General questions and foundational concepts

¶ … leadership skills, essential for a manager, are something you are born with. However, coaching programs may teach the potential future manager some of general skills that will cone in handy in his position. I am referring here to communication skills, etc.

Week 6 DQ 3 - "Everything you set on doing, do to the best of your ability." If this happens, any professional will be regarded as someone who gets the job done properly.

Week 6 DQ 2 - In my opinion, a manager needs to have a vision and strategic goals that he will implement in any conditions, even those uncertainty. A strategic vision on where the company needs to go is what differentiates ordinary managers from real ones. Additionally, a manager needs to be an excellent leader. In times of economic uncertainty as we live in nowadays, a leader with a vision will be able to show the right path for the company and its employees.

Week 6 DQ 1 - We could inspire in our answers here from the experience of the "manager of the century," Jack Welch, CEO at General Electrics for the past two decades. In his work with the company, he stimulated communication and a fruitful exchange of ideas between all employees, at any level in the company, by implementing the concept of "boundaryless." Boundaryless referred to that type of informal communication where anyone could come up with an idea, at any meeting or time, and share it even with the company's president. In this sense, the manager's communication skills can be improved by a straightforward interaction with all layers of the company.

Out of Control - It is clear that a manage always needs to adapt the different types of controls to the given situation. In many cases, preemptive control is necessary, because a negative situation can this be presented. On the other hand, in different situations, such a control method will almost certainly result in overall inefficiency and loss of time.

Misguided manager - It certainly depends on the manager. In this sense, perhaps knowing what kind of person the manager is will help in the approach and the final outcome. "The goal justifies the means" said Machiavelli. Applied here means that we need to use any approach suitable in order to serve the final purpose.

Change Agents: The "change agent" is again closely connected with the vision concept I have previously discussed. A manager needs to be able to deal with all the changes that the company is submitted to and adapt the organization according to the requirements from the market or act before the market. This is the only way it can actually remain competitive.

Reflective Skepticism: In my opinion, reflective skepticism means that nothing should be taken for granted and nothing should be believed to be true unless reflected on and proven by each individual in part. In an organization, reflective skepticism should be a significant resource of new and potentially profitable ideas.

Diversity: No one needs to underestimate the ethics aspect, but there is a general conception in many organizations that ethics is something you are either born with or you have developed in life. Teaching it at the office will simply be a waste of time. Nothing falser: we are referring here to organizational ethics, adapted for each company in part. At a time when nongovernmental organizations emphasize the ethical aspect more than ever, such training appears as a necessity.

Ethical & Legal Implications Thread: The Marthas and the Enrons and any other companies like these have made mistakes they were forced to answer for. Their mistakes were more than unethical, they were illegal.