Identifying the Most Important Eight Key Facts to Leadership Excellence: A Case Study

“We all have competencies. They are the sum of our experiences and the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes we have acquired during our lifetime” (Pickett, 1998, p. 103). A successful organization will have a set of competencies defined. Having competencies identified outlines the framework of standards that a company and employees should follow. There is a tendency to list a large number of competencies when creating the standards for an organization. Companies should focus on five to seven key core competencies that are needed in order to be successful. The core competencies should encompass the growth of the company, staff, and public perception.

What is a leader? A leader is a person who commands a group, organization, or country. Throughout my life I have encountered the chance to experience position of being a leader. I have experience democratic leaderships through playing on a high school football team, being apart of groups in college for class presentations, being a youth leader in my church, and also being apart of a family. I have gain important qualities of being a good leader through these experiences. Some of valuable leaderships traits that I obtained and strengthened are: how to be a team player, to be a better listener, to have more patience, to be not afraid of constructive criticism, to be outspoken, and to be a problem solver. Even though I have gained a lot, I

A State Representative, Randy Richards, organized a press conference coveting to sway a proposal for a bill to a avert state agencies and other health care providers from offering prenatal care to undocumented immigrants and billing the cost to Medicaid (Sharp, 2011, p. 72). In the press conference, he accuses undocumented immigrants from coming to the United States to take advantage of the Medicaid system by taking services away from the American Citizens who pay into the system with their taxes. When the floor was opened to the press to ask question or to elaborate on the proposal for the bill his answer were very vague or he eluded the question by saying, “…That is not the point…” (Sharp, 2011, p. 72). The Executive Director of the Health Care Authority, Mike Foley, decides to hold a press conference later that day to clear the air with factual information and providing laws stating, health care cannot be denied to anyone in search of preventative or medical attention. He articulates prenatal care for illegal women cost less than a $1000.00 and when the child is born, they become a natural American Citizen and how they deny service to an American. If these preventative services were denied during the pregnancy and the child is born with a serious medical condition it will cost the state over $130,000.00 (Sharp, 2011, p. 73) to treat the child for the rest of their life. Randy Richards, the representative, became infuriated and took great offense that Mike Foley, the

Catalano implies that leadership is the capability of a person to persuade the actions of peers and other members of an organization, motivate others within the circle to work towards a common shared goal that may include providing high-quality client care, maintaining a safe working environment, developing new policies and procedures, and increasing the power of the profession. (Catalano, 2015). Leaders generally emerge formally or informally and may consist of new nurses or seasoned well experienced nurses. The leader does not necessarily have authority delegated to him or her in the clinical setting the “power” usually emerges from peers within the group. (Anderson, 2012) Key attributes of an effective leader consist of: Providing effective

Abington-Hill Toys, Inc has been assigned a new president Vernon Albright due to the death of Lewis Hill. The financial condition slowly deteriorated as Mr. Hill was running the company’s final years. Mr. Albright was brought in because the founders of the companies did not have a son or daughter that was willing to the take on the role of the new president. Mr. Albright took it upon him to take the leadership role and began to seek opinions from the outside of the firm to regain the financial stability that the company needed. David Hartly was brought on to be the assistant comptroller. He took his duties very serious and his first task was to

Understanding how to manage a team is crucial to leaderships. Leadership consists forming a fascinating future vision, and explain and deliver such vision properly to others. According to SFIA competency chart, in order to be a brilliant leadership, professionals should acquire the autonomy over all significant areas in the organization, have influence while making critical decisions, always understand the complexity of the organization, and have a full range of business skills to understand, explain and deliver ideas (SFIA Foundation, 2016). Most importantly, the leader should win the confidence from the members and motivate them (HBS, 2009). Team members are usually have difference abilities and come from a variety of backgrounds. Therefore,

Whether good or bad, one thing is certain, change is inevitable. Organizations as well as people that do not acknowledge or embrace it are bound to fall behind or stagnate (Rooy, 2014). TransAct Insurance Corporation (TIC) was on the verge of needing change. A prominent auto insurer in Southeastern United States was attempting to revamp the way it conducted business. The goal was to improve customer service and strengthen its competitive position. The TIC Board of Directors had hired a new president and replaced three key vice presidents. One of the new VP’s being Jim Leon, would be tasked with leading the Claims division. This was no small task as Claims was the largest division with “1,500 employees, 50 claims center managers, and 5 regional directors” (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015, p. 449). Despite the size, Jim met with each manager and toured each of TIC’s 50 claims centers. As he spoke with employee at all levels he began to understand that moral was low and employee-management relations were tense. Georg C. Lichtenberg summed it nicely, “I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better” (Rooy, 2014). Change needed to take place to repair these working relationships, but where to start?

Before reading Learning Leadership: The five fundamentals of becoming an exemplary leader and The First Ninety Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels, I had a very vague sense of what my strengths and weaknesses were. I know that public speaking has never been a high point for me unless, I felt very confident in the material I am presenting. In retrospect, these particular weaknesses are symptoms of larger issues that are clearly illustrated in detail in these books. Before going into the assignment, I was aware that acknowledging my strengths would be much more challenging than finding my weaknesses. This issue comes into play every six months when I sit down with my supervisor. When I am provided with a

Leadership is a difficult term to define. In literal definition, it means “the action of leading a group of people or an organization”. However, that is a very prosaic definition. What qualities make up “the action of leading a group of people or an organization”? One way to find out is to observe the qualities possessed by leaders themselves. The Fortune 500 is an annual ranking of America’s largest corporations. At the very head of each one of these 500 corporations is a single individual called a Chief Executive Officer, or CEO. The CEO is in charge of all of the main responsibilities of the corporation. So it is no doubt that CEO’s are leaders; the CEO’s of the Fortune 500 lead millions

The first building block of successful leadership is self-awareness. Self-awareness in terms of our capacity to lead others; our strengths and weaknesses in all areas. More importantly, becoming aware of our shortcomings can inspire us to work on these areas in order to not only benefit ourselves, but those around us. As a leader, the improvements we make in our lives have a direct effect on our followers and their success as well. Without being aware of and understanding our own limitations, it will be difficult for us to become better leaders and inspire others to fall in our footsteps. Through various leadership surveys I have become aware of some of my own strengths and weaknesses, and a strategic improvement plan will enable me to

opportunities for growth. Diversity training would provide more insight into understanding the importance of developing relationships with everyone in a diverse group. Building these relationships and understanding everyone presents the opportunity to unite everyone and make them become more invested and align them with the vision and goals of the organization.

The first measure of becoming an outstanding leader is becoming more conscious of self by identifying your weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats. The following will outline my current and future leadership style. To analyze my leadership I will use the Seven Habits Profile as well as the leadership theory to evaluate my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and recommendations using the smart goals.

One of the hardest part of a principal is the first few months of school. There is a lot of anxiety and if main focus should be setting a good example and building positive relationships with staff, parents, and other community members. In my opinion, the theories we have learned in Chapter 2 and 3 of Practicing the Art of Leadership by Reginald L. Green are good practices to have so that relationships can be built to improve the needs of the school. Once a principal has established trust and build relationships, one can start thinking about implementing goals and the vision they have for the school.

Time is running out. Pressure is accumulating. There are decisions to be made and actions to be taken, but this time Superman is not around to save the day. Who will step in? Only a true leader can leap into hectic situations and handle the pressure with equanimity. We don’t look to mediocre talent to solve problems, but rather we gaze upon the godly characteristics that a leader possesses. Finding a leader is not like playing a game of “Where’s Waldo?”, but rather it’s more like watching a blazing firework illuminate the dark sky. The characteristics that make someone stand out from the rest are represented in something I like to call the three C’s to succeed. The most valuable characteristics of leadership are confidence, creativity, and commitment. A leader that possesses those characteristics is as invincible as Hercules.

In today’s society, leadership skills continue to be increasingly valuable. Without effective leadership, there would be no way for organizations to be successful – at least not in the long run. While everyone’s personal leadership style may vary, I believe there are certain qualities that are necessary for every effective leader to possess, such as competence, motivation, and integrity. Overall, the ultimate goal of a good leader should be to set an example for others to follow. I also believe good leaders do not necessarily have be in upper-level positions such as CEOs or managers - a newer employee who is able to set a good example for other coworkers can certainly still be considered a leader. Leadership can indeed be difficult, but I think it can be very rewarding as well since it plays such a big role into a company’s success.