Brandon W. Jones
Change is a word that seems to get a reaction out of everyone. Some people cringe when they hear the word, while others get excited. There is one constant in life that you can always depend on – change will always happen. So how can you begin embracing change effectively?
When you begin embracing change in life, you should look at it in terms of the opportunities it creates. When change happens, there are opportunities for learning and growth. [Read more…] about Embracing Change
The article, “Changing Others Through Changing Ourselves”, spoke about the importance of changing yourself before you encourage others to change. I am a strong proponent of changing from within first and foremost. People are always talking about change. People are always trying to change others. It is very easy to find all the faults and mistakes in others while it is more difficult to find areas to change yourself.
Some of the best leaders are the servant leaders. They have a great ability to change first and then expect others to change. I am continually trying to be a better servant leader. A true servant leader does two things. First, they lead by example and change themselves and then they humbly help others to change themselves. [Read more…] about Changing Others Through Changing Ourselves
In the case about on level 5 leadership, the main theme was how to become a level 5 leader. Although the attributes explained in the article are good attributes to obtain, after reading the case study “Good to Great, or just Good” by Bruce Niendorf and Kristine Beck, I have the strong tendency to discount the research that he states backs up his findings.
Because the research that he states was not properly obtained according to a statistics analysis, I will just review the value of his thoughts as a suggestion and not as being backed by research. The two qualities he stated leaders should have are personal humility and professional will. These two qualities are very valuable and important to have.
When an individual or leader has the quality of personal humility, they are then teachable and open to change. Without change an organization will fail. Change is essential to growing the business because customer needs are continually changing. It is not good to change in the sense of sound moral values and principles; the change I am referring to is the change in product, production techniques, marketing, etc.
Leaders need to be humble to effectively create change in an organization. If the leader is not humble and he or she tries to create change, the individuals within the organization will resist the change and then when the leader is not around they will go back to their old ways. When the leader humbly instigates change, the followers will be more likely to buy in.
In addition to being humble, great leaders must also have a professional will that drives them to do their best. The professional drive must come from within. The professional will is the desire the leader has to do their very best and be great even when no one else is looking. It is the drive the leader has to continually do more with less. Professional will is the desire to succeed. As Jim Collins pointed out, professional will is essential for a leader to reach the next level in their leadership ability.
The case study, “Evidence-Based Management,” was very interesting to me. In the case there were three points that stuck out to me. They were:
When each of the points is followed, the organization will be on its way to progress towards becoming an evidence-based organization.
When it spoke about demanding evidence it really made me think about how the organization can be bettered when changes are based in concrete evidence. It explained the importance of having relevant evidence. The evidence must come from data and experimentation from within the company. [Read more…] about Evidence-Based Management
