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EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP in The United States of America,
Effective Leadership
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Effective Leadership
The United States of America, being the largest and most influential country, require a highly capable individual who exhibits good leadership qualities for her presidency. The country has had some of the greatest men leading the country to democracy, leaders who made milestone decisions to transform the country. President Bill Clinton is among the great achievers who have redefined leadership today. Any aspiring leader has a lot to learn from Bill’s approach and conduct on leadership.
President Bill Clinton was a visionary, determined and focused leader. He knew what goals he wanted to achieve and set out the measures towards achieving them. It was during his presidency that the economy expanded and reported a federal reserve surplus. The president improved the American economy through structures and programs which he pushed for to make the economy better (Miller, 2012). Any aspiring good leader has the obligation of not only setting realistic goals, but also devise measures and strategies towards their achievement.
President Bill Clinton was full of charisma; he could convince even the staunchest of his critics and had a way with words. He was able to communicate effectively and clearly on what he wanted and how he wanted it done. It is in this that every good should be able to convince his subjects of what is good. He was able to build public confidence that should be a hallmark for any leader. When your subjects have confidence in you, convincing and directing them becomes easier.
Leadership in any context involves basic standard approaches. In any context of leadership, the leader has to set goals, devise the proper strategies of achieving them and supervise the progress. Failure to perform is most often blamed on the leaders, while success is attributed to them.
While leadership in different contexts appear similar, presidential leadership call for different personal attributes and skills. Presidency often involves engaging in foreign matters, such as world peace. The president is not an ordinary leadership position compared to leaders of organizations as president has to mind the people and satisfy the majority while at the time taking into consideration the effects of their decisions on their relations with other countries (Miller, 2012). Unlike leadership at organizational levels, the presidency involves taking into consideration public opinions to win its approval. Presidency often requires on to follow the majority and not merely impose one’s opinions. Hence, different personal attributes and skills are required to handle the different leadership environment competently.
References
Miller Center. (2012). American President: A Reference Resource. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://millercenter.org/president
Effective Consulting Research Methods Report
Effective Consulting Research Methods Report
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Effective Consulting Research Methods Report
Predictors of Emotional Intelligence (EI) Test Scores
Based on the data provided to determine the best candidate for the position of chief executive (CEO), it is clear to see that years of experience as an executive, years of education, and months of coaching contribute greatly to the scores attained by the candidates (Abraham, 1999). The above variables are essential in determining who the right candidate for the position of CEO will be. Hence, the predictors of emotional intelligence (EI) test scores are years of education, years of experience as an executive, and months of coaching.
External Variables that Influence the Choice of Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
External variables are variables that are concerned with the changes that affect the environment that surround the selection of the new CEO to the organization (Podsakoff, Ahearne, & MacKenzie, 1997). These variables greatly impact on the external environment of organization and as such, must be considered precisely in order to arrive at the right candidate for the job. Some of these external variables that impact the selection of the right candidate are:
Demography: This is the study of human population. This study is done with respect to occupation, age, ethnicity, sex, religion, composition, etc. It has been known that demographic variables impact in a major way how the selection of CEO’s is influenced in an organization.
Labor market: This external variable has been known to constitute the supply and demand of certain labor with respect to their importance. From experiences in the past, it has been found out that when there is a demand for certain skill, its supply is relatively high thus the selection process calls for more efforts to effect the process and vice versa.
Unemployment situations: This external variable has been known to impact the selection process of particular skills. When the rate of unemployment is high, selection of CEO in the organization will be simpler. However, the opposite is true when the rate of unemployment is low.
Political and social environment: The whole process of selecting the right CEO for the job is greatly affected by the political and social environment affecting the organization. Things such as change of governance can directly interfere with the selection of the right CEO due to the rules and regulations that the new government will impose.
Legal considerations: Considerations thought legal may in one way or the other interfere with the way selection of the right candidate for the position of CEO is done. People who are less privileged run are not properly considered for the job simply because they do not belong to the right caste.
Recommendations in Regard to the Variables used and Findings
All people deserve to be given the right treatment when recruitment is being done for the position of CEO. This treatment will provide the right opportunity for the right personnel to be selected for the job (Harvey, & Brown, 1996). However, in order to arrive at the right personnel for the job, it is important to minimize any barrier that may exist while conducting the selection process. This can be done by doing the following:
Need specification: It is important for the human resource department to specify the need of the job rather than concentrating on how the need can be achieved. For example, instead of concentrating on which means the candidate uses to get to job, they should concentrate on how fast they can get to work when needed.
Work related experience: It is important to make considerations that pertain to rather than specifics that do not relate to the job at hand. For example, the human resource department should make considerations for experience in auditing from various industries rather than for a tax auditor with five years experience.
Desired skill: The aim of recruiting is to establish the candidate with the right skills for the job. Because of this, the human resource department should consider team membership when looking for candidates to their maturity in cooperative world.
Quality: When conducting any recruitment process, focus should be directed on the candidate’s ability to perform the task required rather than their credentials.
Working conditions: Emphasis should be made on the number of hours the candidate will be working on a daily basis. Additionally, cases of part-time working, how they will be paid for, and security in case of late-night working should be made clear to the candidate when recruiting is being done.
Communication: Candidates should be made to know that effective communication is not enough; rather, they should be efficient in their listening or speaking when communicating through the telephone.
Ethical and Diversity Issues that may Affect Selection of CEO’s
There are laws and regulations that are in place to ensure that recruitment is done in an effective manner. The effectiveness of recruitment is attained when human resource professionals realize, practice same time maintain these laws and regulations to avoid case of partiality when selecting the right candidates for the job (Neely-Martinez, 1997). When conducting a selection process, ethics and diversity play a very important role in that they help the human resource personnel to select the right candidate. However, there are some challenges that are faced by the human resource personnel that lead to selecting candidates who are not fit for the job. Some of the ethical challenges are:
Placement of misleading job advertisements
Requirements misrepresentation of particular positions
Response to hiring as a way of finding a way “around” due to discrimination of qualified candidates
The inability to review candidates merits
Honesty, consistency, and objectivity are important aspects that help human resource professional’s deal with these ethical challenges. Mistakes such as placement of misleading advertisements should be avoided to help the right candidates appear for interviews when recruitments are taking place (Harvey, & Brown, 1996). A general concept that HR professionals should apply is that candidates’ ability to work should be focused on intensively than other factors. Additionally, information should be passed in the right manner to help candidates have all the necessary details containing the job position advertised. This include matters like working condition, state of the organization and how it can affect candidate’s future prospects, and the transparency of the selection process.
Diversity helps an organization to achieve different methodologies of performing various business activities. However, this can only be achieved if HR professionals are not limited to certain norms that deny them the opportunity to broaden their scope of practice. Because of this, HR professionals should ensure that they incorporate various traditions or cultures to increase diversity in their organizations. Some of the challenges associated with diversity are:
Lack of getting the word out: Safety can be achieved by managers through an attempt of making contacts to the usual suspects; however, this does not guarantee that there will be diversity in the place of work once the recruitment has been done (Organ, 1997). Failure by managers to get the word out to the broader community, various employment centers, settlement agencies, local community centers, organizations that deal with ethnic communities, as well as different cultural groups creates a barrier to diversifying work places since people who will show up for interviews will be from specific groups. This can be minimized by making advertisements that reach various people of various ethnical backgrounds.
Lack of forming relationships with various cultural and organization groups from diverse communities: Organizations have the tendency to shy away from forming relationships with cultural and organization groups from different communities. This has led them to be centered on specific groups. However, these cases can be reduced by engaging in the processes of providing employment opportunities to different groups thus forming relationships by them (Harvey, & Brown, 1996).
Lack of organizational viability in the place of work: Different people have different perspectives when it comes to evaluating how an organization has incorporated various cultures in its system. In order for an organization to portray a positive attitude to the community, there is need to work with other organizations and employ people from different backgrounds to increase its visibility in the community and minimize people’s misperception of it.
Failure to connect with volunteer base: When an organization does not take part in volunteer activities within the community, it shuts itself from interacting with the community. This denies the community the chance to employ people from various ethnical backgrounds who may wish to apply for volunteer works.
References
Abraham, R. (1999). Emotional intelligence in organizations: a conceptualization. Genetic,
Social, and General Psychology, 125, 209–215.
Harvey, D., & Brown, D. R. (1996). An experiential approach to organization development.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Neely-Martinez, M. (1997). The smarts that count. HR Magazine, November, 71–78.
Organ, D. W. (1997). Organizational citizenship behavior: it’s construct clean-up time. Human
Performance, 10(2), 85–97.
Podsakoff, P. M., Ahearne, M., & MacKenzie, S. B. (1997). Organizational citizenship behavior
and the quantity and quality of work group performance. Journal of Applied Psychology,
82, 262–270.
Find an ethical problem that people usually face in engineering
Find an ethical problem that people usually face in engineering, and find a solution for it
Engineering is a profession that has strongly embedded itself in business (Hooker, 1). Increasingly, engineers are compelled to make strategic decisions in both business and engineering. For most of the large firms, engineering is highly integrated with business and increasingly, engineers play a critical role in the product design, development and marketing. On such note, engineers are a part of a business bringing to attention the need for professionalism and professional ethics, as a result. In modern business, engineers must now think about values, a business division that had been set aside for business managers. The growth that has been experienced in biotechnology and e-commerce has been a trend that has brought about an ethical aspect for engineers. The major scope that has brought about standards in this school of thought is professionalism in management, safety and quality of products, intellectual property rights and international business ethics. For this essay, we shall explore an ethical issue in business and develop a solution for the problem.
A profession can be said to be defined by the reputation that people attach to it and its members. The primary existence of a profession is to create a reputation, enabling those who ascribe to the professional status to identify themselves as highly esteemed individuals (Dodig-Crnkovic, Gordana, and Robert Feldt, 23). An issue that is mostly associated with the engineering practice is that of cost minimization against quality and safety of products. This is the major reason that brings about ethics in the engineering profession. In the engineering practice and profession, some of the ethical issues that exist include; cronyism, nepotism, bribes as well as kickbacks. Bribes are among the major ethical issues that affect the modern day business on a local scale and global extent. Increasingly, anti-corruption campaigns, regulations by the international business laws and the local business community have taken centre stage. On this note, there is a need to understand that, engineers often find themselves in compromising positions where, they might be bribed to alter the product quality in favour of better returns for the investors, at the expense of the consumers.
Bribery is a major ethical issue that affects the engineering profession. Increasingly, engineers have been linked to corrupt deals especially where the government contracts them. In the past, construction companies, owned by engineers have been strongly linked with bribery and have ended on the wrong side of the law and faced persecutions followed by harsh penalties. Bribery is not a phenomenon that is rooted in the developing countries only, but also one that has been taking place in the developed western world. The fight, however, has been varied by the political and social-economic climate. This is where, countries such as China have been able to pass very strong criminal sentences for people accused of the vice. Others, among them most of the developing countries have remained adamant to embracing transparency in the many spheres of the economy. The engineers in particular have been strongly linked to politicians and have often received bribes through shady dealings in the public sector (Van Gorp, 4).
Apart from bribery arising during the contracting process, the vice also arises in the production stage where, engineers are required to develop a cost saving system for the company, but compromises the quality of the programme or at least worsens it. When such a situation arises, it is up to the values of the engineer to determine whether they are willing to compromise the customer’s wellbeing for the profits. For some of the businesspersons, they are willing to buy the engineer’s silence. Another instance where bribery takes place is where; engineers being very important in any production process, they know all production secrets hence they can trade off ideas. Due to their good understanding of the complex machines and formulas that are used in the production processes, engineers are able to sell off the ideas to competing firms, depriving off an innovative firm the ability to reap from the innovation. This entirely depends on the ethics of the engineer and requires that the engineer entrusted with the systems be of very good ethics to safeguard the company’s intellectual property from competitors.
In countries such as South Korea, payments in white envelopes are acceptable especially for government officials (Van Gorp, 34). This is so because, those companies willing to do so subscribe to a relationship with the government. This allows the state to form a strategic partnership with the business or the individual. White-envelop payments show a commitment to serious and restricted behavioural conduct that enables the government to conduct more business with the client in this country. For engineers in this country, the payments are not wrong but in the United States, the culture has clearly put in place rules against such an undertaking. This is regarded to as unprofessional and unethical surmounting to an unethical practice.
According to John Hooker, corruption tends to be more dominant in cultures that have been war stricken or torn by the effects of colonialism (Hooker, 13). The author argues that corruption in the African countries is extremely high and very harmful for business as it strips off the competitiveness entirely. In some of these countries, the engineers are made victims as they have very significant roles in the planning and the execution of the projects unlike in other societies where they only play the technical construction role. Here, they have a mandate to allocate the resources as they see fit and thus require a lot of ethics to thrive and make a good reputation for the profession.
Bribery in engineering has also resulted to massive losses where, an engineer working on a certain project will fail to use the best construction methods or materials later turning the entire project into a collapsed building or bridge (Hooker, 9). In most of the instances, faulty constructions due to cost minimization have caused loss of life for many and less than optimal use of the facility due to shorter periods of use. Some of the facilities develop weaknesses after a very short period and in other cases suffer quick wear and tear owed to the low durability of the materials or methods used in construction.
Among the solutions that are available for bribery in the engineering profession is the denial of a practicing licence for engineers who have been known to involve themselves in corrupt deals (Hooker, 14). This is possible through prosecution and if found guilty, deregistration from the relevant engineering bodies. The second step is the development of legislation. This is whereby; a legislation is developed to ensure that, engineers who are found to be corrupt. In countries that have adopted strong legislation such as China, professionals have adhered to the ethics to avoid the punishment that comes with a conviction. This would be a major starting point in the fight against bribery in the profession.
Moral persuasion can also be an effective approach where, the engineers are requested by the relevant authorities to adhere to their professional ethics to ensure that they build a reputation for the engineering practice (Kreiner, Jesa and Chandra Putcha, 8). Through moral persuasion, the society can also play a major role, to ensure that there is as little bribery as possible though demanding for transparent transactions during project implementation. Strict evaluation of projects and filling of audited reports is also an important part that may discourage bribes. When the awarding of the tenders follows a certain set criterion, the citizens are empowered to ensure that the tender goes out to the lowest bidder and yet, does not compromise on quality. Awarding of tenders on merit can also be a major step towards combating bribery whereby, those who are not qualifies cannot bribe their way to securing a tender. Merit locks them out and ensures only companies known to run projects efficiently are assigned to the projects.
In conclusion, bribery is one of the most controversial issues that one comes across in the ethical life of an engineer. The need to have optimal revenues from scarce resources necessitates the need to minimize costs and in most instances, compromising the quality. Despite the fact that bribery varies from one country to another, most of the countries recognize it as unacceptable. The strategies that are available for fighting against corruption are also limited to certain extents. However, the development of strict legislation has significantly worked out in Countries such as China.