John Hamm in the Harvard Business Review.

¶ … John Hamm in the Harvard Business Review. This will be followed up by a two page analytical report comparing and contrasting the content of the Hamm article to selected principles, concepts or theories in chapters 10 through 13 in the our text book, Management of Organizational Behavior.

In "The Five Messages He holds that any leader has just one job. This is inspiring his followers to make a difference and a better future for the organization. Effective communication skills are a critical tool that is needed for the accomplishment of this task. In Hamm's summation, business need to employ leadership in the way a SWAT team or an emergency staff organizes itself. Everyone knows what to do and time is analyzed efficiently to its fullest potential.

For a leader to inspire your their workforce followers, Hamm to greatness, suggests absolutely clear communication regarding the following five topics:

A. Organizational Hierarchy: When an organization reorganizes itself, it must quickly re-frame the change in such a way as to most efficiently optimize the resources and not to just blame, oust or devalue employees.

B. Financial Results: Leaders have to present the disappointing results, no matter what they are. These include, problems with capital fund-raising shortfalls. This needs to be seen not as evidence of punishable failure. Rather, it needs to be seen as a useful learning and diagnostic tool that enables the constant improvement of the organization.

C. The Job of the Leader: It is the job of the leader to let his followers know that their job is not to provide all of the answers, but rather to invite new ideas.

D. Time Management: Leadership communications have the importance of using business time strategically. This is not to accomplished by trying to get more things done faster. Rather, leaders have to have the moxy to know where they can best focus their organizational team's energy. It is by understanding that you is choice in how to use precious limited time that one can free up the needed resources to focus upon your the most important goals.

E. Corporate Culture: It is critical to create a healthy corporate culture by the articulation of the right goals. Then one must define the criteria for success in achieving those goals.

Good leaders are not megalomaniacs who prove their ability to lead by pistol-whipping their subordinates. Rather, they need to show leadership that inspires their subordinates with a clear vision that gives them the motivation to innovate during times of crisis. This is especially necessary during times of corporate transition and changeover when things are chaotic and leadership needs to be done in a crunch. The most effective CEOs ask themselves a number of probing questions. These include:

What needs to happen

1. To the organization today so that everyone knows where they want to go

Where is the confusion in the corporation?

2. Is there a vague concept or belief that can needs clarification or debunking?

What has the leader not communicated

3. clearly or completely?

What types of things are personnel taking for granted?

Hamm summarizes all of this very well in the beginning of the piece when he says: All too often, leaders fail to explain what they mean when they talk about organizational structure, financial results, their own jobs, time management, and corporate culture. Left unclear, these concepts can throw a firm into turmoil -- but when given proper focus, they confer extraordinary leverage (Hamm, 2006, 1).

All of the questions just listed help to focus CEOs in on communicating critical information in crisis times. Clarity of missions translates into decisiveness and effectiveness of execution. Without it, the company suffers the corporate version of death on the battlefield and bankruptcy stalks as surely as death would in a wartime situation.

Analytical Report:

In chapters ten through thirteen, Hersey, Blanchard and Johnson do not present any panacea or right style of leadership in a crisis. One size does not fit all. Leadership has to be tailored to specific situation the cloth is to a human body. Rather, the contributions of a leader to the effectiveness that he or she displays comes out in a crisis.

From chapter 10 in our text, we learn that the creativity and innovation that are critical do not come from a vacuum. Rather, they come from an innovative corporate culture. This kind of culture has to be created and nurtured. Unfortunately, it does not come naturally in many hierarchical organizations where top-down command is the rule. Such a culture can include stories about someone who saved the company with an innovation or language that encourages winning. Ceremonies can also enforce this very effectively. People love to be acknowledged and achievement should be recognized and rewarded publicly while wrongdoing is handled discretely. This culture can be in writing. Sam Walton at Wal-Mart did so, encouraging a can-do, innovative culture emphasized performance feedback. Of all of chapter 10's advice this is probably the best and needs to quoted in detail for effect:

Sam Walton used strong cultural values and norms to assist him in encouraging his employees to endorse his goal of total customer satisfaction. Some norms were simple, such as always greeting customers and make eye contact with them. Others were more complicated, such as striving to answer customer requests by sundown the day they were made. He also used stories to indicate Wal-Mart's concern for customers (Hersey, Blachard & Johnson, 2007, 153).

Chapter 12 impacts directly upon managing internal change and development, an issue that is critical to manage during crisis times. Forces for such change and development may be brought about by technology. Culture impacts deeply upon performance. Humans are cultural animals. Is central to who we are, how we live and how we learn. If it is properly managed, people can be trained to work effectively as a team. Changes might be planned or dictated, they might involve product changes, or changes in administration and structure. However it goes, this dovetails well with Hamm where he concentrates on the organizational hierarchy. It is the job of the leader to provide leadership in how this will develop because it impacts upon efficiency and the professional presentation of the company.