Organizational Leadership : The Baldrige Core Values

Leadership is the elaboration of group inspiration. One person entrusted as leader can implore the aid, and support of supporters in the accomplishment of a common mission. According to Gurdjian, Halbeisen, and Lane “Becoming a more effective leader often requires changing behavior. But although most companies recognize that this also means adjusting underlying mind-sets, too often these organizations are reluctant to address the root causes of why leaders act the way they do” (Gurdjian, Halbeisen, and Lane, 2014) However, today abundant businesses engross importance on the improvement of leaders. Some of the ultimate leaders were formerly followers, such as in instructive businesses. One aspect as leaders many have to contemplate in striving

Understanding and listening attentively to the customer is important to the success of a business.

There are a number of ways a business can gain a competitive edge: excellent service, top of the range products, professional sales techniques and efficient and effective marketing strategies can contribute to the business and make us a market leader. Listening to our customers and acting on feedback can not only keep our loyal customers but encourage new customers. Having a recipe that incorporates all the above is a simple but effective method.

Many companies are very keen and ready to clinch Work Base Learning in an organization, not mainly because it provide you with lifelong learning, but also it is an important ingredient of what Senge (1990) has termed as the ‘learning organization’. A learning organization is a place in which the learning and flair of persons is backed and promoted so that the organization itself be able to form its future and it also very important to gain competitive advantage.

For most companies, identifying what a learning organization should be and actually becoming one is tricky at best, impossible at worst. One way that manager's and companies can promote the concept of being a learning organization is to assess whether the company is in need of a short-term fix or whether it is more focused on long-term results. Organizational learning is a long-term activity that will build competitive advantage over time and requires sustained management attention, commitment, and effort. Learning organizations maximize their competitive positions during strong economic times and they prudently train their employees and prepare for change even in turbulent times. As a result, learning organizations and learning

Learning at an organization is more of a self-conducted activity, and is a continuous process that lasts the entire cycle of the organization and the tenure of the employee. Nevertheless, each organization must effectively employ certain training and development activities for new as well as seasoned employees in order to accomplish different objectives:-

Week 9 lecture on Individual learning we came across that in an organization learning derives from the individual learning from each member of the organization. Consequently, individual learning is crucial for organizational learning. Learning is defined as gaining knowledge or skill. Thus, learning incorporates two meaning 1) knowing how-to which is implies the ability to act and 2) Know-why, which shows the

Organizational learning promotes: adaptability, participation and information openness. Consequently, not only employee performance will be enhanced, but also the increase of organizations effectiveness and efficiency.

     In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge emphasizes his model of a "learning organization," which he defines as "an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future." A learning organization excels at both adaptive learning and generative learning.

Authentic leaders create healthy enterprises for the long term and almost without exception, emerging leaders have solid values and a sense of purpose. We are looking to make a difference, to contribute to a worthwhile cause through our work and to find a reasonable balance between our work and home lives. In addition, to work where we trust the leaders and share a common set of values is essential to the chemistry involved in organizational leadership. “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully” (Romans 12:6-8, 1984, NIV).

An organization’s capability to learn and convey that learning into action quickly, is the supreme competitive advantage. The learning organization is the structure that eases the realization of such competitive advantage, it empowers employees, it deepens and enhances the customer experience and cooperation with main business partners and eventually improves business performance. Organizational learning is considered as the suitable process to develop knowledge resources and capabilities/core competencies (human capital, social capital and organizational capital) that engender ongoing values; which in turn yield persistence superior performance; which lead to sustainable competitive advantage within the context of the strategic management.

The Baldridge Criteria lays out seven categories for performance excellence and those seven categories are leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, measurement, analysis, and knowledge management, workforce focus, process management, and results. For the purpose of this assignment I will be focusing on the category of leadership and the benefits of using the Baldridge Criteria as it applies to leadership in organizational management. Baldridge Criteria on the basis of leadership can be compared to the AFSO21 which was created by the United States Air Force. When the AFSO21and the Air Force Doctrine are combined, it

Jashapara (2011) defines organisational learning as the processes of improving organisational actions through better knowledge and understanding.

Peter Senge argues that not only we humans learn, but organizations also. However, learning itself may not be enough for the organization to survive in this ever-challenging era. In his book, The Fifth Discipline, Senge introduced five ‘disciplines’, namely systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, and team learning, that characterizes an organization as a learning organization.

A learning organization emphasizes or prioritizes certain characteristics that typical organization does not. These can be divided in five broad categories. Personal mastery; Personal mastery is the commitment by an individual to the process of learning. There is a competitive advantage for an organization whose workforce can learn quicker than the workforce of other organizations. Mental models; these are terms given to ingrained assumptions held by individuals and organizations. Their role is to preserve certain behaviors, norms and values applicable to all employees. Systems thinking; it is a conceptual framework that allows people to study businesses. This method of thinking is employed when assessing a company and will have developed information systems that measure the performance of the organization as a whole and of its various components. Shared vision; it is important in incentivizing the workforce to learn as it creates a common identity that can provide focus and energy for learning. The most successful visions build on the individual visions of the employees at all levels of the organization. Team learning; it is the accumulation of individual learning. The benefit of sharing individual learning is that employees grow more quickly and the problem solving capacity of the organization is improved through