MSM 6645 : Fundamental Concepts MBNQA Framework Criteria

Part 1: Discussion Board

How do effective leaders translate the mission and vision into everyday activities? How do effective leaders create a culture focused on creating value for their customers? Why is it necessary for effective leaders to manage by fact, practice ethical behavior and good citizenship? How does the MBNQA Leadership Criteria (#1) support these behaviors?  From your experience, what behaviors noted above have you seen in action....or not? Please explain.

Use the MBNQA Criteria #1, any of the readings in the textbook or the library guide, and at least one of the videos (see the link below) to inform your post.

Leadership Videos (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

(NOTE ABOUT THE LEADERSHIP VIDEOS:  When you open the link, you will see blue fish at the top of the page.  There are 12 different videos below the fish. You may select a minimum of one to discuss but I recommend that you watch at least 2 to 3 if possible because they all have value.

Part 2: Response (Respond to this post: A. Coffey)

How do effective leaders translate the mission and vision into everyday activities? Certainly effective leaders fold into the daily activities of an organization many different practices that help to center the team in alignment with the vision and mission. To start the explanation of a couple of those techniques I will begin with the technique of coaching. Coaching is more simply described as a series of thought provoking questions chosen to help the team think their way through a problem. One simple question that comes to mind is asking how the action or decision is in keeping with the vision or mission. These answers are made more sharp if the mission and vision are first effectively communicated. There is certainly something to be gained by putting these into the written word, but without the explanation and incorporation into everyday speak by leadership these documents will never come to life. In short the coaching process will never gain the third dimension if it is not supported by the underpinning rhetoric of leadership. Incorporating topics consistent with mission and vision will help the team think in those terms and steer innovation to help goal achievement. Beghetto, (2015) describes how leaders define themselves in “micromovements” (p. 72). In situations when leaders respond to adeversity and exhibit their decision making skills the team then better understands them and they gain a more defined identity. By thining in this micro state success in leadership becomes more achieveable. Failure also becomes easier to identify. When adding the parts of the whole if microoccurances of bad leadership exceed those of good it is not hard math to determine failure is not far off.

Why is it necessary for effective leaders to manage by fact, practice ethical behavior and good citizenship? The textbook describes the concept of “walk the talk” (Summers, 2009, p.132 ) describing that subordinates will be more likely to repeat the actions of their leadership. Essentially, actions are more powerful than words. When the difficult situation faces the team the weaknesses become stressed and more evident, including personality defects. If the subordinates have witnessed leaders being dishonest, even if it is outside of the work environment, they know that person is capable of the same in other situations. Being an ethical leader is not something that one can turn on prior to leaving for the workplace and select the times good behavior will be displayed. These behaviors are intrinsic to who we are and our people know it making it very important to display ethical behavior and good citizenship all of the time.

From your experience, what behaviors noted above have you seen in action....or not? Please explain. In my experience one of the most unlikely sources of leadership that I have found is with those who least expected to be called a leader. I have had the pleasure of leading some of America’s finest young people in the most challenging of environments. In these groups leaders will stand out. Some stand out for the traits that we normally attribute to leadership such as taking charge or being assertive and smart. Others stand out because they can be found telling a story or a joke. There are leaders among us that can command the attention of their peers and inspire actions within this group of followers. I enjoyed calling out these traits to these young people. When presented with the facts that they command attention and they display many other quality attributes of a leader I would ask that they use their powers for good not evil. Understanding these traits has become very important to me because at a minimum I know who I have to convince to win the masses. I might not be able to inspire those who command attention to actually adopt a formal leadership position but realizing the power of that embedded leadership element is tremendous. The leadership videos complimented this concept with the explanation of how we tend to regard leadership as associated with arrogance and tend to want to not be tagged as a leader when, in fact, many hold very influential leadership positions that are not formally recognized (Dudley, 2010). By using the concept of convincing those who capture the attention of the group the formal leader can start a movement by winning hearts and minds of those who they hold a closer trust with as a peer (Sivers, 2010).

Part 3 Reflection

The reflection post due every week by Saturday. This posting is for you to reflect on what you learned during the week from others, from the readings, and from any other sources relevant to the class relative to continuous improvement (not where to see a movie, sports event, share baseball stats or get decorating ideas from side conversations). Your reflection needs to include what you have learned that may be new or different and how this will impact your leadership style going forward - think about what you learned and how you can use this to improve everything/anything.

Here are two reference guides for your review:

References Baldrige performance excellence program. (2017). 2017-2018 Baldrige excellence framework: A systems approach to improving your organization's performance. Gaithersburg, MD: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology. Retrieved from https://www.nist.gov/baldrige

Quality Management: Creating and Sustaining Organizational Effectiveness

Author: Summers

Edition: 2ND 09

SBN -13: 978-0-13-500510-1      ISBN 10: 0-13-500510-8

Publisher: Pearson/Prentice Hall