2.  My ultimate agenda and goal for our organization is on improving our leadership style to cultivate the creative, motivated, and training culture we desire.

3.  My leadership style is a mix between the pacesetting and coaching style. I have a tendency to set high performance standards goals for both myself and my team. I think it is important for us to have a goal, but not necessarily a way to get there, so we can keep an open mind on new ways to do things. I also work very hard to coach everyone on each situation. Knowing that the pacesetting style can be bad for culture, I want to work on incorporating more styles into my skills as well as hone the emotional intelligence of myself and the entire team of the four fundamental capabilities of self-awareness, self- management, social awareness, and social skills.  I think it is important for myself and my team to work on mastering all leadership styles. The more styles a leader has mastered, the better. Being able to switch among the different styles as conditions dictate creates the best organizational climate and optimizes business performance. (Goleman, 2000)

4.  As in communication style, I think organizational structure is best utilized when you can benefit from the best aspects all of options.  Centralizing-a few departments to reduce redundancy (H.R, AP, Purchasing, ETC) Gives you the ability to utilize economy of scale Decrease cost to association  Decentralizing-most of the organization will: Allows creative thinking and individuality Allows the organization to move faster on important issues Increases motivation You can often get the benefits of both bigness and smallness by centralizing only those decisions involving important economies of scale and decentralizing everything else. (Malone, 2004)

5.  I think it is important that we provide training in many different ways in order to best serve everyone who has different preferences for learning. This can be done several different ways:  Development Relationships  Formal Programs  Self Development Activities  Developmental assignments.

6.  Mentors- Individuals should be encouraged by the organization to find a mentor. But it is up to the individual, as this should be a long term relationship and not necessarily associated with the company.  Managers as coaches-This should be a program that is formally taught to the managers so that each employee has the potential for leadership coaching and training  Community of Practice-Founding groups of similar individuals who can get together to form best practices and process sharing. Relationships can be particularly powerful drivers of learning and development because they are a rich source of assessment, challenge, and support. (Velsor, et al., 2010, p. 45)

7.  Quarterly meetings off site with all leaders-This would be a requirement for all to step off site together one day each quarter. The agenda can change but development will be the sole agenda. Bringing in professional development companies would be beneficial as well as letting strong leaders within the organization drive the agenda to improve their skills. Formal leadership programs are structured, off the job events that bring individuals together for shared learning and development experiences. (Velsor, et al., 2010, p. 48)

8.  This is one of my favorites because I feel it also brings to attention the individuals who truly want to improve on their skills. I would like book clubs introduced in the company. This would be a great way for like minded people to meet and talk outside their departments about books that will teach them about leadership. Our organization should also encourage outside participation in professional conferences and professional groups. Have are organization actively seek video, book, PowerPoint, and other material on leadership in order that everyone in the organization has access to view at any time.

9.  360 degree feedback  Perception is rarely the same for everyone. Every individual should have the ability to know how they are being perceived by everyone within their company.  Benchmarking-This is an incredible means that allow a company to track performance and utilize teams that performs above the rest.  This process can motivate high performing teams for acknowledging their performance as well as provide opportunities for other teams to interact with high performers in finding out how they can improve.

10. When asking what motivates employees, 500 managers ranked “recognition for good work” as # 1. They were wrong. A multiyear study of workers marked progress as #1. (Amabile et al., 2010)  Creating strong goals for both the organization and individuals help people:  Eliminate roadblocks  Gives direction  Creates alignment with everyone within the company.  Creates a sense of urgency  Creates an opportunity for mentoring

11.  Lateral Moves-We should encourage promotions and transfers to other departments to broaden leadership skills. This creates both an additional career path for individuals and therefore additional motivation. It is also a great way to bring people together in a department with diverse ideas that could potentially produce new and creative processes.  Task force bringing multiple departments or areas together to solve problems. Formal developmental experiences challenge managers by presenting new perspectives and encouraging the growth of new abilities in a short, concentrated time and takes you out of the familiar, provides, insights, and allows you to experiment with new behaviors. (Martineau, et al., 2001, p. 10) Significantly more lessons are learned from challenging assignments than from any other event cluster, and different assignments sharpen different leadership abilities. (Velsor, et al., 2010, p. 69)

12.  Rounding  Internally within our own departments to see if we can eliminate roadblocks.  Externally outside our areas to understand how our processes are affecting their areas.  Town Hall Meetings-To keep the organization aligned together  Huddles-To keep your department on the same page.  Training on Intergroup Interactions  Fault Lines-Both in knowing what they are and how to identify when it happens and what the triggers may be.

13.  Training for understanding of not just our personality and conflict style, but those around us. This will be beneficial in understanding how to deal with each other and why we struggle at times. Placing an individuals’ personality style on his name badge would be a fun way of knowing their preferred style of communication. Examples of tests would be:  Jung  DISC  Briggs Myers  Keirsey

14.  Change in an organization is no different than any loss. A normal grieving process is needed before a new beginning can happen. Abandoning employees when they are going through this natural process will stall progress. The great danger lies in allowing a transitioning workforce to cope with this emotional process in isolation. Leaders who can connect, emphasize, support and model adaptive behavior can often shorten the cycle time of recovery and reengagement. (Velsor, 2010, p.202) One of my largest area’s of growth needs to be in this area. I love change and therefore struggle with understanding others’ reluctance to it. I think it is important for the entire company to understand the phases of transition and that everyone move’s along this path at different rates.

15.  I think all of the programs mentioned would be great in developing strong leaders and therefore increasing our bottom line. None of this will work however if we don’t create a sense of urgency around the plans. Everyone from the CEO down has to have the passion and intensity to truly make a culture shift.  The second thing that has to happen is that we can’t work so hard to develop and educate our current and future leaders that they are not able to take the time to lead! It is our job to make sure we find a good balance between responsibilities and training and then take away any obstacles that would prevent them from utilizing the training we are giving them. Creating a strong, positive culture is not easy. All of the programs in the world will not change a culture without sincerity. Leading and serving others is a gift that should not be taken lightly. At the end of the day, if managers don’t believe that, then their programs and culture will likely fail.

16. Amabile, T.M., & Kramer, S.J., (2010). The HBR List: Breakthrough Ideas for 2010. Harvard Business Review, Jan 2000 Goleman, D., (2000). Leadership That Gets Results. Harvard Business Review, March-April 2000 Malone, T., (2004). Making the Decisions to Decentralize, Harvard Business School, retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4020.html Martineau, J & Johnson, E., (2001). Preparing For Development Making the Most of Formal Leadership Programs, Center for Creative Leadership Velsor, E. V., McCauley, C.D., Ruderman, M.N. (2010). The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development. (3 rd. Ed). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.