Action Assignment 3 Influence Of Leader Behavior Critical Thinking Example

1. The most important idea that I learned in Part Three is the central importance of the leader’s actual actions upon the behavior of all those working with him or her. It reinforces for me the absolute requirement for trust within business relationships and the role of honesty and responsibility to building the required trust. I appreciated the enumeration of the six values of leaders that are “caring” – honesty, consideration, responsibility, persistence, excellence, and commitment. However, rather than the emotion-laden term of “caring” I would prefer the use of trust-worthy. For it is trust that forms the bedrock of how business interactions occur. Although much is made about the central role of trust within the customer-business relationship, effective business function also requires, at an equally high level, a relationship of trust between the leadership and other employees of a business. If the leader acts in ways that validly earns him or her the trust of the employees, it opens up the ability to conduct business in a much more efficient and less political manner than is often the case.
In particular, if a leader has earned the trust of an employee and the employee has earned the trust of the leader, work can be delegated much more efficiently and confidently. The leader who has made clear through both words and actions that reputation is all has a much greater chance of being able to assign work that will be accomplished in a way that achieves both the goals of the leadership and the goals of the company in an ethical manner. In contrast, if a leader does not “walk the walk” and only preaches the importance of honesty and responsibility rather than showing it within his or her own approach to the work, it is more likely that the work that employees provide will fall short of the highest ethical work product possible. The impact of the leadership example is that important.
2. The importance of the leadership as a concrete example is easily applied to the director of a small information technology department. Particularly in the small company venue, daily decisions that have value-based outcomes or ethical implications should be carefully considered and performed and this can be implemented immediately in a going forward manner. I agree that this involves asking two specific questions – what are the values or principles that I want to promote and are my actions helping to accomplish that goal? For example, if commitment is something I want to foster in the information technology department, I will examine my actions to see if reflecting my commitment in my actions, as I realize my model will have more impact than any speech or memo.
One further central theme in application of of the role of leadership action is concrete use of the Golden Rule. Before I provide direction to my reports, I will be the leader that takes the time to stop and ask -- Is this what I would expect the direction to be if it was given to me rather than to one of my reports? Does what I am asking of the employee further the values of honesty, consideration, responsibility, persistence, excellence and commitment? In this way I will check whether what I am asking of my reports is the same as what I would be willing to have asked of myself. I do believe that this extra check before taking action will help ensure that my role as leader rises to the level that will deserve the trust of both the employees working for me as well as the trust of the company as a whole.