ORG 300 CSU ABC Animal Rescue and community Volunteers Relationship Essay Option #1: Board of Directors Essay
Imagine that you work as a volunteer for the local community animal shelter called ABC Animal Rescue. You have volunteered for approximately four years. The Board of Directors has asked you to meet with a group of 25 volunteers and the local community during a fundraising event. The Board requested that you mingle with the volunteers, many of which you already know, and the local community members.
The purpose of your mingling is to build relationships and trust between the organization (ABC Animal Rescue) and the community/volunteers. You agree because you are passionate about this cause.
Using the results of the “New Drivers of Leadership” self-assessment, and the 10 traits from the Jones (2015) article “What Employees Want in a Leader,” describe how you would approach the community and volunteers to build relationships and trust.
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The new drivers of leadership
Casse, Pierre.Training Journal; London (Feb 2014): 27-30.
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The rationale underlying the energy’ driver is that dealing with the challenges that abound in today’s
world requires a high level of energy. This driver is all about the ability to cope with adverse
conditions. It suggests the ability to stand up and fight for one’s ideas and values. It is an indication
of the extent of one’s stamina and the ability to mobilise one’s own personal resources in order to
persevere and overcome resistance in the pursuit of one’s beliefs.
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Pierre Casse sets out what leaders must do to make a difference in today’s “turnaround world”
“The world we are getting into is new. What’s new?”
Anonymous
“Turnaround world? It has always been a turnaround world!”
Anonymous
As a result of my dealings with hundreds of executives from many different sectors, I conclude that,
in order to perform and enjoy in today’s fast changing business world, leaders must consider three
critical requirements.
Firstly, they must have a good grasp of the leadership fundamentals. In other words, they must
understand the basic requirements of leadership practice, such as the ability to:
* provide a clear direction to those with whom they collaborate
* mobilise their people by focusing on selected key priorities
* transform ideas into actions
* co-ordinate appropriate actions to generate tangible results.
Furthermore, they must also appreciate the following three key dimensions of leadership:
* leading oneselfthe ability to be an effective role model
* leading the team – the ability to help people in a team to achieve together what they would have
been unable to achieve alone
* leading the organisation – the ability to move the organisation forward while making sure continued
performance improvement is beneficial to all those involved, as well as to the wider society.
Secondly, leaders must understand that different roles within the organisation require different ways
of thinking and behaving. For instance, the leadership requirements at the top of the organisation are
not the same as those required in the field. Leaders at board level will need to take a more strategic
perspective and focus more on the long term, whereas leaders in the field must necessarily be more
short-term focused.
Moreover, the leadership requirements will differ from one function to another and this will inevitably
be a determining factor in how people perform as leaders. To illustrate, leaders in the finance
function will arguably require greater proficiency in their analytical and computational skills than
those leaders in marketing, who will need a level of intuition more finely tuned to trends in customer
preference. The point is that, while there will be overlap in some leadership requirements, there will
also be function-specific ones to consider.
Thirdly, my research shows clearly that the leadership fundamentals also comprise the following four
key drivers:
* idea The ability to project oneself into the future and anticipate what would be necessary to
improve on what currendy exists
* process The ability to organise scarce resources so that ideas can be released effectively and
efficiendy
* people The ability to generate commitment and engagement among others around ideas,
strategies and action plans
* action The ability to transform ideas, strategies and plans into concrete results.
The point that I am trying to make is that the traditional leadership fundamentals are no longer
sufficient. The nature of the situation in which leaders find themselves today requires a step beyond
the traditional. There are specific leadership requirements more appropriate for the modern era that
we must not ignore.
Before highlighting some of the new’ leadership drivers, I would like you to go through the
selfassessment exercise set out on the left, tabulate the results as advised and consider the de-brief,
which will explain the potential implications of the results.
A leadership self-assessment exercise
Please choose in each pair of items, in the boxes above left and right, the one that you think is quite
typical of you at work (ie which one you prefer while working). You will decide at the end whether or
not the outcome makes sense for you.
Then, in the table bottom left, circle the numbers you have chosen, add up the number of circles for
each driver and record this in the box in the column on the right. The higher the score, the more
comfortable you are with that driver.
De-brief
Driver one – energy
“The energy of the mind is the essence of life”
Aristode
The rationale underlying the energy’ driver is that dealing with the challenges that abound in today’s
world requires a high level of energy. This driver is all about the ability to cope with adverse
conditions. It suggests the ability to stand up and fight for one’s ideas and values. It is an indication
of the extent of one’s stamina and the ability to mobilise one’s own personal resources in order to
persevere and overcome resistance in the pursuit of one’s beliefs.
Reflect on your score for driver one. Do you think it is a fair reflection of your current predisposition
with respect to the ‘energy’ driver?
Driver two – focus
“The suns rays do not burn until brought to focus”
AG Bell
The second driver is about ‘focus’. In a turnaround world full of unexpected surprises and demands,
leaders must be able to prioritise and, in so doing, focus on what is important at the moment in
question. Since leaders must allocate resources that are scarce, they must focus their attention on
the pertinent and avoid inhibiting distractions.
Reflect on your score for driver two and ask yourself how good you are at selecting and focusing on
that which is critical for success.
Driver three – speed
“In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed”
R W Emerson
The third driver is ‘speed’. In a world in which change is rapid and accelerating, leaders must be able
to implement key actions quickly. This is not to say that leaders must be able to get everything done
at break-neck speed but, certainly, the ability to make progress in vital areas without delay is a key
leadership success factor.
When launching a project, leaders must be decisive and have a clear idea of the pace with which the
plan should be executed.
Looking to the leadership research, the following findings are clear:
* time pressure can be a condition for ensuring high quality results provided the pressure is not
unmanageable and becomes counter-productive
* high achievers are people who enjoy working to tight deadlines provided they have freedom over
the way in which they design and organise their work
* everything cannot be urgent! Leaders must decide on what is critical. Leaders who claim that all
projects and actions are critical, and should be implemented at high speed, soon lose their
credibility.
Reflect on your score for driver three. Is it in line with the perception that you have of yourself? What
could it mean for you as a leader?
Driver 4 – challenge
“A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it”
M Proust
The fourth driver is ‘challenge’. Leaders who make a real impact are usually those who refuse to
accept the status quo. Such leaders are careful not to take anything for granted; they challenge our
assumptions and provoke us out of our complacency.
Challenging leaders are those who can use different reference points when looking at a situation.
They continually question and probe to generate numerous potential options to problems at hand.
Reflect on your score for driver four. As you do so, consider the following questions. How good are
you at:
* accepting new and innovative ways of looking at the problems with which you are faced?
* recruiting people who think very differently to you?
* taking risks by listening to those proposals that may, at first sight, look esoteric and unsound?
Some leadership implications
The four drivers that I have outlined in this article imply that, in order to prove effective, leaders must
make special efforts in the management of their teams, organisations and even countries. In doing
so, they must bear in mind some implications when deciding on what they must do to ensure
success.
Create a top team able to activate the four drivers, in the right way and at the right time
Leaders in close collaboration with the executive in charge must prove complementary. They must
have the ability to look at any situation from the perspective of the four drivers and ask:
* do we have the required stamina to face the problems at hand or to take advantage of the existing
opportunities?
* are we able to choose from all the options the ones that will really make a difference?
* how good are we at moving fast in some key areas and making it happen before anybody else
does?
* do we have the courage to question our own perceptions and decisions while everything is telling
us that we are right?
The organisational leader will also have to manage the top team in such a way that the
confrontations and contradictions between the drivers are a source of synergy, not destruction.
Create a corporate culture that is conducive to using the four drivers This implies that the
organisation’s value system must support and promote the application of the four drivers. People
should feel comfortable with ambiguity, paradox and contradiction. Corporate key players will have
to understand that the traditional decision making based on ‘either/or’ is over. They will have to
accept that the right way to decide is now characterised by an ‘either/and’approach!
This is not going to be easy to do. Many people will resist the use of the four drivers and feel
extremely ill at ease with the new behaviours. However, generating buy-in will require a systematic
approach from top leaders of which the most important component will be acting as a role model.
Assess the validity of the four drivers as well as their effectiveness overall and in specific situations
There is also a need for leaders to continually review and assess the validity and effectiveness of the
four drivers. In fact, in some situations there is a good chance that the reverse of what is
recommended in this article could be more relevant and effective. For instance:
* to shoot for different objectives simultaneously to increase the probability that one will prove to be
the right one
* to let others take the big risk may prove wiser in some highly competitive situations
* to decrease the energy level and release collaborators so that they get the chance to grow from
their own experiences
* to stop challenging the existing situation and just move with what we have can be the best way to
succeed in some circumstances.
Conclusions
The best leadership models are those that leaders themselves invent. Having said that, leaders can,
of course, find inspiration from other executives, academics and from the results of research in the
field. Nevertheless, the best route to success for any person in a leadership position is to come up
with the mind-sets and behaviours that will provide a good match between the individual leader and
the requirements of the situation in which he may find himself.
This implies that the leader will need the ability to:
* know himself in terms of strengths and weaknesses
* make a diagnosis of the situation in which he finds himself, in terms of the requirements for
success
* understand and measure the impact of his own behaviours on the situation at hand.
Any diagnosis should then ideally lead to some decisions regarding the leadership behaviour that
has been employed. The leader must determine whether the behaviour is effective and, if not, how it
might be improved. TJ
Sidebar
The nature of the situation in which leaders find themselves today requires a step beyond the
traditional
Sidebar
Leaders who make a real impact are usually those who refuse to accept the status quo
AuthorAffiliation
Professor Pierre Casse
is professor of leadership at the Moscow School of ManagementSkolkovo. He can be contacted via
www. skolkovo.ru
Word count: 1982
Copyright Fenman Limited Feb 2014
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