All entries for March 2016

leadership thought!!

I believe that in today’ organisations most leaders are mainly driven by profits and numbers, under evaluating the most important organisational asset, their followers. To be honest, to me this is one of the main reason why many organisations fail.

During my Leadership module I have understood how effective leaders can be beneficial for organisations as well as how company can be destroyed by number driven leaders. From my point of view, regardless the size, sector and maturity, organisation should be like a big family where everyone look after his/her colleague while leaders acting as role model should be aimed on improve the status of this big family

: 15 Mar 2016 18:05 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

we need honest leader!!!!

During my Leadership module, I am learning that in order to leading effectively leaders should use their values and principles as guidelines for each one of their decision.

It is vital for leaders to be honest with their followers; in fact, this allows them to build a climate of trust within the organisation, where everyone fells respected and part of a big family. Doing so, employees will develop a sense of ownership to the organisation. To me this approach is crucial for aligning your employees to the company goals.

: 14 Mar 2016 15:32 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

EFFECTIVE LEADERS OR DISENGAGED EMPLOYEES?

Working on the leadership PMA is a continuous discovery of different people behaviours, traits, and ways of thinking, and this is the part that I most enjoy in this assignment.

Moreover, having experienced the process of leading during my LE module two weeks ago and studying more in depth the different leadership approaches, has generated in me a stronger conviction that leading is “only” about supporting your followers, acting as a role model, and guiding them towards continuous improvements. Therefore, I firmly believe that Transformational, Strategic, Teamwork and Creative leadership styles are the most powerful approaches that effective leaders should adopt.

On the other hand, I personally believe that there are others leadership theories that I think could not help leaders to be effective; rather I believe that those approaches, putting at the heart of the leading process the leader, can only promote an ineffective leadership. HOW A LEADER CAN BE EFFECTIVE IF HE/SHE BELIEVES THAT EVERYTHING ROTATE AROUND himself/herself? To be honest, I do not have an answer to this question! However, I think that this is the main reason why an always-higher number of employees are disengaged. Therefore, I truly believe that IT IS IMPERATIVE FOR LEADERS SHIFTING THEIR PERSPECTIVE FROM A SELFISH AND PROFIT-DRIVEN STYLE TO A MORE SHARED ONE.

: 12 Mar 2016 20:52 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Team work and robust decisions

The group exercise of RDM has helped me in better understanding tools that can help in making more robust and critical decisions, however, what was even more important is that we built a decision process that allowed us deciding on tangible and consistent data, developing awareness of our choices.

In addition, as I wrote on my first blog, this module is giving me also the basis for making better decisions in the future. In fact, often we make decisions based mainly on our feeling. However, thanks to Jeff, starting from now I will think more on the importance of decision processes since it could let me feel more confident with my decisions. Particularly, I really liked the SMART tool, probably because at the end of the process we had a visual representation of our most robust decision and I really think that, with further study and more practice, it could help me in the development of my career.

In addition, I want to highlight the importance of teamwork in the application of these tools, in fact, thanks to cooperation and team working, as a group we came up with interesting ideas learning faster and easier. Thus, I strongly believe that for performing better and critically evaluating these tools, it is crucial working in a team where sharing ideas and knowledge is promoted, and I am really glad that this happened in my team. Therefore, during this week, I did not learn only how to apply tools for building a robust decision-making process, that has been important for the development of my personal capabilities, but I also had the chance to re-discover that one the most important source of learning is teamwork.

Thanks guys, thanks Jeff!

: 11 Mar 2016 20:56 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

leaders and followers

In order to succeed, organisations need leaders who are aimed in developing and supporting who produce the wealth of the organisation. In fact, this is crucial since organisations who depend on few people are organisations that have a very limited capabilities set, therefore, firms who want to excel should continuously invest in their people, promoting learning and innovation.

On the other hand, others could argue that investing in the workforce is costly and also, once improved their capabilities, employees could leave the organisation for a better position. Although this is undoubtedly true, since developing the workforce is time and resource consuming, leaders have to consider as well the impact, at organisational level, that could have retaining a workforce grow in an environment where learning and critical thinking are not nurtured. In this light, leaders should be aimed in building an environment where company and employees have a common goal.

: 10 Mar 2016 20:48 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

leadership matter!!!

In order to better understand which could be the best leadership theory that I could apply on my PMA, I have started reading more in depth around the leadership topic. To be honest, I found this a quite difficult task since I believe that it is almost impossible fully covering the topic only through the application of a single theory and, in addition, because the leadership execution varies from circumstance to circumstance. For instance, the leading traits needed during a crisis will be very different than the one required during an expansion phase.

Therefore, I probably think that combing more theories can help me in better understanding which the crucial skills for leading effectively are.

However, I would like to highlight that even though leading requires continuous adaptation and high flexibility, it is vital to remember that people are the only driver that guide this endless evolution process, thus, I strongly believe that in order to be effective leaders should always look for the personal and professional growth of their followers.

Based on this, today organisations need leaders that are able to expand and support team capabilities by creating an environment built on learning and curiosity and this will allow firms to nurture the desire for excellence among its members.

: 09 Mar 2016 19:57 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

RDM Journey

The learning points of RDM module have been extremely interesting as well as unexpected! In fact, after the first class, I realized that due to the lack of critical thinking often people decision making abilities are mostly emotions-driven therefore they lead to unpredicted consequences.

Particularly, the biggest problem that people have is that usually they make decisions purely based on the interpretation of their senses, leading to superficial and irrational decisions. Based on this, it is crucial, both at professional and personal level, using powerful tools that could guide us in making more effective decisions based on facts, data and knowledge. Doing so, it will be possible developing a series of alternative solutions that can be weighted in relation to all of the information gathered, thus, the decision made would be the result of a rational thought process.

Moreover, it is important to consider that, even following a thought process, we cannot be sure to make the best decision, simply because there never is the best decision! Instead, making a decision considering all of the possible variables and uncertainties and collecting all of the needed information, we can increase the likelihood of a positive outcome for our decision!

To be honest, before than starting this module, I have never thought about this and how our judgement abilities can drive us towards inaccurate decisions and therefore unwanted surprises. In fact, at the beginning of the module, I personally believed to own effective decision-making skills. However, thanks to Jef, I realized that it is crucial supporting our personal skills and boosting them through the application of tools – such as AHP, SMART and Risk Analysis, just to name a few – which surely enhance the power and effectiveness of our decisions.

Therefore, once again, being at the half of my way of my learning journey, I am always surer that all of these experiences are enriching my personal profile and I am truly confident that, in the long-term, all of the knowledge and competences that I am acquiring, will be crucial in guiding me towards a bright professional path!

: 06 Mar 2016 09:26 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem