Leadership Essay Example for Free

Leadership Essay The importance in developing greatness and achieving success lies within the ability to carry out Level 5 leadership. It is evident that companies who are Level 5 leaders have prospered greatly and attained stock returns at least 3 times the markets (Collins, 2005). Taking this into consideration those companies who did not possess level 5 leaders were able to achieve success only for a period of time but failed to sustain it any longer than that. Humility and will are behaviours that make up the qualities of a level 5 leader and their importance lies in the fact that having this quality either can make or break a company. Over many years, out of a large number of companies that were researched, only a small number of them truly sustained their growth and this came down to whether or not the leaders of these Fortune 500 companies sat atop the hierarchy or whether they lacked the level 5 trait. There are also implications for todays management and the issue of whether executives need to plan for the future and weigh the costs against the benefits of certain projects. Workplace branding is also an important factor that needs to be taken into consideration by Level 5 leaders as they have huge potential to influence their organizations brand. Furthermore, level 5 leadership is an attribute that can be developed but is not for everyone. Analysis Leadership is a significant element in any business as without it, a business is doomed to fail right from the start. Having a strong leader can eliminate disputes and internal problems. A company must have internal strength before it can be strong enough to outperform the general market. Humility in a Level 5 Leader We can characterize a level 5 leader by many unique traits however, the two most important according to Jim Collins is humility and will. Collins depicts these leaders as modest and willful, shy and fearless (Collins, 2005). Jim Collins defines a level 5 leader as an executive in whom genuine personal humility blends with intense professional will (Collins, 2005). He describes a hierarchy where level 5 leaders sit on the top and exhibit these tendencies while working in professional frameworks supported by effective teamwork. Since a level 5 leader is said to have both humility and will, level 5 leaders exhibit a twofold quality, therefore, humility is positively acknowledged as a quality of successful leaders. Humility is a key aspect to level 5 leadership and those that emboss this quality often credit others, external factors, and good luck for their companies success (Collins, 2005). These types of leaders, when commenting on their company success will praise the employees for contributing their skills and efforts to its triumph and shy away from giving themselves attention. According to a report, a leader who has humility is unlikely to impose their own personal vision on others and is more likely to admit any flaw in their own vision (Lawrence, 2006). Instead of crediting themselves and their own efforts they exhibit a type of nature that allows them to recognize others. Leaders with humility dont seek success for their own gloryand theyre first to accept blame for mistakes (Mind Tools Ltd. , 2013). Level 5 leaders possess the seed (Collins, 2005) which is a quality that allows them to subjugate to something larger than themselves (Collins, 2005). This is a powerful virtue and one that sets those companys who succeed apart from those that fail. Those leaders that possess humility managed to transition their companies from good to great. We have seen in comparison companies that failed to do this, their downfall was their lack in humility. As a result, we can make the connection that humility is necessary to a companys success. A company is a network of people who work as a team and leaders that display humbleness towards their employees, by taking responsibility when things go wrong and recognizing the team for their hard work, will reach eminent success. Companies that exhibited this kind of behaviour included Kroger Co, Kimberly-Clark, and Gillette to name a few, while others such as AP, Scott Paper, and Bank of America were comprised of leaders that were self centered. It is evident that these types of leaders led their company to destruction especially during the 2007 to 2008 crisis. In this case and every other, humility matters [because] chaos could have been averted if appointment committees had recruited Level 5 leaders (Mind Tools Ltd. , 2013). Collins was able to change the worlds view about what makes a great leader which many thought was charisma and personality. The mistake most of these comparison companies made was believing that level 5 leaders gentle and shy nature would bring them down when in reality, those characteristics are what brought them to the top. Comparison company leaders felt that charisma and forwardness was the way to the top of the hierarchy however, they soon found out this was not the key to success. Other important characteristics that mold a level 5 leader is discipline, determination, and integrity. While most people believe that having an extreme personality is necessary, they fail to recognize that these traits are what makes up some peoples personalities, which is what makes them great leaders. Jim Collins emphasized Darwin Smith in this respect; a man with iron will (Collins, 2005) and one that never stopped having faith in the success of his company. There arises a compelling need for leadership in a business and this need stems from the desire to grow and achieve higher goals [which] never develops, (Martin, 1999) if there is no potent leader in place. Corporate Changes in Leadership As only 11 Fortune 500 companies flourished to greatness, the attributes each company possessed in similarities was Level 5 leadership. These 11 companies that made Collins list averaged returns 6. 9 times greater than the markets, (Collins, 2001) doubling the returns of their rivals. There have been many attempts to change a corporate vision by changing leadership however, setting a new direction has not shown anticipated results nor has articulating a fresh corporate vision (Collins, 2001). The mistake most companies have made is focusing more on the direction of the business rather than the people implementing the strategy. World leaders have sought to take advantage of this unique approach by having the right people on the management team and then divulging into the what question many have asked. Having a company comprised of the right people is the most important step because these types of people can adapt to changing circumstances rather than having to adapt the companys direction to match the teams vision. What leaders such as Darwin Smith did, was develop a hedgehog concept where they can simplify a complex world into a single, organizing idea (Collins, 2001) and take their company to new lengths. Kimberly-Clark Kimberly Clark, a paper company, was one of these that had remained successful after experiencing a change in leadership. With Darwin E. Smith in position to act as CEO, the company was transformed into the giant success that it is today. Initially, Kimberly-Clark was just like any other old paper company that was considered good but not great. All that changed when Darwin Smith became CEO in 1971. This man was credited with turning Kimberly-Clark into an innovative consumer products powerhouse (Anshuman, 2005). The first step to its transformation was the elimination of the Kimberly-Clark mills. Many people were skeptical about the move but Darwins determination allowed the company to overcome its rivals and beat the market. It was his strength and leadership that paved the way for its transformation. Anshuman mentions in his blog that Smith made sure his leadership team consisted of those people that met his standards and separated them from those who did not (2005, October 22). By building strength within the company first, Darwin was able to create strength externally as well, which gave the company an advantage and allowed it to expand geographically. Furthermore, Darwin pushed his efforts towards strengthening the companys position in the tissue segment of the paper industry (Anshuman, 2005). It was evident that these newly implemented strategies were thriving since stockholders experienced returns of 19. 6% annually (Anshuman, 2005) and it was his qualities of crediting others for the companys success that truly brought it to greatness. Before Darwin, Kimberly-Clarks CEO was headed in the wrong direction as its stock had fallen 36% behind the general market, (Collins, 2005) and this was no small number. The reason for this fall was because the companys leadership team was not focused on its main operations and the areas that would bring the company to greatness which in turn caused Kimberly-Clark to fall short. This downfall was brought by Kimberly-Clarks failure to keep up with early disposable diaper improvements and market innovations (Funding Universe, n. d. ). Clearly Smith had the right idea when he took the initiative to merge with Scott Paper. After its transformation, Kimberly Clark was generating stock returns 4. 1 times greater than the general markets (Collins, 2005). Kimberly-Clark became the leading consumer paper products company in the world, (Collins, 2005) outperforming not only the market but even other giant, well known, companies such as Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, and Coca-Cola. Kimberly-Clark was on Collins list because the company was able to sustain greatness after they had attained it for the first time. Smith succeeded in making Kimberly-Clark a great company and this was possible because he had the qualities of a level 5 leader. It is duly noted that transforming a company from good to great is not an easy task but those leaders holding this paradoxical combination of traits, (Collins, 2005) those of humility and professional will, have the ability to achieve this prominence. What Kimberly-Clarks team and other great companies did was not starting something new but essentially taking the action to stop doing something they have done for many years. To discontinue a main part of their business is what led them to become great. For Kimberly-Clark, that meant it would have to stop doing paper mills, (Collins, 2001) for other companies it may mean eliminating unnecessary or time consuming strategies. This company did not achieve success over night or by some miracle but through simplicity and diligence (Collins, 2001). Kroger Co Kroger Co, a grocery store chain, was normally seen as an average company or nothing out of the ordinary until it dramatically transformed and started racking up large returns. When it broke free of its mediocrity to beat the stock market by 4. 16 times, (Collins, 2001) it continued its rally and in a 15 year period Kroger outperformed the market by 10 times (Collins, 2001). Before this occurred however, Kroger was run by leaders that were less likely to succeed and turn the company around to sustainability. From the early years, Kroger was a successful company because its strategy emphasized customer wants and needs rather than the organizations itself, although for the first 80 years it was nothing more than average. However, a main reason for Krogers experienced growth lay in its acquisitions such as the one with Dillon Companies Inc. in 1983 which smoothed Krogers transition into [becoming] a coast-to-coast operator of food, drug and convenience stores (The Kroger Company, 2013). During the time of this acquisition, Lyle Everingham was CEO of Kroger and his leadership skills led the company to utilize extensive consumer research to focus on meeting customer needs first, rather than on what suited Kroger best, (Zwiebach, 2008) which is the vision Kroger initially set out in the beginning and proved to be successful. The acquisition with Dillon was not the most significant either but it was Krogers merger with Fred Meyer that developed the companys geographic culture as well as created the widest variety of formats in the foot retailing industry (The Kroger Company, 2013). This merger under the direction of the next CEO, Joseph A. Pichler, created a major buzz and resulted from his outward looking perspective. All of these leaders possessed the skills that allowed them to sustain the growth in the business which was seen in the many years Kroger beat the stock market. Following the years of average performance, the leaders from there on in all had something in common; they were all level 5 leaders who contributed their own efforts to continuing Krogers growth and from 1973 to 1998, Kroger outperform the market by 10 times (Collins, 2001). 1973 was Krogers turning point and leaders realized that the current model was going to continue demonstrating average performance so they took the initiative and began eliminating, changing or replacing every single one of its stores (Thill, 2003) to fit new certainties. The common link between these companies was their approach: a down-to-earth, pragmatic, committed-to-excellence process (Collins, 2001). In other words, this framework kept successful companies on the right path and molded them into their strong counterparts that were able to uphold their greatness. The changes in leadership that these companies experienced resulted in momentum change where this increase in energy encouraged them to keep going and carrying it on with greater velocity until exceptional results were produced.

College Admissions Essay: A Life Changing Experience :: College Admissions Essays

A Life Changing Experience    The experience of the APEC Youth Science festival was incredible. It has had an enormous impact on me in many ways, changing the way I look at the world and connecting me with people and events far beyond my formerly limited experience. I am extremely glad to have had this opportunity. It was a wonderful experience on multiple levels. It challenged me and expanded me intellectually and socially. I feel that this experience has had an immense impact on me.    Through this program I had first-hand access to some of the brightest young minds in both the United States and the world. The sharing among students of ideas and experiences in science, and in other areas as well, was enlightening. I felt like I had the chance to absorb knowledge from those around me. This environment spread beyond the students and also included the faculty and speakers. We had access to incredible faculty who were able to give much to the experience and share their own science insights. The program also brought in speakers and other science professionals from around the world who were at the top of their respective fields. This festival gave me real access to the movers and shakers of the science world, an experience beyond any available to me anywhere else.    The most fascinating aspect of this experience, for me, was the exposure to new cultures. This includes the twist culture puts on science. I found huge difference in the viewpoints of many cultures towards science related issues surprising. For instance many cultures had vastly different ways of looking at the forthcoming issues surrounding the implications of genetic engineering. The Asian and American cultures were very different in many work habit areas as well. There was an interesting group dynamic as culturally mixed groups strove to collectively complete group projects. The cultural sharing in science went beyond how questions were answered to how they were asked to which questions were most important and even which questions were addressed. while observing the cultural spin on science and work habits was an interesting pastime, the true wonder was cultural sharing on a greater scale.    This program exposed me to Asian cultures in a way I had never thought possible. Living in an Asian country, even for only a week, and being mixed with students from around the world brought me face to face with cultures I had never before truly experienced.

Affirmative Action As A Means To Diversify The U.S. Workforce

In the USA, federal affirmative action regulations are supplemented by state and municipal laws and ordinances. Furthermore, the laws that constrain affirmative action in the workplace are related but not identical to those that control affirmative action in university and college admissions.At the federal level, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) are responsible for most equal opportunity and affirmative action regulations and enforcement.When considering the effects of affirmative action, the interests of various stakeholders must be taken into account. The primary stakeholders are the target groups, other non-target groups, organizations that have affirmative action plans (AAPs) and society at large. The phrase ‘effects of' implies a causal relation.However, causal conclusions can rarely be drawn in affirmative-action research because scholars cannot control whether organizations have AAPs or the dimensions (e.g. race and gender) that determine who is targeted by those plans.The purpose of affirmative action is to improve the outcomes of target groups. Research indicates that the size and even the existence of demonstrated benefits on employment have varied across time, location, target group and job level (Holzer and Neumark 2000; Smith 2001).In addition, minority status (African American or Hispanic) contributes to college and university admission only among the most selective institutions, where it increases the probability of admission by up to 10 per cent (Kane 1998). Among African Americans, admission to such selective colleges and universities is associated with an increased probability of graduation, post-baccalaureate education and professional success (Bowen and Bok 1998).On the other hand, the use of affirmative action in the USA is associated with decreased employment outcomes for white males (Holzer and Neumark 1999, 2000).The relative paucity of ‘reverse discrimination' charges filed with the EEOC suggests that these effects are due primarily to the elimination of the privileges often enjoyed by white males rather than to the use of strong preferences for female or minority applicants.Because elite universities reject so many whites and accept so few minority students, the negative impact of affirmative action on white applicants is quite small (Kane 1998).On a broader scale, the long-term effect of having a diverse student body appears to be positive for all groups and for society as a whole. Diversity in higher education is associated with individual changes in attitudes and abilities that enhance participation and success in an increasingly diverse democratic society (Bowen and Bok 1998; Gurin et al 2004).Opponents of affirmative action argue that workplace AAPs depress the performance of organizations, which are forced to hire less competent employees.Supporters argue that affirmative action improves organizational performance b y eliminating economically inefficient discrimination and increasing workforce diversity. Research finds that organizations that use affirmative action in selection tend to hire minority individuals whose educational credentials are slightly lower than those of their white male hires.However, this difference in education does not lead to a corresponding difference in performance, perhaps because these organizations have developed superior human resource practices that enable them to identify high potential individuals and improve their capacities after they are hired. In short, workplace affirmative action does not appear to have a substantial effect, either positive or negative, on organizational performance (Holzer and Neumark 1999, 2000).An important question is whether individuals who are selected in the context of an AAP are stigmatized by others. The discounting principle of attribution theory suggests that one's confidence in the importance of a potential cause is lower when other plausible causes are available.For example, if a Hispanic man is hired by an organization with an AAP, two plausible causes for his selection are competence and ethnicity. But if the organization does not have an AAP or if the new hire is a white male, the remaining plausible cause for selection is competence.Ratings of the new hire's competence would therefore be lower when he or she is a target group member than in other situations. Experimental research finds precisely this effect.This stigmatization can be eliminated by providing unequivocal evidence of the new hire's competence, but it is not eliminated by ambiguous evidence of competence (Heilman et al. 1998). Given the continued prevalence of negative stereotypes of racial minorities, along with the common assumption that affirmative action involves preferential selection, it is likely that stigmatization is relatively common.Although most research on stigmatization has focused on the workplace, the same logic applies t o college and university admissions. Virtually all research in this area has been limited to evaluations of paper stimuli; the extent to which such stigmatization is maintained in the context of workplace interactions is unclear.

Free From External Control Or Domination - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 2 Words: 514 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2019/04/12 Category Biology Essay Level High school Tags: Animal Testing Essay Did you like this example? Autonomy is known as our capacity for effectively pursuing ones goals, free from external control or domination. In other words, to live ones life according to reasons and motives that are taken as ones own and not the product of manipulative or distorting external forces (Christman, 2015). Also, autonomy is described as the ability of an individual to feel, think and make decisions for himself. It is the way you act independently, according to your benefits. An example that it can be highlight is clearly in the field of medicine and health care, where autonomy is an incredibly important and often contentious area for providers. In the first appointment with the doctor, one of the most important documents the person needs to sign is the called informed consent form. This form gives the authority to the doctor and his/her staff to obtain the medical information of this person, as well as to share it with other hospitals, among other centers. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Free From External Control Or Domination" essay for you Create order This means that as an autonomous adult, he/she understand the meaning of this document and that the decision is his/her to sign or not, everything is depending on his/her to make that decision. Autonomy is valuable because respecting someone autonomy is a way to respect their dignity, and respect them as an equal. Respect, it is a basic value that confirms the inherent dignity, worth, and uniqueness of every individual. Doing so enables people to pursue whatever other values they think are important as long as they respect each others entitlement to do the same (Flanigan, 2017). Another reason that autonomy is valuable, it is because autonomous people are likely to be happy since they are free to do what they want. As Paolo Verme says in his article Happiness, Freedom and Control back in 2009:The variable freedom and control are by far the most significant predictor of life satisfaction (Verme, 2009). Autonomy really matter, and it is no less true that it brings a powerful effect on happiness. But the truth is that each person is different, be it the way of acting and the way of thinking, and these differences matter a lot. The individuality and differences of each person is one of the reasons why it is difficult to interact with each other. Thats why, everybody needs something different from us in order to be happy, as long as they are to offer the best of what we need from them. Clearly it is possible to identify that the ability to be autonomous is to know how to direct, make decisions, freely determine the next steps of life, and it is the condition for moral responsibility. We respect people who are exemplary, have ethical values too. These people are d those who deserve the respect of one, and in a way, you respect their autonomy. If we focus in the dilemma existing over the years † many groups and organizations in American society are debating whether or not animal testing should be banned † this is the reason that peoples autonomy is either respected or being violated depending on the solution implemented.