Value Based Leader free essay sample

Servant Leadership Value-Based Leadership: Challenges and Opportunity A Value Based Leader is someone that align an organization’s values, mission, and processes into one standard style of management. Although a Value-Based Leader has the mission of the organization in mind when developing a strategy plan he or she will still face challenges. There are six challenges in which today’s organizations face and they are Technology, Ethics, Globalization, Knowledge, Diversity and Change. I would like to focus on two challenges faced by leaders today which are Change and Technology. The core values of a leader within an organization often establish the pattern of the employees in which he or she will lead. Robert McDonald, COO of Proctor and Gamble, believes that it is important for a good Leaders to be a leader with purpose as well as character which could assist a leaders in dealing with today’s challenges. If a leader leads with a purpose for the organization, he or she will share a desire for a positive end result or set an attainable goal in which all involved will be determined to see the purpose fulfilled with maximum outcome. With Change so often an organization has to adjust to these changes in order to adapt to whatever changes that will affect the end results. Sometimes the change for an organization could be as major as a change in the economy or as simple as a change in a style trend. In a recent CNNMoney article fashion trend setter Abercrombie Fitch had a fall out due to declining sales. It was suggested that the companies challenges were due to macroeconomic conditions. Abercrombie clients are trendy teenagers and Twitter followers which snub the company due to a fall out of a popular teen idle which resulted in a drop in sales and a desire for the popular clothing line. It’s amazing that something as simple as a twit could affect the increase or decline in sales of a major organization. In this case, a Value-Based leader would have to adjust to this change by assessing the current strategy, vision and the mission of the organization to better understand and support the changing trend of the current market. It’s not always easy to continue to do business as usual when the market has shifted but the organization has failed to adjust to these changes. This will have negative fallout for any company not willing to adjust and adapt. In the case of Abercrombie Fitch, the role of a Servant Leader in this organization could be a benefit because the Servant leader would have the potential add value to this organization to ensure the success of the stakeholder by developing a new strategy plan. The twenty first century competency that would use in this situation would be a person with Cognitive skills and ability such as oral communication and to be able to solve the problems between Abercrombie and the needs of the changing market. Another challenge faced by today’s Value-Based Leadership is Technology. Technology could be defined in various ways within an organization to include Information Technology, cell phones, barcode scanners as well as DVD recorders. Technology within an organization has greatly improved the performance, productive and communication. Although technology has improved the way we do business it has not been without its challenges. Recently, several organizations have fallen victim to cyber-attacks by pranksters, criminal syndicates or foreign governmental agencies. Companies spend billions of dollars in security software in an attempt to secure their company’s information and the information of its customers. The growth or decline of an organization could increase or decrease if a company is exposed due to the lack of proper security policies. A Value-Based Leader would have to devise a stagey to review the company’s policies and procedures in order to prevent such things from happening. Although, security breaches are a growing trend within business it’s how the leadership of an organization handle these matters could define the direction in which the organization could take in the fall out. Most Competency Based leaders have an understanding of the mission of an organization and the things may lack can most often be taught or learned over the course of time. The focus is on the need of the organization based on goal set by management which could be totally focused on customer service or employee relations. In the newest challenges of an organization, the ability to adjust the changing demands and needs of an organization is a defining trait of a good Value Based leader. I strongly believe that leaders who are chosen for their competencies could also demonstrate servant leadership qualities if this attribute is cultivated as well as the individual have a heart to serve. Service is often a matter of the heart and a person would have to walk in humility in order to truly be able to demonstrate servant leadership qualities. So often in the corporate world, people are focused on the mission of the organization, output and quantity rather than quality. A servant leader focuses on the moral and well-being of their employees which can contribute to increase productivity, quality customer service and increase profits for an organization. A Competency-Based leader could be taught good interpersonal skills in order to learn to deal with the growing diversity of a workplace. This will help them to learn the qualities of service by learning to deal with different personality, attitudes and cultures. I believe Servant Leadership is something that has the possibility to be taught to people with other leadership styles if they are truly open to learn how to serve. References Catherine Tymkiw (2012). Abercrombie Fitch falls out of fashion, CNNMONEY Retrieved from www. cnn. com/ money Nicole Perlroth and Evenly Ruslie (2012) Security Start-Ups Catch Fancy of Investors (P. A. ) Retrieved from www. newyorktimes. com