Leadership continuous improvement

knowing and understanding a theory does not imply that a person is capable of using it to lead his team using it. Moreover, such a skill requires development by understanding the current capabilities, self assessing frequently and reflecting on the areas of improvement. in transformational leadership the four components are measurable based on the outcomes apparent on the followers which can be used as an input for self assessment and continuous improvement.

Only by understanding the current performance a person can start to improve as it will help to shed the light on improvement areas that people are not aware of. Morover, individualized consideration can give the leader a chance to understand his current performance as a leader is as good as his followers perception of him/her.

By assessing my self every month on my leadership skills i can understand how can i improve.I can assess my self against transformational leadership measurable outcomes that are widely available in the literature. As a leader this will give me an indication as what performance should i expect back from my followers. I can extend it to control the team performance through my leadership skills after developing sufficient capabilities to do so.

Ahmed Alali : 24 Mar 2013 02:04 |  Tags: L&E |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Intellectual stimulation

Intellectual capabilities are the main resource for creativity and problem solving. providing followers with new problems to solve, motivate them to think creatively and engage them with work improvement stimulates their intellectual capabilities and leads them to be more innovative and responsive.

This approach has a benefit of improving the intellectual capabilty of the followers as well as to improve the organisational performance. This is an example of a healthy development leading to the creation of a competitive team. It is the leaders obligation to seek his followers continuous development and intellectual stimulation is an effective approach.

In leading an engineering project i can benefit strongly from adopting this transformational leadership characteristic. By engaging my team members in solving an engineering problem i am contributing to their continuous development as well as share the responsibility of this project with them. to aid this approach i can coach them in using decision making tools, TRIZ, ideation and DFSS. providing them with the essential tools will encourage them try what they gained in solving any organisational competitive issues.

Ahmed Alali : 24 Mar 2013 01:53 |  Tags: L&E |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Idealized influence

Idealized influence is component of transformational leadership charateristics. Influence is strongly associated with vision and sense of mission, it is also a result of respecting followers and inspiring them to exceed their potential. Moreover, Empowering followers and including them decisions that affects their work has a positive correlation with their performance and commitment to the organisational goal.

This approach has various benefits. The main benefits are that empowerment will put employees in a position to work based on their expert judgement and not just follow orders, this will lead to working above the compliance level without waiting for rewards in return. Moreover, they will be ready to override their self-interest for the common goal of the organisation.

In my future career, even if i wasn't a manager i will still work on influencing people around me. I believe in our organisational goal and influencing others by respecting their engineering judgement, inspire them to work hard and empower people that work in my team will lead to them also believing in the organisation and work beyond minimum compliance level.

Ahmed Alali : 24 Mar 2013 01:38 |  Tags: L&E |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Individual consideration

Individual consideration is part of transformational leadership. The leader coach his followers to develop their capabilities and delegates projects to stimulate their learning. This is based on each individual initial capabilities as employees vary in their skills and ability to learn. They gain feedback to allow them to understand the required improvement area according to the organisational needs. Nevertheless, the leader has to treat each individual the equally in terms of rights and duties to create a healthy cooperative work environment.

This approach leads to a stronger relation between the leader and follower. Moreover, when followers get the attention of the leader they are more motivated to improve as they see them selves worthy of improvement and hold a potential in the eyes of their leader. Furthermore, individual consideration will allow the leader to understand his followers more closely and direct his team where they are most effective.

In terms of leading, if i got the chance to lead an engineering team i will give each team member an individual consideration as this will benefit both of us. The team members will work on developing their capabilities and i will be able to understand their technical knowledge leading to position them towards a more productive and efficient team performance.

Ahmed Alali : 24 Mar 2013 01:19 |  Tags: L&E |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Followers Empowerment

In an autocratic leadership it is believed that employees need to be told what to do and how to do it to avoid variation and defects. However, this approach limits the input of employees to act as human robots with no use for their brain to add value especially when they know their processes more than anyone. Empowerment gives employees confidence that they are capable of making their own decisions. This supports them to work harder and more creatively.

When employees are empowered they are most of the time in support of new changes as they will get a new chance to demonstrate their innovative capabilities. This also allows them to be involved to give the shared goal more interest than personal needs.

In future career, if i got the chance to be an engineering manager i need to give my employees the space to do their own work and be empowered. from an engineering perspective even if i was the most creative in the team, their are more than own way to do the same thing giving the chance to others will allow me to tackle any issue from multiple angles to come up with the best collective solution.

Ahmed Alali : 21 Mar 2013 23:01 |  Tags: L&E |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Inspiration

Inspiration is a very important aspect of leadership. It is one approach to influence followers. In EFQM it is used to create a culture of excellence. when followers see their leader thrive for excellence they are inspired by it and try to follow. However, it is important to remember that people will only be inspired and FOLLOW is they approve of their leader which can be traced to multiple factors such as empowerment and involvement.

Inspiration can be driven from a visionary. Communicating the vision in appropriate mean allow followers to buy-in and work towards it as a shared goal. Followers will also be inspired by their leaders as much as the leader has confidence in his vision. Without inspiration towards a role model in an organisation There can be inconsistency in management style and interests which is difficult to predict the consequences of.

Working as a leader does not require to be working as a manager. My current job is an engineer through that i can inspire people around me by being involved, demonstrate ownership and enterprenuership and by developing new ideas to improve the work place. This will inspire people around me to thrive towards excellence creating a healthy environment to be a highly and efficiently performing team.

Ahmed Alali : 19 Mar 2013 08:10 |  Tags: L&E |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

L&E

transformational leadrship is a theory that requires the leader to influence the values, beliefs and abilities of followers towards shared goals while enabling them to exceed their potential. T.L. characteristics has four main components charisma, individual consideration, intellectual stimulation and inspiration.

The value of this theory is in facilitating organisational change to cope with dynamic markets through dynamic vision. It also enables creativity through empowerment and by allowing followers to make shared decisions.

In my future career, i believe that this theory will allow me to accomplish strong buy in from employees, get them to make shared interest above personal interest and execute change smoothly. This is vital for engineering as engineering systems change dynamically and so should the employees.

Ahmed Alali : 18 Mar 2013 20:57 |  Tags: Theory Transformational |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Measuring decision quality

Measuring the decision quality is an important part of decision knowledge. The quality is not always measured by the decision outcomes as the amount of factors are way complicated in real life business to be considered totally. Measurement cannot depend on qualitative data as interpretation can vary significantly.

The measurement of decision quality allows tthe decision makers to lean assesing decision for more robust decisions. It is also a learning curve which allows the decision maker to improve with experience when usin the appropriate theory and tools.

I can assess the quality of decisions i have to make by examining wide range of alternatives, understand all the objectives and decision requirements, understand associated positives and negatives and assess the possibility of decision implementation. This will allow me to to make an informed decision by measuring its quality before agreeing to it as the most robust decision can be out of the decision list.

Ahmed Alali : 11 Mar 2013 08:28 |  Tags: Rdm Team-A |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

RDM presentation

In our presentation we considered production location using 2 analysis tools; decision tree and AHP. We also made the most effective media channels for advertisements. In location selection my judgement urged me to select Exmouth due to higher production rate. However, The decision tree demonstrated that in year 1 Exmouth is probably more profitable and in year 2 Lymington is more profitable and has no risk associated. This taught me that judgement is poor without support. Moreover, choosing a robust decision is more effective as plans can go forward without worrying about success rate and fluctuation.

In my career, when trying to think of a solution as an engineer cutting edge solutions can be rewarding but decision analysis might differ the opinion which can allow me to make a more robust and stable decision.

Ahmed Alali : 11 Mar 2013 08:14 |  Tags: Rdm Team-A |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Decision Verification

Robust decision making is not is not dependent on intuition or judgement. However, it is dependent on decision analysis tool. I learned that decision making either should be validated using organisation data and performance on a certain aspect or using another analysis tool for verification if both outcomes are in agreement. If not it would be useful to use the support of a third tool for determination. Nevertheless, chosen tools should be sufficient to cover most of decision aspects to avoid choosing a tool to confirm previous outcomes.

This is important to allow decision maker to assess the robustness and validity of a decision. such an action can lead to reducing decision errors and increasing the decision maker confidence.

In my future career i have to ensure that consulting more than a single analysis tool is useful. This will allow me to avoid falling in the trap of my bias by the first tool and pay my attention to further complexity of decision dimensions. I believe that it is also a useful tool to determine a career line for a change after completing my course.

Ahmed Alali : 11 Mar 2013 08:00 |  Tags: Rdm Team-A |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem