Leadership Assessment

Assignment 2

BUS 302

Prof. Thornton

De’Shonda Lyons

11/23/2014

Question No. 1
Analyze the leadership style (s) of a senior (CEO, CFO, COO, Director, etc) in your current or previous organization who made a positive or negative impact on you.

An employee who is effective in working and contributes to the organization success is a leader in his own eyes. Every leader has a different set of style which he used to incorporate the organizational goals and objectives. The implementation of plans, guidance to the people of the organizational and their motivation is few factors that come under the leader responsibility. Leadership styles or approaches a leader take to solve a certain problem changes in different scenarios. The best leadership style depends on the issues the organization face and its culture according to www.edcucationalbusiness.com.

A company I worked for their leadership style that entail in my company of the CEO is situational leaning towards participative leadership style. Such a style requires the leader to be adaptable to the situation and to the abilities of the team. The leaders quickly adjust themselves to the constraints and limitations imposed on them. If a situation arises where the CEO has all the information, he will most surely use the authoritarian leadership style as he is the coach and mentor. In a situation where the information is distributed between the CEO and the workers, he will go for a participative style, to make feel employees a part of the decision and team. Then there might a time come when the CEO is not around or busy some useful stuff in such a case he will use delegate style and delegate the entire task to the employee according to www.createthefuture.com.

Question No.2

Analyze the organizational structure and culture of the company for which you work (or would like to work) to determine its approach to team development and whether that approach helped to enhance your relationship skills in the workplace.
Organization structure of any organization depends on its business or project nature. The organizational goals, work group responsibilities and role of the department members are designed according to organizational structure. In general, there are four types of the organizational structure that exist in our corporate world. They are functional, divisional, matrix and project based structures according to www.managementhelp.com. The Matrix organizational structure prevails in the company I work for. Such a structure is the one which is a combination of functional and divisional organizational structure. In functional organizational structure the organization is divided into different sections based on its specialty for example, there might be a section of sales, engineering. Where as in divisional structure an organization has a number of divisions categorized from a different point of views, for example, divisions based on a geographical basis etc. Matrix organizational structure gives best results when certain things are taken from both the structures. Each team member has two bosses to report to which ultimately enhances an employee's communication skills and also relationships skills. Such a structure also paves way for team development, as it involves a lot of interaction among employees and also between the managers of the company. Evaluate the performance of your selected leader based on his or her ethical conduct and effective communication to determine if this leader was successful in motivating and empowering you to improve on your work performance. Explain your answer. The performance of the company I worked for was okay, she was a good leader who always encourage us to meet the goals and to get the sales out the door like we were supposed to. She communicated with us daily, and ask if we had any questions that would make our work better, and how to get the sales out like we should. She also motivated us every day and let us know that we can do it. She would always tell us not to get discourage if we start off slow at the beginning, because we can always get our sales going before the day is over with. Even if we didn’t make any sales that day or didn’t get as many sells like we would want to, she still motivated us and lifted us up. She would always be like you still have tomorrow or the next day. So she was a good leader at doing that, and making sure her employees didn’t doubt their selves or wanted to give up. She would just be like you can do it, and keep going.
Determine three (3) best practices organizational leaders can use to motivate employees and discuss their potential benefits.
Employee motivation is the level of energy, commitment, and creativity that a company's workers apply to their jobs. In the increasingly competitive business environment of recent years, finding ways to motivate employees has become a pressing concern for many managers. In fact, a number of different theories and methods of employee motivation have emerged, ranging from monetary incentives to increased involvement and empowerment. Employee motivation can sometimes be particularly problematic for small businesses, where the owner often has spent so many years building a company that he/she finds it difficult to delegate meaningful responsibilities to others. But entrepreneurs should be mindful of such pitfalls, for the effects of low employee motivation on small businesses can be devastating. Some of the problems associated with unmotivated workers include complacency, declining morale, and widespread discouragement. If allowed to continue, these problems can reduce productivity, earnings, and competitiveness in a small business.
On the other hand, small businesses can also provide an ideal atmosphere for fostering employee motivation, because employees are able to see the results of their contributions in a more immediate way than in large firms. Besides increasing productivity and competitiveness, a highly motivated work force can allow a small business owner to relinquish day-today, operational control and instead concentrate on long-term strategies to grow the business. "Workers really do want to be inspired about their work, and when they are, they work better, smarter, and harder," According to www.carolroth.com
One approach to employee motivation has been to view "add-ins" to an individual's job as the primary factors in improving performance. Endless mixes of employee benefits—such as health care, life insurance, profit sharing, employee stock ownership plans, exercise facilities, subsidized meal plans, child care availability, company cars, and more—have been used by companies in their efforts to maintain happy employees in the belief that happy employees are motivated employees.

Discuss some of the challenges leaders encounter when managing diversity and how diversity helps business organizations better compete in global markets.
Diversity management is the key to growth in today’s fiercely competitive global marketplace. No longer can America’s corporations hide behind their lack of cultural intelligence. Organizations that seek global market relevancy must embrace diversity – in how they think, act and innovate. Diversity can no longer just be about making the numbers, but rather how an organization treats its people authentically down to the roots of its business model. In today’s new workplace, diversity management is a time-sensitive business imperative. To better understand this fast-changing terrain, I reached out to three notable diversity executives — pioneers within their respective industries – to share their insights and perspectives regarding the future of diversity and some of the new best practices that will allow diversity to play a more strategic role in cultivating sustainable business growth according to www.forbes.com. We all are aware of it since decades no two persons are similar. The world has been and is a stage of huge mix of people with different backgrounds, religion, castes, race, culture, behavior, age, marital status, nationality, educational qualification, political affiliation, and levels of ability, personality, gender and many more which vary across the globe. Other sources of differences include socio - economic background of individuals, membership and non-membership of unions, forms and quality/quantity of education, period and nature of employment, drives to work, and work styles. Work place diversity therefore, intends to also consist of social, economic and political visible and non-visible differences which might not have a direct creational origin from the work place, but certainly have direct impact on work attitude and performance at the work place. Diversity itself relates to the fact that we are all unique individuals. Organizations are becoming increasingly cosmopolitan. A typical organization is emerging as a place of diverse workforce in terms of gender, race and ethnicity.
Develop an effective business strategy to address the challenges and issues you have identified above.
According to www.bizmove.com Implementation effectiveness can be measured by how well the business meets the financial projections set out in the strategic plan. To achieve effective implementation, a business must ensure that any changes initiated by the strategic plan are reflected in areas such as budgeting, reward schemes and information systems. The overall goal is to integrate the results of strategic planning with daily, weekly and monthly routines. The goals articulated in the strategic plan should drive marketing and sales efforts, human resources practices and research and development. These goals become a central part of the business by guiding daily operational activities. In efforts to improve performance, most organizations go right to structural measures because moving lines around the org chart seems the most obvious solution and the changes are visible and concrete. Such steps generally reap some short-term efficiencies quickly, but in so doing address only the symptoms of dysfunction, not its root causes. Several years later, companies usually end up in the same place they started. Structural change can and should be part of the path to improved execution, but it’s best to think of it as the capstone, not the cornerstone, of any organizational transformation. In fact, our research shows that actions having to do with decision rights and information are far more important—about twice as effective—as improvements made to the other two building blocks.

Reference www.edcucationalbusiness.com. www.bizmoves.com www.forbes.com www.managementhelp.com
www.caarolrolth.com