Organizational Leadership Discussion Post & Replies

I first will need the completed Discussion Post by Thursday, 12:00 EST. I will then post four student replies that will need to be replied to. The initial post needs to be between 450-500 words at least. The replies need to be at least 250-300 words at least. I need it to be exactly how the instructions outline. ONLY USING SOURCES I PROVIDE. You need to use two-four citations for the original post and at least one for each of the replies.

Directions: Read the Case Scenario and answer the questions using course materials to support your reasoning and conclusions. Post the answers to your questions in the Week 6 Discussion by Thursday, September 26, at 11:59 p.m. eastern time.

Respond to a minimum of three classmates in the following manner: select ONE of the recommendations provided by your classmate and explain why you think this recommendation would work, or why it would not work. Use course materials to support your opinion, reasoning and conclusions in every section.

Case Scenario

Mr. Barney, the CEO, has received your memo request to be considered for further leadership positions. He has decided to put you to the test! He assigns you to help his Director of Payroll, Loretta Cash with a problem.

You walk over to Payroll and visit Loretta. She is visibly upset. She has just received her annual performance review from her manager. This is a 6-month review, as Loretta was recently assigned to this role after working with great success for 10 years in another area of the Accounting Department. As part of this review, her manager interviewed the six members of the Payroll Department, who all answer to Loretta. Loretta shares with you some of their comments:

“Loretta marched in here thinking she knows everything. She doesn’t want to listen to any of our ideas. It’s her way or the highway.”

“We really don’t know Loretta all that well. She keeps to herself…except of course when payroll deadlines are due, and then she’s all over our backs.”

“She acts as if she is perfect. I’m scared of getting yelled at when I make a mistake.”

“Most times, Loretta is fine, but when we have a deadline she micromanages us. I literally dread coming in to work on days payroll is due because I know Loretta will be watching over us like a hawk.”

Answer the following questions, and support your answers with the course materials:

1. What is the root cause of Loretta’s problem?
2. List three specific recommendations that Loretta can do today to turn this situation around. Make sure the three recommendations are actionable (in other words, Loretta can take your advice and put it into practice immediately) and specific (in other words, not too general that it cannot be easily understood). For example, “improve communication skills” is not actionable today, and too general to be clearly understood. However, “give immediate feedback to demonstrate she is actively listening” can be put into practice today and is specific enough to be understood. (Do not use this example in your answer!).

Completing the Discussion

• Read the grading rubric for the project. Use the grading rubric while completing the project to ensure all requirements are met that will lead to the highest possible grade.

• Third person writing is required. Third person means that there are no words such as “I, me, my, we, or us” (first person writing), nor is there use of “you or your” (second person writing). If uncertain how to write in the third person, view this link: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/first-second-and-third-person.

• Contractions are not used in business writing, so do not use them.

• Paraphrase and do not use direct quotation marks. This means you do not use more than four consecutive words from a source document, but put a passage from a source document into your own words and attribute the passage to the source document. Note that a reference within a reference list cannot exist without an associated in-text citation and vice versa. If direct quotes are presented, they will not be included in the grading. If direct quotes are used (even if no quotation marks are used) they will be excluded from the grading.

• Direct quotes are NOT allowed if they are quotation from course materials. This means you do not use more than four consecutive words from a source document, but put a passage from a source document into your own words and attribute the passage to the source document, using in-text citations in APA format. Changing words from a passage does not exclude the passage from having quotation marks. If more than four consecutive words are used from source documents, this material will not be included in the grade and could lead to allegations of academic dishonesty.

• In-text citations should be included in ALL SECTIONS of the report, and should demonstrate application of the course material. Note that a reference within a reference list cannot exist without an associated in-text citation and vice versa. Provide the page or paragraph number for ideas that are reference in all in-text citations.

• You may only use the course material from the classroom. You may not use books or any resource from the Internet.

SOURCES TO BE USED

Theme 1: Companies need to make money to stay in business. The leader in the organization is to create a vision and mission. The vision and mission drives decision making in the organization so that resources of the organization, including human resources, are used properly to make financial sustainability happen.

Read:

• Principles of Management: Chapter 4.3 The Roles of Mission, Vision, and Values
• The Leader’s Role in Strategy
• Walt Disney Company’s Mission Statement and Vision: Formula for Success (An example of how they work together to bring corporate success in environmental sustainability)
• Visions & Missions of Fortune Global 100 Companies
• Management Tools: Mission and Vision Statements
• Strategy, Mission, and Vision: How Do They All Fit Together?

Theme 2: Strategic thinking is how Biotech’s vision is crafted by leaders to create organizational wealth, customer satisfaction, and sustainability. Stated at the outset, leadership talent needs to be built and available to make a company grow in today’s business environment. Strategic thinking can be done by anyone, but requires an open mind, a positive attitude and an organizational culture that aligns with the vision.

Read:

• Strategic Leadership: Short-Term Stability and Long-Term Viability
• Why Is Strategic Thinking Important to the Success of Business?
• The Strategic Thinking & Strategic Planning Process
• Integrating Strategic Thinking into your Organization for Long-Term Competitive Advantage
• Strategic Thinking: 11 Critical Skills Needed
• Three Keys To Improving Your Strategic Thinking

Theme 3: Being proactive as a leader means planning for the leadership of tomorrow. In order to sustain competitive advantage, leaders need to plan for tomorrow by ensuring the knowledge garnered by Baby Boomers is harnessed and shared with younger generations before they retire. Succession planning involves deciding on the leadership of tomorrow, with the knowledge we have about our organization today. This handing of the torch is more than just filling future leadership openings; succession planning ensures that our company’s wealth of expertise, what is commonly called “tribal knowledge”, is protected.

• Successful Organizations Need Leaders at all Levels
• Succession Planning Roadmap
• 9 Tips for Effective Succession Planning

Leading Cultural and Generation Diversity

• Diversity and how it Improves Leadership
• Leading the Four Generations at Work
• Inclusive Leadership: Effectively Leading Diverse Teams
• What is Cultural Intelligence?
• What is the Difference between a High-Text Context and Low-Text Culture?

Leading and accumulator of knowledge

• Why Knowledge Management is Important to the Success of Your Company
• Importance of Knowledge to a Growing Business

Leading Innovation

• How to Lead a Culture of Innovation
• How Leaders Can Close the Innovation Gap

Read and View:

Personality, Leadership, and Emotional Intelligence

• How Implicit Personality Affects Leadership
• The Relationship Between Leadership and Personality
• Emotional Intelligence and Leadership
• What is emotional intelligence?
• Interview of Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence Social Intelligence and Leadership
• Personality and Leadership
• Personality and creating your Leadership style
• Critical Leadership Skills: Key Traits That Can Make or Break Today’s Leaders

Moral Compass Leading with Values

• Moral Intelligence for Successful Leadership
• Why Leaders Lose Their Way

Cultural Intelligence

• Why You Need Cultural Intelligence and How to Develop it

Week 6: Leaders and Followers

Theme 1: A leader can plan and strategize all he or she want but they cannot succeed if the vision cannot be sold to others. Influencing people to follow is about creating trust, which is the building block of the leader-follower relationship.

Having a story is not enough! A leader must sell the story to others. This means a leader must learn about his or her own style, traits, knowledge, etc. in developing knowledge about others. The leader will create a relationship that if successful will result in “others” following the strategic vision. The leader-follower relationship is crucial to successfully selling the story to others. One truth to the leader-follower relationship is that the relationship must be based on mutual trust if it is to succeed.

Read/View:

• First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy
• Barbara Kellerman on Followership
• Followership is Underrated and Misunderstood
• Leadership and Followership: What Tango Teaches Us About These Roles in Life
• Building and Sustaining Relationships
• The Leadership Relationship, Part I – Understanding Trust
• Building Trust in the Workplace and Team
• The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why Followers Rarely Escape Their Clutches

Theme 2: Authentic Leadership and the Emotional Bank Account – If trust is the cornerstone of leadership, how do we get there? If there is one thing we have learned in our study of leadership, it is that mutual trust is the most valuable element to the leader-follower relationship. Mutual trust requires authentic leadership.

• Authentic Leadership
• What is Authentic Leadership?
• Good Leaders are Authentic Leaders
• Your Emotional Bank Account
• The Emotional Bank Account