A511.2.3.RB_MalvoisinLeon

           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

 

A511.1.3.RB_MalvoisinLeon

            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

 

A500.9.4.RB_MalvoisinLeon

            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