WEEK 8 DISC
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Leadership
It is important to set a corporate strategy to identify the organization's priority objectives
—where is the organization going and how does it get there? Having a strategic plan in
place, however, means that your work has just begun. The success of executing a business
strategy depends on the quality of the organization's leadership—those who will guide the
organization in the right direction.
Leadership is a much-studied and written about topic; below are several descriptions of
leadership.
Perspectives on Leadership
Quote Speaker Source
"Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among
colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own
leadership potential."
Warren Bennis
Saladis (2006)
"The aim of leadership should be to improve the performance of man and machine, to improve quality, to
increase output and simultaneously to bring pride of
workmanship to people. Put in a negative way, the aim of
leadership is not merely to find and record failures of men,
but to remove the causes of failure to help people to do a
better job with less effort."
W. Edwards
Deming
Out of the Crisis (1982,
p. 248)
Source: Leadership Quotes, n.d.
Learning Resource
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Quote Speaker Source
"My definition of a leader…is a man who can persuade people to do what they don't want to do, or do what
they're too lazy to do, and like it."
Harry S. Truman,
33rd
president
of the
United
States
Legacee (2011)
"Leadership is the art of influencing and directing people in a way that will win their obedience, confidence, respect,
and loyal cooperation in achieving a common objective."
US Air Force
The Cadet NCO Guide (n.d., p.
25)
"The task of a great leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been….Leaders must
invoke an alchemy of great vision."
Henry Kissinger
Clawson (2003)
"Through years of study, teaching and working with people all over the world, from all walks of life, I have
determined that leadership is: Communicating to people
their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see
it in themselves. It is the influence we have with others to
help them discover their own voice, to find their own
purpose, to make their unique contribution, and to release their potential, that truly defines leadership."
Stephen R. Covey
Khan (2005)
Source: Leadership Quotes, n.d.
One thing you might have noticed in the six leadership quotes presented above is that
position or hierarchy was not mentioned. This was not an inadvertent omission; it
indicates that individuals at any level in an organization can influence and exhibit
leadership characteristics. Think about your own life experiences, and you can most likely
identify some influential leaders who lacked positional power, yet others willingly
followed their lead. "Leading strategic change can occur on at least three levels:
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organizational, work group, and individual" (Clawson, 2003, p. 39). Although leadership is
traditionally thought of as being at the executive and most senior levels of an
organization, leadership can, and should, be carried out throughout the organization.
Sometimes the strongest influencers in an organization are not sitting in the executive
office suite, but are running machinery, working in the production areas, or sitting in a
lower-level supervisory position.
Although many factors can contribute to an organization's success or failure, leadership is
certainly a critical success factor. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA)
provides seven criteria that organizations can use to assess their organizational
effectiveness. It is no surprise that leadership is a key category; in fact, it is among the
highest-weighted criterion for the MBNQA.
To reinforce these qualities, the graphic below shows the Baldrige Criteria Framework
(Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, 2017) from a systems perspective. This
framework demonstrates the importance of leadership to achieving results, and the
effectiveness of leadership determines an organization's level of success.
Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence Framework: A
Systems Perspective
Seven criteria used to assess organizational effectiveness
What’s the Difference Between Management and Leadership?
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This is a common question and potential source of confusion, although managers may be
leaders, the terms are not synonymous. The role of a manager, while it may vary from
organization to organization, focuses on directing activities and employees from an
operational perspective—what work needs to be done in this department for this
particular time period of the project. In contrast, leaders not only are more forward
looking but also set the vision for the direction and lead by example, building relationships
and encouraging followers, evaluating opportunities and potentially taking risks to propel
the organization to new levels.
Vision, Commitment, Managing Model
Just as there are many definitions of leadership, many different leadership models, sets of
characteristics, and clever acronyms have appeared over the years. One simple model that
supports the leadership qualities we want to emphasize comes from James Clawson
(2003), author of Level Three Leadership: Getting Below the Surface. Clawson calls it
the VCM model and uses it to illustrate three areas in which leaders demonstrate their
ability to influence, as shown below.
Source: Adapted from Clawson (2003, p. 37)
Vision is a critical component of leadership. Visioning is describing where the organization
will be at some future time, which sets the direction in which the organization should
move to reach the stated goal. Strategic planning is part of the process because it defines
the route to achieving the vision. Critical leadership skills are required to help establish
and convey that vision to the rest of the organization. The leadership skills required to be
successful in this area include:
identifying trends,
scanning the environment,
knowing what has happened in the past, and
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understanding where the organization is in the present.
Commitment involves garnering the dedication of others. This includes sharing the vision
to get others involved with the direction and strategic objectives. Communication skills
are critical and include the leader's ability to convey his or her message to others. But
equally important is the leader's ability to listen to others. Part of gaining commitment
is alignment—getting individuals to understand how they fit into the vision and how they
contribute to meeting the organization's strategic objectives. Aligning individual goals
with department goals that support the corporate goals is important to organizational
success.
Management includes monitoring, measuring, directing, and controlling the organization.
Skills required here include the ability to assess how well the organization is moving
toward its vision and how well the strategy is being executed. Having effective measures
in place enables leadership to course-correct as needed if the organization begins to stray.
Recognition is also important here—rewarding and praising those who are helping to guide
the organization and achieve the intended results (Clawson, 2003).
References
Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. (2017). 2017-2018 Baldrige Excellence
Framework: A systems approach to improving your organization’s performance. Baldrige
National Quality Program. Retrieved October 3, 2018 from
https://www.nist.gov/baldrige/publications/baldrige-excellence-
framework/businessnonprofit
Clawson, J. (2003). Level three leadership: Getting below the surface. Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Leadership Quotes. (n.d.). The Teal Trust. Retrieved April 13, 2007 from
http://www.teal.org.uk/leadership/quotes.htm
Licenses and Attributions
Framework Overview
(https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/styles/960_x_960_limit/public/images/2016/09
/06/2015_2016_Bus_NP_Overview.jpg?itok=4PqRGvg7) from How Baldrige Works
comprises public domain material from the National Institute of Standards and
Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce. UMGC has modified this work.
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