Essay: Reflection On Hero And Zero Moments: Drawing Conclusions About Leadership Capabilities." (70 Characters)

You are expected to look back retrospectively at your Hero and Zero entries, other blog entries you may have made and your analysis of them using course concepts to draw conclusions about your understanding of what leadership, what it means to be a leader, your assessment of your leadership capabilties and how you might go about developing leadership capability in yourself and in others. Here are some starter questions to focus your analysis and reflection. Please note that these are trigger questions only and are intended to aid your reflection. Do not use these trigger questions as headings, or structure your paragraphs around each of them.

-Did you have difficulty identifying Hero moments? Why? What does that say about what you know about yourself? Similarly for Zero moments.

-Are there patterns in your Hero and Zero moments? What is(are) the common element(s)? Note you can make comparisons between Hero and Hero moment, Zero and Zero moments as well as between Hero and Zero moments.

-Why are they common?

-Did you learn anything about why your Hero moments occurred? That is do you understand enough about them to reproduce them mindfully?

-What are the key assumptions that drive your actions as a leader? Why do you hold these assumptions?

-Do you have a default approach to problems?

-Did this affect your Hero/Zero moments?

-To what extent do you practice the capabilities of the DLM?

Are you a good Sensemaker? What evidence do you have?

Are you good at Relating? What evidence do you have?

Are you good at Visioning? What evidence do you have?

Are you good at relating? What evidence do you have?

Why do you rate yourself this way? Do you think your peers and subordinates would rate you the same way?

Did you treat an adaptive challenge as a technical challenge? Why?

-Can you see patterns playing out in other parts of your professional or personal life?

-How effective have you been?

-How might you be more effective in your positions (or even in life)?

Mr. Alam worked for the UAE-based companies that were in operation for the last 40 years and deals with trade and distribution of high-end electronic products. The mission of the company was to continue strengthening and expanding the core business (Ababneh 2015).  The UAE-based firm understands that delivery of satisfaction depends on customer satisfaction, quality, and corporate social responsibility. Patrinchak (2016) argues that the employee training and learning as a way to build an experienced and diligent workforce

Mr. Tajdar was attached to two of the companies, where he served as sales manager of two major products. His primary responsibilities include accounting, finalizing company contracts, recruiting and retaining the workforce as explained by Agwor (2015). To make his work possible, Mr. Tajdar worked together with the company’s General Manager to set sales targets and develop sales goals. The manager gave him the powers to formulate and maintain the relationship with suppliers thus enhanced product training, pricing, and deliveries.

Since the company was never dictatorial, the employee enjoyed staying at the firm. The employees, including Mr. Tajdar have enough breathing space to make independent decisions. However, the firm is apolitical as favoritism is the order of the day because promotions are never done on merits. The firm also depends on old management practices founded on silo service delivery thus affecting the efficient operations of the firm.

Description

Mr. Tajdar has scored well in shuck engagement scale. His social support performance management and Utrecht scale scores were above average. In fact, the ambidexterity scores were average.

The Utrecht engagement scale measures three different aspects including vigor, dedication, and absorption. Similarly, the shuck engagement scale focuses on the individual cognitive, behavioral engagement, and emotional engagement, while the contextual ambidexterity scale measures the ability of the firm to manage the short- and long-term tasks appropriately (Birkinshaw and Gibson 2004).

Mr. Tajdar’s scores are above the average because of the activist challenge. Everyone in the organization recognizes the significance of adopting new practices but there is lack of commitment from those in authority. In fact, the core values are never aligned to the company’s practices. Tajdar has recognized this conflict buck lacks the formal authority to act. To this effect, he watches from the sideline how is perpetuated. Although he works with an organization that has a clear vision, the capabilities are lacking or completely absent. The longstanding behaviors such as promoting workers based on the figures are making the firm dysfunctional thus threatening the survival of the team. In fact, nobody in authority considers the opportunities available as status quo makes people happy. Without denial, the values in this company are inconsistent with the reality. Therefore, resistance to change is the issue experienced in this firm due to internal beliefs, practices, and organizational norms.

Action

Since Tajdar has just opted to stick to his tasks, he can do very little to introduce changes. Dealing with the situation requires intervention by heightening creative tension. His personal principle has helped him recognize that the activist challenge is his lack of formal authority to act (Konrad 2006). However, there are opportunities that can help him overcome the status quo. Notwithstanding, this selective promotions could be affecting many individuals. He can opt to look for partners and allies to initiate different fronts to overcome the challenge. According to Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky (2009), the law of reciprocity ensures an individual is paid back based on performance. With allies and partners, Tajdar can engage the management exchange and currency as an influential tactic to instill change in the firm. Therefore, by building social capital through employee engagement can help trigger change.

Interpretation

Sawsan

Sawsan was working for the past 13 years as a front officer. Recently, she moved to a back-office job as a Compliance officer in Mashreq Bank in the Audit Fraud Risk and Compliance department. She is responsible for screening high-risk customers and investigates their account transactions relating to Money Laundry and smuggling suspicion. Given the critical tasks attached to this work, the management has offered her the powers to make decisions on the cases. In fact, she is allowed to make 70 percent of the decisions without going back to top managements.

The job offers attractive remunerations and benefits to employees serving in such a capacity. Interestingly, the employee enjoys work/life balance and can easily fix his timing. The firm’s vision of valuing transparent and fair activities is essential in motivating workers. It intends to remain concise, clear, and open to all communications

Description 

Sawsan has scored extremely low in the shuck engagement scale. Her Social Support   performance Management and Utrecht scale scores are slightly above average. Contextual Ambidexterity score were again low.

Interpretation

The Utrecht scale is an important strategy and tool to measure an individual’s level of dedication, vigor, and absorption (ADBC 2016). Similarly, the contextual ambidexterity scale measures the organization’s ability to manage the long-term and short-term tasks as explained by Birkinshaw and Gibson (2004). The Shuck engagement scale also focuses on the individual cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement. Based on the scores of Sawsan, the vigor, dedication, and absorption are low.

Sawsan Shuck scores are below the expectation is resulting from being in a transition challenge moving from a front office job where she was interacting with clients on daily basis, to a back office job where she speaks all day to the pc. Although the company provides many benefits to their staff such as high salary, and the freedom to determine their targets and timing, yet she scored average in her Utrecht scale. Sawsan works with an organization that has a clear vision, and her new job descriptions are very clear and fixed. Although she falls in the core business unit where no exploration is involved neither required, yet she was able to score average both in performance management and social support, which indicates her control on the majority of decision making of her job. Sawsan feels a high workload on her since she is new to the job and did have no enough training to start taking live transactions.

Actions

Since Sawsan has just moved to the her new job it is too early to determine if  she has been trapped in the wrong job, specially that she is in a senior level and has been working for a long period of time. Moreover since the job is quite tiresome and requires extreme experience, a new joiner must attend more training before given major responsibilities to avoid the risk if uncertainty in performing which may lead to engagement barrier as highlighted by Ketokivi (2008). The company is providing a holding environment where all members are welcomed to share their views. Sawsan needs to get more involved with the team members and try to understand how to take decisions solely when required and after taking other member opinions in other circumstances.

Action

Trofimova Mariya

Mariya worked for a marketing agency as an accountant manager where she has a clear job descriptions and functions. With three-year experience in accounting, she had helped the Nestle Account formulate and implement marketing strategies. The marketing company only had only hired forty employees thus made her to work beyond her job descriptions. Mariya often made 80 percent of the decisions in this firm and reported directly to the directors. The company lacked clear vision thus hurting even the most dedicated workers like Mariya. In most cases, Mariya worked overtime because of high workload but she was never compensated.

Despite her productivity, the marketing agency never values Mariya. This had affected her productivity thus making her think of leave the company. The inability for the firm to motivate the overburdened workforce is the source of high turnover, low productivity, and high burnout or depression among the staff.

Description 

Mariya has scored low in the Shuck engagement scale and her social support and performance management scores are low. The Utrecht scale scores above average while the Contextual Ambidexterity score is high.

Mariya shuck engagement scores are above average due to due to crisis challenge where Mariya is the master of every work ranging from accounting to marketing that has made her extra hours without achieving the tasks. Despite these efforts, the company is not paying her overtime work thus demoralizing her efforts and performance. This leaves her depressed and unwilling to maximize productivity.  Her Utrecht Score Scale justifies her discontent because even the firm lacks a clear vision thus exposing her to adaptive challenges. In fact, her Utrecht scores in vigor, adaptation, and dedication is pleasing because is prepared to handle anything that comes her way (Rosenthal 2014). Although she is an outstanding accountant manager, she has adopted swiftly to other duties thus making her job specification diverse.  Since she also reports directly to the directors, she forms the core of this business thus making her score above average in social support and behavioral management (Williams 2005). This indicates that Mariya controls 80 percent of the strategic decision in the firm. However, she feels the pressure of high workload as she handles marketing and accounting simultaneously as explained by Chuang (2013).

Actions

Mariya has relevant requisite to handle pressure at work. However, with the extreme workload, she must have felt overworked thus the need to allow her get extra pay. Since the work is tiresome and she is capable and committed, there is need for adjusting the company workforce by hiring relevant employees to handle extra work (Chang 2015). This is the only way the company can overcome the crisis challenge because it is approaching dysfunctional level if the underlying issues are unresolved (Crocetti, Schwartz, Fermani, and Meeus 2010).

Warren

Warren worked in the UAE real estate industry and continues to work at M/s Sahara Meadows as an Operations Manager. Mr. Warren started his career as a banker with the American Express and HSBC Sri Lanka. Currently, he works with the group of companies in Hospitality, General Trading & Real Estate Development, and O&G as a proprietor. The current employer lacks clear vision thus affecting the morale of workers. With the authoritarian management style, Warren finds it difficult to work effectively because unqualified people are heading the organization thus developing mediocrity culture.

Sawsan

Description 

Warren has scored low in the shuck engagement scale while his social support and performance management is average, and Utrecht scale scores are slightly above average. Contextual Ambidexterity score were again low.

Interpretation

These scales of measurements are important in understanding the ability of an employee to adapt to organizational challenges and avoid structural barriers to engagements as justified by Alfes, Shantz, Truss and Soane (2013). The Utrecht scale, Shuck, and ambidexterity are critical in understanding engagement leadership in a firm.

Warren’s shuck scores are below the expectation due to development challenge associated with the ineffective current capability, unclear values, and untapped competencies involving moving from one company to another (Mom 2015; Sakovska 2012). Despite the workload and viewing the new job as a stepping-stone, Warren’s Utrecht scale is above average. He works with an organization without clear vision and his job description remains fixed. Warren feels that employee sustainability in the company low because vigor and commitment is insignificant (Wang and Rafiq 2014). Therefore, Warren feels the company should offer benefits to motivate workers.

Actions

Despite his experience, Warren needed to be trained so that he could adapt to the new working environment (Schaufeli, Bakker, and Salanova 2006). In fact, this could have helped him understand that the firm never offers benefits, and it provided a holding environment for people who pursue career progress thus avoiding the engagement barriers. Warren needs an adaptive leadership model to avoid the developing and transition challenges ().

Conclusion

Based on the findings of this study, it is evident that leading an enterprise is difficult and it requires an ability to cope with adaptive challenges. The leader of an organization must mobile people to allow them adapt to the challenges thus clarify the firm’s values. In fact, leadership has nothing to do with the size of an organization but the ability to develop new strategies and incorporate them in the organization through a distributed leadership model. Therefore, adaptive leadership can help the team to cope successfully with the significant changes and risks.

References

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Konrad, Alison M. 2006 Mar/Apr. “Engaging Employees through High-Involvement Work Practices.” Ivey. https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/engaging-employees-through-high-involvement-work-practices/

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Patrnchak, Joseph M. 2016. The Engagement Enterprise: A Field Guide for the Servant Leader. Atlanta, GA: The Greenleaf Centre for Servant Leadership.

Rosenthal J. 2014. “Critical Synthesis Package: Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES).” MedEdPortal, 10: p. 9862.

Sakovska, Maryana. 2012. “Importance of Employment Engagement in Business Environment: Measuring the Engagement Level of Administrative Personnel in VUC Aarhus and Detecting Factors Requiring Improvement.” Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences. https://pure.au.dk/portal-asb-student/files/45628761/employee-engagement.pdf 

Schaufeli, Wilmar B., Arnold B. Bakker, and Marisa Salanova. 2006. “The Measurement of Work Engagement with a Short Questionnaire.” Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66.4: pp. 701-716.

Wang, Catherine L. and Mohammed Rafiq. 2014. “Ambidextrous Organizational Culture, Contextual Ambidexterity and New Product Innovation: A Comparative Study of UK and Chinese High-tech Firms.” British Journal of Management, 25.1: pp. 58-76.

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