the wrong lessons, if they have not collected the right data from the right people at the right time, when generating new decision and plans. 3) Chapter 4 #1.a. The bases of power for the experimenter in the Milgram studies are expert power, referent power and coercive power. The experimenter has expert power because he is dressed as a scientist or in formal attire to show that he is an expert in his field. In addition, the experimenter has referent power because he is perceived as a person of power, such as being part of the faculty, so the subjects would be more likely to follow him. His referent power also comes from saying that he is the one responsible for what is happening to the student (who is receiving electrical shocks). He also has coercive power through his slightly threatening tone and making subjects feel that they have no other choice but to go on with the experiment. The subjects have expert, coercive and reward power. They have expert power because the experimenters conditioned them to think like teachers. By being teachers, they may perceive that they have the authority to teach their students at all costs (including using the punishment of electrical shock). Furthermore, the subjects also have coercive power because they can force their students to answer through electrically shocking them. In addition, by continuing the experiment, the subjects have reward power because they are rewarding the experimenter with data results. If they discontinue the experiment, they are taking away what the experimenter wants. 1.b. I think that subjects who have a low need for power would act differently from subjects with a high need for power because they would not feel comfortable in using their power to coerce and hurt others. They might feel that they do not need to also show that they can rely on the power of the experimenter to approve their actions. In addition, those who have low motivation to manage would not want to continue electrifying those students who give the wrong answers because they may not care so much for learning outcomes. On the contrary, subjects with high motivation to manage may think that administering increasing electrical voltage is essential to punishing students and encouraging them to decrease their errors. 1.c. The situational factors that could have contributed to the experimenter’s power are the laboratory setting (that increases the formality of the experiment and the pressure to continue it), the physical presence of the experimenter who is dressed as an authority, the belief that the experimenter is competent and that he is trustworthy when he says that the shocks are painful, but are not dangerous to the students, and the belief in the credibility of Yale University as a trusted and authoritative higher education institution. 1.d. The influence tactics that the experiment used to change the behaviors of the subjects from being hesitant to being obedient are assertiveness (e.g. by saying “It is absolutely essential that you continue”), politeness or niceness (e.g. by calmly saying, “Please continue”), decreasing the responsibility of the subject for the unfavorable outcomes of the experiment on the students (e.g. by saying “The experiment requires that you continue” and that the experimenter will be responsible for the negative effects of the experiment on the students), and removing the free will or choices of the subjects (e.g. by saying “You have no other choice; you must go on”). 1.e. Because of the experimenter’s influence tactics, the experimenter has influenced the change in how people feel about controlling others and how people obey orders or instructions. The experimenter affected how the subjects feel about control. Some of them might think that they do not want to control others inhumanely, but the experiment showed that they could be induced or manipulated to do it. In addition, the experimenter affected the behavior of people who may not have thought that they could obey inhumane orders. The experimenter used influence tactics that affected the subjects’ level of obedience. 1.f. I believe that, if some socially useful information could be gained, the Milgram study should be replicated today. For instance, if people want to know if particular interventions are useful in decreasing violent cognition, emotions, and behaviors of at-risk-for-violence or already violent subjects, they can undergo a Milgram study to test their risk for violence. As long as they are properly debriefed afterwards and they can access other essential psychological services, the study can be designed to gather important social information that will assess the efficacy of different programs or interventions. 4) Chapter 5 #7. There is a positive interdependent relationship between an individual’s responsibility for ethical behavior and organizational ethical climate (Elango et al.). First, a workplace with a strong organizational ethical climate can establish or reinforce individual ethics (Elango et al.). An ethical climate with a clear and enforced code of conduct for all stakeholders, for instance, promotes ethical intentions, which are essential to ethical behaviors (Elango et al.). Second, an individual’s responsibility for ethical behavior also contributes to the organizational ethical climate (Elango et al.). Employees who feel that they must behave ethically can sustain an ethical organizational culture that can build up the organizational ethical climate. I believe then that an organizational ethical climate does not and should not diminish the importance of an individual’s responsibility for ethical behavior. Organizations that develop ethical congruence, wherein strong individual ethics are supported through a strong organizational ethical climate, also enhance individual ethics (Elango et al.). Furthermore, focusing on an individual’s responsibility for ethical behavior should not diminish an organizational ethical climate. It supports ethical behaviors that are expected in the organization. 5) Chapter 6 #4. I believe that analytical intelligence can improve with time and experience through acquiring wisdom. Analytical intelligence is the ability to complete academic tasks and to perform problem solving and abstract reasoning. Time and experience generate wisdom that allows people to develop their analytical wisdom. I think that wisdom is different from analytical intelligence because wisdom comes from knowledge that is based on experience. One of the best examples is this cartoon I saw where a man asked a graphic designer (who made his new company logo) why he should pay him $500 for something he made in less than ten minutes. The designer answered that it took him 10 years to do it in less than 10 minutes. He used his wisdom to create a great outcome. In other words, he accumulated wisdom through experience, which improved his analytical and creative intelligence. This means that I also believe that there are many kinds of intelligence that leaders can exhibit and hone through the years. 6) Chapter 7 #2. A U.S.-born leader need several competencies when building power plants in China because the latter has a collectivistic culture where saving face, social capital, and interpersonal skills are more essential than individualistic attitudes and behaviors (Kovack). These competencies are the following: (1) interpersonal and intergroup skills- including ability to manage intergroup politics inside and with other organizations; (2) cross-cultural communication competency- consisting of both verbal and nonverbal communication skills, especially properly reading and responding to cultural nonverbal cues and the cultural practice of saving face; and (3) organizational structuring skills- organizing people and implementing plans (Kovack). Furthermore, he/she must have the technical competency for designing power plants. As for a Chinese-born leader assigned to run a copper mine in Kenya, he/she must also possess interpersonal and intergroup skills, cross-cultural communication competency (i.e. knowledge of cultural and communication values and practices in Kenya), and organizational structuring skills. At the same time, he/she must have the technical competency for managing copper mines. 7) Chapter 9 #4. Having a strong financial reward system is not enough to drive performance and retention if the organization does not provide rewards that respond to intrinsic motivation. An example is an organization that offers high pay, and yet it does not empower individuals to make important decisions that are essential to doing their work and making them feel independent and fulfilled. One study showed that teachers value their teaching goals, independence, and good interpersonal relationships more than salaries and promotion opportunities (Kassabgy, Boraie, and Schmidt). If the school focuses on increasing their salary and yet stifling their ability to attain their teaching goals, it will not attain improved teaching performance. In this case, personal values that give importance to having a sense of fulfillment and individual growth and development determine the rewards that can impact individual performance. Organizations should be aware of these personal values that drive behaviors in order to design motivating reward systems. 8) Chapter #3. I believe that people in the United States will not be comfortable with a team-based approach to work because of its highly individualistic nature. However, because it has low power distance, it can learn how to apply these team-based approaches, provided that they can result to positive performance outcomes that Americans usually find as important (e.g. tangible short-term gains). As for Japan and Chile, they are more comfortable with a group or team-based approach to work because they both have low individualism and high collectivism. They prefer to make decisions as a group/team and to refer to authority when making important organizational decisions. I believe that the main obstacle to an effective team, where equality of power exists, is high power distance, which both Japan and Chile have. They might rely too much on their team or group leaders to make decisions, instead of having members engage meaningfully in discussions and in decision-making processes. 9) Chapter 12 #2. An example is a crisis situation where the followers have a largely collectivistic culture and high power avoidance. These people like working in teams, but they prefer to rely on their team leader to make important decisions, especially when the project is having problems. Their leader was due to give birth and took a one-year leave, so the organization hired another leader. This new leader, however, is used to making group decisions. His leadership style did not fit the followers’ characteristics that prefer their leader to make significant group decisions and that want work to be delegated to them. The leader, however, insisted on getting the most out of the team, even when the situation called for speedy decision-making. The situation and followers demand a certain kind of leadership that the new leader was not able to provide, which, in this example, was more of transactional leadership and not transformational leadership. 10) Chapter 13 #3. A leadership situation that I am familiar with is one where a leader and his group have the main job of creating new products for the organization that produces communications technologies/tools. The challenge is getting the team contribute meaningfully as individual members and not rely on the leader or one member for the best ideas. Transformational leaders would try to connect the follower’s sense of identity to the project, act as a role model of engagement, challenge followers to take ownership of new ideas, and help them know their strengths and weaknesses that can result to better team engagement. Transactional leaders would reward those with the most innovative and feasible ideas and punish those with few or no ideas. In the case that I provided, the theory that best fits the interaction of the leader, followers, and situation is transformational leadership. It enables leaders to encourage innovation and participation among members. It also responds to the situational need for continued innovation and creativity. In addition, I think that the transformational leadership will allow me to predict a preferred outcome because it shows that particular leadership characteristics of member engagement, role modeling, and member motivation can increase member participation in discussion and individual and team creativity. 11) 3. I believe that women, who happen to be more transformational leaders than men, hold relatively few top leadership positions compared to men because they underestimate their abilities and potential, are not trained and educated to fight for their financial worth and to have a clear understanding of their success, and because of obstacles that come from gender roles and expectations. First, women tend to diminish their abilities and potential. Sheryl Sandberg observes that women do not stay at the table, or the figurative table of power, because they think they do not belong to it. Second, women do not know and/or fight for their financial worth. They are not trained or prepared to demand for what they deserve because doing so would be unwomanly. Women do not negotiate for their salaries, even when they can and they should because they have the competencies and experience to back up their target salaries (Sandberg). At the same time, women do not always have a clear vision of their success. They may be thinking too much of future gender expectations (i.e. getting married at a certain age and having a family) that they could not concretely envision their success and the steps needed to attain it. Third, women continue to experience obstacles because of gender roles and expectations. Many of them stop thinking about promotion because they want to get married or have children. Sandberg asserts that women should not leave the table unless they are actually leaving, which means that they should hold off their leave at the point where they truly need to have some time off. They do not have to prepare too much in advance that they are no longer accepting projects and assignments that are essential to their leadership growth and development. In order to change this situation, I believe that companies that have equal male-female top management ratio should get financial and/or non-financial incentives from the government. In addition, women should also train other women to become leaders and managers. 12) Chapter 15 #2. I believe that the dark-side traits of these ineffective leaders that I have worked for are that they are narcissistic, compulsive, and paranoid. Narcissist leaders like to dominate and control their followers. They are ineffective because they cannot give their followers room to grow and discretion to make important decisions. In addition, they exploit and demean others, if doing so advances their social status and power. They make their followers feel used and abused. Compulsive leaders are ineffective because their rigidity in following highly systematized structures and rules can result to overly controlling their followers’ workplace behaviors. They can stifle freedom and independence as much as narcissist leaders. Paranoid leaders are not effective leaders because they are too sensitive to criticisms, whether perceived or real. They are afraid to make mistakes, which can suffocate risk-taking in decision-making, which, in turn, can result to missed opportunities. Members may not also feel free to criticize their paranoid leader’s ideas, so the results could be bad decisions and low buy-in. Works Cited Elango, B., Paul, Karen, Kundu, Sumit K., and Shishir K. Paudel. “Organizational Ethics, Individual Ethics, and Ethical Intentions in International Decision-Making.” Journal of Business Ethics (2010): 1-19. Web. 16 June 2015. Kassabgy, Omneya, Boraie, Deena, and Richard Schmidt. “Values, Rewards, and Job Satisfaction in ESL/EFL.” Motivation and Second Language Acquisition. Ed. Z. Dörnyei and R. Schmidt. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i, Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center. Web. 16 June 2015. Kovack, Kasey S. “What are the key Competencies and Skills Required for Leaders in China for the Greatest ROI?” Cornell University, ILR School Site (2015): 1-8. Web. 16 June 2015. Sandberg, Sheryl. “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders.” Ted. Ted, 2009. Web. 1 June 2015. Read More