Leadership Benchmarking

Running Head: LEADERSHIP BENCHMARKING

Leadership Benchmarking

Jonathan Fleischmann, Kathy Ixta, Veronica Teran, Dale Van Wagner

University of Phoenix

MBA 520: Transformational Leadership

Group ON06MBA10

Paul McClure

February 19, 2006

Jonathan Fleischmann - Topic 1 - Leadership Competency

A few weeks after Gene One's Board of Directors approved the IPO, two of its members approached Don Ruiz, the CEO, about the ability of some of his senior executives to lead the transformation. By Ruiz's own admission, his team has no experience with IPOs, and such a sweeping transformation requires specific leadership traits for success. Assessing the competencies of Gene One's management team and acting on that assessment are issues the company must face quickly to speed its business and cultural transformation. Developing leadership competencies is key to helping managers achieve their full potential (McShane & Glinow, 2004).

General Motors Corporation's Service Parts Organization (SPO) faced a similar challenge when it realized that its employees were not reaching their full productivity potential due to lack of management leadership skills. SPO's general manager brought in a consulting firm to assess the desired management competencies and to address shortcomings through training and individual coaching (REFERENCE). Moreover, the firm created measurement criteria to link its intervention techniques with performance improvement, comparing a pilot management group with a control group. All of the company's managers in the pilot location participated in a two-day assessment and had individual development plans created for them. Consultants focused on enhancing skills that advanced the desired organizational culture, such as promoting teamwork, developing accountability, and improving communication.

The results of the leadership development effort were both significant and cost effective. Over a two year time frame, SPO improved performance in several areas including productivity, quality, and morale. The bottom line financial performance improvements far outweighed the cost of the program. Both company leadership and the project team cited organizational culture change through leadership development as the driving force behind these improvements. This was corroborated with data from the company's annual all-employee surveys. Ratings of interdepartmental communication, teamwork, job support, and job satisfaction all saw dramatic improvements. Soon after the pilot was completed, SPO moved to expand the program to management in all of its locations. SPO's leadership competency development program positively changed both the company's culture and its performance in a relatively short time. Gene One may be able to develop the competencies of its manager in a similar way to speed its business and cultural transformation.

Jonathan Fleischmann - Topic 2 - Transformational Leadership

As Gene One transitions from a private to a publicly traded company, its leaders must transform the organization's culture. They must create, communicate, and model the company's new vision to redirect its course and align it with its external environment (McShane & Glinow, 2004). Leading the organization through the uncertainty of transition and the subsequent loss of key employees is a major challenge Gene One must overcome to be successful.

Global Fidelity Investment Trust (GFIT) was on the verge of collapse and faced the need for organizational transformation even more desperately than Gene One. Through the leadership of its senior management team, the company managed to reposition itself in the financial services industry by redefining its business vision and by building employee commitment to it (Trahant, Burke, & Koonce, 1997). After a slow start, the company used an assessment process to determine how much employees had internalized the new vision. The bank measured changes over a three-year period in employee work habits, attitudes, and feelings of being empowered to work in new, more effective ways. Top managers also committed themselves to driving the business and cultural changes needed for success. They used assessment feedback to maximize their effectiveness with respect to both business improvements and leadership style.

Early surveys revealed that even in the uncertainty of transition, employees had the raw talent to help the company achieve its goals. Employees soon recognized and embraced the changes the company would need to make to become competitive, and they began to take risks and experiment with ways of doing their jobs better. The changing culture and new sense of empowerment also encouraged employees to expose process breakdowns and technical roadblocks that lowered job performance. Management further encouraged the new culture by recognizing risk takers and people who personified GFIT's new vision. Sales and the bottom line were positively impacted by both process improvements and employee attitudes. "The GFIT experience shows that top-level leadership of change efforts is essential to success, especially in the earliest stages of a change effort. That's because strong, effective leadership is very much 'transformational' in nature, and effective leaders are usually excellent communicators of change, building 'cascading' sponsorship for such efforts throughout their organizations," (Trahant, Burke, & Koonce, 1997). Gene One has a similar opportunity and would benefit from similar strategies to drive its transformation.

Veronica Teran- Topic 2 - External Environments

According to McShane and Von Glinow, the best structure for an organization depends on its external environment (Chapter 15, page 28). The external environment of an organization consists of stakeholders, clients, suppliers, government, resources (such as raw material, employees, finance and information), and competitors. These are the prime factors that structure the organization and help executive make decisions when faced with an issue or situation. Gene One's CEO, Don Ruiz realized that by his company becoming an IPO issues could be raised with his stakeholders. Two of the Executive Board Members advised Ruiz to let go two of the prime members of the company by offering compensation packages. That was a huge step for