Leadership Assessment Essay

Leadership can be best defined as beauty. One may say that is in the eye of the beholder. The best managers consistently allow different leaders to emerge and inspire their teammates. My prior organization, Comcast Corporation, a telecommunications provider, mission statement is to deliver a superior experience to their customers every day. Jason Biske, whom is Director of Sales and Operation, created an environment where Comcast is focused solely on customers by building relationships. When we would see him, he would always speak and ask how your day or sales was going. Jason was really big on keeping the sales floor informed of new promos or contests that were going on by sending constant email communications, ongoing training sessions, or holding focus groups on various processes of improvement in the sales process. When it came to leadership styles, Jason Biske demonstrated several. He embraced democratic, coaching, pacesetting, and authoritative. He initiated structure and created an environment that made you feel a part of something. Along with that he showed consideration. We felt like our opinions mattered and there was a concern for the employees. Leaders provide a sense of direction for the employees of the organization. Without this sense of direction (both strategic and ethical), the organization and its employees could easily lose their direction.In order for any leader to be successful all styles need to be incorporated. Leaders, therefore, are given the responsibility of creating and shaping culture. The organizational structure that has been created has positioned the company in the smartest way possible. † As the world changes, the culture of organizations must sometimes be re-shaped to better fit the environment and the overall strategy of the organization (Buhler)†.Comcast strongly believes in teamwork, integrity, creativity and commitment within the organization. Managers must be convinced of the benefits as well as higher performance for their teams if they are to become enthusiastic leaders of change. â€Å"Above all, senior executives should encourage managers to think big: the new world of work opens up new possibilities for how companies define their boundaries and organize work (Lund, 2012)†.Having such a strong team of leadership gives employees as well as potential talent something to look forward to in regards to a career. The positive thing about having a clear organizational structure is simply it allows you to see the formal relationship that exits between the departments. Jason Biske‘s job as director was to improve the sales process and increase revenue in the sales department. As a result he increased revenue by 24 percent. He also rolled out a process called Sales Pro which would make the sales process simpler by focusing on relationships. Even though his styles motivated employees, he used communication through m ass emails mostly. On a daily basis, you would receive several reports on how the company is profiting. At my career level no one understood how we were contributing to these successes. Jason would get you excited to make money but somewhere in there the leadership failed.† According to Moorhead and Griffin (1998) employee motivation and ability jointly contribute towards employee performance and the most challenging task of the managers is to motivate employee to execute the utmost of their ability†. (Iqbal)†. When you have middle managers that are not as excited about their jobs, it is hard to keep the customer service reps motivated to sale the product or meet numbers when the objectives are not clear. In an organization, an individual has to be seen as a contributor. Most importantly, you have to keep your employees motivated. Most people never make it to the top because they are successful at being a doer instead of being a leader. â€Å"Leadership is more about inspiration, about guidance, about communication and building trust among the team. Management is probably the day-to-day running of an organization. It is about developing and organizing aspects of your businesses and running those businesses (Toor, 2011)†. Some best pra ctices that organizational leaders can follow are 1. Accept feedback from the people that work with you. No one knows best other than the people that deal with the customers every day. Some of the most successful companies are profitable because the organizational leader listened to what the employees shared. There is value in shared values. Secondly, try a crazy idea every now and then. Employees like creativity and a challenge to keep them on their toes. Lastly, show courage. Effective leaders sometimes have to issue orders whether or not it means they are popular or not. If you are leading effectively then your team will support you. Leaders are made, not born. â€Å"I consider leadership as something long term with a clear vision of what to achieve. Management, however, is more about function; it’s short-term and involves setting a target and achieving it. Diversity is not only important to the work environment and the business but it can also have some legal ramifications if not followed properly.† Workplace Diversity refers to the variety of differences between people in an organization. The roots of diversity does not begin to range from race, gender, ethnic group, age, personality, educational background etc., rather it begins from perception of the employees towards each other (Andrew Patrick, 2011)†. Ccompanies that embrace employees from different cultural backgrounds, experiences and even countries are better positioned to succeed in this century. Hiring a diverse workforce helps a company stay in compliance with employment laws and build workplaces that are more inclusive. It also assists employees in reaching their fullest potential. When hiring and managing employees from different cultures and backgrounds it can be challenging, but it can also be very rewarding. â€Å"Diversity is not a photo opportunity. Anybody can recruit anybody. Keeping people is the challenge (Sreedhar, 2011)†. Most corporations have diversity council which allows you to manage diversity globally therefore allowing others to learn from different perspectives and cultures. From a business perspective, companies have become more innovative requiring expansion into global territories. It requires them to move people as well as products around. With that being said, a company must be able to understand international customers, their commerce and their competition better than before. Works Cited Andrew Patrick, H. (2011). Knowledge Workers Demography and Workplace Diversity. Journal Of Marketing & Management, pp. 2(2), 38-73. Buhler, P. M. (n.d.). The evolving leader of today. Supervision. pp. 59(12), 16. . Iqbal, J. Y. (n.d.). EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN MODERN ORGANIZATION: A REVIEW OF 12 YEARS. Interdisciplinary Journal Of Contemporary Research In Business,. pp. 4(3), 692-708. Lund, S. M. (2012). Preparing for a new era of knowledge work. pp. Mckinsey Quarterly, (4), 103-110. Sreedhar, U. (2011). Workforce Diversity and HR Challenges. Advances In Management. pp. 4(10), 33-36. Toor, S. (2011). Differentiating Leadership from Management. An Empirical Investigation of Leaders and Managers. Leadership & Management In Engineering, pp. 11(4), 310. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)LM.1943-5630.0000138.