Leadership, Mentoring and Dealing With Change

Not necessarily in that order….

 Dell’s Core Competencies and Leader Model
Business Acumen Know how businesses work; knowledgeable in current and possible future
policies, practices, trends, and information affecting his/her business and
organization; knows the competition, is aware of how strategies and tactics
work in the marketplace.

Intellectual Horsepower Is bright and intelligent; deals with concepts and complexity comfortable;
described as intellectually sharp, capable, and agile.

Integrity and Trust Is widely trusted; is seen as a direct, truthful individual; can present the
unvarnished truth in an appropriate and helpful manner, keeps
confidences, admits mistakes; doesn’t misrepresent him/herself for
personal gain.

Command Skills Relishes leading; takes unpopular stands if necessary; encourages

direct and tough debate but isn’t afraid to end it and move on; is looked
for direction in a crisis; faces adversity head on; energized by tough
challenges.

Functional/Technical Skills Has the functional and technical knowledge and skills to do the job at a
high level of accomplishment.

Customer Focus Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal

customers; gets first-hand customer information and uses it for
improvements in products and services; acts with customer in mind;
establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers and
gains their trust and respect.
 Dell’s Core Competencies and Leader Model
Priority Setting Spends his/her time and the time of others on what’s important; quickly
zeros in on the critical few and puts the trivial many aside; cap quickly
sense what will help or hinder accomplishing a goal; eliminates roadblocks;
creates focus.

Problem Solving Uses rigorous logic and methods to solve difficult problems with effective
solutions; probes all fruitful sources for answers; can see hidden problem;
is excellent at honest analyses; looks beyond the obvious and doesn’t stop
at the first answers.

Dealing with Ambiguity Can effectively cope with change; can shift gears comfortable; can decide
and act without having the total picture; isn’t upset when things are up in
the air; doesn’t have to finish things before moving on; can comfortably
handle risk and uncertainty.

Drive for Results Can be counted on to exceed goals successfully; is constantly and
consistently one of the top performers; very bottom-line oriented;
steadfastly pushes self and others for results.

Organizational Agility Knowledgeable about how organizations work; knows how to get things
done both through formal channels and the informal network; understands
the cultures or organizations.

Building Effective Teams Blends people into teams when needed; creates strong morale and spirit
in his/her team; shares winds and success in terms of the whole team;
creates a feeling of belonging to the team.
 Dell’s Core Competencies and Leader Model
Developing Direct Reports Provides challenging and stretching tasks an assignments; holds frequent
development discussions; is aware of each direct report’s career goals;
constructs compelling developments and plans and executes them; pushes
direct reports to accept developmental moves; will take direct reports who
need work; is a people builder.

Learning on the Fly Learns quickly when facing new problems; a relentless and versatile
learner; open to change; analyzes both successes and failure for clues to
improvement; experiments and will try anything to finds solutions; enjoys
the challenge of unfamiliar tasks; quickly grasps the essence an the
underlying structure of anything.

Dell Note: First seven (7) leadership characteristics apply to all Dell jobs; 8 thru 14 apply only to those
that “supervise/manage/coach” others
 The psychology of change

Please take a pen and piece of

paper and sign your name
using your non-dominant
hand.

How does it feel?

<#>
 Change – a jolt

 Anger
 Disorientation
 Feeling of inadequacy
 Feeling of incompetence
 Frustration
 It’s being forced on you – lack
of control
 Doing things differently takes
longer
 Doing things differently takes
practice

<#>
Change provokes a cycle of grief
 Shock: Initial paralysis at
hearing the bad news
 Denial: Trying to avoid the
inevitable
 Anger: Frustrated outpouring of
bottled-up emotion
 Bargaining: Seeking in vain for a
way out
Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss psychiatrist,  Depression: Final realization of
wrote On Death and Dying, widely considered as the
most authoritative work on the subject. the inevitable
 Testing: Seeking realistic
solutions
 Acceptance: Finding the way
forward

Descriptions from www.changingminds.org

<#>
The roller-coaster…this, too, shall pass…

Credit: www.changingminds.org

<#>
 Don’t be afraid
 Change is inevitable
 Change provides opportunities
 In the business arena, if we stand still, the competition
moves ahead
 If we don’t drive change ourselves, we become vulnerable
to moves by competition and changing customer habits

<#>
 Leader’s role in driving change
 Establish urgency
 Create and maintain
coalition
 Develop “destination” and
“roadmap”
 Mobilize everyone
 Align procedures and
systems
 Align individual
competencies. Right people?
Right skills?
 Execute, inspect, learn and
improve

<#>
 Mentoring
 Developmental relationship between a
senior and junior organizational member
 Coaching
 Career counseling
 Protection and sponsorship
 Friendship
 Role modeling
 Can character be developed in mentoring?

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

 Character
 Personal disposition to be moral
 Motivational component
 Knowledge component
 Thinking component
 Emotional component
 Resistant to temptations/situational
influences

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

 Character Formation
 Malleability of adult character?
 Which character elements?
 Cardinal virtues
• Courage, justice, temperance, wisdom, humanity,
transcendence
 Professional virtues
• Conscientiousness, trustworthiness, compassion

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

 Character is a function of…
 Experience
 We learn to be good by finding meaning in the
practices of being good
 Reflection
 We learn to be good by incorporating goodness into:
• Our self-concept
• Our worldview
 Inspiration
 We learn to be good when events or people startle us:
• Mystical transformations, life-style changes, therapeutic/
educational changes, post-traumatic adjustment all stimulate
character development
• Some role models inspire character change

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

 Experience
We learn to be good by finding meaning in the
practices of being good. Mentors can:
 Tutor protégés about how to be virtuous (how to
integrate motivation, knowledge, thinking,
emotion)
 Help them interpret past experiences
 Expose them to new experiences
 That provide more reach to their character
 That enable them to test their character
 Tell them stories
 Especially about circumstances relevant to their
struggle
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 Reflection
We learn to be good by incorporating good-ness
into our self-concepts/worldviews. Mentors can:
 Help protégés identify, build, and use their
character strengths (http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/)
 Give them homework – have them practice a
strength or find meaning in an experience
 Ask them BIG questions (e.g., meaning of
goodness; life and death; vocation, etc.)

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

 Inspiration
We learn to be good when events or people
startle us. Mentors can:
 Expose them to inspirational role models
 Especially those who are similar
 Especially those whose acts are attainable
 If/when protégés have peak experiences,
 Listen, reflect, and be patient
 Help them integrate them into their life story

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

 An example
Sam graduated from an elite MBA program
with top grades. He dazzled those who
interviewed him with his intellectual
brilliance and business acumen. He is very
self-confident to the point of arrogance, and
he is rather dismissive of some of his more
experienced colleagues. After mentoring him
for three months, you conclude that he needs
more compassion.
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
 Experience
 Tutoring—Sam can be tutored to…
 spot occasions for being kind
 express kindness with proper emotion

 Interpretation of past experience—Mentor can…

 ask Sam to imagine how others describe him

 Exposure and feedback—Mentor can…

 assign Sam to minister to people in need

 give Sam feedback about his attempts to be kind

 Story telling—Mentor can tell Sam…

 stories of kind and successful leaders
 Reflection
 Identify/build/use strengths—Mentor can ask
Sam to
 try to express his kindness in three ways next week
and report back results
 Homework—Mentor can ask Sam to
 practice identifying people in need of kindness in the
workplace
 Big questions—Mentor can discuss with Sam
 the role of kindness in the good life
 Sam’s vocation of kindness

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

 Inspiration
 Inspirational role models
 Ask Sam to read a biography or watch a film
about someone like Jesus or Mother Theresa,
or study the life of someone more accessible
who is compassionate.
 Peak experiences
 If Sam evinces an epiphany about
compassion, help him process it and
incorporate it into his life narrative

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics