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Dunn’s Emporium Leadership Plan

Jennifer R. Carr

BMGT 365 6384 Organizational Leadership

July 12, 2015

Professor Alicia Jacobs

University of Maryland University College

Introduction

According to Kotter (1995), constant and fundamental changes are always needed by the managerial team to make sure that the business is fit enough to cope up with the ever changing market place. Companies like Microsoft, ford, General Motors and landmark corporations are constantly updating their strategies to stay ahead in the market and that is why they are doing remarkably well. Some of these changes have been highly successful while others have turned out to be a complete failure but that is what keeps these companies running every day. Critical leaders learn from such business organizations and they understand that change goes through a number of phases which could normally take a long time to come through. Skipping any steps bringing change to an organization can have devastating impacts and making mistakes could cost the company enormously.

General Overview

Dunn as a leader who designs an organizational environment that encourages a desired range of social behaviors which are positive in acquiring all the stipulated goals of an organization and a relationship builder has a difficult task in ski and foods. As the saying goes, it is easy to lead the animal to the river but one can never force the animal to take the water. It is therefore evident that impacting change in any organization is exceptionally a difficult task. The main strategy many leaders use is exhibiting the right leadership characteristics which in turn attract the followers and keep them comfortable with the change. Dunn needs to very confident on the changes intended to be introduced, have the language to explain to the rest of the staff in the organization and motivate his followers. He also needs the muscle to execute the change and the strength to maintain it.

According to Jeffery (2005), a leader needs to meet a lot of demands and expectations. It is up to Dunn to design a route that will bring positive results by developing impressive strategies which will aid him in executing them in an effort to develop the organization’s capabilities and general competencies. A leader is always expecting that his followers will at last produce positive results, so that more people can continue to support them. It is therefore important to care about how these leaders will get positive results from their followers so as to enjoy untold support. Therefore, before embarking on being a leader who can create positive working environment for his workers, Dunn will have to first of all understand and interpret the kind of environment he is dealing with and try to develop the strategies which will propel him to victory. These strategies will then be executed fiercely and later on try to consider the impact of the strategy on the followers. Dunn needs to observe all of this to be successful.

Environment

It is up to Dunn to make sure that the environment is highly understood by learning the environment in which ski and foods is planted. He should be able to sense opportunities and target them, oversee threats and find ways to amicably deal with them. If Dunn will lead the company on the basis of what he has seen or experienced before and is not curious enough to try new strategies which come with opportunities all the time, ski and foods is likely to collapse. The biggest threat which is supposed to act as the company’s strength is cultural diversity imposed by the employees from South America who can barely speak English. They do their duties responsibly but have formed a cliché and do not easily interact with the rest of the employees. He also wants to introduce a new software which he will use to monitor all his employees progress. This is a technological change which will have positive sides but needs to effectively be communicated to his entire staff and in depth explanation is necessary. Judging from the look of things, if Estaban is promoted, ski and foods may face immense disunity. With his working experience he needs to address all these to keep the company going in harmony.

Cultural Diversity

Dunn needs to make sure that in this organization, all the employees have respect for people from other cultural backgrounds. He needs to make all his employees understand that by being culturally different they are exposed to immense chances of opportunity and professional growth. Being exposed to different foreign cultures influences the way people think, behave and make pertinent decisions. When people are open to multi-cultural environments, they are highly creative.

According to Madux (2014), if Dunn allows the ski and foods to be a multi-cultural company, all the staff will learn to adapt their perspectives, change their behaviors to new cultural contexts, learn about other cultures and thus they will benefit and become more creative in solving different kinds of problems that they may experience in their work place. Adapting, learning and identification as a result of interacting with new cultures will help the employees of ski and food to decode new cultures in a fresh way. They tend to integrate in their skills what they find in the new culture and therefore increase their ability to consider and combine multiple objectives (integrative complexity) therefore improving creativity of the employees.

Promotion and Leadership

It is not a bad idea for Esteban to desire a promotion and lead others. Ski and foods needs to understand that they have a responsibility of nurturing leadership in every one of their employees. To avoid disputes among the employees Dunn needs to create an environment where he will offer all of his employees a chance to lead something in the organization. If many employees are given leadership positions, they equally feel important and not left out, and as a result, the company will be at harmony. While at it, Dunn needs to understand that according to Kotter (2001), many companies have made serious mistakes in assuming that leading and managing mean the same thing. One can be a great leader but a terrible manager and vice versa. Leadership skills are normally nurtured. Currently, the environment is rapidly changing and skills needed to handle some jobs are evolving fast. The environment goes on to need more than just academic but hands-on experiences. This means that flatter organizations are in a position to adapt easily and quickly. Dunn should always make sure that the strategies in place are always under review to keep up with the ever changing environment.

New Technology

Introducing a new technology in ski and foods will not be as easy as it may seem. This is a technological change and can easily be rejected or could bring about negative feelings and demoralize the employees. While at it Dunn should be careful not to exhibit too much confidence as it could be damaging and could be misunderstood. In fact, when one is over confident, followers may think that he is arrogant and therefore may reject the kind of change he is advocating for. When one introduces change in an organization, he should be prepared to face possible resistance and thus needs proper skills to fight it. All he should do is make sure that he uses his common sense effectively and he is decent in his choices and shows high standards of intelligence.

According to Goldsmith, (2007), self confidence is a product of both self esteem and self assurance and is normally and easily noticed by followers. Followers who experience ultimate leadership is always calm, confident, always ready to help and will always feel confident whenever they are doing their daily responsibilities around the organization.

Formulating Strategies

Impressive leadership is evaluated on the fact that there are positive results from the followers. This is not an easy thing to achieve as it needs calculated strategies developed by Dunn. Strategies are mainly the actions that the players in an organization are going to do in order to achieve a particular productive end. Whichever strategy that Dunn intends to use in solving the problems he is facing, he needs to start by giving his employees particular responsibilities, defining the kinds of resources to be used in the actualization of the activity and give them a time period when results are expected. Each action should involve a particular reason so that the employees feel free to follow the strategy that has been developed and is being followed by Dunn. Strategies should exist at all levels and should be well coordinated for effective execution.

Execution of Strategies

The correct strategies always give remarkable results when they are impressively executed. Execution of strategies calls for every person in the organization to understand the strategy and the roles to be played in order to achieve a particular goal. The people in each level should be competitively recruited fit enough to handle the job, well motivated and should have immense directions and supervision for the desired results.

Monitoring the Results

After executing the strategies, Dunn needs to monitor his progress and see if it was flawlessly executed or has hitches and challenges. If there is a strategy that did not work, Dunn needs to be told about it and he has to make desirable adjustments or be prepared to completely change the whole strategy. Good leaders are always open to rejection and will adapt to it, and find solutions to the problem rather than quickly run away from it. By operating within a challenging situation, they can find amicable solutions which should be able to put ski and foods back in the right direction and might even do better than expected. Therefore adaption is a recommended virtue for Dunn.

Adaption to Change

According to (Martinuzzi, 2014), one of the most important strategies to use in making people comfortable in accepting change is by use of adaptability. According to (Martinuzzi, 2014), there are three main qualities of leadership that Dunn can adapt so as to be successful in solving these issues. They include the ability to motivate the people who work under him, being able to adapt and work well with people from different cultural backgrounds, and having the pertinent ability to facilitate change. Dunn being the overall leader of ski and foods needs to understand that all people working with him in regard to their cultural backgrounds.

This means that to address the problem of the multi-cultural employees Dunn himself will have to adapt to different cultures first before he can pass it on to his staff, even if it means immense training on cultural competence or learning of new languages so as to fit in well. As a good leader, Dunn and the rest of his employees need to get out of their comfort zone and open their mind to unending learning processes which is one way of adapting to change. It is highly recommended that Dunn should use his mental ability to match the real world so that he can be successful.

Mental Scripts

Whenever Dunn tries to impact change, he should always understand that there is mental script in each of his employees mind. Some of the employee’s mental script clings to one way of doing things and this may prove to be stubborn whenever a new method of doing things is introduced in the working environment. They might adamantly refuse to understand the new criterion of doing things and they understand that what worked in the past will automatically work for them in future and avoid what never worked previously.

All employees and managers should be adaptable and flexible enough to be influenced by the changes from the external environment. If their minds are closed to change, then Dunn should be aware that he is failing as he will have no ability to survive and succeed in the long run. Dunn as the CEO of ski and foods company should make sure that all his employees and staff is highly positive when dealing with change and does their best to change their priorities too.

Learning from John Levitz

Successful change occurs when the managerial team and the staff start by looking at the company’s competition, the company’s market position, latest technological trends and the financial performance. This information gives them a breakthrough of how to deal with emerging issues in the company that may affect them negatively. They will understand how to how to deal with emerging crisis and greater opportunities that may present IT themselves. John was keen on curbing up competition by customizing his products in accordance to his customers’ needs. Before getting on the onset of executing change, there should be aggressive cooperation of many individuals who should give their points of view. These people need to be well motivated so that they can help in the process of bringing these changes in an organization. It could be very challenging to drive people out of their comfort zones, because of lack of patience or being paralyzed by challenges that can be overcome. Sometimes, the management team could fear that the employees might become defensive and with the introduction of the new changes, their morale might decrease and this might send many activities out of control or short time businesses results would be jeopardized. They may also fear that the stock might sink and they might be blamed for bringing about the crisis in the company. One of the most essential Dunn’s responsibilities is to make sure that he has minimized all risks and all the departments in the company are operating normally.

Conclusion

It is therefore undeniable that bringing change in an institution can be highly challenging and it needs a lot of skill, work, commitment and being the example. While implementing these changes Dunn needs to very confident, and remember to communicate all the intended changes to his employees and staff as he needs them to make sure that his goals are reached for the benefit of ski and foods company. Through consistent communication, he will be in a position to motivate them so that they do not lose their morale and follow all the steps in the strategies laid ahead. Dunn also needs to remember that it is not just about executing the change, but he also needs the muscle to maintain it.

References

Gandz, J. (2005, January). Ivey Business Journal. Retrieved July 7, 2015, from http://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/the-leadership-role/#.VFu6N8qR_Qp.

Goldsmith, M. (2007). What got you here wont get you there. London: Hachette Books.

Kotter, J. (2001, December). Growing digital business. Retrieved July 7, 2015, from https://hbr.org/2001/12/what-leaders-really-do.

Kotter, J. (1995, April). Why transformation efforts may fail. Retrieved July 7, 2015, from http://www.csc.mnscu.edu/docs/LeadingChange.pdf.

Madux, W. (2014, July 24). Multicultural Experiences: Making the World Creative, Innovative...and Flat! Retrieved July 7, 2015, from http://knowledge.insead.edu/innovation/entrepreneurship/multicultural-experiences-making-the-world-creative-innovativean.

Martinuzzi, B. (2014). The Agile Leader: Adaptability. Retrieved July 7, 2015, from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_49.htm.