IFSM 300 Stage 4-Assignment

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)

Source: Leadership Quotes, n.d.

Learning Resource

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UMGC (n.d.). Leadership. Retrieved from https://leocontent.umgc.edu/content/umuc/tus/ifsm/ifsm300/2228/learning-resourcelist/ leadership.html?wcmmode=disabled#

Quote Speaker Source

Source: Leadership Quotes, n.d.

"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)

"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)

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Quote Speaker Source

Source: Leadership Quotes, n.d.

"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)

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: 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

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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?

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

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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:

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• identifying trends,

• scanning the environment,

• knowing what has happened in the past, and

• 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.

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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

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/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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