A511.8.3.RB – Gender

March 3, 2016

Richard Martinez

MSLD 511

            Women are highly represented in every field as well as management positions, yet women are not commonly found in the highest positions. Rosabeth believes that this is in part due to responsibility required and women are often overlooked due to balancing work and family. The difference in pay is due to job requirements and expectations. Judgement is based on people wanting people who reflect them. Family oriented women play a big part. People performing same work should have the same pay. Women should have high level positions if they have the skills and training to perform the job. Women need to have more of a voice and people need to listen. Women are often not seen as authority figures in comparison to men. There is resentment when women are paid less for the same work and can have a negative impact on the work climate.

            Discrimination is evident due to the number of women in high level leadership positions. Assumptions are made in relation to males possessing traits required for leadership positions. Gender stereotypes have been slow to change and varies in different cultures. Some argue that it is more common for women to have the values and skills needed for effective leadership, such as kindness, compassion, and nurturing. Some believe that the nature of women is more conducive to growing relationships. Proponents say that these are weak assumptions. The glass ceiling has many contributing factors including biased beliefs, lack of opportunity for women to gain experience and visibility, higher standards or performance required for women, and lack of opportunity. The research in regards to comparing men and women as leaders is inconclusive.

            Both Moss Kanter and Yukl recognize that although women are increasingly gaining leadership positions discrimination still exists. Moss Kanter believes that this issue is due women having responsibilities to balance work and family and that those doing the hiring are looking for someone who reflects them. She also says that there is not so much an issue with equal pay for equal work but that women take more time off so it takes more time to earn pay increases or their job expectations are not the same so the pay is less. Yukl credits lack of opportunity for women with the reason for the gap. I believe that more and more opportunities are becoming available for women, even in the military. I also believe that effective leadership is skill based rather than gender based. I feel that I identify more with Yukl’s insights on the gender issue.

A511.7.3.RB – Self Awareness

February 25, 2016

Richard Martinez

MSLD 511

            Self-Awareness is defined by many dictionaries as knowledge and awareness of your own personality or character. Each of us as leaders are defined by something that sets us apart from everyone else. We can find common similarities in many people but for the most part there is that one thing that sets us apart and distinguishes us and forms our foundation in leadership. As the our reading points out there are certain things that characterize leaders like Bill Gates’ geekiness or Harvey-Jones and how he stood out from the crowd, and Akio Morita of Sony and his boundless energy. For me my personality and character began evolving on 24 September 1985 which is the day I joined the U.S. Army. I was 17 years old and had just graduated high school in June of that year. I already had a set of basic values that were taught to me by my parents that laid the foundation for my traits and values or core competencies.

            One of the first things that I learned in the army was a set of core values that to this day I still live by and apply in everything that I do. These core values are Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage (LDRSHIP). Together the first letter of each word spell LDRSHIP, a simple acronym to always help you remember these core values. This set the foundation of my leadership skills and style. The three primary characteristics of my leadership are Be, Know, and Do. Becoming a leader involves developing all aspects of yourself. The “Be” Character for me is my core values of LDRSHIP and my mental, physical, and emotional attributes. The “Know” characteristic for me is my interpersonal, conceptual, technical, and tactical skills. Finally the “Do” characteristic for me are my actions of influencing, operating, and improving. Influencing consists of communicating, decision making, and motivating.  The action of operating involves planning and prepping, executing, and then assessing. Improving is the final action of “Do” which involves developing, building, and learning. This has been the foundation of my leadership and who I am for the last 30 years.

            When I sit back and look at myself and my life now I find that as a leader I am very confident and responsible. I have always led from the front and never will have my team do something that I am not willing to do myself. I am very knowledgeable in many subjects both job related and non-job related. I try to be the person with the voice of reason. I am a mentor to my team and anyone who needs a mentor whether its job related or personal in nature. Together with my core values of “LDRSHIP” and the characteristics of “Be, Know, and Do” have set me up to be a successful leader while I was in the Army and in my personal life after the Army.

            I have always been taught that leaders of character and competence act to achieve excellence by developing a team that can work and succeed in all areas and serve the common goal of the company.    

A511.5.3.RB – Remote Transformational Leadership

February 13, 2016

Richard Martinez

MSLD 511

            In the past most of the studies on transformational leadership has been centered on the face-to-face leadership. This where the leader is always present with the followers. In this new day and age of advancement leaders are now being tasked more and more with leading followers in remote location where the leader cannot be present with the followers. New technologies like email, phone conferencing, and video conferencing have allowed the leader to lead their teams from remote locations. The focus of this scholarly paper is remote leadership. Leadership interactions that are characterized by electronically-mediated communication between geographically and physically isolated leaders and followers are what the term “remote leadership” means (Kelloway, et al, 2002). This is also being conducted in two studies

             In the first study the hypotheses is first, can recipients perceive and accurately identify leadership styles communicated by email. Second, is receiving an email with a positive leadership message as opposed to a negative message perceived to be associated with positive outcomes? The researchers suggest that both laissez-faire and management-by-exception styles may be especially relevant to remote leadership environment. In the second study the researchers hypothesized that individuals exposed to email messages containing a charismatic or intellectually stimulating message would express higher levels of task motivation, and demonstrate higher levels of performance on a laboratory task than individuals who received email instructions that did not contain these aspects of transformational leadership (Kelloway, et al, 2002).

            For study 1 to answer the two questions being examined in the hypotheses the vignette approach is used. They had to develop three vignettes that reflect an email representing transformational leadership, management-by-exception, and laissez-faire. This study used 132 undergraduate students from one Canadian university voluntary and anonymously participated in the main experiment. No prior classes in organizational behavior were given to the students prior to the study. The procedure consisted of the students reading the hypothetical situation containing the email from Jeff, and Mark’s reply before completing the questionnaires containing scales. It was administered in class and distributed so no student sitting next to each other had the same vignettes. 42 read the management-by-exception, 43 read the laissez-faire, and 45 read the transformational leadership vignette. In the second study the experiment involved using a group problem solving exercise similar to the well-known NASA exercise. This required the participants to read a short scenario describing a survival situation. Their task is to rank in order a list of supplies in terms of importance with 1 being the most important and 12 the least important. Each participant completed this task separately. After completing they were then given a copy of the email containing either a charismatic, intellectually stimulating, or a transformational message. The participants completed the survival task individually then as part of a group. They were assigned to a group according to which message they received. Finally they needed to complete a brief post-task questionnaire.

            The results in study 1 did demonstrate that individuals did distinguish between different leadership styles within emails. They were also consistent with the researcher anticipations that emails encompassing transformational leadership messages were associated with greater interpersonal justice and satisfaction compared to messages based on the management-by-exception or laissez-faire styles. In the subsequent study the results illustrate that in the manipulation check the participants correctly identified the projected characteristics of the remote leader. The results also confirmed what they hypothesized about performance on a problem solving task would be better when groups were presented with an email from a remote leader that contained specific intellectual stimulating or charismatic leadership characteristics. However the results did not support an effect of a charismatic leadership message on an individual motivation and further research in this area is needed.

            This research does have great value in fully understanding the differences between remote leadership and face to face leadership. The findings suggested that remote transformational leadership can still have the same encouraging effects as face to face interaction. The study also shows that emails can express the same leadership message as in face to face communication does. This questions the suggestion that leader-follower distance creates a negative effect on performance and followers perspective on their leaders. Next is to replicate these findings in the field setting and they show considerable promise for the effectiveness of remote transformational leadership (Kelloway, et al, 2002).   

A511.4.3.RB – Leadership Traits

February 5, 2016

Richard Martinez

MSLD 511

                Motivation literally is the aspiration to do things and get things done. Managers use motivation to get their employees to work and complete the goals that are set for them. I feel that it’s very important for the manager to be fully motivated in order to get his or her team motivated. If a manager lacks even a slight amount of motivation their team will see this and may soon lack the equivalent amount of motivation or even more. A key component of managerial motivation is setting and accomplishing goals. Leadership trait centers on the leader’s values and beliefs as well as their necessity for achievement and acceptance. Leadership traits also focuses on mental, physical, and emotional attributes as well. According to Yukl (2103) there are eight specific traits that are related to leadership effectiveness. These traits include; high energy level and stress tolerance; internal locus of control orientation; emotional maturity; personal integrity; socialized power motivation; moderately high achievement orientation; moderately high self-confidence; and moderately low need for affiliation. Leadership effectiveness is crucial to focusing on and applying leadership traits as well as concentrating on significant areas that will have the maximum influence that turns your vision and goals into reality.

                When I sit back and asses my own leadership skills, traits, and competencies I find that mine are slightly different than what’s shown in Yukl’s text. Most of my skills, traits and competencies were learned while I was in the U.S. Army for 28 years. They have been instilled in me from an early age and are now a major part of who I am today. I apply them in almost everything that I do in everyday life and in my leadership style at work. It begins with a set of traits and values with the acronym LDRSHIP. Each letter focuses on a specific trait or value. L = Loyalty, D = Duty, R = Respect, S = Selfless Service, H = Honor, I = Integrity, P = Personal Courage. This is the basis of my leadership skills and greatly helps with my leadership effectiveness. There are many other traits, skills, and competencies that I use that help me in my overall leadership abilities. Another area is my leadership attributes that are a person’s fundamental qualities and characteristics and are characterized as mental, physical, and emotional. These attributes are learned and can be changed and a successful leader will always work to improve them. Mental attributes include Will, Initiative, Self-Discipline, Judgement, Self-Confidence, Intelligence, and Cultural Awareness. The physical attributes include Health Fitness, Physical Fitness, and Professional bearing. Emotional attributes include Self-Control, Balance, and Stability.  

                Because I have been able to not only apply these skills, traits, competencies and attributes to my leadership but to my personal life as well has greatly help me to incorporate leadership in almost everything that I do. I have been able to create a leadership style that to me is a process of influence and is always progressing and has sustainability on key things that work but is adaptable to new situations. We are in an ever changing world and we are presented with new challenges every day. We also need to be able to adapt to each person in our charge or deal with, not everyone is the same.       

A511.3.3.RB – Power and Influence

January 30, 2016

Richard Martinez

MSLD 511

                To me leadership is a process and power and influence is part of this process. There are eight sources of power, legitimate, reward coercive, referent, expert, information, ecological, and position and personal power. Power can be gained or lost and there are three theory’s that describe how this is done. The first theory is the Social Exchange Theory which states the amount of power depends on the individual’s loyalty, demonstrated competence, and contribution to the fulfillment of shared goals (Yukl, 2013). The second theory is the Strategic Contingencies Theory is contingent on three factors which are expertise in coping with important problems, centrality of the subunit within the workflow, and the extent to which the subunit’s expertise is unique rather than substantial (Yukl, 2013). The final theory is the Institutionalization of Power which is the process for using political tactics to increase influence or protect existing power sources (Yukl, 2013). Each source of power has a set of specific guidelines for its use. Failure to follow these guidelines can result in loss of power with your subordinates.

                Influence is the essence of leadership according to Yukl (2013). Influence processes are what the Leader will use to get the target person or personnel to accomplish the job or task at hand. The influence processes include Instrumental Compliance, Internalization, and Personal Identification. With Influence comes general types of influence tactics and outcomes. These tactics include impression management, political, and proactive while influence outcomes consist of commitment, compliance, and resistance. As with power, influence has specific guidelines for its use as well. There are four core tactics that include rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, consultation and collaboration. Other tactics include apprising, exchange, ingratiation, legitimating, personal appeal, pressure, and collation. These proactive tactics are used when the target is likely to resist a simple request from the leader.

                While I was in the U.S. Army the sources of power are very clear and known by all ranks. As A First Sergeant my power comes from my assumed role and assigned responsibility. I also draw my power from my rank. My role as a First Sergeant is the primary advisor and senior enlisted person in the company. I am the right hand of the commander and together as a team we will lead the company of Soldiers in all missions and tasks. Because my rank is First Sergeant it is one of two enlisted ranks that by nature is a leadership role.  All other enlisted ranks can be assigned a leadership position or not.  There are three levels of leadership and four special conditions of leadership that show how the power is used. The levels of leadership consist of direct, organizational, and strategic. Direct leadership is face to face or first line leadership. Organizational leadership is influencing several hundreds to several thousands of people. This is done through more levels of subordinates than do direct leaders. Strategic leadership is done through thousands to hundreds of thousands of people. The special conditions of leadership consist of formal, informal, collective, and situational. Formal is designated by rank or position while informal is when you take initiative and apply special expertise when appropriate. Collective is reaching synergistic effects that are achieved with multiple leaders aligned by purpose and situational are when actions are adjusted to complex and uncertain environments. Due to the hierarchical structure of the Army, every leader is also a follower. Learning to be a good leader also needs to be associated with learning to be a good follower.

                I have experienced a great amount of high quality leader-member exchange while in the military. And I have also experienced dysfunctional leader-member exchange. With the high quality leader-member exchange there is always a solid well rounded leader that has outstanding support from junior leaders under them. When the dysfunctional leader-member exchange happens is almost solely the fault of a toxic leader being in charge of the group.

References:

Yukl, G. (2013) Leadership in Organizations, 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education/Prentice Hall

A511.2.3.RB – Supportive Behavior

January 22, 2016

Richard Martinez

MSLD 511

               

                Early in my career in the military I had a lot of what we would consider poor or bad leaders. I refer to them now as hostile leaders. For them it was more about getting the job done and rarely being a supportive leader. Within the first five years of being in the Army I had only one solid leader that I would consider a mentor and supportive leader. It would be another 10 years before I had another leader of his caliber. I’m not saying that all my leaders were bad but they all lacked in several areas and one of those was being a supportive leader. As time changed from the mid 80’s to the early 2000’s leadership styles in the military were changing fast and there were a lot more solid and good leaders. One of the areas that we were learning as leaders in the military was in the area of being a supportive leader.

                When I became a Squad Leader in the Army it was my first leadership position for me. I had learned a lot of bad leadership behaviors from my early leaders. It was more of do as I say not as I do type leadership. I quickly learned that this was not the way to go. I began to study military leadership on my own time to get a better understanding of what it truly was. I found out that a lot of my leaders really knew nothing about leadership. I learned that true leadership involved taking care of your Soldiers and this meant learning supportive behaviors. Monitoring or observing was one of the first things I learned. You have to get to know your personnel and understand who they are and what their capabilities are.  This also involved observing their progress for any issues or problems or outstanding work performance. I learned early on to do monthly evaluations of my subordinates which showed their specific progress in many areas and anything that was not done or done incorrectly. If that was the case then I had to show them the proper ways of doing it. Show them guidance and support. This also included being there for a Soldier when situations outside the job arose.

                The text book list several key guidelines for being a supportive leader, I strongly feel that in my current leadership style I utilize the majority if not all of these guidelines in my leadership with others whether it is direct or indirect leadership. These include showing acceptance and positive regard, providing sympathy and support when the person is anxious or upset, bolstering the person’s self-esteem and confidence and be willing to help with personal problems. It is very important to take care of your personnel in order for them to focus on the job. I learned that a happy Soldier is a very hard working Soldier. It’s very important to create a positive work environment with confident leaders and personnel.

                Another aspect of supportive behavior is developing subordinate skills. I had a leader teach me to always ensure that you teach your personnel to learn and perform at the next higher level than they are currently at. Basically teach them to take over my job. This shows them that as a leader I have concern for their development and advancement. I provided coaching to all of my subordinates at any time even during our off times and weekends. Another part of coaching was giving career advice and how to advance. Training was not an issue since it was mandatory in everything we did in the military. This did have an effect on my leadership when I retired from the Army and I gained a civilian job. A lot of my personnel were not trained properly or at all. I had to develop a program to get all of my personnel properly trained and create advanced training as well. This did include leadership training as well. I encouraged my personnel to learn from other individual’s successes and failures. There is a set of core values that I learned early on in my military career that I still use today and teach all of my subordinates. The core values are Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. If you take the first letter of each of these core values they spell LDRSHIP. This was an easy way to remember them. I have applied and live by these core values and they have greatly enhanced my leadership skills and style.

A511.1.3.RB – Leadership vs. Management

January 15, 2016

Richard Martinez

MSLD 511

                For as long as I can remember I have always looked at the Manager and a leader as being two different things but yet they have some overlapping similarities or functions. As we are learning in our Organizational Leadership class there is not a standard definition for Leadership. There are actually a slew of definitions for leadership. I have found that the definition I truly believe in and find that works for me is Leadership is the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization. I learned this definition of leadership when I joined the U.S. Army back in 1985 and have used it as a base for my leadership style for over 28 years in my Army career and I still use it today. I find that this definition is very simple and to the point and is very easy to understand and implement. When I researched the definition for a manger there were very few definitions out there. Primarily a manager is a person responsible for controlling or administering all or part of a company or organization. Kotter (1990) proposed that managing seeks to produce predictability and order, whereas leading seeks to produce organizational change (Yukl, 2013).

                When we look at a leader we find an individual that affects change in people and organizations. A leader is a problem solver and provides purpose, direction, and motivation to their subordinates. The develop trust and influence and inspire others whether it be direct or indirect. A leader values flexibility, innovation and adaptation daily. They care about people and economic outcomes and have long term perspectives with regards to objectives and strategies. A leader has a direct and very close working relationship to the subordinates who are actually conducting the work at hand.

                A Manger is a person who controls or is responsible for all or a specific part of a company and may have direct hires or may not have any personnel at all. A manager is looked at differently than a leader but may still poses leadership skills and qualities. Managers are the individuals that write the business plans or may set budgets for the section or area of their control. They monitor the progress of things being done and they are also problem solving. Management is a function that is exercised in any business. They will also facilitate scheduled and unscheduled meetings. One aspect of a manger or management is that tasks can be done by several members of a team or by one individual. Another aspect of managers is that they value stability, order, and efficiency and they are impersonal, risk adverse, and focused on short term results.

                A manger that has subordinate personnel will also have some or should have some leadership traits or skills. If a manger has personnel it is important for them to also function as a leader and provide leadership to their subordinates. Both leaders and managers are problem solvers as well as monitor the progress of things. When a manager acts in the role as leader they must provide purpose, motivation, and direction to their subordinates. In my past I have always seen the manager as someone who is responsible for an area or section of a company without having direct individuals that complete the task. Someone who may control the maintenance of a fleet of helicopter but does not control the people or the helicopters themselves. This is something we do in the military in many areas. When I worked for SpaceX We had a manger who was responsible for two shifts of personnel and was in charge of all aspects of what the two shifts did. Each shift had one supervisor who led the shift and each shift had two leads who helped the shift supervisors. The way we ran was that the shift supervisors were leaders as well as the four leads but our manger never incorporated leadership in his role. We found that this created many issues within the section and ultimately led to the manger being fired for lack of leadership.