Entrepreneurial Leadership

This chapter caught my attention a lot. It talks about how Americans invent products and then, those products are produced in China. This factor is happening often. The fact that the overhead and labor is cheaper in Asia countries, most investors are going to produce their products over there. Therefore, this affects our employment rates. Entreprenuors should know how to handle this situation to do get the best from both worlds. Their leadership qualities should help them to make those decisions.

Bennis also stated this quote, ” write the vision, make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it”, this quote applies not just to modern leaders, it applies to all leaders. In order for someone to achieve a goal, he/she needs to stick to it. We cannot just plan it, and set it aside without working on it. Bennis mentioned some qualities in a new leader. Those qualities are, technical competence, people skills, conceptual skills, judment and taste, and character. These are the most important qualities that an employer is looking for when hiring employees. On these times, the competitions are getting stronger due to the new technologies and the higher level of education. This means that leaders have to become more prepared and up to date with the new changes.

“The leader knows that chaos is the beginning, not the end” is one of the many things learned from Bennis. As a great leader, we need to thrive on chaos and strategically use it for the benefit of the group and for the fulfillment of our desires. In the road to deploy ourselves by striking hard and trying everything it will help attain success. A leader manages the dream, and is mostly a servant. This concurs with the leadership theory described in Northhouse, where the servant leadership keeps the group together. If servantship disappear, the group is completely disoriented and breaks out. Therefore, a wise servant/leader communicates the vision, recruits meticulously, rewards, retrains and reorganizes through a set of shared values and objectives. As mentioned in previous posts, mistakes are encouraged and embraced as an indispensable step toward the path of projecting a better future for the organization as well as the leader himself. The same way, reflective backtalk forces a leader to go back to a previous position, find the “Achilles’ heel” of a point and make the necessary corrections. People playing the devil’s advocates will assist in keeping a cool head and know exactly what is going on so that precise resolutions can be taken. Being optimist, having faith and hope are some of the factors that give a sense of stability to one’s surroundings, making one omnipresent and building that hero aura that is such a craving in today’s world. So, as a leader, expect and demand the best from your people without hindering them and breaking their confidence. With patience, you will forge the future, live a fulfilled life and if you’re lucky, your values and visions will transmit to future generations which will live through the passage of time.

Today, we are living in a new era. Organizations are facing many challenges that can help or hinder them. Technology has replaced old savoir faire and is taking a major place in both the individual and the organization. The internet blasted in full force, creating new barriers for companies living in the past and opening new frontiers for start ups and innovators. Competition is as fierce as ever, making and breaking at the speed of light. Oceans are no longer the limits as from the comfort of one’s home; new ventures are started with enormous potentials. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook are some of the few examples proving that gigantic capitals are not necessarily the most important element in creating new companies having been launched from their founders garages. Talent and the individual are the most important along with the ability to turn vision into reality. Leadership and visions are what mattered the most. Business in no longer a one man affair and becomes like the orchestration of a symphony where every single member has to play its part to the best of its ability for the piece to be successful. As such, the organization, to be successful, needs to spot potential leaders and give them the opportunity, means and reward necessary to the advancement of the company. Making mistake no longer hinder the employee or the leader but becomes the necessary step to encourage and develop leadership – correction instead of censure in now one of the best approach used by “avant guardes” companies looking forward to a brighter future as only the most astute will survive from the stammer of a baby to a full grown company with the competitive advantage that will permit continuation into future generations.

As human being, living on the same planet, we have the obvious necessity to learn to live with one another. It is not a choice but a responsibility when more than two are cohabiting to develop qualities that will make that cohabitation if not harmonious, at least livable. That is where it becomes essential to get people on your side.  Getting people on your side does not only mean making them do what you want, but sincerely care about your team, your people and forget about yourself to fulfill the common good. It is about being emphatic and establishing trust, it is using your voice for the better.  It is team leadership at its best. As prescribed by Stagl, Salas & Burke in Northouse, it is “critical to achieving both affective and behaviorally based outcome”. As a good leader, you will need to behave, act and use a great deal of skills to improve your team performance. Exceptional heart, a keen sense of justice and cleverness will be required. A great leader will learn about and know everybody surrounding them. Knowing each and every member will help the leader identify the unique style, set of skills and preferences of each specific one which will be advantageous to the company. By doing it from the heart, the leader will establish a bond between him and the follower/team member which is the most important value that can be derivated from this relationship. It is a necessity for great leaders to be constant in what they preach, walk their talk, be reliable at all time and most importantly have the integrity that will boost confidence, inspire and have people committed to their ideas.

Bennis tells us that “what we do is a direct result of not only what and how we think, but what and how we feel” and that reflection gets to the heart of the matter and the truth of things. In this journey where we’re learning about the world and about ourselves, deploying ourselves becomes part of this knowledge we are so frantically searching for.  In this context, reflection and resolutions steer us in the right path. Unfortunately, it often takes failures and loss of important things or people in our lives to force us to sit down and do it when doing it when you’re in control would have been the best approach. Gloria Steinem and Gould told us that too much intellectualizing tends to paralyze us, but, how do you reflect without intellectualizing? I have to confess that this really puzzles me! It is said about reflection that it is to be conscious of a process and doing it well. Once this is completed you can develop your own perspective, figure it all out by testing and measuring them. This will allow you to develop your vision, your desire along with the ability to make things happen. Desires keep you restless until you satisfy them and move on to the next great thing or desire. Your goals keep you going, get you on the edge and practicing them help you master the task at hand to the point where it becomes obsession and routine. Now, at the top of the mountain you have climbed using all the assets you were provided with, strike hard, tried everything, you can really truthfully affirm and proved that you have fully deployed yourself and are ready to move through chaos.

I have found this year to be interesting in regards to leadership and entrepreneurship. I joined a small start up that focuses on leadership, but at first I came in trying to develop a new business for the company. I switched my major to entrepreneurship, a move most of the people I know found strange. I took my intro to entrepreneurship course and I took this course on leadership. Finally a move to New Jersey greatly extended my commute which resulted in a lot more “me” time for reflection.

Possibly the two most important things l learned over the past year is one, starting a venture is hard and two, I’m not always the right leader for every job and I shouldn’t be. Taking these courses in entrepreneurship has given some great insight into some of the actions of my coworkers. For example, when boss gives me more autonomy because I have little a more work experience than some of my coworkers, she is essentially practicing situational leadership. Taken these courses has also allowed me to evaluate the executives of my company based on their leadership styles and how each and everyone leads differently.

Overall, during this school year I have had a lot of academic, professional personal growth.

When reading Bennis’ Chapter 10 of “On Becoming A Leader”, one of my favorite points is that leaders embrace error. I find this point very interesting for two reasons. First, this is something that I have been hearing repeatedly throughout this past school year. This embrace’s risk taking, which is a catalyst for either great failures or successes. Two extremes, without a happy medium. The main problem is that society praises leader’s for success and ridicules them for failure, and great failures seem to be more of a norm than great successes. But, like I have mentioned in past postings, leadership is proven during the most challenging times.

The second reason, I hinted at in the previous paragraph, which is society ridicules failure and error. At least in the United States, we are conditioned to believe that errors are bad and that we should avoid them at all cost. In so many organizations mistakes can lead to being yelled at by your boss or even getting fired. This in turn leads to people trying to cover their mistakes or blaming it on others.

I’d like to divide this chapter in 2 unique sections. Section one talks about the merging of our world and becoming a one place. We’ve had this discussion in the class, that America is on the road for globalization and majority of companies are seeking partners, business and customers outside the US as well.  The effect of global interdependance can be vividly seen from the 2008 US housing crises, which caused the entire world go into a recession. Merging of the world cultures is also on the rise and New York is a great example of it, though its positive and more negative affects are a subject for a different discussion in another blog.

Section 2 of this chapter focuses on the “new manager” and what is required of a company leader to successfully run a “globalized”, technologically connected company in the new chaotic world market. Again, as I have done in my previous blog posts I’d like to summarize chapter’s acquired knowledge for my personal educational growth, as well as future reference.

Per the book “Lessons of Experience”mentioned by Bennis, the following are the key principles a leader must possess and follow, in order to lead the company and its people successfully:

1. Take advantage of every opportunity, where OPPORTUNITY = EMPOWERMENT
   I have never looked at opportunity as empowerment and nevertheless it is a great approach to create creativity and give birth to leadership within any organization. Supporting someone’s initiative and encourage taking responsibility of a part of a project or allowing one to be flexible and design his/her own approach CREATES AND NOURISHES leadership traits
2. Aggressively search for a meaning, where MEANING = ENGAGEMENT
   This statement simply talks about setting clear goals and defining one’s or companies vision, so that every follower has a clear grasp of the direction and thus, fully engages, knowing where the company is heading to.  Having good values is an important aspect of a vision that determines its followers
3. Know yourself, where LEARNING = LEADING
   “Organizations purpose should determine its structure” “Release of the full potential of its employees is the organization’s true task”, thus it must facilitate learning, provide for growth and development and offer as many opportunities to its employees. In other words, investment in human capital, is the investment into the company. One pays for the other.

The following are statements I found important to record:
Organizations that succeed over time have the following characteristics in common:

• A flatter, less hierarchical structure
• More autonomous units
• An orientation toward high-value-added goods and service
• Quality controls
• Service controls
• Responsiveness
• Innovative speed
• Flexibility
• Highly trained and skilled workers who use their minds as well as their hands
• Leader at all levels, rather than managers

Moreover, the following new tasks must be addressed and perfected within an organization that wants to be successful in our new chaotic and technology-growing world:

• Defining the organizations’ mission, so as to frame its activities and inform its workforce
• Creating a flexible environment in which people are not only valued, but encouraged to develop to their full potential, and treated as equals rather that subordinates
• Reshaping the corporate culture so that creativity, autonomy, and continuous learning replace conformity, obedience, and rote; and long-term growth, not short-term profit, is the goal
• Transforming the organization from a rigid pyramid to a fluid circle, or an ever-evolving network of autonomous units
• Encouraging innovation, experimentation, and risk taking
• Anticipating the future by reading the present
• Making new connections within the organization
• Constantly studying the organization from the outside as well as the inside
• Identifying weak links in the chain and repairing them
• Thinking globally, rather that nationally or locally
• Identifying and responding to new and unprecedented needs in the work force
• Being proactive rather than reactive, comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty

In terms of leadership styles, women are more democratics than men. We also use more transformational styles than men. Even though, there are still some prejudices about women leadership, women have been demostrating that have the same intellectual factors in terms of work experience as men do. Some differences between males and females  mentioned on the book are women are no less effective at leadeship, comitted to their work, or motivated to attain leadership roles than men.

However, women are less likely to self promote than men are, and we are less likely to initate negotiation, an important tool that all leaders need in order to access high oportunities and resources, in both domestic and professional atmospheres; but, in my personal experience, I dont believe the statement that we are less likely to initiate negotations because for example, In my job, on my department, we are 2 women and 2 men, and based on the numbers written, the ones that have the highest numbers in  production of that department are the women. Moreover, most of our tasks are negotiations with our clients. Also, Im personally, the one who is always giving initiatives to move foward wuth new ideas, which is a way of self promoting myself.

One true point that the book mentioned was that we tend to perceive more negatively than men, and therefore, we tend to react faster when things are wrong than them. Lately, women have been reaching more top professional positions than before. I think that all these differences and characteristics dont apply to all of us, and they should not been a pattern for women leadership type.