Leaders in Business Essay -- essays research papers

The business sector in today’s society is increasing rapidly, and with this increase comes the need for more people to manage and lead growing companies. This growing need also raises some potential questions: Can anyone become a leader or a manager? Is there a difference between the two? Can people be trained to become leaders or managers? Just like many other questions that might be asked in business; these questions have no one, definite answer. Let’s begin first by acknowledging the definitions of the two root words; the word â€Å"manage† means to handle, where as the word lead means to go. Similarly as the two words have different definitions, they also have different purposes. To help individuals increase their potentials in business, an internationally recognized motivational speaker by the name of Marc Sanborn has developed certain â€Å"theories† that, much like in science or art, prove some things to be more true than others by providing suppor ting facts to prove the validity of certain ways of thinking. Many of Marc’s theories validate the fact that in general, good managers tend to be good leaders, but good leaders are not always good managers. It is said, "Any company that cannot imagine the future won’t be around to enjoy it." Therefore before any manager or leader can affect changes in their business they have to do what Marc describes as visioning; they must mentally â€Å"look† into what they want to see as the potential outcome of any given situation. Managers are concerned with the problem at hand; they focus on what has to be done. Leaders on the other hand, notice what has to be done, but spend their time figuring out how to get it done. Marc states â€Å"managers vision the destination, leaders vision how to get there†. To be an effective leader it is important to focus on the gritty details of a situation, look for opportunities and how to achieve them. Visioning cannot be taught but can be developed. Marc suggests people start from the end and work backward, or think to themselves â€Å"what will this team accomplish because of me?† Leadership is all about taking an organiza tion to a place it would not have otherwise gone without you, in a value-adding, measurable way. When you vision, you think your way into a situation and it is the approach in visioning that separates managers from leaders. Visioning however is not the only method that separate... ...by now that there indeed is a difference between managers and leaders and it is eventually the approach taken upon certain methods that is the determinant of your leadership role. Marc Sanborn explains that managerial power is positional power; it is power over people whereas leadership is supportive power, and it is power with people. Whether you vision the destination, or the transportation there, whether you try to be efficient or effective, and whether you focus on the speed or the path all come into play as your leadership quality level. These qualities can be improved and developed, if they are all focused on the right things. That is why good managers tend to be good leaders, because they can focus on getting tasks done efficiently and also do it right at the same time. Managers are good disciplinarians; they are able to manage certain objectives while being efficient. However good leaders are more supportive and creative and might sometimes lack the disciplinary quality o f getting the right thing done as efficiently as possible. For the most part, there is a very fine line between good managers and good leaders, but good leaders just aren’t and do not want to be, managers.

Putting the Service †Profit Chain to Work

PUTTING THE SERVICE – PROFIT CHAIN TO WORK Group – 5 Introduction: Factors that drives profitability Investment in people Leadership Vision – Patina of spirituality, importance of mundane Profitability Technology supporting frontline workers Successful service companies: Banc One, Intuit, Southwest Airlines, Service Master, USAA, Taco Bell, and MCI Compensation linked to performance Recruiting and training practices The Service – Profit Chain †¢ Establishes relationships between profitability, customer loyalty, and employee satisfaction, loyalty and productivity †¢ Measure and management techniquesSupport services and policies Employee loyalty, satisfaction, productivity Value and service Customer satisfaction Customer loyalty Profit and growth The Links in the Service-Profit Chain †¢The service profit chain is also defined by a special leadership †¢Examples: Herbert Kelleher – Southwest (Patina of spirituality), William Pollard – ServiceMaster (Teacher-learner managers, servant’s heart), John McCoy- Banc One (Uncommon Partnership, system of support) Customer Loyalty that drives Profitability and Growth 5% increase in customer loyalty can produce profit increases from 25% to 85% †¢ Quality of market share in terms of customer loyalty as important as quantity of share in the market †¢ Example: Banc One †¢ Measures of Customer retention †¢ No. of services used by each customer – depth of relationship †¢ Level of customer satisfaction †¢ XEROX Customer satisfaction Drives Customer Loyalty †¢ Polled 480,000 customers per year †¢ Five point scale – satisfaction(product and service) †¢ Relationships between the scores – actual loyalty differed greatly between 5s and 4s apostles †¢ Terrorists – unhappy customersValue drives Customer Satisfaction †¢ Value – related to the total costs (price and other costs incurr ed) †¢ Example: †¢ Progressive – insurance company – Quick processing and payment to claims – Little policy holder effort – CAT (catastrophe) team Employee Productivity Drives Value †¢ Southwest Airlines †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ 7th largest US domestic carrier 86% of employees unionized (total 14,000) Employees can perform several jobs Schedules, routes and company practices to enable speedy boarding and deplaning (15 min. 40% more pilot (70hr/month) and aircraft utilization Fare charges 60-70% lower Customer perceptions of value are very high without additional facilities 14,000 employees – marketing research unit Employee loyalty drives productivity †¢ Study of automobile dealer’s sales personnel †¢ More employee turn over more loss Employee Satisfaction drives Loyalty †¢ Propriety study of a property and casualty insurance company †¢ Southwest – highest reten tion (95%) †¢ USAA – Insurance and financial services providerInternal Quality drives Employee Satisfaction †¢ Working environment †¢ USAA – telephone sales and service representatives †¢ Information system †¢ Training †¢ ServiceMaster †¢ Attitudes of people toward one another †¢ Cleaning and maintenance †¢ Importance to mundane Leadership Underlies the Chain’s Success †¢ Corporate culture centered on service †¢ Willingness and ability to listen †¢ Examples Relating Links in the chain for management Action †¢ Few have links in meaningful way †¢ Examples Property and casualty insurance company †¢ MCI †¢ Taco Bell  » Employee participation  » Periodic round table meetings, interviews Service – Profit Chain Audit †¢ PROFIT AND GROWTH †¢ How do we define loyal customers? †¢ Do measurements of customer profitability include profits from referrals? †¢ What pr oportion of business development expenditures and incentives directed to the retention of existing customers?†¢ Why do customers defect? Service – Profit Chain Audit †¢ CUSTOMER SATISFACTION †¢ Are customer satisfaction data gathered in an objective, consistent, and periodic fashion? Where are the listening posts for obtaining customer feedback in your organization? †¢ How is information concerning customer satisfaction used to solve customer problems? Service – Profit Chain Audit †¢ EXTERNAL SERVICE VALUE †¢ how do you measure service value? †¢ How is information concerning customers’ perceptions of value shared with those responsible for designing a product or service? †¢ To what extent are measures taken of differences between customers’ perceptions of quality delivered and their expectations before delivery? Do our organization’s efforts to improve external service quality emphasize effective recovery fro m service errors in addition to providing a service right the first time?Service – Profit Chain Audit †¢ Employee productivity †¢ How do you measure employee productivity? to what extent do measures of productivity identify changes in the quality as well as the quantity of service produced per unit of input? †¢ Employee loyalty †¢ How do you create employee loyalty? †¢ Employee Satisfaction Is employee satisfaction measured in ways that can be linked to similar measures of customer satisfaction with sufficient frequency and consistency to establish trends for management use? †¢ Are employee selection criteria and methods geared to what customers as well as managers believe are important? †¢ To what extent measures of customer satisfaction, loyalty or the quality and quantity of service output used in recognizing and rewarding? Service – Profit Chain Audit†¢ INTERNAL SERVICE QUALITY Do employees know who their customers are? †¢ Employee satisfaction with technological and personal support? †¢ LEADERSHIP – To what extent – – – – – Energetic, creative vs stately, conservative? Participatory, caring vs removed, elistist? Listening, coaching and teaching? Motivating by mission vs motivating by fear? Leading by means personal values vs institutionalized policies? Time spent developing and maintaining culture? †¢ RELATING MEASURES †¢ what are the most important relationships in company’s service profit chain? .

Ablenet Equals - Math Curriculum for Differing Ability

Compare Prices Equals is a special education mathematics curriculum designed for a range of disabilities. There are resources for teaching children with disabilities, like Touch Math, but this is probably the only curriculum designed specifically for children with serious differences. Its strength is the fact that it reflects the breadth of the mathematics curriculum most states cover in their standards. Its weakness is that it is somewhat unwieldy, and really needs the support of training and ongoing leadership from a curriculum specialist or coordinator. Assessment Divided into 12 Chapters the curriculum ascends from attending, to fractions, covering calculation, geometry, problem solving, and functional math skills. Designed to accommodate students from the severely disabled to the mildly disabled, the program can support students alongside typically developing students, possibly entering junior high with similar competencies to their peers. It can also help more severely disabled students to build a basic level of mathematical literacy, without perhaps the same level of skills. Equals provides its own assessment program with flip books and test booklets which can be easily administered and scored. The program also provides guidelines for matching scores to the place were a disabled student will need to begin the program. For children who have acquired some math skills, they may be able to start in chapter 3 or 6. For children with more serious disabilities, they may need to start at chapter 1, and may move more slowly through the curriculum. Differentiation Each lesson begins with a warm up, continues with exploration at the three levels (severe, moderate and mild disabilities.) Each lesson continues with Introduce and Connect which builds on prior knowledge, Teach, Problem Solving and Close, with the lesson presentation providing for each of the three levels. Each lesson is followed by problem solving, work stations (learning centers) and games. The program comes with a complete set of high quality math manipulates and materials. The materials include work mats, designed to structure instruction using the manipulates. Brightly colored and attractive, they provide a good alternative to pencil and paper, as well as accommodating different means of responding, from placing counters on the chart, to using eye gaze to identify the correct response. A printed set is included in the boxed curriculum set, but are also on the CD Rom provided by the publisher. The scope and sequence lay out the differences as well, suggesting a mildly disabled students needs three days to cover a lesson, whereas a severely disabled child might need three weeks to master the same material. Equals also provides strong materials to support functions skills, such as money, time and measurement. Resources The kit includes an attractive set of high quality materials to support instruction. Rather than cheesy, poor quality counters, the kit includes well made items available through Abilification. Obviously, Ablenet wanted to provide materials that should hold up and provide service for years. Which is good, since at $1,700 a kit, this is not cheap materials. The kit also comes with a CD Rom with printable resources: the work mats, the activity cards, all the paper resources required for the program. Obviously new, the CD is not easy to use. When you open the CD its hard to see which icon you should click on: I recommend files. The others require that you save the documents before you can open them. Im sure that this will be worked out in future editions, though its a bit of a challenge now. I hope your district is also willing to invest in a color printer for your desk. I know a lot of districts are trying to save toner costs by making everyone print to a shared laser printer, but these materials will be most attractive for visual learners if you can make them in color. Recommendation This is a great program for a district that is going to make the commitment to support the materials with workshops, training and trained curriculum specialists. Like Everyday Math, the materials provide lots of concrete support to help scaffold the cognitive challenges of math for disabled students. Like Everyday Math, teachers need to understand the different conceptual structures they are using to support deeper math understanding. This is also not cheap materials. At $1,700 a classroom, its a major economic commitment on the part of the district. Still, if a district uses the program to parallel the main curricular materials, it has the potential to bring mildly disabled students to a parallel place with typically developing students by middle school. The disadvantage of Touch Math is that it often locks kids into a single strategy for doing functional math. The strength of Equals is that it provides broad mathematical instruction. But buyer beware: it does not free a special education teacher from the need to collect data and be attentive to functional math skills, especially those needed to thrive in the community. So, if you think Equals may work for your district, and you can get the commitment of your special education director and the powers that be, contact Ablenet and check it out. Compare Prices