Leadership Team Building and Communication
Leadership theories continue to evolve as the complexity, nature and scope of organizations shift from command-and-control structures to more agile frameworks for managing change. The pace of disruptive innovation is accelerating, forcing reliance on the latest theories of leadership to keep organizations competitive in rapidly changing markets. The intent of this analysis is to evaluate the traditional, contemporary and emerging leadership theories and interpersonal forms of power. Unifying these factors by defining the profile of the ideal leader is also completed in this analysis, highlighting the most effective leadership characteristics and patterns in their specific roles. An organization has been selected, Cisco Systems, to evaluate these theories against. In addition, organizational stressors are also discussed in addition to strategies to managing them so an organization can still attain optimal performance. The five conflict management styles are also discussed in addition to potential barriers to communication, with recommendations on how to overcome them.
Analysis of Traditional, Contemporary and Emerging Leadership Theories
Traditional leadership theories stressed the concept of the "great man" or leader who was given the role based on behavioral traits and their ability to create and sustain teams' progress towards goals. These "great man" theories also relied on external observation of traits; there was little advanced screening of personality traits or the innate perceptions of highly effective leaders (Fitzgerald, Schutte, 2010). Traditional leadership theories progressed rapidly beyond only the observable traits of a leader and seeing them as innate to the belief that leadership could be mastered as a skill (Buffinton, Jablokow, Martin, 2002). This shift in leadership theories marked the transition of this field from traditional to contemporary research. With contemporary theories, leadership is seen as a skill that can be taught (Purvanova, Bono, 2009). The research of Dr. Max Weber on the traits of charismatic leaders and the contingency theories of Dr. Fred Fielder (Maslanka, 2004) are the foundation of contemporary theories of leadership. These foundational concepts set the foundation for the rapidly emerging leadership theories that are in use today. The inclusion of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and charismatic leadership into a common framework was first completed by researchers James McGregor Burns and Bernard Bass, who created the transformational leadership theory (Maslanka, 2004). One of the most powerful aspects of this theory is that it includes both the behavioral and cognitive aspects of leadership behavior, while also showing how adoption of the five factor model created can also increase leadership effectiveness (Judge, Joyce, 2000). Of the many emerging leadership theorists adding knowledge to this field, Dr. Bruce Avolio and Fred Luthans continued to expand on these leadership theories and show the potential for EI-based leadership models to positively impact corporate financial performance (Fitzgerald, Schutte, 2010).
Defining the Ideal Leader
The ideal leader at Cisco Systems is one that combines communication and collaboration skills with the ability to create and sustain team progress towards challenging goals. The best leaders at Cisco systems also have the ability to create self-efficacy in their subordinates along with accountability both to each other and to results. In this respect, Cisco's top leaders have strong transformational leadership skills combined with EI-based insights into hwo best to modify their own leadership approaches to meet the directional needs of their group (Purvanova, Bono, 2009). Combining the attributes or qualities of individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and idealized influence, Cisco's top leaders have a strong foundation of transformational leadership skills (Judge, Joyce, 2000). What makes these leaders different than many others in the high technology industry is their ability to also combine interpersonal forms of power as well. These include coercive power, reward power, legitimate power, referent power and expert power (French, Raven, 1959). Of these, Cisco's top leaders are most effective when they use expert power and referent power, two elements often found in high technology companies given the nature of their business models. Both of these types of power are highly effective in moving new product ideas along to fruition and financial profitability. For Cisco, the pace of new product introductions must continually improve if they are to stay up with their global competitors. Cisco's leaders are given the responsibility for making new product launches contribute a large percentage of profits in any given financial quarter. This is how Cisco ties transformational leadership skills, expert and referent power to financial results. All of these activites revolve around innovation adn new product development.
Government Subsidized Student Loans Have Economic Costs
Higher education has become increasingly important in the contemporary world scenario today where globalization has led to a higher need for a skilled labor force that is mobile and that is well-versed in the academic disciplines followed all over the world. In fact university education is starting to be seen as a hallmark for success, even though there are college drop outs who have become billionaires.
The recent spate of universities and higher education institutes has led students and their parents to believe that university education is mandatory for all those who want a nice career and income in their lives, and has increasingly blurred the distinction between necessary and mandatory education, compared to professional education that is mainly to benefit the individual.
In light of this dilemma, yet another question arises of helping students gain this education with the availability of subsidized student loans. This issue has gained precedence in the preceding years as the tuition fees have escalated and America is battling a recession, with several policy considerations to keep in mind.
Traditional project management principles and practices
In the study New product development projects: The effects of organizational culture (Belassi, Kondra, Tukel, 2007) the authors illustrate through an empirical analysis of which aspects in an organizations' culture benefit New Product Development (NPD) the most and least why traditional project management techniques are marginally effective. Throughout the detailed analysis the authors find the three critical success factors of work environment, management leadership and results orientation as being essential for any NPD strategy to succeed (Belassi, Kondra, Tukel, 2007). Their contention is that traditional project management techniques do not take into account these aspect of an organization and actually slow down the overall process of project team performance (Belassi, Kondra, Tukel, 2007). The authors also contend and show through intensive levels of empirical research just how critical it is to have strong leadership that is uncomfortable with uncertainty driving an NPD project. Further, an effective leader is one that can integrate the work environment, management leadership and results orientation to match the specific requirements of the team and project. All of these factors must be orchestrated for optimum results with leaders who are fully engaged in the overall vision of the project. Traditional project management technique's fail to take into account these more exogenous variables of cultures and fail often as a result, according to the authors' research and conclusions (Belassi, Kondra, Tukel, 2007). The need for being more transformational, not transactional, is shown in the study.