Organizational Clarity: Leadership styles -Visionary Leadership

This assignment for Organizational Development touched upon different leadership styles and what I would consider is my leadership style. Also, why I would be comfortable implementing this leadership style in the workplace or in my career in the near future and why it should be implemented. I have posted the assignment below:

Well, in the same theme as my first posting I consider my leadership style more in the area of the Visionary Leadership as I stated before my style as I have gotten (way) older is one of inclusion instead of exclusion, I prefer to build up the people around me than follow a one goal, one vision purpose (Cameron, & Green, 2015). Getting people on board and developing their professional skills is very important for any organization to grow and prosper.

Although it is important to have direction in an organization, relying on the members there within is also important, meaning that you must be able to trust your employees to do their job, instead of micromanaging them to do what it is you hired them to do. This type of leadership style also builds upon the integrity and respect of the individual to do the right thing for the organization as a whole.  Creating a “company culture” that builds trust and communication, which then can lead (as I stated before) to an atmosphere of positive morale and innovation that will help the organization overcome issues that may plague it. The relationship builds on trust and personal/professional development assist a leader when they need to “see” what others see and develop solutions in areas they themselves are not too familiar with (Cameron, & Green, 2015).  Plus, innovation of course, buffers an organization against negative changes within the marketplace or help it develop new products/service that will give it an advantage over the competition, thereby leading to new sources of revenue.

Also, this leadership style personalizes the employees instead of look at theme as mere cog in the machine, that personalization to me, means that the organization wants to keep you around and understands that you are essential to its profit margin than simply being replaceable. With this type of leadership an organization essentially values the employee’s experience whether it is in areas of productivity, to problem solving or even developing market plans, the organization, wants to the employee to reach the highest potential in each area.  It’s my experience when management develops their employees they stick around longer, work harder and become more knowledge in the field of their expertise. These managers usually lead teams that are very successful in the past organizations I have worked for and are usually the ones that are most imitated.

However, this is more of a personality characteristic than a leadership style, building trust with others, a rapport and helping them grow professional although to me, is essential with working with others, is not always something that many of the managers I worked with, chose to do. Therefore, leading to high turnover rates, or migrating from one crisis to another on a daily basis without any end or positive turnaround in sight for the organization. I always felt this was a very tiring way to manage people (adults), it has been my experience to find out what motivates an individual, then personalize a goal for an activity’s completion and you will be to get a 110% every time out of an employee. Meanwhile you can be developing skills that will make the employee more productive and enhance their problem-solving skills in ways the organization and (yourself) as a manager can benefit from.

Reference
Cameron, Esther, and Mike Green. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers, 2015.

Organizational Development article: The Learning Organization Revisited

As part of one assignment I had to read a Organizational Development themed article and comment upon it. This article was located on the Roosevelt University blog entitled: “The Learning Organization Revisited” I will post my response to the blog below, but I recommend reading the blog and maybe even commenting upon the article itself. Here is my posting which you will find also upon the site:

I like the idea of what respecting others in the workplace to create a learning environment, in my experience so far I have not seen any organization, department or team that meets or exhibits this type of thought process. Usually when it comes to stimulate any type of learning it is done by self-motivated employees or individuals from the training and development department, the managers play no part in the learning process. What managers can do, as mentioned in the video, for assisting employees contributing to the learning process are not instilled in the usual organizational culture and instead are thought of as characteristic of “weak” leadership. Giving a chance for employees to have a debate regarding ideas, policies and procedures even during “open house” discussions that I have seen, are just opportunities for managers to identify troublemakers or squash “challenges” to the current method of “doing things” in regular organizations.

Although I believe organizations that have this type of learning environment established, have managers who openly encourage innovation, and the dissemination of best practices will be highly productive and successful, I have not seen it yet. To do so most organizations need a change to their entire organization’s culture, to reverse the mindsets of CEOs and management staff included that believe creating supportive learning environment in which best practices can be shared and discussion of alternative points of view are not complete wastes of time. If the organization is serious about change, and the management staff is not it is in the best interest of the organization to move forward with personnel changes and recruit leaders who are to committed to this new environment.
I have taken the Learning Organization Survey as recommended by the authors of the article and my organization scaled highest score was in the area of “Time for reflection” at 48.6 I had five of these categories in averaging at 14.3% the others in the low twenties and thirties. This was far above what I expected to score for my organization but quite accurate in various areas.

Reference
Iverson, Kathleen (2012) “The Learning Organization Revisited” February 13, 2012 RU Training @ Roosevelt University in Chicago, Graduate Program in Training & Development, Roosevelt University Retrieved on April 5, 2017 from:
https://rutraining.org/2012/02/13/the-learning-organization-revisited/

Organizational Clarity: When is an Internal/External Organization Development Professional needed to create Organizational Change?

In one of my classes for Organization Development we were asked about what we as individuals would choose from possible candidates form the Organization Development (OD) field in regard to a particular skill set we believed is needed. The skill set of this individual must be one that can easily facilitate Organizational Change in the best or Worse case scenario. This is a fictional account for this assignment, of course, is with an organization that has an unlimited budget and resources was crafted with those variables in mind. Please post any comments or questions to facilitate a discussion in the comments sections below.

Please read the exercise on Page 292 in your text and answer the following questions. Check back often to create dialogue and discuss your answers.

When would you use an internal consultant for this position? When would you use an external consultant? Why?

The best way to answer this question and overcome any team building exercise to effectively assess and craft a program that meets the organizational goal of increasing team productivity is to hire an outside consultant. One of the skills I chose was Objectivity, and to be totally objective the Organization Development (OD) Practitioner should come into the organization from the outside, although one would argue an internal consultant would be more effective (Anderson, D. L. (Ed.), 2011). However, in this scenario even the leader is “feels” that the team functions “well” but wants to improve the team’s performance with this type of indecision from management I would hazard a guess that might be the prevailing attitude of the organization. Therefore, bringing in an outside consultant who can objectivity look into the processes and procedures decisively is needed to overcome this possible roadblock of Organizational culture.

Reference
Anderson, D. L. (Ed.). (2011). Cases and Exercises in Organization Development & Change. Sage.

Organizational Clarity: What the top 10 skills needed from an Organization Development Professional needed to create Organizational Change?

In one of my classes for Organization Development we were asked about what we as individuals would choose from possible candidates from the Organization Development (OD) field in regard to a particular skill set we believed is needed. The skill set of this individual must be one that can easily facilitate Organizational Change in the best or Worse case scenario. This is a fictional account for this assignment, of course, is with an organization that has an unlimited budget and resources was crafted with those variables in mind. Please post any comments or questions to facilitate a discussion in the comments sections below.

What are your top 8 to 10 skills needed for a position by an Organization Development (OD) Professional to be hired for an Organization in need of Organizational Change?
I believe in this scenario as a leader of a management team when tasked to hire an Organization Development (OD) Professional these are the top 10 skills needed for this position (Anderson, D. L. (Ed.), 2011):

1. Sense of Humor
2. Objectivity/Neutrality
3. Group Development
4. Written Communication
5. Strategic Planning
6. Team Building
7. Training Delivery Skills
8. Designing Interventions
9. Managing Stress
10. Leadership

Even though the team performance is great I would focus on these ten skills, having a sense of humor myself I would need a professional with the same skill however I would want them to be objective as possible to give the situation an outsider’s point of view of how the team could improve.
Group Development, Team Building and Written Communication are essential skills for an OD Professional to have for this endeavor due to its focus on a team based intervention. To implement the intervention properly, I think Strategic Planning is a required skill that coupled with Designing Interventions or the proper one in this case will only assist in the program being a success (Anderson, D. L. (Ed.), 2011).

The team’s productivity overall after the program depends on how the OD Professional leads the program (Leadership), clarifies the program’s content and intent (Training Delivery skills) to the team and does it with a level head (Managing Stress) so that the focus is on the learners. An OD Professional with all these skills I believe would be the most effective person for this type of opportunity, while helping the organization achieves its goal of increasing team productivity.

Reference
Anderson, D. L. (Ed.). (2011). Cases and Exercises in Organization Development & Change. Sage.