BUSS_552_M8A3 Final Project Milestone Three: Style of Leadership Reflection M8A3 Final Project Milestone Three: Style of Leadership Reflection Instructions Your paper should be 2 to 3 pages in length (not including title and reference pages). Your paper should be double-spaced, with 1-inch margins, in-text citations and references for all sources following proper APA formatting. Use the EC Library resources to properly cite your work: APA Format Tip Sheet Citing Sources Plagiarism & Copyright Use the EC Library guide to conduct your research: Business Research Guide Compose your work using a word processor (or other software as appropriate) and save it frequently to your computer. When you’re ready to submit your work, click Browse My Computer and find your file. Once you’ve located your file, click Open and, if successful, the file name will appear under the Attached Files heading. Scroll to the bottom of the page, click Submit and you’re done. Be sure to check your work and correct any spelling or grammatical errors before you post it. Review the SBT Short Paper Rubric by clicking on the “View Rubric” button at the top of this page, or by going to the “Start Here-Course Information” section of the course to see more information on grading criteria. Background Information Philosophy & Skills of Leadership. Many managers can attest to this experience: You ask an employee to carry out a task that has enough flexibility for creative input. Rather than making their own decisions, the employee comes to you with an onslaught of questions, trying to pin down the exact parameters of the task. You become exasperated, wondering why the employee has to ask you permission for every tiny detail. This is not an unusual phenomenon – it can be difficult to break out of the leader-follower mindset at the workplace. Researchers find that only rare, servant leaders are able to prevent employees from being excessively reliant on their bosses, cultivating instead a staff that feels empowered and self-guided. Trust and business acumen are some of the cornerstones in building this type of work culture. We can use this wisdom to train informed and decisive teams that we can trust. Tone and Vision. A vision is a short statement that will guide the company over the next three to five years. It is not the strategic plan, but helps guide that plan. The vision should guide what is put in the strategic plan. It should be capable of driving the organization to achieve a common goal, and be somewhat motivational so that there is a reminder of what the organization is trying to achieve when the going gets tough. That sets a tone for the organization. Without a vision, a business is like a ship without a rudder and is in danger of drifting aimlessly. Many businesses lack a clear vision, and tend to jump from project to project without a clear understanding of what binds the company together and/or the value created by individual actions. The company vision should provide the cornerstone for everything that is completed in the business. Ethics and Challenges. If you are anticipating working for a company, do you look at their ethics? It is difficult to determine if a company is ethical or not. If the CEO is involved in unethical practices, it is nearly impossible to determine if the company has ethical leadership. Your ethics are what will guide you in difficult times. Read about the Enron fiasco in this article, The Real Scandal. There were several senior people in the organization that were determined to hide financial wrongdoings from the public. Ultimately, managing yourself requires being aware of the question, ‘What are my values?’ There should be a compatibility between the values of the organization and the values of the employees. Reference The Economist. (2002). The real scandal. Prompt Compile and revise your Module One journal, Milestones One and Two, and Module Seven journal as you begin this final project. This final project submission should be 10-12 pages. Be sure to continue researching and adding substance to the sections about leadership ethics and dealing with conflicts. Take time to reflect on the feedback provided to you throughout the course as you finalize your submission. In your final project, you will also provide a summative reflection about the leadership skills you have studied. This project can serve as a personal leadership best practices manual that you can refer to long after you have left the course. You will also be reflecting on the lessons in leadership that have been covered in this course, and you will assess how they may have impacted your approach to leading. Make sure to read the assigned articles dealing with the characteristics of great leaders. You might consider adopting those that suit you (if you have not already). Tasks Analyze the philosophy and skills of leadership within a chosen organization. Evaluate the tone, mission, and vision of a chosen organization. Apply ethical concepts to a chosen organization. Evaluate the manner in which ethics guides the chosen organization with regard to challenges. Reflect on personal leadership qualities. The entire project submitted should be 10-12 pages in length and in APA format.

 

M8A3: Final Project Milestone Three – Style of Leadership Reflection

Student’s Name

Date

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract

Analyze the philosophy and skills of leadership within a chosen organization.

Evaluate the tone, mission, and vision of a chosen organization.

Apply ethical concepts to a chosen organization.

Evaluate the manner in which ethics guides the chosen organization with regard to challenges.

Reflect on personal leadership qualities.

 

 

Style of Leadership Reflection

Introduction

The paper follows an extensive research of leadership and critical analysis of its application in the functionality of Verizon Company. In its operations, Verizon under the leadership of CEO Lowell McAdam treats the approach to leadership, styles of guiding the organization to higher productivity, philosophy, and skills, tone and vision, as well as, ethical concepts as key entities of the process. Therefore, in this paper, we comprehensively look at each entity to exert to which extent does the respective component of leadership influence Verizon’s operations (Verizon.com, 2017). Also, exert the degree to which the leadership elements assist the organization to attain its goals and objectives both in short-term and long-term. As leadership management is crucial in every organization, this paper illustrates the best leadership attributes witnessed in the functioning of Verizon Company.

Philosophy and Skills of Leadership within Verizon

The analysis of Verizon Company asserts that the company effectively is guided by the company’s CEO Lowell McAdam philosophical approach as the pillar to the organization operations. According to McAdam, the organizational philosophy guiding Verizon functioning entails strong beliefs and approach to leadership based values and works ethics. As a firm believer of values and work ethics, McAdam asserts that an employee should “Never Cut Corners. Integrity is Everything” (Verizo.com, 2017). The philosophy as introduced by the company’s CEO as a pillar of the organizational operating philosophy requires that the employees seek moral values and work ethics as their guide in holding the highest integrity level. In turn, the philosophy serves a great deal in elevating the corporate culture that is spread across all departments of the organization.

The organizational philosophy as practiced from the top leadership brass lead by the company’s CEO McAdam, Verizon strives to incorporate a transparent and accountability values in its operations. The impact of an organizational philosophy guided by transparency and accountability induces a healthy workforce that is committed to doing what is right for the organization (Manning & Curtis, 2014). In turn, Verizon is assured of competitive advantage and high thrust of functioning giving it greater chance to achieve its goals with ease. The commitment of the employees and resulting healthy workforce makes it easy to adopt any new leadership strategy and philosophy as a pillar to the operations of the company. Verizon places its aspects on a high progressive path through strong leadership values and philosophical approach as a guide to the organization’s continued performance, excellence, and competitiveness.

Verizon’s leadership exerts strong leadership appeal to strengthen the organization towards the realization of all its goals and objectives in a timely and within the budget specifications. The leadership of McAdam portrays strong capacity of integrity, visionary, and transformative agenda for the organization. For example, McAdam’s strategy drawn in 2016 provides the first goal as “sustaining quality performance leadership in all our networks” (Verizon, 2017). In a clear strategic approach to leadership, Verizon’s leaders show a great concern and vision for the organization. The effective planning and implementation of the set plans steer the organization towards further development and competitiveness. The great leadership of CEO McAdam serves as a role model to the Verizon’s employees to follow their leaders and pursue the best interests of the organization vigorously.

The combination of effective leadership and philosophical approaches in Verizon places the company in a better position of functioning and achieving its goals and objectives efficiently. The thoroughness of leadership towards steering the organization to higher standards of operations, improving quality and service delivery all serve the best interest of the company. Similarly, philosophy in Verizon acts as the pillar guiding the organizational processes, strategic plans, and implementation (Palmer, Dunford, & Akin, 2009). Thus, under such influence of philosophical leadership and functioning, Verizon is guaranteed to molding committed and exceptional employees that strive for what is best for the organization in critical and transformative approach. Therefore, gives the company a higher notch of progress and realization of its set goals and objectives.

Tone, Mission, and Vision in Verizon

The operations of Verizon Communications Company comprehensively apply the mission and vision statements of the organization setting the platform for operations in precise and construed manner. This facilitates the operations of Verizon Company in an aligned approach to the operations and plans towards a common goal that impacts to the development of the organization (Northouse, 2012). This section asserts the importance of the mission and vision statements of Verizon in a comprehensive method that gunners for the organization’s opportunity of driving progress and effective change in the industry. The ability of Verizon to rise to the top and among the best-performing companies in the world results from the effective implementation and guidance of its mission and vision for the company.

The working in the telecom industry, it presents Verizon with a high level of competitiveness from the peers in the industry as it’s a constantly changing phenomenon. The telecommunications industry continues to diversify and transform because of the advancement of technology rapidly. Hence, companies like Verizon are required to keep up the pace of risk being extinct in the industry. The realization of such rapid pace of growth demands that the company possess a clear vision and mission for the organization to have distinctive strategic plans all aligned to the achievement of common goals and objectives (Koestenbaum, 2002). Therefore, Verizon’s leadership under the control of CEO McAdam believes in the focus of strong vision and mission to guide the operations of the company. In this approach, the vision and mission statements and implementation sets the tone of operations within the organization leading to the realization of comprehensive objectives of the company.

The Verizon’s Telecommunications Company mission statement states that “As a leader in communications, Verizon’s mission is to enable people and business to communicate with each other. We are also committed to providing full and open communications with our customers, employees, and investors” (Verizon, 2017). The mission statement provides the salient features of Verizon’s operating goals which entail enhancing communication by making use of all digital devices around the globe. The approach to improving communications in the digital world is seen as a fundamental entity of strengthening how businesses and people reach each other, the ease of the process, and the efficiency experienced in the process. In turn, this gives the company an upper hand of functioning and better performance in the industry.

The vision of Verizon is guided by the outstanding capacity of the company’s commitment to making the world’s communication easier and more efficient to facilitate growth and development. For example, the vision of the company guides the company’s responsibility of “delivering the connected world, creating better future for students, focusing on growth through innovative technology” (Verizon, 2017). The use of technology primarily digital communications aspects is at the forefront of Verizon’s goals and objectives as based on its vision. The impact of such sporadic growth provides the congruence of the vision and mission statements of Verizon to the short-term and long-term goals. The perseverance and commitment of the leadership and employees place the company in a better position to achieve the intended goals for the company impacting the development of the industry.

The visionary leadership guided by the CEO Lowell McAdam and other senior staff including Ray H. Chestnutt, Martin Burvill, Kenneth Dixon, Eric Cevis, among others place Verizon at a better position to inducing change and unparalleled development in the telecommunications industry. The combination of the vision, mission, leadership, and philosophy of the organization drive the tone of the company’s operations. The tone set in Verizon comprises of salient features that facilitating in setting the behavior of practice in the organization driving the foundation of a responsible workforce and corporate culture. The tone set for the operations of Verizon Telecommunications Company serves as a role model to others in the industry.

Application of Ethical Concepts in Verizon

The key to organizational development and achievement of the set strategic plans, goals, and objectives entails having comprehensive ethical concepts used in the organization. In this approach, Verizon treats ethics as critical entities of organizational success and competitiveness. The Verizon’s CEO Lowell McAdam is an adequate personality of leadership that highly induces ethical concepts and practices in the operations of the company. McAdam believes in building an ethical workforce that operates of nothing short of the highest integrity values. In turn, the induced integrity in the organization assures the manifestation of a corporate culture that incorporates work ethics, transparency, and accountability of their actions.

The leadership of McAdam is seen as Verizon’s best chance of developing an effective, ethical workforce that strives for the enhanced commitment to the organization and doing what is best for the organization. McAdam is a strong proponent of ethical concepts in Verizon’s functioning with the highest ideal of reaching the epitome of ethical standards in the organization. McAdam advocates that “Integrity is everything, trust your gut and act, you always have a higher gear” (LinkedIn, 2017). In turn, this gives McAdam a better chance serving as a role model to the employees to incorporate the best practices of ethical standards to guide in their operations and functioning in the company’s context. Such attributes serve as powerful entities in the process of developing an ethical workforce that can induce a great corporate culture.

The induction of transparency and accountability form some of the salient features of ethical corporate culture. An accountable workforce and transparency practices in Verizon serves as profound entities of spurring effective development and realization of congruent goals and objectives to the organization’s best practices (Manning & Curtis, 2014). The transparency and accountability approach in the organization gives Verizon a higher chance of ensuring the effectiveness of the company, competitive advantage, and enhanced corporate functioning. The alternative results to underdevelopment and leadership failure with a possible failure of the company to achieve its intended strategic goals and objectives. This undermines any chance of development or competitiveness of the company.

Therefore, Verizon’s ethical concepts including integrity, values, ethical standards, transparency, and accountability are salient features to the company’s operations. This gives the company a chance to assert its leadership and competitive position in the industry. The efforts to induce a committed workforce elevates the company’s competitive advantage that is profoundly essential to the company’s growth and future progress. Hence, Verizon’s leadership strives to ensure enhanced corporate culture guided by ethical concepts, philosophy, and transformative leadership.

Manner in which Ethics Guides Verizon with regard to Challenges

The organizational challenges are a significant threat to the functioning of the organization and its capacity to realize the set goals and objectives. The short comes with such an approach in sustaining growth, effective leadership, and reliable workforce in the organization. This culminates into the salient features that an organization requires to ensure that the organization strategic objectives are achieved in an effective manner. The approach to dealing with organizational challenges is essential to an organization as it determines its capacity to handle various and diverse issues that undermine the operations of the organization.  The ability of an organization to manage such obstacles effectively paves a way to install confidence and morale to the workforce impacting to strong ethical standards of the employees.

In Verizon Communications Company, approach to ethics has been critical to spurring its growth and development comprehensively. The extent to which Verizon has successfully induced ethics into the corporate culture asserts of the effective leadership the organization has in guiding its operations, management, and setting strategic plans and their implementation. The approach to leadership guided by McAdam serves as a critical feature to inducing ethical standards and practices in the organization. In turn, this results to effective leadership and eliminates the challenge of unaccountable and unethical leadership which risks spilling over to other departments (Northouse, 2012). Most of the companies are undermined by unethical leadership that ends up using their position for personal interests and loots the company leading to their collapse. Verizon has effectively induced ethics in its leadership to enhance transparency and accountability. Hence, sustaining a committed workforce with no tolerance of unethical practices.

Similarly, the challenge of laxity and lack of innovativeness is a non-existent issue in Verizon. Most companies strive to create a committed workforce with loyalty to the workforce with no success to unsustainable levels. In Verizon, the challenge of lack of commitment to the organization has been significantly suppressed and given no room to materialize in the operations of the company. For example, McAdam strives to develop a committed workforce guided by ethical values and standards of practice to give the company an upper hand in its operations. In turn, the company’s strategic goals can be effectively realized and provide a path for future generations to embrace the best practices of the company. Hence, loyalty drives creativity and innovativeness that enhances Verizon’s ability to sustain its global competitiveness in the telecommunications industry.

Additionally, it has always been in Verizon’s best interest to induce ethical standards and corporate culture that ensures the highest morale of its workforce and leadership relations. The alignment of the company’s goals, employees’ interests, and leadership approach is a challenge that must be comprehensively managed to induce high performance of the company (Palmer, Dunford, & Akin, 2009). The extensive use of ethics serves as a pillar of finding a common ground of these distinctive features that pose a challenge operating on their own. There is a need to bring them together and ensure that the operations of the company are aimed at one common goal. The functioning of each entity independently influences the response of the other. Therefore, ethics serves as the best approach to finding a common ground and guidance to implementation of each entity.

Personal Leadership Qualities

The attributes of personal leadership entail an illustration of the best practices that guides by beliefs, values, and aspirations to apply in the leadership style. As a person who’s results oriented, I tend to value pragmatic approach to leadership that seeks to induce actionable solutions to challenges and steady course of functioning aimed at realizing the set objectives (Nahavandi, 2016). In this aspect, leadership is held as key to the development, growth, and sustenance of organization’s progress. In this regard, the leadership style entails a transformative approach that aims to serve as an anchor to other employees, apply as the role model of emulation, and embrace of the best practices induced as a result.

The transformative style of leadership that I hold closely to my operations serves as the best aspiration to employees by bringing them closer to the organization and asserting their immense value. The enormous contribution of employees arises from the leadership, thus, must set the best example in the organization. As a transformative leader, I believe in continuous creativity and innovation to sustain the organization’s competitiveness from time to time (Zaccaro, Kemp, & Bader, 2004). As well, valuing of employees in the transformational leadership approach entails motivating the workforce to do their best for the organization. Such levels of commitment and ambition elevate the company’s performance as compared to the performance of other organization. This is a salient feature of my leadership attribute that embraces the organization’s employees as integral entities of the success of the company.

Moreover, my personal leadership attributes hold ethics and integrity as salient features of achieving any cognitive development in an organization. The value addition can on be assured by having an ethical workforce that strives to do the right for the organization in an enhanced corporate culture that guides the best practices (Lussier & Achua, 2015). The ethical leadership installs essential features in the organization like transparency, accountability, and responsibility. The feeling of taking responsible to one’s actions in an organization enhance the long-term goals and culture of the organization. In turn, makes it possible to achieve any set agenda within the stipulated resources and time.

Furthermore, the attribute of effective communication is critical to a person in a leadership position. Hence, I highly regard communication as a salient feature to achieving any objective in an organization. As an effective communication, it becomes easier to pass any organization information to the employees and enhance awareness of the organization’s mission and objectives. Therefore, it is simpler to get feedback from the employees, alternatives to the best practices and approaches, as well as, facilitate a cohesive workforce. The effective communication feature is a salient entity of leadership that manifests into the commitment of the employees and acquisition of ethical values in the workplace.

 

 

References

Koestenbaum, P. (2002). Leadership, new and revised: The inner side of greatness, a philosophy for leaders (Vol. 174). John Wiley & Sons.

Linkedin.com. (2017). CEO at Verizon. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/in/lowellmcadam/

Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2015). Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development. Nelson Education.

Manning, G., & Curtis, K. (2014). The art of leadership. (5th Ed.). Tata McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN#: 978-0077862459

Nahavandi, A. (2016). The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition. Pearson.

Northouse, P. G. (2012). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage.

Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Akin, G. (2009). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Verizon.com. (2017). Articles about Verizon chairman and chief executive officer of Verizon Communications. Retrieved from http://www.verizon.com/about/news-tag/ceo-lowell-mcadam

Verizon.com. (2017). Lowell C. McAdam Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Retrieved from http://www.verizon.com/about/our-company/lowell-c-mcadam

Verizon.com. (2017). McAdam: ‘Never Cut Corners. Integrity Is Everything.’. Retrieved from http://www.verizon.com/about/news/mcadam-never-cut-corners-integrity-everything

Verizon.com. (2017). Verizon’s CEO: Our strategy to deliver the promise of the digital world. Retrieved from http://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizons-ceo-our-strategy-deliver-promise-digital-world

Zaccaro, S. J., Kemp, C., & Bader, P. (2004). Leader traits and attributes. The nature of leadership, 101, 124.

 

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