Four Attributes of Leadership Vision

With regard to Imagining the Ideal and the concept of vision being “an ideal and unique image of the future,” there are four attributes of vision that represent dimensions for expressing the vision (Kouzes & Posner, 2002):

• Ideality: The Pursuit of Excellence—being the very best;
• Uniqueness: Pride in Being Different—being unique from other organizations with similar missions;
• Future Orientation: Looking Forward—dwell on what should be, instead of what is;
• Imagery: Pictures of the Future—paint the future of the organization in vivid, bold and imaginative colors.

Leaders bring the vision that represents the organization to life along these four dimensions.

Ideality is about pursuing a standard of excellence beyond what seems probable to what is possible. There is an important distinction between what is probable. To tailgate on an example provided Kouzes and Posner (2002), the author knows that most restaurants will fail in the first year of operation, but do restaurateurs let that known probability detract from the possibility of success? No, that is where leaders clearly differ in attitude and orientation from some managers. Perhaps it is true that managers deal in probabilities while leaders deal in possibilities. Leadership is about reaching for the possibility (or impossibility) of the ideal condition.

Uniqueness of the vision spells out how an organization is different from another. In many ways, an endeavor gains validity and the members of the endeavor gain from the vision converging on those organizations that it should converge with and diverging with those visions of organizations with which they should diverge. When this convergent and divergent validity of the vision is apparent to members, they will either want to be part of the journey or not. Either they will want to stand out in a crowd and be proud of the fact that they are doing something different or not. The author’s past company was not just another web marketing company but a company that helped other companies mine the dormant veins of gold in their websites – we did this by increasing both the quantity and quality of sales contacts generated by the website. Therefore, as it is with any company: leaders must make sure that the vision statement embodies a clear differentiation of the mission away from commoditization.

Future Orientation is an attribute of vision that is missing from many organizations. There is no doubt that many managers spend time thinking about the future. The question is whether they spend any time doing what Kouzes and Posner (2002) have identified as essential: “devoted to building a collective perspective on the future.” Visions are pictures of destination, not starting points and leaders need to spend time not only dwelling on the future possibilities but also communicating this future orientation to their organizations.

Imagery provides a visual reference point for the organization’s vision. Painting a clear mental picture of the vision can make great strides across the territory separating the constituency from the goal. Mental imagery serves as the trial run for the journey, the prototype, or the model. The imagery is not the vision just as the topographical map is not the territory. However, in order to focus on the vision, the imagery associated with the vision offers considerable utility to leaders. See the vision. Be the vision. Attain the vision.

Reference

Kouzes, J.M., & Posner, B.Z. (2002). The leadership challenge (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Vision and Leading Organizations

A vision is important for followers because it charts a strategic course for the organization beyond what others thought was possible and beyond what others consider ordinary—a vision can be a source of motivation (Kouzes & Posner, 2002). A vision can provide followers something with which they can identify, believe in, and work toward completing. A vision can paint an inspiring picture, point toward a new future, and dramatize an important new direction for the company, providing a concrete representation of where the leader is trying to take the organization.

The importance of envisioning the future for leaders is that it posits what is now imaginary for the organization but that can be made real. Very little progress is made without someone imagining a better future for the organization. The author cannot help but quote a passage from the Old Testament of the Bible in this instance: “Without prophetic vision people run wild, but blessed are those who follow God's teachings.” (Proverbs 29:18, God’s Word Translation). Although this verse is referring to guidance from God, the message is the same: people need a clear, far-reaching picture of where they need to be heading, and it is incumbent upon leaders to provide that vision.

Admittedly, organizational behavior theorists suggest that to focus all collective energies, the organization must have a mission statement. Regardless of the organizational context, we often substitute words like purpose, mission, legacy, dream, goal, calling or even personal agenda, but all of those terms imply the accomplishment of some goal beyond the status quo. Although once mocked by CEOs, the term vision and the way in which a vision is communicated has to be part of the CEO’s job, with more employees, stockholders and customers expecting corporate leaders to envision and communicate where they see the company going in the future.

Reference

Kouzes, J.M., & Posner, B.Z. (2002). The leadership challenge (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Mill and Chadwick on Government Intervention

The social and economic policies of John Stuart Mill and Sir Edwin Chadwick addressed issues of their day, but are surprisingly relevant to current problems facing society. Mill’s ideas on income taxation are still discussed in modern politics. The U.S. Federal Income Tax system is progressive in nature, but Mill stressed equality of sacrifice, which we do not see resulting from our complicated tax code, with its myriad of deductions. The advocates of a flat tax can reach back to Mill’s writings to find support for their arguments. With inheritance taxes, Mill sought to redistribute wealth as a matter of public policy. Mills ideas on the topic of welfare reform are extremely relevant today. Mill regarded welfare dependence as an evil and proposed a self-help system based on economic incentives to encourage work and public education to improve worker skills. Chadwick applied Utilitarianism to bureaucratic practices and produced some interesting results. Chadwick’s view was that the public interest that Bentham agonized over should be defined in terms of improved economic efficiency. For example, the reduction of waste was in the public’s best interest. Chadwick made many useful observations about the utility of crime and the inefficiencies in the economics of justice, especially within the jury trial system. Chadwick noted a distinct correlation between well-compensated police officers and the resulting quality of law enforcement. Chadwick advocated the benefits of a centralized bureau for the collection of crime data. Chadwick promoted the idea of streetlights as a deterrent to crime. Chadwick’s contract management concept is an ingenious way of introducing the discipline of competition into a business enterprise that would otherwise provide services under a natural monopoly. Peel and Gladstone’s ideas about limiting the taxes that could be levied would be very interesting to discuss today. Various governmental entities now assume the right, if not the obligation, to tax every conceivable transaction. Although Mill and Chadwick agreed that government intervention was necessary to achieve optimal results, Mill disagreed with Chadwick’s idea that good could come from centralizing all political and economic authority.

Reference

Ekelund, R. B., Jr., & Hébert, R. F. (1997). A history of economic theory and method (4th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.

Organizational Charts Are Not Organizational Structure

The organizational structure is not defined strictly by organizational charts. In other words, organizational charts do not an organizational structure make. This seemingly obvious point is sometimes forgotten. The organizational chart is a one-dimensional description of the organizational structure chiefly for purposes of being able to begin to explain the structure to third parties or internal parties who are unfamiliar with actual activities performed, how the personalities of the position occupants influence behavior, and how the organization actually strives toward completing business goals (Gibson, Ivancevich, & Donnelly, 1994). Organization charts show formal reporting relationships much like a road map show roads but none of the detailed topography or actual flow of communication traffic. An organizational chart can be deceptive because it masks the immense complexities of how the organization works to accomplish the goals for which it was designed.

The actual organizational structure is a highly complex and abstract concept. Organizations are structured around four basic organizing principles:

• Division of labor;
• Bases of departmentalization;
• Department size;
• Centralization of authority.

Decisions by the founders and executive management have determined the structure of the organization. Moreover, these decisions were/are influenced by the managers themselves, job designs, differences in individuals, job competencies, technology transfer, environmental uncertainty and overall corporate strategy. The structure of the organization and its resulting effectiveness is influenced by many factors and exerts an influence on employees, customers and the environment.

Reference

Gibson, J.L., Ivancevich, J.M., & Donnelly, J.H., Jr. (1994). Organizations: Behavior, structure, processes (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Irwin.

Leadership and The Hardiness Factor

The hardiness factor is the attitudinal difference between executives who were in high stress situations and who experienced a high number of illnesses vs. those who were in low stress situations but who experienced a low number of illnesses (Kouzes & Posner, 2002). The executives who appeared to be psychologically hardy exhibited these traits: (1) They were committed to the various parts of their lives; (2) They felt a sense of control over the things that happened in their lives; (3) They experienced change as a positive challenge.

Researchers found that the family is an important breeding ground for hardiness. Hardiness is important for leaders because it seems to be correlated with viewing the changes that are presented in life and the corresponding stress as normal parts of life. Stressful events are sometimes associated with changes, and often in organizational or environmental changes we find opportunities to lead. Hardiness is characterized by viewing stressful events as interesting, subject to personal influence, and as an opportunity for development. A leader needs to be psychologically hardy to enlist others and the leader needs to create an environment where constituents can accept risk and uncertainty.

Kouzes and Posner (2002) describe three ways for the organization to create a climate that develops hardiness and helps them cope more effectively: (1) Build commitment by offering more rewards than punishments; (2) Build a sense of control by choosing tasks that are challenging but within the person’s skill level; (3) Build an attitude of challenge by encouraging people to see change as full of possibilities.

Reference

Kouzes, J.M., & Posner, B.Z. (2002). The leadership challenge (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Podcast: http://mbafaq.podbean.com/2006/12/26/leadership-and-the-hardiness-factor/

Basic Research Concepts: A Handy Reference

Applied research—Using basic research methods, the outcome of the research is applied to a business problem.

Basic research—The clinical or scientific method of research. This type of research is often done in laboratories or under controlled circumstances.

Four Types of Research Methods: Reporting—A summary or incomplete review of existing data; Descriptive—Most often used in marketing or sales. This type of research always asks who, what, when, where, why, and how in research questions; Exploratory—Using focus groups or a small study to get a feel for the problem; Predictive/Causal—Research conducted where one unit is held steady, while the experiment is conducted on the other unit, which tests whether the experiment itself is the reason for change in the experimental unit.

Time Factors for Research: Longitudinal—A research study performed on a sample over a period of time; Cross-sectional—A research study done only once, which provides a snapshot of what is occurring somewhere at a particular time.

Four Types of Research Validity: Construct Validity—the theoretical or practical underpinnings of the hypotheses and measurement of the variables; External Validity—the comparability or generalizability of the findings to other samples and settings; Internal Validity—for descriptive, explanatory, or causal studies this is basically an answer to the question of whether we saw what we thought we saw; Conclusion Validity—did we use the proper statistical tools to draw these conclusions?

Operational definition—is a definition stated in terms of specific testing or measurement criteria. These terms must have empirical referents, which means we must be able to count or measure them in some way. The object to be defined can be physical one (i.e., a machine tool), or it can be abstract one (i.e., achievement motivation).

Level of Measurement—the characteristic of the data with respect to alphabetic and numerical values assigned to represent it, such as the measures of variables on surveys. Data can be represented at four levels of measurement:

• Nominal—e.g., Male/Female; The word nominal means in name only. Nominal variables are used on surveys to describe or identify the population being sampled;
• Ordinal—e.g., Rare, Medium Rare, Medium, Medium Well, Well Done; An ordinal measure can capture how a person feels on an issue, which is the case when the distance between each of the measure cannot be determined scientifically;
• Interval—e.g., Temperature or 1 to 5 satisfaction scales; with Interval measures, the distance between each unit of measure has a precise distance. For example, how long does it take ten trucks on the loading dock to unload a full container of merchandise?
• Ratio—Age in years, relative time, relative distance or relative temperature. Ratio data is captured with absolute measures; height, weight, distance, and money are all examples of ratio data.

Unit of Analysis—a classification of the individual, group, company, or societal unit under study. It is relevant because comparison of data from different units of analysis is frequently used to draw conclusions that while they seem logical are, in fact, erroneous.

For example, predicting the outcome of local elections based on a national survey or predicting the outcome of national elections based on a local survey. This fallacy involving misapplication of the unit of analysis is related to the ecological and exception fallacies. Consider this important issue in research, especially when using secondary data (i.e., data collected by somebody else for a different research question), as it is not always clear whether one is examining the individual, group, company, industry, etc.

For example, news commentators sometimes compare mismatched units of analysis and draw conclusions that may not be correct. If one draws conclusions about a group from one individual case, that is the exception fallacy. If one draws conclusions about an individual because they are part of group, that is an ecological fallacy.

For example, you know of several people who are Razorback fans and observe that they each own a red pickup truck. If you then meet a Razorback fan at the university, can you assume that they own a red pickup? No, because of the potential for ecological fallacy; you've erroneously assigned a group attribute to an individual. If you then meet red pickup trucks on the road, should you yell “Soooeee...” out the window at each one of them? No, because of the exception fallacy; it is possible that you have assigned an individual attribute to the entire group. The problem in both cases is that the unit of analysis of the information under examination does not match the type of research question at hand. Hence, there is a possibility of committing a unit of analysis fallacy.

Alternative Dispute Resolution: Summary Jury Trial

Disclaimer: The following case background and solution are meant for educational purposes only. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

In re NLO, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
5 F.3d 154 (1993)

Case Background

“NLO ran a uranium­ facility. It was sued by former employees who they suffered injuries because ‘NLO had intentionally or negligently exposed them to hazardous levels of radioactive materials, increasing their risk of cancer and subjecting them to emotional distress.’ The trial court ordered that a summary jury trial be held and that it would be open to the public. NLO petitioned the appeals court to vacate the district court order to participate in the summary jury trial before the matter could be tried in regular court. (Meiners, Ringleb, and Edwards, 2000, p. 115-116).”

Summary Jury Trial

A summary jury trial is a form of mini-trial that employs a jury and is held after discovery in the event that a case is not settled before trial. Summary jury trials save time and expense for the plaintiff and the defendant, yet they are not mandatory. Summary jury trials are not technically due process per se but are a form of arbitration–that is, they are not adjudication but an effort to help the parties to case settle the dispute outside formal court proceedings at a substantial cost savings to the tax paying public. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), by its very nature, requires voluntary consent to begin the process or agreement in a contract that specifies ADR will be the means of resolving any disputes. Consider a summary judgment trial between two publicly-traded companies: the confidentiality of the proceedings of a summary jury trial could be very important in terms of publicity, effect on public stock price, protecting trade secrets and the potential for biasing the pool of potential jurors, assuming that local courts would have jurisdiction over the case.

The primary reason that NLO did not want to have a summary jury trial in the case above may have been that they were not legally required to participate in one, as the judge in the trial court had so ordered, and that going to a public summary jury trial, regardless of the outcome, would substantially remove the benefits of settling the case out of court. Perhaps they did not want the limited evidence associated with information exchange made available to the public, which would not be enough to defend them in the court of public opinion and would just cause negative publicity. An open summary jury trial might provide confidential information to the public that could increase business risks and open the company up to future class action lawsuits by the community nearby the uranium processing facility. Until a dispute goes to trial, no such risk exists, and so a public summary jury trial is substantially less attractive as a means of ADR.


Reference

Meiners, R.E., Ringleb, A.H., & Edwards, F.L. (2000). The legal environment of business (7th Ed.). New York: West Legal Studies in Business.