A Leadership And Communication Inventory

This work is part one of an ongoing communications portfolio which will be expanded upon weekly. Barrett (2011) describes leadership communication as “the controlled, purposeful transfer of meaning...” (p. 6). The following is a self-assessment (Barrett, 2011, pp. 407-411) which will help gauge my current leadership communication abilities. Each area will be answered with either excel (master of skill) , competent (acceptable but could improve) or need to develop (needs attention).

Mount Everest, as the highest mountain in the world, is famous for the enormous challenge of reaching its summit. This analytic essay is an analysis of the management involved with the Everest Simulation created by Harvard Business School. During this 3hour simulation I was the team doctor and achieved all ten of the possible ten points available, therefore 100% of goals were achieved. This score is related to the goals I accomplish as an individual and as a team. I enjoyed the simulation and expanded upon my knowledge as it taught a profound understanding of team dynamics, the capability to accept change, a stronger ability to analyse available information and create effective communication. Our team as a whole obtained 94% of our goals.

Students enrolled in MGTS1301 participated in a three-hour Mount Everest Simulation which involved a team of five people. Each team consisted of a team leader, physician, photographer, environmentalist and marathoner with a common goal of reaching the summit and avoiding rescue. On our team, I was the team leader and completed 40% of my personal goals while our team achieved 44%. After the simulation, I realised I lacked in developing managerial efficiency such as strategic thinking and decision making which led to poor task-structure related to task clarity and the means of leading my team as we progressed through the simulation.

The Everest simulation used the dramatic context of a Mount Everest expedition as related to management concepts exploring the role of leadership, effective communication, and team work to achieve success. The simulation required students to work in cohesive teams consisting of five members, where each individual was assigned a specific role and a goal. The roles included the team leader, physician, environmentalist, photographer, and marathoner. Some goals were contradictory in order to assess how the team reacted to complex and sometimes conflicting situations. Before the actual simulation started, the group discussed the general approach and how to deal with

Lack of psychological safety within the team members failed to fix cognitive bias of irrationality. If members developed trust within the team, cognitive bias could have been prevented or at least minimized. The truth that climbers might make irrational decisions and find it hard to turn back when they are so closed to the summit was obvious, but teammates seeing this problem did not speak up since they did not feel that their thoughts were welcome and felt uneasy. More cognitive biases could also been prevented to lessen the complex system of the expedition. Since climbing Mt. Everest is already a high risk venture, any additional problems such as irrational decisions can cause a crisis. Using the early sign of issues with Hall’s team’s progress, it was obvious that the probability of failing the expedition was high before the team even started. Hall could have used the issues as a sign of the complex systems that exist, and could have used this knowledge to prevent any irrational decisions. The complex systems and the lack of psychological safety also contributed to the tragedy. The team members failed to communicate and trust each other, which then added more problems to the complex systems. For instance, Boukreev’s could have spoken up to his team leader, Fischer, about his concerns regarding his team members lacking experience to begin with. By speaking up, he could have prevented more chain reaction due to lack of communications and feedback within the

Leadership failure is rarely discussed, and yet often represents the greatest potential risk to an organization or group in an unfamiliar situation. For the Everest Simulation, I held the role of team leader, in which I was required to achieve goals relating to a combined ascent and maintaining team safety. At completion, 13 of 20 individual goals, and 65% of overall team goals were accomplished. The lower rate of success was due to several ethical and leadership related failures, resulting in a team member being evacuated on the final ascent. Although the simulation could have been more successful, the team dynamics witnessed were enlightening as to what constitutes effective leadership and ethical decision making in a high-intensity situation.

In this essay, I am going to discuss how practices of leadership contribute to managing communication in the post bureaucratic era. This essay shall discuss the effectiveness of leadership approaches in the post bureaucratic era in managing communication in organizations. In section 1, I shall discuss leadership in terms of communication by drawing upon the article by Barry B. (2007). In addition, I shall also discuss the use of communication in running an organization in a leader’s desired way (Jack, G., 2004) and the need of contingency approach (Browning, 2007, pg 190) while communicating with employees. In section 2, I shall discuss how management stimulate loyalty in employees through embedding organizational identity (Gagne, J.F.,

This report discusses the Everest simulation in relation to important management concepts. Particularly the report explores the role of leadership, communication and team work in task success, where success is defined in terms of task accomplishment, team member satisfaction and dispute resolution. Moreover, the requirement to eliminate communication barriers through changing mediums, cohesive and coherent team work and democratic leadership styles is explored throughout the report.

For this assignment, I have decided to use the leadership trait, skills and style questionnaires. For this questionnaire, I asked 5 different people that know me in different contexts in life, such as personal, school, and work environments. For the majority, I rated myself higher on the traits than my fellow colleagues. On some of the traits however, I was rated higher than what I thought. Overall, I averaged a 4/5 which means that everyone agreed with the traits that were given. For the style questionnaire, I found out that I place more emphasis in building relationships rather than completing tasks. Finally, the skills questionnaire, my leadership skills are in the high range for technical skills, and my human and conceptual skills are in the moderate range.

The Everest simulation was a unique experience. Before the actual simulation started, my team discussed the approach we would take and how we will deal with situations wherein the personal goals collided with the team goals. We shared our character profile information with each other and began the exercise with excitement and a firm resolve to do our best.

While in storming stage all the team members shared opinions and ideas of what to do during the simulation. Furthermore due to the limited amount of time given and clash of timetable for some of our team members, we had to rush through the first Everest simulation which resulted many decisions made thoughtlessly. For the first Everest simulation, two hour was allocated for it to be completed. Furthermore many important decisions such as allocating oxygen tanks and whether to proceed to next camp were made without much discussion. On the other hand it was observed that the marathoner in our group was the follower as she conformed with the fast moving pace of the simulation when she actually needed more time to forecast the weather of whether to proceed to next camp or not.

One of the biggest lessons learned from this course is that to be an effective leader, you must have a diverse skillset. I’m not sure if there is any one magical component or characteristic in being a great leader. One influence during my review of the literature was that; although easier for some, I see leadership as something we must continually improve upon. This is in contrast to my belief during my first day of class, when I thought leaders just

The Harvard Everest Simulation presents a situation where individual and collective goals conflict, making path-goal theory an optimal approach to leadership. Path-goal leadership theory is a contingency approach, recognising and supporting the individual goals of followers in a way compatible with the overall objective of the team. Therefore the objective of a leader under path goal theory is motivating team members to achieve team objectives. My simulation experiences reflect key issues in the role of a leader, the sharing of leadership and the differences in approaching cross-cultural teams. Examining these key issues enhances path-goal leadership theory by revealing its strengths and limitations, resulting in more developed leadership approaches.

There are many leadership styles and is important to know which style you are. There are many ways one can learn their leadership style, for example, through assessments. Knowing your leadership style will help you become a better leader. Although there are many leadership assessments our text discussed four assessments that can give insights into building blocks of personality most commonly identified by peers, subordinate employees, and supervisors (Ledlow, et al, 2014). These assessments include: Hemisphere Dominance assessments; Jungian assessments; Vark test; Struder Group; Price Group; and many

Mount Everest Simulation; where we explore the leadership and the group dynamics in the context of climbing the Mount Everest. We have to decide what step is to be taken in each round of the Mount Everest Simulation, like how the supplies are going to be distributed amongst the team members, taking care of the health of everyone (if you’re a physician) information needed for the ascent and the proper way of implementing the decision as a leader.