Lessons Learned
I now fully understand why you recommended that students seek a waiver from this course. You were intentionally speaking directly to me since I had just finished your leadership class and much of the information covered here was similar.
However, this class gave me a better opportunity to review and study the leadership material; demonstrating how every experience is a learning experience. Each of your lectures added to my understanding to create a clear perception of what I can do and where I can go here at USF. I'm here to learn and grow; and seemingly finish what I started[1]. This is self-evident to me now. Using this knowledge allowed my understanding to improve all decisions that I make.
I learned how Leadership is “influencing others to achieve desired outcome.” During your Spring ‘04 Leadership course I learned how I had a very unique and inspired Leadership Style. Now I’ve learned how to develop and utilize these innate abilities to expand my skills and complete significant research. I can begin with defining a course of action and rewrite this Leadership Style paper I completed for you.
I know there is a fundamental consistency between events and circumstances in my life designed to create new opportunities for change. I am a “change agent,” who needs to define a “desired outcome” so that my efforts can define an experiment for demonstrating new theories. The charismatic leadership which I derive from providing direct spiritual revelations[2] to associates can create an insurmountable opportunity to change and evolve the culture here on Earth.
However, I need to develop clear specific Goals and the Strategy to implement them so all the experimental results work to demonstrate a New Theory.[3] I’ve learned how I can lead and develop change for creating a new innovative culture. I know specific results will follow from what I demonstrate as advanced applications of the Scandinavian studies where the leader’s role is teacher and developer of associates.
I know I can bring these ideas and Lessons Learned together into a PhD research proposal to pursue with a little help and insight from you. Here are some conceptions:
· Goals – Link charismatic leader to innovate culture structure
o Exploring a visionary structure linking female control with a virtual team
· Structure follows strategy
o Innovation requires flexible, organic structure
o Create a virtual culture to inspire commitment to results
· Experiment with modes of operations
o Demonstrate relationship between span of control and associate performance
o Demonstrate how job satisfaction increases as supervisory duties increases
o Vision includes the "development, transmission, and implementation of an image of a desirable future"
o Leader and followers have a shared set of values and commitment "that bond them together in a common cause"
o "Top school leaders create a vision for their school systems and develop a plan for the future"
o "Associated with a vision has to be a plan, a way of reaching the goal"
Teachers agreed with the literature concerning restructuring, they emphasized the student and instructional issues. These teachers' visions included changes in the classroom, such as interdisciplinary curricula, varied student grouping patterns, and instruction that included basic literacy as well as "critical thinking, creativity, inquisitiveness, and independence of thought."
I will need to research more of the current state for these concepts you presented:
”As human beings, we are ‘wired’ to
need to experience communal altered states. Ideally, this is done in a functional fashion
that contributes to the overall good, rather than the mind control exhibited by
cults, and mass-media TV.[4] It is in this experiential bubble that we can
invite extraordinary things to happen. There is a methodology to creating such
experiences although they may also happen spontaneously. It requires ceremonial technique, presence and
experience along with the ability to stand aside and let the experience unfold.[5]”
Kevin Kaiser,
president of the Kaiser Consulting Network in
- Sensing opportunity and formulating a vision: these leaders seem to sense their constituents’ needs as well as see the deficiencies of the existing situation and untapped opportunities. The combination of these leads to an idealized vision of the future. These visions at least in organizations seem to fall along one of four major types: an innovative product or service; a contribution to society; a transformation of the organization; or a contribution to the workforce
- Articulating the Vision: these leaders seem to have a great sense of strategic vision and a capacity to convey the essence and viability of that to a broad group of people
- Building Trust in the Vision: subordinates must desire and support the goals of the leader and this is likely to be accomplished by more than coercion; rather the leader builds trust in the leader and the viability of the goals; this is likely to be done through personal risk taking, unconventional expertise, and self-sacrifice
- Achieving the Vision: these leaders use personal example and role modeling, reliance on unconventional tactics and their use of empowerment practices to demonstrate how the vision can be achieved and how motivation can be sustained
Sam Walton's
10 Rules for Success[7]
Not much need for an introduction, explanation or
commentary. (ed.)
The
basics ...
Rule #1 Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anything
else. If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do the
best you can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you
- like a fever.
Rule #2 Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them
as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will
all perform beyond your wildest expectations.
Rule #3 Motivate your partners. Money and ownership aren’t enough. Set high
goals, encourage competition and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous
payoffs.
Rule #4 Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more
they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more
they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. Information is power,
and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk
of informing your competitors.
Rule #5 Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing
else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of
praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.
Rule #6 Celebrate your success and find humour in
your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around
you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails
put on a costume and sing a silly song.
Rule #7 Listen to everyone in your company, and figure out ways to
get them talking. The folks on the front line - the ones who actually talk to
customers - are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d
better find out what they know.
Rule #8 Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do they’ll come back
over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. Let them know you
appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses -
apologize. Stand behind everything you do. ‘Satisfaction guaranteed’ will make
all the difference.
Rule #9 Control your expenses better than your competition. This is
where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot of
mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be
brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient.
Rule #10 Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional
wisdom. If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find
your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.
Updated Saturday,