Leadership Vision - Blog 5

Introduction

A vision is necessary for a leader to carry out a successful leadership role. Leadership vision involves focusing on what is most important; what type of goal a person wishes to achieve in life and what type of leader a person wishes to be. A person's past, future vision, and how they interact with today's realities can all be linked by a vision. It represents a person's identity and what he or she stands for (Friedman, 2008).

 

The Eight-Step Model by Kotter

Figure 1. Kotter's Eight-Step Model (Creately, 2022).

One of Kotter’s models will help a leader to guide people or teams to seek potential opportunities. The Eight-Step presents simple recommendations for leaders or managers who aren't professionals in the industry. Each step determines what action should the do to keep a change project on schedule. The approach highlight building urgency to effect change. As seen on the figure on eight phases, from initiating the process, to managing, and lastly sustaining change (Auguste, 2013).

Even though the model is regarded simple to comprehend, it is not simple to apply, and the operation takes longer than we thought. Many phases of preparation are necessary, many elements must be analyzed and adjusted to ensure success. According to Kotter, more than 50% of the programs fail because they did not prepare well or had a clear vision (Kotter & Cohen, 2012). We may infer that having thorough preparation that aligns with the goals is essential for achieving successful sustainable business and being a better leader. Having a vision for what kind of role you want to play and what kind of leadership style you want to establish in the business is also important. All these variables will have an impact on staff morale, productivity, decision-making speed, and KPIs (Sauer, 2011).

 

Leadership Inspiration

Mary Livingston, VP of AT&T, is one of the leaders who inspires me. Mary was able to lead a team of 30 change leaders in two years, transforming the behavior, skill, and performance of thousands of salespeople. She applied the model and used a variety of mobilizing and focusing strategies, ranging from organized performance improvement procedures to focused skill-building programs to reengineering. Many attempts and errors have occurred, but she never gives up, resulting in millions of dollars in increased sales and making AT&T the most popular brand in the United States (Banerjee, 2020). Her commitment to adapting and changing management has enabled the company to increase profits while also improving its reputation. I admired her for aligning her visions with the company's goals and for continually examining and adjusting difficulties.

Another point to emphasize is the leadership style she has chosen, transformational leadership. She inspires and motivates her followers while also creating a vision for them (Moradi & Shahbazi, 2016). The inspiration she offers to the company has had a significant impact on the company's development, with the company winning Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies and the year award in Global Cellular IoT (Internet of Things) in 2020 (AT&T, 2020).

 

Am I ready to be a leader?

Throughout my education on MBA and career, I had envisioned myself leading and executing an eight-step model to adapt to changing conditions and, perhaps, expanding my future firm. However, I receive a lot of input from my mentors, such as being more detailed when creating a goal; a goal must be feasible. Setting unrealistic expectations will lead to disappointment, therefore I must set achievable goals. Another issue is focusing on quality rather than quantity. According to research, implementation intentions only function when we focus on one item at a time (Brown, 2020). We are less dedicated and less likely to achieve when we have several goals.

As I studied more about transformational leadership, I feel it will make it simpler for me to achieve my goals, because the leadership style supports recognizing each person's abilities and encouraging them to prioritize collective goals above personal interests (Mi et al., 2019). As a result, I will cultivate this leadership style in order to lead the organization.

 

 

 

References:

AT&T. (2020). AT&T wins Company of the Year Award in Global Cellular IoT. AT&T. https://www.busintop-voices/att-wins-company-of-the-year-award-in-global-cellular-iot.html

Auguste, J. (2013). Applying Kotters 8-Step Process for Leading Change to the Digital Transformation of an Orthopedic Surgical Practice Group in Toronto, Canada. Journal Of Health &Amp; Medical Informatics, 04(03). doi: 10.4172/2157-7420.1000129

Banerjee, S. (2020). Change Leaders Change Adversity into Advantage. Durgadevi Saraf Institute of Management Studies. https://www.dsims.org.in/change-leaders-change-adversity-into-advantage/#

Brown, D. (2020). Why You Should Double Down on Only 1 Goal. Inc. https://www.inc.com/damon-brown/why-you-should-double-down-on-only-one-goal.html#:~:text=As%20in%2C%20more%20than%20one,focused%20on%20a%20single%20goal.%22

Friedman, S. D. (2008). Define Your Personal Leadership Vision. Harvard. https://hbr.org/2008/08/title#:~:text=Leadership%20vision%20is%20an%20essential,and%20what%20you%20stand%20for.

Kotter, J. P., & Cohen, D. S. (2012). The heart of change: Real-life stories of how people change their organizations. Harvard Business Press.

Mi, L., Gan, X., Xu, T., Long, R., Qiao, L., & Zhu, H. (2019). A new perspective to promote organizational citizenship behaviour for the environment: The role of transformational leadership. Journal of Cleaner Production, 239, 118002.

Moradi K., M., & Shahbazi, H. (2016). An analysis of the transformational leadership theory. Journal Of Fundamental And Applied Sciences, 8(3), 452. doi: 10.4314/jfas.v8i3s.192

Sauer, S. (2011). Taking the reins: The effects of new leader status and leadership style on team performance. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 96(3), 574-587. doi: 10.1037/a0022741