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As stated by professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter in the YouTube video, Women, Ambition and (still) the Pay Gap, Harvard Business Review (2010), I think it has taken a long time to get many women at the top…Its just getting up to the very peak, it has still been an issue and I’m thinking there are many reasons for that…one, is that the jobs at the very top of any organization are really different from those below, they require a kind of dedication and commitment, 24/7 being always on…one of the many hidden sources of discrimination that still goes on many companies is sort of informal and behind the scene. When there is a discussion in a private conversation about who are the people we should put in those positions…well, she isn’t really quite as dedicated.  We love the fact that she’s family friendly, and we’re very family friendly. We don’t really want to take her away from her family….and so they don’t even give the woman a choice.

 

Furthermore, according to Yukl (2013), gender egalitarianism is the point to which men and women receive equal treatment, and both masculine and feminine attributes are considered significant and pleasing. In cultures with high gender egalitarianism, there is less differentiation of sex roles, and most jobs are not separated by gender. Women have more equal opportunity to be chosen for important leadership positions, although access is still greater for public sector positions than in business corporations.

Reflecting on what Rosabeth Moss Kanter says in her video interview, and how that does coincide with what Yukl says about gender-based discrimination from his book; I do believe there is an overlap. Professor Kanter talks about how women have been striving to get to the top positions in the workplace that has many type of gender discrimination going on.  She mentioned there has been some progress in the past 10 years, but until today most women are still in the low level positions in the workplace due to their gender and some non work related responsibilities, like being family oriented.  In other words, the position that the professor would like to see most women at in the workplace is at a position where they’re being treated equally as men and get just as much pay as men. Just like Yukl described in the book about gender egalitarianism, which is a concept of workplace or society that do not see women as less important than men, where women will have equal opportunity as a men do.  What professor Kanter is striving for in the workplace is the implementation of the definition of gender egalitarianism as defined by Yukl.

As stated by professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter in the YouTube video, Women, Ambition and (still) the Pay Gap, Harvard Business Review (2010), Women don’t always have the same statue as thought leaders, or authorities that men do and as soon as we consider women voices to be extremely wise. I think that will also show young women that they have the responsibility and the talent to use their degrees in the most productive way they can.

Hence, I do agree there is gender discrimination going on in the workplace. I have witnessed it in my career as a professional employee, and I believe as a society in this modern age we as people can and should do better.  Not, looking at one another and pre-judge someone due to their gender. I believe everyone should be given an equal opportunity until he or she has proven that he or she can’t actually do the tasks at hand. The world would be a much better place, if we stop discrimination and treat one another the way he or she would like to be treated. 

 

Reference

Harvard Business Review. (2010). Women, Ambition and (still) the Pay Gap. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhquUOlBuOY&feature=youtu.be&t=5s 

Yukl, G. (2013). Cross-cultural Leadership and Diversity. In Leadership in organizations. (8th ed). (pp.366,). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

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         I’m originally from Haiti; a small island located in the Caribbean Sea that shares borders with Dominican Republic. The native languages are French and Creole in Haiti.  In search of better opportunities, my parents and I travelled to the United States when I was 15 years old.  There I had to learn a whole new language, English, which I had a great time learning through school and trying to understand different accents at a younger age.  However, learning English didn’t come too easy for me because it’s my third language; hence, until now I still have an accent when I speak in English. 
            About a decade later after I graduated from Florida Atlantic University, I landed a job in the aerospace industry, with one of the world's largest aerospace company and leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems.  I was hired as a manufacture engineer in an entry level position.  I was the only foreigner in the office, and the only person with an accent.  I could tell that some of my colleague unfortunately had some difficulties understanding my accent, but I took no offense or frustration to it, I just learned to speak slower and contributed to the team as much as possible.  Few years later, my organization decided to do business with the European companies for certain sections of the airplane.  The European companies are Messier-Dowty, Rolls-Royce, and Latecoere.  Knowing those are French companies and suppliers, and I speak both French and English and have great work ethics, my manager promoted me to a lead position to coordinate and lead the negotiations with the French suppliers and my company.  Now, I have been a leader of a team of six employees coordinating with the French suppliers and creating contracts for my company.
            Hence, that’s the differences that distinguish me and help me in living and acting on the basis of my core values.  Being able to use my weakness, language, and turn it and to a positive skill to my advantage and make myself a much more valuable asset to the company.  As identify by Goffee and Jones (2006) “Effective leaders keep working at this art. They develop a close understanding of their differences. In particular they become aware of what is different about them that makes them attractive to others. They learn to use these differences to their advantage in a leadership role “(p.32).  Looking at myself, I would say I’m more of a servant leader.  I always check on the team to make certain they have everything they need to get the job done right, and not only that, I always encourage and train each person to be the next leader and be able to move up in the company.  As identified by Yukl (2013), “A servant leader must attend to the needs of followers and help them become healthier, wiser, and more willing to accept their responsibilities. Service includes nurturing, defending, and empowering followers” (P.349).  Certainly this is my style of leadership, and my colleagues appreciate it daily.

 References

Goffee, R., and Jones, G., (2006),"Getting personal on the topic of leadership", Human Resource Management International Digest. 14( 4), 32 – 34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09670730610666382

Yukl, G. (2013). Ethical, Servant, Spiritual, and Authentic Leadership. In Leadership in organizations. (8th ed). (pp. 349). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

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             There are many reasons leaders must create a “cause” or “meaning” in the workplace.  Some of them are listed on this article, “Getting Beyond Engagement to Creating Meaning at Work”; furthermore, looking deeper onto the article, what it means when its says that leaders must create a “cause” or “meaning” is interpreted as such to my opinion.  As identified by Ulrich, D. and Ulrich, W. (2010), those who are successful at developing meaning with the help of others or on their own tend to work harder, more creatively, and with more endurance, giving the company that hired them an advantage in the marketplace.  Certainly, that is a huge advantage for the company especially if it’s a company that is in a rivalry with another company.  Inducing an idea that would give the employees the meaning of their job role and how important they’re to the company would absolutely increase the productivity and encourage the employees to work better. When leaders successfully creates a “cause” or “meaning”  for the employees that indirectly boost the employees moral and therefore helps create a higher yearly profit for the company as the employees will provide better quality services that would as a result attract more customers. As stated by Ulrich and Ulrich (2010), “What’s more, study after study suggest that when employees experience meaning, their employers enjoy higher rates of customer commitment and investor interest” (para. 3). Hence, more revenue for the company yearly earning and allow them to stay in business longer.

 In relation to the theory of leading change, one crucial point is when the change is not properly explained to the employee or they were not part of the decision making process.  Even if a change would benefit the organization, it may be resisted by people who would suffer personal loss of income, benefits, or job security; major changes in organizations invariably result in some shift in power and status for individuals and subunits (Yukl, 2013).  Indeed, some jobs may be eliminated or modified, resulting in layoffs or transfers to new locations. This will cause employees to lose interest in the company and no longer have a meaning to work there or provide good customer service.

For example, Michelin the world largest tire manufacturer (Michelin, 2015), the company’s number one priority has always been its customers and trying to adapt to its customers’ needs while creating and maintaining a competitive advantage in the market.  Hence, that drove the company to a change, into a new business of giving services as a product.  That philosophy created the Michelin Fleet Solutions (MFS).  In Bitner, Gremler, & Zeithaml, (2013) with promising growth visions, Michelin Fleet Solutions was deployed by Michelin in 2000 with a complete tire- management solution for hefty European transportation companies, for example Schenker, TNT, Geodis, or Norbert Dentressamgle.  Certainly, knowing the time frame when MFS was deployed, that was the best business move by Michelin to entice more customers and progress his position in the marketplace. However, while conceptually appealing, the deployment of the MFS service encountered difficulties internally and externally because of the change. 

One MFS sales man said "...This is a new job, and my tire expertise can hardly help me...I find it difficult to show the clients the value of this solution offer.  We also face real problems in pricing: clients don't immediately see why they should pay more for tire managment solutions than they should pay when they only bought tires! They do not see the value brought by the extra activities we perform and the scope is so large that i find it difficult to list all these benefits. This solution is verry complex to sell" (as quoted in Bitner et al., 2013). 

            While MFS failed to make connection with its customers, it appears they had an even bigger problem internally because of the change.  The sales person wasn’t trained enough about the product service to be able to convince the clients of purchasing the service.  While, this could be a critical impact on the promotion of the service, the customers would not buy the service if the salesperson doesn't know or trust the service. 

            Furthermore, there was a heavy rivalry between the product salesperson and the service salesperson.  Product sales person can't tolerate the solutions sales- person promoting the solutions service with their biggest clients; the product salesperson candidly condemns the MFS service (Bitner et al., 2013). 

Hence, disagreement between the traditional product salesperson and the service salesperson could have contributed to the failure of the FMS service because the employees lose the meaning of their job role and are no longer satisfied to provide good services to customers.  Customers pay attention to details when they're buying something new, and any form of conflicts from the company representatives will tip the clients to decline the offer and that would eventually impact the company as a whole.

References

Bitner, M., Gremler, D., & Zeithaml, V. (2013). Introduction to Services. In Services Marketing:Integratin Customer Focus Accross the firm (6th ed., pp. 549, 550, and 551). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Michelin. (2015, November 18). Retrieved November 28, 2015, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelin#History

Ulrich, D., and Ulrich,W.,(2010). Getting Beyond Engagement to Creating Meaning at Work. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2010/06/getting-beyond-engagement-to-c

Yukl, G. (2013). Leading Change and Innovation. In Leadership in organizations. (8th ed). (pp. 81). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

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The Point of the Research
              The point of the research was to conduct two studies of remote transformational leadership to find out if people can actually tell the difference between various leadership styles.  Often time organizations are asked to lead employees that work in remote locations (Kelloway, Barling, Kelley, Comtois, and Gatien, 2002).  Therefore, leaders more and more rely on technologically based communication with their employees including the use of electronic mail (e-mail) and video/teleconferencing. This research help identifies if their employees or people can tell what type of leader is their remote leader base on e-mail or remote communication media. In the first study (study 1) they use vignette methodology to assess if recipient could identify leadership message when presented in e-mail.
               In the second study (study 2), its purpose was to build on the results by examining the effects of remote leadership on motivation and performance using a laboratory base investigation (Kelloway et al., 2002).

Hypotheses
              There were two studies, study 1 and study 2. The hypothesis for study 1 was whether recipients could identify leadership messages when presented in e-mails. 
             The hypotheses for study 2 was that individuals exposed to e-mail messages containing a charismatic or intellectually stimulating message would express higher levels of performance on a laboratory task than individuals who received e-mail instructions that did not contain these aspects of transformational leadership. Furthermore, they hypothesize main effects for both intellectual stimulation and charisma but no additive effect between the two dimensions of transformational leadership (Kelloway et al., 2002).

The Research Method Used
           There were two research methods used. First one (study 1), used a vignette methodology to assess, in the first instance, whether recipients could identify leadership messages when presented in e-mail. Hence, 175 students read a vignette depicting either a laissez-faire, management by exception, contingent reward, or transformational leadership style communicated by electric mail (e-mail) (Kelloway et al., 2002).
           The second one (study 2), data were collected from 105 undergraduate psychology students at a Canadian university. The experiment involved the use of a group of problem solving exercise. The task required participants to read a short scenario describing a survival situation in which they have become stranded on a mountain with limited supplies during a winter storm.  The task is rank order a list of supplies in terms of importance for survival (1 – most important, 12 – least important). Participants complete the rankings individually and then work in groups to derive a consensus ranking. By subtracting individual and group scores from the rankings assigned by survival experts, individual and group performance scores are derived. The performance scores are discrepancy measures with high scores representing worse performance (Kelloway et al., 2002).

Research Goals Results

             The results for the first study (study 1) showed that students could distinguish between the various leadership styles, and both interpersonal justice and supervision satisfaction were perceived to be higher when a transformational style was presented.  Hence, interpersonal justice and supervisor satisfaction were significantly and substantially correlated (Kelloway et al., 2002).
            Kirkpatrick and Locke explain that the results for the second study (study 2) revealed that participants appropriately identified the intended characteristics of the remote leader.  That is, individuals who read an intellectually stimulating e-mail rated the leader as being more intellectually stimulating than did individuals who read a non-intellectually stimulating e-mail.  Similarly, participants who read a charismatic message rated the leader as being more charismatic than those who read a non-charismatic message.  However, their result did not support an effect of a charismatic leadership message on individual motivation.  Future research in this area will need to be considering whether this null finding is plausibly attributable to the specific message we used, or whether charisma is not easily transmitted through electronic media (as cited in Kelloway et al., 2002, p.102).
             

Research Value

            The present findings propose that remote transformational leadership can still have the same positive effects on the performance and attitudes that occurs within face-to-face interaction. Furthermore, our findings suggest that electronically mediated communication channels may be used to convey the same leadership message as in face to face interaction, which questions the suggestion that leader-followers’ perceptions of their leader (Kelloway et al., 2002).

Course Context

              As far as the course context for this week and these researches, they have really proven that transformational leadership is the ideal leadership for a group. As identified by Yukl (2013), transformational leadership is more of a leadership style that stimulates followers by appealing to their self-interest and exchange benefits; for corporate leaders, transactional leadership indicate providing pay and other benefits in return for work effort.  Certainly this sounds like a tradeoff leadership style where the followers have to accomplish a task for their leaders in other for them to be satisfied.  Furthermore, this type of leadership may intrigue the followers to contribute as they know they’ll get something back in return, and the more they contribute is the more recognition they’ll receive.  This type of leadership also looks forward to promote their workers, given them more opportunities to grow.  Furthermore, as stated by Riggio in the YouTube video, Harvard Business Review (2013),  “transformational leaders are leaders that are able to move groups and organization to change ,to transform, but also to very high levels of productivities and performance.” 

Reference

Harvard Business Review. (2013). Ronald Riggio:Transformational Leadership. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvezV2Zhihg

Yukl, G. (2013). Charismatic and Transformational Leadership. In Leadership in organizations. (8th ed). (pp.321). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

            Kelloway, E. Barling, J. Kelley E. Comtois, J. Gatien, B. (2002).Remote transformational leadership. Leadership &Organization Development Journal. 24(3), 163-171.  Retrieved from

https://erau.instructure.com/courses/23355/assignments/258750?module_item_id=880896

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             Often time in my life I take look back at what I was doing that involved a leadership positions, and how I was as a leader in that position, and how I could have done a better job.  Taking this class PMGT 511 has opened up my eyes about the leadership position and has helped me become a more effective leader.  Some of the key points related to managerial motivation, traits, and effectiveness vary.  As identified by Yukl (2013), trait can be a mixture of individual attributes which involves characteristic of personality, temperament, needs, motives, and values. Certainly, as a leader you have to have a positive trait of yourself.  Hence, a positive temperament, needs, and motive would reflect highly on any manager.  Therefore, most employees are looking for positive traits from their manager as that would induce them to follow the manager.  Furthermore, as identified Yukl (2013), when it comes to effectiveness, the empirical research shows that a socialized power orientation is most likely to result in effective leadership rather a personalized power orientation.  Certainly, effective leadership has a link with the amount of power the leader has, the more power he or she has to make decisions and drive some demand, the most likely he or she would be an effective leader.  Hence, managerial motivation is driven from the self-confidence to leadership effectiveness of a manager.
            Assessing my own leadership skills, traits, and competencies I notice I have good leadership skills.  My technical, interpersonal, and conceptual skills have been rated as exceed expectation from work every year on my performance management review.  Furthermore, I have a strong knowledge about methods, processes, procedures and technique for conducting specialized activities.  I also have great understanding of human behavior and interpersonal processes that allow me to better communicate with my team members.  I also have great analytical ability, logical/critical thinking, and conceptualization of complex and ambiguous relationships.  
            The best way to leverage my strengths to improve my value in my organization is by sharing my knowledge with the team.  Making sure that they understand the concept of what they're working on, prior implementing it.  Have team meeting with them so they can bring up any concerns, technical issuers, or problems that they may be facing at work and help them resolve those problems effectively.  Furthermore, I need to be more transparent with them as far as leadership decisions or changes on any items that will impact their day to day activities and their leadership as well.  I should also identify team members that have skills relevant for a future leadership position.  Furthermore, compensate for the less knowledgeable team members, and assure there is a learning process in place to bring up to speed the low performers.

            Contingency theory and situational variables may assist in a way where my positive behavior and personality as a leader can influence my subordinates' satisfaction and performance in different situations where they might use my approach or suggestion to overcome obstacles.

Reference

Yukl, G. (2013). Contengency Theories and Adaptive Leadership. In Leadership in organizations. (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

 

 

 

 

 

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Many individuals wish they had power, the kind of power that would make them feel or be in control of anything or anyone.  However, most of these individuals have no idea what power truly is, and what its true implication is.  Often time the word power is poorly used by people which results in creating confusion among society.   As stated by Yukl (2013), “Power involves the capacity of one party (“the agent”) to influence another party (the “target”), but this influence has been described and measured in several different ways; the term may refer to the agent’s influence over a single target person or multiple target persons, sometimes the term refers to potential influence over things or events as well as attitude or behavior” (page. 186). Certainly, power is an extreme talent to posses, and it must be understood in other for it to be properly used to its full extent.  Power in the hands of the right person (leader) with the right mindset can be an amazing combination for a successful organization and effective leader.

However, power along isn’t sufficient to make a leader a powerful person.  A leader must also possess great influential skills that would encourage his or her follower to follow him. Leaders should lead with examples that his or her followers are looking forward to see from a leader.  If the followers see some common skill or passion from their leader, then they can easily relate to the leader and that would induce the followers to be more committed to the leaders.  As identified by Yukl (2013), “The psychological explanation for interpersonal influence involves the motives and perceptions of the target person in relation to the action of the agent and the context in which the interaction occurs” (page.186).  Certainly, the theoretical concept of influence is the ability to find a common group with your target agent and persuade that individual with your ideas in a way that would intrigue the individual to relate and follow you as a leader. However, at the same time there must be a common good so the individual would not feel used or manipulated.

Sources and Nature of the Power I Bring to My Work Place

I’m currently a team leader for the company I work for. As a leader, I do my best to be as transparent as possible to all my followers. I communicate with my team clearly daily both about work related items as well as non-work related items, like family, kids, and activities or plans for the weekend. I believe if the workers know that their leader don’t just care about the work being done, but also about their well being then they would be more please to come to work daily and do the best they can to help the company succeed as well. The source of that power come from my family, my parents raised me as a caring individual who cares about the environment and the people around me and thought me how to become a leader. My education has also helped contribute to the source of my power. It has taught me how to become an effective leader.

Power Usage

            The power that my personality brings to work is used in a leadership method and at the same time with a friendly approach. I believe in creating and maintaining a friendly work environment that would put my followers at ease and willing to contribute and participate.  I follow a participative leadership method.  As identified by Yukl (2013), participative leadership involve as leader’s use of decision procedures that allows other people such as subordinates to have an input over decision that will affect them.  Certainly, my power from leadership include the usage of multiple decision making that allow my followers to contribute and have some influence on the decision making as well.  My power isn’t used in a way to belittle my followers; however, it encourages them to contribute to the team and organization.

Power Relation

            That power enables me to put myself in the place of my followers to have a better perspective of leadership and understand what it is my followers are looking for in other to perform well at work. To my opinion, a great leader is a great follower.  Sometime, a leader has to be able to trade “shoes” to get a better picture of the environment and relate to his or her followers.  Hence, I have led my team for about 4 years and have not had any high quality LMX situations within my workplace or group that are dysfunctional.

Reference

Yukl, G. (2013). Power and Influence Tactics. In Leadership in organizations. (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

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           As a leader, one must set time aside to recognize and encourage good ethical behaviors at the work place.  Must leaders just lead with an iron fist, but fail to recognize the hard workers. That to my opinion may create an unstable work environment and lack of interest on the job by the employees.  As identified by Yukl (2013), “supportive leadership includes a wide variety of behaviors that show consideration, acceptance, and concern for the need and feelings of other people; effective leaders help build and maintain effective interpersonal relationships. A manager who is considerate and friendly toward people is more likely to win their friendship and loyalty” (p.63).  Indeed, that is extremely important in the work place.  It helps create a sense of friendship and care from leadership that would boost the morale of the employee.

I work as a team leader for an organization that is very busy, and the work load can be very stressful for both my team and I.  Knowing how dynamic the workload can be, I lead with a participative leadership style that would allow my teammates to express themselves openly about any work related items.  As identified by Yukl (2013), “participative leadership involve a leader’s use of decision procedures that allows other people such as subordinates to have an input over decision that will affect them” (p.51). Certainly, this leadership method allows more employees to speak up and express themselves in a professional manner.  This method also encourages my team to work harder.  Therefore, as a responsible and understanding leader, I reward any of my team members that did an outstanding job on any of the projects assigned to him or her.

Rewarding an employee for an outstanding job by recognizing that person with some gift cards and/or movie tickets are very effective in producing results.  It shows to the employee that his or her team leader care about the team and/or his or her performance and that his or her hard work would not go unnoticed.  That also encourages other employees to do a better job as well.  Hence, recognizing the employees for their hard work would help create a rewarding work place environment for the hard workers.  However, if a leader fail to recognize his or her workers, that would create an unstable environment where most of the workers would not care about the quality of their work or the team.  The result of that behavior may impact the quality service delivered to the costumers which may drive a failure for the company yearly profit.

Hence, it’s totally worth it to show appreciation toward the team members of my team.  Showing appreciation may include any of the following, provide sympathy and support when the person is anxious or upset, be willing to help with personal problems, bolster the person’s self-esteem and confidence, and show acceptance and positive regard (Yulk, 2013).  That would allow the team to trust leadership and at the same time create a gateway to help develop subordinate skills.  As identified by Yukl (2013),” developing includes several managerial practices that are used to increase a subordinate’s skills and facilitate job adjustment and career advancement; key component behavior includes mentoring, coaching, and providing developmental opportunities” (p.65).  Certainly increasing the subordinate skills is another way of rewarding the individual for doing an outstanding job. The ultimate result of this are opportunities for promotion or high pay raise due to more responsibilities undertaking at work. Hence, that would encourage the workers to perform better and support the team and organization more.

 

Reference

Yukl, G. (2013). Effective Leadership Behavior. In Leadership in organizations. (8th ed). (pp. 51, and pp. 65). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

 

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            When it comes to leaders that inspire me the most the one who I like to think of the most is our president of the Unites States of America, Barack Hussein Obama. World leader elected by the people of American since 2009, and is currently serving a second term in the office.  Obama inspires me as an individual due to his educational background and strive for success. 

            "[Barack Obama] is the 44th and current President of the United States, and the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at University of Chicago Law School between 1992 and 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running unsuccessfully for the   United States House of Representatives in 2000 to Bobby Rush" (as quoted in Barack Obama, 2015, para. 1).  Indeed, with such an intensive and diverse background in both education and professional experience. Obama is who I like to refer to as a born leader, and an individual that strive for success and inspires me and many other people of the world to strive for success as well.

            As identified by Yukl, 2013 "Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objective" (Para. 6). Certainly, his leadership approach during his presidency in the white house has inspired me to become a leader and to pursuit a Master degree, in Engineering Management with a focus on leadership.

            Since leadership and management typically can't take place by the same person, Obama has his subordinates to manage some of the country's financial crisis.  For example, the economic policy, as identified by Barrack Obama (2015) " In March, Obama's Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, took further steps to manage the financial crisis, including introducing the Public-Private Investment Program for Legacy Assets, which contains provisions for buying up to two trillion dollars in depreciated real estate assets."

   
            Furthermore, thinking about the video of Simon Sinek's TEDx talk and the “why” of leadership, it seems what he is communicating is if a leader change the way he or she communicate the information from inside out (starting with why, how, what) to his or her followers by first stating "why" she or he is doing what he/she is doing. That leader would most likely get more followers to follow his or her leadership. It's a simple case of reversing the standard flow of which information is shared and how the brain operates for most people. If  you start with what most people wants to hear, which is "why" they're doing what they're doing. Then, you would most likely convince these individuals to follow your leadership.        

             According to Sinek, (2009) People don't buy "what" you do, they buy "why" you do it. The goal is not to do business with everybody that need what you have, the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe...the goal is not to higher people because they can  do the job, no the goal is to higher people because they believe what you believe. Indeed, if  someone believe in a theory or someone, he or she would most likely follow that individual. So, if that concept can be applied to the workplace, than that business or the leader of that would have lots of followers, and the business would most likely be a success. Hence, yes this "Why" of leadership should be considered within the discussion of managerial work as well.

References

Barrack Obama. (2015, October 22). Retrieved October 24, 2015, from Wikipedia, the free

encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

 

Yukl, G. (2013). Introduction: The Nature of Leadership. In Leadership in organizations. (8th ed., pp 7). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

Sinek, S. (2009, September 28). Start with why -- how great leaders inspire action  [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA&feature=share&list=PL42F8562DCD3CCEA8

 

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            This course has been very beneficial to both my career and personal life. It has reminded me that critical thinking is still an essential aspect of every decision we have to make, easy or hard ones, and that is a huge positive aspect of this course to my opinion. There isn’t any negative aspect from this course, I believe the material and exercises that were done were related to the course objectives, and the instructor, Dr. Watkins, did an awesome job as a professor for this course.

              What I might have done to improve my learning experience in this course was actually done during the course; it’s doing more analytical reading, and put in practice the eight elements of reasoning: purpose, question at issue, assumptions, implications and consequences, information, concepts, conclusion interpretation. The additional support that was needed during this course was provided, and it was mainly about asking questions about the assignments for some clarity. About the entire topics discussed in this course are relevant do my day to day activities, and have helped me become a better leader in life and at work. In future courses, there may be some case analysis or study to help some students put in practice their critical thinking skills.

Thank You!
Leon

A500.8.3.RB_MalvoisinLeon

A good presentation design should grab its audience attention in the first couple slides. Therefore, there is no point doing good work if others don’t know about it or can’t understand what the presentation is about. Just like most things in life, first impressions matter! So, when creating a presentation with supporting visual aids, we should keep in mind the way the audience will process the information and take advantage of that leverage.

              If using PowerPoint to display graphical information to support the speaker, keep the presentation simple.  Do not cluster information on the PowerPoint, the slide should have lot of negative spaces.  Keep away from using Microsoft templates as most audience has seen most of them.  Keep away from using PowerPoint Clip Art or other cartoonish line art. Use high-quality graphics including photographs, if you have some high quality photos. Use bullet points, and not every slide should be animated.  Synchronize your speaking with the slides and transitions.  Feel free to use video and audio when appropriate, and do your best to limit your ideas to one main idea per slide (Reynolds, n.d.).  Indeed, even though PowerPoint is getting lots of negative feedbacks as a presentation tool, it is still a descent tool to use for presentation.  The presenter just has to avoid some of PowerPoint’s most common pitfalls.

Furthermore, if you’re presenting in person, connect with your audience and move around on the podium.  Use the “B” key if you want to focus attention on you rather then what’s showing on the slide.  You may use a remote to help you navigate through the slides and make good eye contact with your audience. Speak at a normal tone of voice and keep the lights on so the audience can focus on you during the presentation (Reynolds, n.d.).  Certainly, a presentation done in person will required more perfection, as an in person presentation the audience will focus on the presenter more in an attempt to comprehend the information being shared. Therefore, the presenter must connect with his or her audience.

            In addition, below are few supplemental media tools that can help design an impressive presentation other then PowerPoint.  Below is a list of suggested visual media tools.

Visual Media Tool	What it does
SnagIt (Links to an external site.)	Creates screen captures
Jing (Links to an external site.)	Allows instant sharing of screen captures
Camtasia (Links to an external site.)	Records screen activity (audio narration and/or video); creates captions manually (Links to an external site.) or via speech-to-text (Links to an external site.) function
Screencast (Links to an external site.)	2GB of FREE server space for SnagIt, Jing, and/or Camtasia projects
Screencast-O-Matic (Links to an external site.)	One-click screen capture recording for Windows or Mac computers with no install for FREE!
Voicethread (Links to an external site.)	Creates collaborative multimedia slideshows; includes hosting
Prezi (Links to an external site.)	Creates "zooming" presentations; includes free hosting
Morae (Links to an external site.)	Tool for usability testing; captures user activity and offers tools for analysis and reporting

             Hence, when it comes to make an impressive presentation I also like to approach it with these words in mind, “be bright, be brief, and be gone”.

Reference

Reynolds. G (n.d). Presentation Zen: How to Design& Deliver Presentations Like a Pro. ERAU.     Retrieved from https://erau.instructure.com/courses/19283/pages/a500-dot-7-1-dot-cr readings?module_item_id=586162

 

A500.7.3.RB_MalvoisinLeon

Quantitative research is one of the best ways to prove or disprove a hypothesis; it is aim at understanding the theories or description of social reality.  It answers primarily to how and why? - questions.  In addition, a hypothesis is a tentative explanation that accounts for a set of facts and can be tested by further investigation.  Hence, a quantitative researchers design studies that allow us to test these hypotheses. 

Quantitative research uses variables due to the fact that certain events can be quantified, measured and expressed via numbers and statistic.  The observation or events can be then transformed into a data matrix which is the initial point for the analysis.  Hence, objectivity is critical for quantitative research.  Variable is the observable and measurable characteristic of an observation unit, whereas, the observation units can be individual, group, institution, organization, text, event or activities.

Some of the strength of quantitative research is that it enables the study and description of social structure and processes that are not directly observable and it facilitates analysis and explanation of dependencies between social phenomenon.  On the other hand, one of its weaknesses is it can only be used for measurable phenomenon.

The reason of a research design is to make sure that the evidence attained enables you to answer the initial question an unambiguously as possible.  Planning the research, for a successful research planning you have to select the theme, get acquainted with the previous research on similar theme, select the theoretical approach, specify the research problem, and plan the empirical research process.  Some of the elements of research design is consist of, description, comparison, time dimension, need for generalizations, ect.,

Sampling the data occurs when there is a large group of cases; therefore, the researchers study a sample of the group.  However, there is a risk that a unit maybe bad in that sampling; therefore, this risk I minimized by random sampling. Furthermore, the risk of sampling error can be statistically estimated. The data can be obtained by conducting surveys research, systematic observation, text analysis, statistical data, and register data.

           
              To conclude, quantitative research in general is a great research method to make significant discoveries that can improve the effectiveness of a phenomenon or event. I personally have no experience in conducting a quantitative research yet; however, I have been one of the participants of quantitative research survey base on a poll that I had recently participated in for the city of Seattle. The company did use a quantitative questionnaire research approach to collect feedback from me. Reading this presentation about quantitative research helps me put things in perspective for any future quantitative research that I may have to be part of.


Reference

Mamia,T. (n.d). Quantitative Research Methods. ERAU.Retrieved from https://erau.instructure.com/courses/19283/pages/a500-dot-7-1-dot-cr readings?module_item_id=586162

 

A500.6.3.RB_MalvoisinLeon

Qualitative research is mainly exploratory research.  It is used to get an understanding of reasons, opinions, and motivations.  Qualitative research can also be used to uncover patterns in thought and opinions, and dive deeper into the problem. Furthermore, it provides insight into the problem or helps to develop ideas or theories for potential quantitative research.

 

Role of the Researcher in Qualitative Research

             Prior to conduct a qualitative research, a researcher has to first define his questions so he/she knows what it is he/she is going to be looking for.  Second, it is important that he/she becomes familiar with your research instrument.  Third, identify gatekeepers, once he/she has defined the research questions, the task before him or her is to set up his/her study.  Setting up a qualitative study starts with relationship building. It is significant to put yourself in the shoes of the people you will be studying and to think about what their concerns might be.

 Research Design

            To properly design the qualitative research, the researcher must determine a focus for the inquiry, where and from who data will be collected from, what additional instrumentation may be used, plan which data analysis procedures will be used, plan the logistic of data collection,  and plan the technique that will be used to determine trustworthiness (Sanders and Hoepfl, 1997).

Data Collection Strategies

            Data collection in qualitative research usually includes two processes: interviews and observation. As far as interviews the research must know how and where to conduct the interviews.  He or she must also make the person being interviewed at ease so he or she can candidly answer the questions.  An interviewer must know how to listen, clarify, reflect, and summarize.  Furthermore, the reason of observational data is to explain the setting that was observed, the activities that took place in that setting, the people who participated in those activities. Observations may include descriptions of the participants, descriptions of the physical settings, and accounts of particular events and activities
 

Data Analysis

            Once data collection is done the next step is to analyze the data as objectively as possible. Data coding can be done if a certain pattern is identified in the responses.  The data can also be sort into categories.  Once sorted, the findings can be written.

Conclusion
              Qualitative research in general is a brilliant way to make significant discoveries that can improve the effectiveness of a service of anything. I personally have no experience in conducting a qualitative research yet; however, I have been one of the participants of qualitative research survey base on a service that I had recently received from a company. The company did use a qualitative questionnaire research approach to collect feedback from me. Reading this article about qualitative research helps me put things in perspective for any future qualitative research that I may have to conduct.

Reference:

Sanders, M. & Hoepfl, M. (1997). Choosing Qualitative Research: A Primer for Technology Education Researchers. Journal of Technology Education. 9(1). Retrieved from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/v9n1/hoepfl.html