Mba 6322 - Leadership in Supply Chain Management

MBA 6322 - Leadership in Supply Chain Management

November 13, 2017

Professor (Ray) Qing Cao

SLPI Analysis Report

Introduction

        The Student LPI lets students accurately measure their leadership skills and take action to improve their effectiveness as leaders. It is an essential tool to help you gain perspective on how you see yourself as a leader, how others view you, and what actions you can take to improve your use of The Five Practices.  The five practices are Model the way, Inspire, Challenge the process, Enable, and Encourage the heart. I have requested a total of 9 observers to rate me, and all of them conducted the analysis and submitted. The purpose of this paper is to compare their ratings to my self-rating.

Leader versus Observer Rating Comparison

I immediately notice 3-5-point difference on 4 out of 5 of the five practices. I rated myself high on all of the five practices.  I consider myself to be optimal in all five categories.  For example, at my current job I am team lead over the shipping and receiving department.  I “Model the Way” every single day by maintaining high production levels, taking pride in my job, providing effective guidance as needed, and helping other department when necessary.  I am always the first to report to work and the last to leave. I “Inspire a Shared Vision” by effortlessly communicating the company’s mission statement and how it pertains to our department.  I have been rewarded with the C1-Award, which is only awarded to 2 people out of 500+ employees. I constantly “Challenge our current processes” with the kaizen approach.  Kaizen means continuous improvement.  I have submitted over 2 dozen kaizens within the last year to help improve the weak areas of our current processes.

On the “Enable Other to Act” I may have not considered how much I like to be hands on when it comes to company projects. At times it’s hard to get other team members engaged in a task or perform a job duty because I take over and make them feel incompetent. This is not intentional, I found it hard to delegate sometimes. Especially when upper management is involved.  For example, our annual inventory is conducted in February every year.  Last year a single prepped the entire warehouse for inventory. My team members were fairly new at the time, and I didn’t want to risk an unnecessary error.  Reflecting back this would have been a great opportunity to get them involved and enabled them act.

I consider myself to be a people person.  It doesn’t take much for me to proactively reach out and get to know someone. I encourage the heart by being advocate for random acts of kindness.  I make a point to put a smile each and every one of my coworkers faces.  Sometimes it comes off as pesky, but eventually I win them over. At work I bounce between inspiration and persuasive style to get through to my team members.  I found these approaches to beneficial to productivity and work atmosphere. For example, I always tell my coworkers how important they are, and how our contributions make a difference.  Pulling the correct parts on time and efficiently cuts down cost on time billed to the customer.  It also keeps the inventory discrepancies low, which save the company money from inventory loss.  

Overall, I think that the observers rating is more accurate.  These are individuals that I have worked or studied with every day for the last 2 years.  They have watched me develop into the leader I am today.  Comparing their rating to mine has allowed me to view my strengths and weaknesses from a different perspective. I definitely see room for improvement, and will use this tool as a guide to do so.

Leadership Behavior Rankings

According to the Leadership behavior ranking, my Model the way rankings are consistently high ranging between 4 - 4.3.  I think this fair, based on the level I’m on in my professional career.   My impact may not be as great as I believe it to be.  For example, I still have to get certain things okayed by my manager before I can move forward.  Such as, any new changes to current process must be approved by upper management.  Influence sometimes come with authority, and team member often seek guidance from those who has power to make change.

My Inspire a Shared vision rankings ranged between 4.3 – 4.7. I agree with this because I love to motivate, and push others towards their goal.  For example, I give my team members the opportunity to share any ideas that they have to improve any process within the company.  We get approved by management, and try it for 30 days before we say yes or no.  If the idea proves to be effective, we document it and make it official.  The team member is rewarded with a gift card or free lunch for their efforts.

Challenge the Process ranking ranged between 3.9 and 4.4.  I rated myself as a 5, but I agree with the observers. Most of the processes we have now was reevaluated and modified when I came aboard.  Within the 2.5 years working there we have turned my department completely around.  For example, the inventory loss went from $ 14,000 to 2500 in my first year.  The second-year inventory loss was down to $ 1425.

The Enable other to Act ranking ranged from 4.0 – 4.7.  I agree with this rating it is fairly close to the rating I gave myself.  As mentioned in the summary above while at times I get anxiety, and become too hands on.  I do allow my team members to actively engage in new projects, or pursue tasks alone.  I still have a lot to work to do in this particular practice. I need learn to be more trusting, and allow my team member to take ownership of the task assigned to them.