In the name of ALLAH, The Most Merciful, the Most Kind

Assignment Of Leadership

Submitted to: Sir Khurram Bukhari Submitted by: Ayesha sahar Atiya Batool Organization name: Qarshi Industries (pvt) limited Leader : Usman Siddique MB-10-55 MB-10-39

MBA (Morning) 7th Semester (2010-2013)

How do leaders incorporate the learning aspect at different levels of the organization? For me this is at the core of a successful organization: set a goal/do/learn/adjust. Is there any correlation with the reward system? Answer: The best leaders are the best learners. I didnt include this lesson to my top ten, although I was tempted. We were looking at whether there was a relationship between how leaders learned and how effective they were at leading. What we found was most intriguing. We discovered that it didnt really matter what the learning style was. Someone could be an active experimenter, an observer of others, a person who engages in emotional dialogues, or someone who loves to read or be in the classroom. The style is not the thing. What did matter was the extent to which individuals engaged in whatever style worked for them. The more they engaged in learning the more successful they were as leaders. This probably doesnt come as any surprise, but heres the rub. Organizations these days seem to want us to develop leaders in two days or less. Its all part of the trend to instant success. Well, guess what? It isnt going to happen. Theres no such thing as instant leadership or instant expertise of any kind. Those who are the very best at anything got to be that way because they spent MORE time learning and practicing, not less. Ideally, to become highly proficient we need to practice daily for about two to three hours. (I get a lot of resistance on this when I talk with leaders, but we need to accept the fact that sustaining high levels of performance doesnt happen at a weekend course once a year. It happens when we commit to a daily practice routine.) Does it help if the organizational reward system recognizes those who learn? Are you and I going to work to achieve something that is rewarded by the organization? Yes and yes. That said, we are all far more likely to sustain learning over a long period of time if we are intrinsically motivated by the challenge of the task at hand. If I love leading Ill be a lot more inclined to invest the time and energy in learning to lead than if I do it because someone offers me a tangible incentive for doing it. You might want to check out a very provocative book on this subject, Punished by Rewards, by Alfie Kohn. It talks about, as he says, the trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, As, praise, and other bribes. How do leaders expose their professional value system? How do they ensure alignment and/or influence and/or adjust to the organizational value system? Answer: The very first step on the journey to credible leadership is clarifying your valuesdiscovering those fundamental beliefs that will guide your decisions and actions along the path to success and significance. That journey involves an exploration of the inner territory where your true voice resides. Its essential that you take yourself on this voyage because its the only route to authenticity and because your personal values drive your commitment to the organization and to the cause. One of the exercises that we use to help leaders clarify their professional values is to ask them to write a Credo Memo. The process goes something like this (adapt it to fit your situation):

Imagine that your organization has afforded you the chance to take a six-month sabbatical, all expenses paid. (I know this sounds fantastical in this climate, but play along with me here!) As a condition of your sabbatical, you will not be permitted to communicate to anyone in your organization. Not by letter, phone, fax, e-mail, instant message, mobile phone, or any other means. Before you depart you must communicate to your team the values that you think guide everyones decisions and actions in your absence. Remember, you have to return after six months, and you want to return to a place thats still a good fit for you. We dont pretend that this exercise is a substitute for more in-depth self-discovery, but it does provide a useful starting place for articulating your guiding principles. You can accomplish the same thing with a values card sort or other similar exercise. The important point is that if someone came up to you right now and asked you, What are the values that you believe should guide your decisions and actions at work? youd better be able to answer that question without hesitation. Although personal values clarity is essential, its insufficient. Thats because leaders dont just speak for themselves; they speak for their constituents as well. There must be agreement on the shared values that everyone will commit to upholding. A common understanding of those values emerges from a process, not a pronouncement. Unity comes about through dialogue and debate. One thing you might try is to ask everyone on your team to write his or her own Credo Memo. Then have a conversation about what each person has written. What are the common values that emerge? Where is there consensus? Where are the conflicts and tensions? If there is a published statement of organizational values, how aligned are the teams values with the organizations values? A rich and deep dialogue can be extremely useful. Our data is quite clear about this: When individuals share the values of their organization, they are much more likely to be engaged and productive. Its beneficial to both the individual and the organization. One other thing. Its takes courage to make a life. The challenges that confront us in these troubled times arent going to evaporate like fog on a summer morning. They demand a lot of us if were going to overcome them. They demand that we make tough choices. They demand that we make sure were clear about what we value and believe in. They demand that we take personal initiative when those values are challenged. They demand that we focus on the little things we do each day to be true to ourselves. They demand resilience and determination. : Do leaders have value systems that balance the rational and the emotional? How do they address it? How do they communicate this? Answer: We can find some guidance from the research on central themes in the values of highly successful, strong-culture organizations. There are three central themes in the values of these organizations: High-performance values stress the commitment to excellence, caring values communicate how others are to be treated, and uniqueness values tell people inside and outside how the organization is different from all the others. Leaders communicate these kinds of values in a variety of ways. From speeches to large groups President Barack Obamas Inaugural Address contained explicit references to valuesto one-on-one meetings, leaders find ways to weave values into their conversations. Ive seen values posters,

values cards, values videos, and even a display of values hanging over the salad bar in the company caf. There is really no limit to the ways in which leaders can make clear to others the values that should guide the decisions and actions of others. However, even the most creative of communication campaigns will breed nothing but cynicism and late night jokes if the leaders actions are inconsistent with the published values. Challenges can come to you, knock, knock, or you can seek them out. Is there a difference in the leader capability and approach? Answer: Youre absolutely right. Stuff happens in organizations and in peoples lives. Sometimes we choose it; sometimes it chooses us. People who become leaders dont always seek the challenges they face. Challenges also seek leaders. Its not so important whether you find the challenges or they find you. Whats important is what you do with the choices you have. Consider what we found when we asked people to tell us who initiated the projects that they selected as their personal best leadership experiences. We assumed that the majority of people would name themselves, but, surprisingly, thats not what we found. Someone other than the leaderoften the persons immediate manager in an organizational contextinitiated more than half the cases. So, if leaders seize the initiative, how can we call people leaders when theyre often assigned the tasks they undertake? Doesnt this finding fly in the face of the notion of the leader as someone who initiates change? Not at all. Itd be nice we got to decide every project we took. Itd be nice, I suppose, if we were always the head honcho who got to pick all the initiatives. But thats not real life. The reality is that much of what people do is assigned; few of us get to start everything from scratch. Within the context of those projects that were assigned, the exemplary leaders found ways to innovate and create change. They found ways to turn things around, open up new opportunities, or alter the status quo. As we see it, the fact that over half the cases were not self-initiated should be a relief to everyone who thinks that you have to initiate all the changes in order to be called a leader, and it should be encouragement to everyone in the organization that responsibility for innovation and improvement is everyones business. Whether you seek the challenges or they come knocking makes no difference in the fundamental practices of leadership. You still have to do the same things as a leader in order to mobilize others to struggle for shared aspirations. What are the most important values and ethics you demonstrate as a leader? Give me an example of these in practice. Integrity- being truthful and trustworthy and having conviction - is an essential leadership competency. The effective leader demonstrates values and ethics in personal behavior and integrates these values and ethics into organizational practices and activities. A good leader acts with the courage of his/her convictions. While leaders are open with their employees and model

honesty, transparency and fairness, they do not violate confidences or divulge potentially harmful information. Name some situations in which a leader may fail. Tell us about a time when you failed as a leader? A number of factors can fall outside a leader's control such as the available skill pool in the organization, time constraints, the economic climate. If employees are lethargic and negatively orientated, it can create a situation ripe for failure. In answering leadership interview questions that explore how one deals with difficult challenges, listen for how the candidates were able to analyze the setback and seek honest feedback to learn from failure and how they used the difficult situation to encourage constructive questioning of policies and practices. This is an opportunity to show what their ability is to be resilient in the face of failure and to constantly work towards improvement. What role does leadership play for a manager? How have you demonstrated this with your managers? The leader's role is to communicate the strategic vision to management with clarity...to translate the vision into concrete direction and plans; to identify and communicate priorities, short term objectives, timelines, performance measures, clear accountabilities and performance agreements to management; and to provide quality judgment and advice. Tell us about an innovative solution you developed to a non-traditional problem. Effective leaders promote change and innovation. Finding solutions to unique problems are facilitated by encouraging a constant information flow in all directions and emphasizing responsiveness to changing demands. Tell us about a time when the going got really tough. How did you rally the staff and build morale? Leaders build a sense of common purpose by promoting the organizational vision both internally and externally. They develop and implement effective communication strategies within the organization. Remove barriers to collaboration. Provide clear direction on priorities. This type of question hopefully prompts the candidate to give clear and honest feedback to inspire trust. What methods have you used to gain commitment from your team? Leaders gain commitment by influencing and persuading the team to set objectives and buy into the process. They establish a spirit of cooperation and cohesion for goal attainment. They take the team into the performing phase as quickly as possible.Leaders encourage debate and ideas from all stakeholders. They inspire a commitment to success and excellence by demonstrating passionate personal commitment andpromote a productive culture by valuing individuals and their contributions. All leaders have to deal with conflict situations. Describe a recent disagreement

or conflict you personally had to handle. Leadership interview questions explore how a candidate handles conflict and seeks responses that look at their ability to understand and respect different views. Candidates demonstrate their ability to settle dispute by focusing on solving the problem taking into consideration the personalities involved, to evaluate the viability of different dispute resolution mechanisms available, and provide support and expertise to othersto negotiate compromise. How have you influenced employees to follow your strategic vision for the organization? Leaders develop ownership by involving employees in the decision-making and planning process. They provide resources to facilitate employee success and empower employees by devolving authority to get things done efficiently. Effective leaders develop processes that engage employees in achieving the strategic vision. How have you encouraged learning and development of employees? Learning happens at every opportunity. A candidates answers to leadership interview questions like this should demonstrate that effective leaders develop employees by mentoring, coaching and providing performance feedback on a daily basis. Leaders act as models for their employees but the most effective leaders not only teach by example they take a personal interest in the learning of others and serve as mentors. Additionally they manage learning throughout the organization by continually focusing attention on the learning agenda and providing the resources to facilitate it. Finally leaders monitor learning by getting regular feedback. What was the most significant change you brought about in an organization? Leaders can recognize new opportunities and anticipate long term opportunities. They determine new business directions for the organization. They are able to create enthusiasm and acceptance of the new vision or change and use the appropriate leadership style to inspire and guide employees to embrace change.