Leadership in the Public Purpose Organization Module 7 Response to Peers

Paper instructions

Respond to the 2 peers below, please number separately. ———————————————————————————-Peer 1) Leading at the Edge:

When is it appropriate to take risks?

Qualitative risk analysis is useful in situations where theory, data, time or expertise are limited. Qualitative risk analysis process is usually applied in most of the projects.

Example: Software projects

Quantitative risk analysis may not be applied to many simple or moderately complex projects. We may not find its use in software projects. It has a more limited use; we need the availability of data to use to conduct the quantitative analysis.

Example: nuclear, aerospace, oil, rail and military industries

As a leader, I would do firsthand analysis and take a repeated sample tests at a small level as before concluding at a higher level. If we pursue the conventional methodology, then the results would not be so enterprising. If something is to be achieved differently, then the efforts and work should also be done differently. As a leader it is essential to find new and efficient ways to perform work. The idea or concept is to be nurtured. Higher the risk higher are the gains. The fear of failure will not be a stoppage for me at any point of the task and amid uncertainty. The finding out different solutions to prolonged challenges or hindrances in the tasks is the way to leader success. The risk taking opens the gateway of many possibilities to achieve the targets. It would be worth to follow the gut feelings and intuition after understanding the all-pros and cons. As a leader I would owe an overall responsibility for its success or failure of the calculated risks that I would take. I would ready to learn from mistakes and make an alternate plan to follow the envisaged targets. The challenges which ever would come in the way are to be confronted and managed. The fruit of outcomes will be sweet to keep all the team members motivated. The due diligence and brainstorming will be done with the team members so that they are also be a part of the common goals.

Emotional Intelligence:

You are working in a team that meets the definition of dysfunctional. Two team members are not collaborative, but competitive and what’s worse, they are developing their own teams within the larger 8-person team. You are an emotionally intelligent leader. Using your new skills, i.e., self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, how do you mediate the divisive issues and encourage team solidarity?

The process of building a successful team starts from setting the mission of team. A mission statement sets the purpose of team, the very reason why the team is build is defined in mission statement. The mission statements are framed with the direction of management and by team members itself. To set the mission statement the team members must sit and decide about the ultimate objective of forming this team. The mission statement should be kept short, must be written down in day to day language so the all members of the will understand it and it will provide meaning and direction to them.

The next step in building a successful team is defining the goals. As mission statement works as guiding principles because they are broad the goal gives the team a real target for their activity. Goals should be worth striving for, they should be bringing some positive change in the organization. When defining the goals for the team we should keep it S.M.A.R.T.: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time bound.

The third step which should be followed while building a successful team is the roles and responsibilities of all the team members’ should be defined as there are number of members in the team and without the roles and responsibilities being set members can’t develop mutual accountability or trust in the team. It should be made clear that what is expected from individual team members from their end so that the team can achieve the objective for which it was built. The team may also have a team leader who sets tasks, agendas for the team and also works as a facilitator and spokesperson when required.

The fourth step in effective team building is setting the ground rules. Teams need to be explicit about the ways they will work together. Ground rules are guidelines for specific behaviors. Generally, the team is comprised of experienced members and they do not require much of ground rules, but it sometimes becomes necessary for the smooth functioning and the meetings of the team that some basic ground rules are set. A few examples of ground rules are:

Honor time limits during meeting.
Keep all the members tagged in the email when reporting about any issues.
Be respectful to others, etc.
The fifth step is to choose the decision-making models the team will use. Decision making is a general task in teams such as Project teams and it may be required on the daily basis that is why it is important to define initially that how the team will take its decisions and avoid any future conflicts within team. The decision-making model should be explicit and understood by all the team members. It should be also decided that who will take the final decision such as the team leader or the team will vote to take the final decision and what role will other play.

The final step of building an effective and successful team is defining and maintaining effective group process. The communication should be clear, and the channels should be defined. The environment within the team be kept positive and it should promote newer ideas from the team members. It must be tried to make the team interdependent on each other and cohesive. The conflicts should be solved immediately, and success should be celebrated. There are five basic attributes of emotionally intelligent leaders are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skills. With self-awareness, leaders know how their emotions and actions affect people around them. Self-awareness enables leaders to have a clear picture of their strengths and weaknesses, which gives them humility.

Self-regulation enables leaders to regulate themselves effectively. They don’t make decisions in a hurry or driven by emotions; they don’t stereotype people or compromise values. They hold themselves accountable. These attributes have a strong positive impact on people around them and lead to positive outcomes.

Emotionally intelligent leaders are self-motivated and have high ethical standards of for quality of their work. Motivated leaders also motivate people around them, which lead to enhanced productivity and efficiency, resulting in positive outcome.

Emotionally intelligent leaders use empathy to be fair and reasonable in their expectations with people and give them constructive feedback, as well as accept and work on feedback given to them positively. This earns them the respect and loyalty of people around them. This fosters a culture of trust, feedback, open communication and improvement, resulting in positive outcome.

Emotionally intelligent leaders use their social skills to make strong interpersonal relationships which help them resolve conflicts constructively leading to positive outcome.

References:

-Perkins, D. N. (2000). Leading at the edge. New York, NY: Amacom.

-Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2013). Primal leadership: Unleashing the power of emotional intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.————————————————————————————- Peer 2 ) Leading at the Edge:

When is it appropriate to take risks?
The text gives a great example of the situation that Shackleton faced when presented with a challenge where a risk was needed to take. The pivotal leadership option is whether to stay in a declining circumstance or risk larger critical hazard to reach a point of ultimate well-being. Under these conditions the option that appears to be the secure choice is frequently the one that carries the most risk (Holtman, Kessler, McCarthy, Perkins, 2000).

Leaders at The Edge should be comfortable with the inconvenience of risk. Risks that are pointless should be refrained from, however there are times for moves that may be intense. Comprehend the risks you confront and estimate them cautiously. Then balance risk and results, and have the bravery to step up to those determined risks that are worth taking (Holtman, Kessler, McCarthy, Perkins, 2000).

Emotional Intelligence:

You are working in a team that meets the definition of dysfunctional. Two team members are not collaborative, but competitive and what’s worse, they are developing their own teams within the larger 8 person team. You are an emotionally intelligent leader. Using your new skills, i.e., self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, how do you mediate the divisive issues and encourage team solidarity?
Working in a team with various types of personalities can often be difficult with differences in opinions and ideas, which can sometimes cause a challenging work environment. Utilizing emotional intelligent competencies can help with the stress of leading over such a dysfunctional group. When team members disagree and compete with each other, no one wins. This is where being an emotional intelligent leader I would use self-management as a way to keep disorderly and disturbing emotions of team members under control. I would point out that yelling and not respecting each other is no way to conduct business and issues cannot be resolved with their behavior. Self-managing consists of the adaptability trait, where you accept change and master challenges.

I would use both self-awareness along with social awareness in a way for them to understand the perspectives from each other. They need to acknowledge the fact that the words they choose or tones in their voices upsets the other team member and no one wants to feel ignored or that their thoughts and opinions are not valued. They need to have a mutual respect for one another if they ever want to collaborate and move forward with the tasks at hand. Additionally, they need to recognize each other’s strengths and weaknesses in order to build from that within each other.

As they develop new smaller teams within the larger team, I would utilize relationship management skills in order to bring together the teams instead of dividing them. As an emotional intelligent leader, I would cultivate and guide team members in working together. It’s like the old saying goes…united we stand, divided we fall. I would also help to create bonds and teamwork among the members with common interest and goals for the organization.

With exceptional leadership, there is no solid method, there are many roads to greatness, and excellent leaders can maintain very distinct personal styles. However, we find that efficient leaders generally displays effectiveness in at least one competence from each of the four fundamental areas of emotional intelligence (Boyatzis, Goleman, McKee, 2002).

References

-Boyatzis, R., Goleman, D., & McKee, A. (2002). Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead With Emotional Intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

-Holtman, M., Kessler, P., McCarthy, C., & Perkins, D. (2000). Leading at the Edge: Leadership Lessons from the Extraordinary Saga of Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition. New York, NY: AMACOM.