Tag: International Finance Mumbai University BMS Notes

Self-management is our ability to manage our behaviors, thoughts, and emotions in a conscious and productive way.

Someone with strong self-management skills knows what to do and how to act in different situations. For instance, they know how to control their anger when the umpire unfairly calls their child out at a little league game. They know how to avoid distractions while working from home, so they can maintain focus and stay productive. They know what they need to do to achieve their fitness goals and they follow through.

Self-management means you understand your personal responsibility in different aspects of your life, and you do what you need to fulfill that responsibility.

From an organizational perspective, the ability of team members to self-manage is critical to the effective functioning of an organization. Imagine an environment where the majority of those working within it were unable to stay on task, on strategy, and on schedule. That would make it very challenging to complete projects.

Self-management is even more important when we talk about empowering employees across the organization to be more innovative and resourceful. When every team member understands their responsibilities, goals, and what it takes to achieve them, they can make better decisions and do their part to achieve the team and organization objectives. Part of effective self-management with empowerment is that employees make good decisions about when to seek additional help or input.

Skills:

Goal alignment: Organizational success relies upon team members working together to reach a common goal. In order for this to work with a team of self-managed individuals, each of us must understand the big picture, and align our own goals with those of the organization. This will allow us to stay on track and maintain sight of what we’re working toward.

Priority-setting. Now that we know what we need to do, we need to set priorities so we can achieve our goals. This can help ensure we get to the most important tasks and projects, even as other demands on our time arise. In our example, Ibrahim sets his priorities and decides he needs one day each week for the next three months to get through the first phase of his plan. To accomplish this, he blocked off time on his calendar to work on this project, and he pushed out less important projects by communicating with stakeholders.

Emotional regulation. Being self-aware of our feelings is a prerequisite to regulating them. For example, fear can be distressing and provoke a fight or flight-type reaction if we aren’t able to elevate it to our consciousness. Ibrahim’s self-awareness allows him to understand his fear that he may not be the right person for the task at hand. He’s able to overcome this emotion by thinking rationally about his strengths and how they apply to any market segment. This allows him to refocus on what he does best, and work through his discomfort.

Role clarity. Those with role clarity know what our responsibilities are, who our work matters to and how we are measured. We also know who we are dependent on to get our work done. In short, we have a good sense of how we fit into the system and how our work serves the organization.

Strategic Planning. The next skill in this progression, strategic planning, is the ability to understand what we need to do in order to support organizational goals. We work backward from the desired future state in order to determine what we need to do in order to get there.

Self-Awareness. The ability to consciously access our thoughts, desires, and feelings can help us control our behaviors. This, in turn, can have a direct impact on our performance, and how others perceive us. For example, as Ibrahim works through his plan, he begins to notice some anxious feelings within his body and finds himself ruminating at night. He begins to sense his “ego attachment” to the opportunity to succeed in the eyes of others and a sense of worry about whether he is the right person for this project.

Personal growth and Lessons from Ancient Indian Education System

1. Each stage of life was marked and sanctified by an appropriate religious ceremony which in course of time became a part and parcel of the social life of the people.
2. Education at that time was-free and accessible to all (universal) except the Sudras. But the rule of begging was prevalent. The society had an obligation to provide alms. The system of education was intimately connected with the social structure.
3. Kings and rulers of the country had nothing to do with education directly. It was a private affair of the people managed entirely by Brahmana teachers.
4. The teachers depended for their support on the goodwill and charity of the people. It was the duty of the people to give alms.
5. Teachers were a highly honoured class. They were more honoured than kings who were honoured only in their own countries whereas the learned men were respected everywhere.
6. Teachers behaved as parents to their pupils and the pupils also in their turn behaved as members (sons) of the teacher’s family. The house of the teacher was the school. Teachers and pupils lived together and their relation was very cordial.
7. Knowledge imparted in those days was of two types:

(a) Para Vidya and

(b) Apara Vidya.

Para Vidya means Supreme or highest knowledge for self- realization or knowledge of the Supreme self. Apara Vidya means the lowest knowledge of the four Vedas and six Vedangas etc.

8. The ultimate aim of education was the complete realization of the self. It was neither a preparation for this worldly life nor for life beyond. Education aimed at freedom from bondage and knowledge or illumination makes one free from this bondage and helps to unite with the Supreme self.
9. The immediate or proximate aim of education was to prepare the different castes of people for their actual needs of life.
10. The subjects of instruction varied according to the needs of the different castes. These included the Vedas and Vedangas in the case of the Brahmanas, the art of warfare in the case of the Kshatriyas, the art of agriculture, arts and crafts in the case of the Vaisyas. Ancient Indian Education was thus caste dominated.
11. Pupils were taught individually. No class instruction was provided. Sometimes senior students acted as teachers of junior ones. This was known as the monitorial system. Ancient Indian Education was individualised and not institutionalised.
12. The method of teaching was mainly oral through debates and discussions which received due attention.
13. The method of study consisted in:

• Sravana: Listening to the teacher.
• Manana: Reflection on what was listened to.
• Nidhidhyasana: Constant repetition of the subject of study.

14. Travelling was regarded as necessary to complete the education.
15. In ancient India, education was for education’s sake, and not for examination or for getting a job. Education was all-round, i.e., complete or total development of personality intellectual, physical, moral and social.
16. The place of education was generally the forest which was far from the madding crowd and ignoble strife. The ancient Rishis established the earliest schools in hermitages or Ashramas in the forest. The system of Guru-Kula was then in vogue. The home of the teacher was also regarded as a school.
17. There was generally no provision for corporal punishment. Discipline was free. Self-reverence, self-knowledge and self-control – these three alone can lead life to sovereign power. Self-discipline was the best discipline. Ancient Indian Education was dominated by strict moral codes of conduct.
18. Girls were educated privately in their homes by parents, elders or husbands and not publicly as boys. Education that girls received was highly intellectual and it reached a very high level as in the well-known cases of Gargi, Maitreyi and others.
19. There was no formal system of examination of the present day. The teacher was the sole judge of the standard of achievements of the pupils.
20. The period of studentship was longer, i.e. twelve years, because there was no printed book in those days. Everything had to be memorised. Hence memory played a very prominent role in Ancient Indian Education.
21. Teaching was practically honorary. Taking anything from the students was regarded as sin. There was no pecuniary relation between the teacher and the taught. At the end of studentship some honorarium (Gurudakshina), of course, could be paid to the teacher either in cash or in kind.
22. Strict celibacy had to be observed during the period of studentship.
23. The teacher was regarded as the only source of knowledge and as such he was highly respected.
24. There was no formal system of admission. The teacher was the only deciding factor in matters of admission.
25. Education (teaching) in ancient India was regarded as a religious duty and intimately connected with the performance of some ceremonies or rituals (Vidyarambha, Upanayana, Utsarjana, Samavartana etc.).
26. The aim of Ancient Indian Education was to develop both the body and the mind. It intended to develop sound mind in sound body.
27. Ancient Indian Education was both spiritualistic and materialistic.
28. The Vedic education was caste-ridden.
29. Moral upliftment of the pupil was the cherished goal of the Ancient Indian Education.
30. It had both catholicity and elasticity in outlook and as such it had the power of adaptability. It was not rigid but flexible. So it continued for centuries.

The Joint Hindu family is a patriarchal body, and the head of the family is called Karta. Karta is the senior most male member of the family who acts as the representative of the family and acts on behalf of the family. There is a fiduciary relationship between the Karta and the other family members because every family needs a head member who can look after the welfare of minor members and females in a Joint Hindu Family.

The Qualities of a Karta are:

• He had unlimited power but even if he acts on behalf of other members, he can’t be treated as a partner or agent.
• Karta’s position is unique (sui generis). His position is independent and no one can be compared with him among the family members.
• He controls all the affairs of the family and has wide powers.
• He is not bound to invest, save or economise. He has the power to use the resources as he likes, unless he is not responsible for the above-mentioned charges.
• He is responsible to no one. The only exception to this rule is, in case of fraud, misappropriation or conversion, he is held responsible.
• He is not bound to divide the income generated from the joint property equally among the family members. He can discriminate one with another and is not bound to be impartial. The only thing is he should pay everyone so that they can avail some basic necessities like food, clothing, education, shelter etc.

Powers:

(1) Power to manage joint family business:

The Karta has the power to manage the joint family business. In this respect he can take all such steps which are just and necessary for the promotion of the business.

(2) Power over income and expenditure:

The Karta exercises extensive control over the income and expenditure of the joint family. Since his position is not like the trustee or agent, he is not bound to economise or save like a trustee or agent provided he spends the income of the family for the benefit of the members of the family, e.g., for maintenance, education, marriage, sraddha and other religious ceremonies of the coparceners and of the members of their respective families.

(3) Power to contract debt for family purposes:

The Karta can enter into contracts incurring debts for family purposes and family business which will bind the other coparceners to the extent only of their interest in the joint family property. Such debt contracts could bind the adult coparceners personally also if they were parties to the contract expressly or impliedly or they subsequently ratify the contract and in case of minors if they ratify on attaining majority.

In case of a loan advanced to the manager, if the lender makes due inquiry into the necessity for the loan and lends the money born fide, the debt is binding on the interests of all the members although the reasonably credited necessity did not in fact exist.

(4) Power to Refer to Arbitration:

The Karta may refer to arbitration any matter involving the interest of joint Hindu family and the other members of the family including minors are bound by the reference and consequently by the award made upon it.

(5) Power to Enter into Contract:

The Karta has the power of making contracts, giving receipts, entering into compromises, discharging contracts ordinarily incidental to the business of the family.

(6) Power to Enter into Compromise:

The Karta can enter into a compromise in any matter relating to joint family property. He, however, has no power to give up a debt due to joint family and give up a valuable item without any return or consideration, though he has a right to settle accounts with the debtors and to make a reasonable reduction either towards interest or towards principal in the interest of the family.

(7) Power to Acknowledge Debts:

The Karta has power to acknowledge a debt or make a part payment of it, so as to extend the period of limitation. But he cannot execute a fresh promissory note or a bond so as to revive a time barred debt.

(8) Power to Give Discharge:

The Karta has power to give a valid discharge to the debt due to joint family. Where one of the members of joint family is a minor, he cannot claim the benefit of Section 7 of the Limitation Act.

(9) Power to Represent in Suits:

The Karta may represent the joint family in the event of a suit by or against the family, so that other members are not the necessary parties to the same. The Karta himself be sued or he can institute a suit with respect to any property or other matters of the joint family. Whenever a decree is passed against him, that would bind all other members of the family, if, as regards minor members, he acted in the litigation in their interest, and in case of major members, he acted with their consent.

The Karta represents the interests of the joint family property also. In Fathiunnisa Begum v. Tamirasa Raja Gopala Charyulu, the Court observed that a Hindu widow inheriting her husband’s share under Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act, 1937, does not by itself disrupt the joint family status.

After such inheritance she continues to be a member of the joint family and the Karta of joint family can represent her in all suits. The enlargement of her limited estate into full estate by virtue of Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act does not bring about a change in the Karta’s power to represent joint family including her.

(10) Power of Alienation:

The Karta can alienate for value the joint family property so as to bind the interests of the other coparceners provided it is made:

(a) With the consent of all the existing coparceners; they being all adults.

(b) For legal necessity

(c) For the benefit to the estate.

The benefits of promoting positive workplace mental health, as well as the existing psychosocial risks linked to work and employment, are widely acknowledged. Most of us will also know from our own experience the important place that work takes in our lives and how it impacts our mental health and well-being for better or worse.

The main psychosocial risks factors in the workplace include heavy or unmanageable workload, unrealistic expectations, role ambiguity, organisational changes, low job satisfaction and personal accomplishment, lack of recognition, poor work-life balance, interpersonal relations and support at work and workplace violence, including harassment and bullying. When one or many of these factors become part of our everyday lives they can lead to stress, anxiety, depression, burn-out, somatic health issues or even, in severe cases that go unaddressed, suicide.

Despite this, there is still poor recognition of the importance of good management for mental health in most workplaces across globe and many employers and employees lack knowledge and awareness on how to create mentally healthy workplaces and how to address and minimise the risks. This is why mental ill health has become one of the leading causes of absenteeism from work and early retirement all over globe. On top of this, getting back to work after a period of mental ill health is often a challenge due to lack of support. This can lead to a negative spiral for mental health and leads to long-term unemployment and exclusion from the labour market.

Work-related stress is the second most reported health problem in the workplace in World. The human and social costs that come with mental ill health are too important to be ignored. Moreover, the costs for employers and society in terms of absence from work and presenteeism (being less productive or effective at work due to mental ill health) are huge.

Our mental health is influenced by different social determinants including factors which are not always related to work, however, there is a lot that can be done in the workplace. Creating mentally healthy workplaces starts with understanding and commitment at a senior level. Fostering mentally health working conditions begins with looking at how the culture of the workplace and work organisation impact on the wellbeing of all employees.

Research has shown that even the simplest mental health promotion programmes are cost-effective in improving the mental health and productivity of workplaces. Managers have a key role to play here in supporting an organisational culture that promotes positive mental health. Having a good manager can help employees to better cope with work-related stress or mental ill health and there are good training programmes available that can equip managers with the skills and confidence they need to support people showing signs of distress.

Early Warning Signs

Not sure if you or someone you know is living with mental health problems? Experiencing one or more of the following feelings or behaviors can be an early warning sign of a problem:

• Eating or sleeping too much or too little
• Pulling away from people and usual activities
• Having low or no energy
• Feeling numb or like nothing matters
• Having unexplained aches and pains
• Feeling helpless or hopeless
• Smoking, drinking, or using drugs more than usual
• Feeling unusually confused, forgetful, on edge, angry, upset, worried, or scared
• Yelling or fighting with family and friends
• Experiencing severe mood swings that cause problems in relationships
• Having persistent thoughts and memories you can’t get out of your head
• Hearing voices or believing things that are not true
• Thinking of harming yourself or others
• Inability to perform daily tasks like taking care of your kids or getting to work or school.

Mental Health and Wellness

• Realize their full potential
• Cope with the stresses of life
• Work productively
• Make meaningful contributions to their communities

Creating a healthy workplace

An important element of achieving a healthy workplace is the development of governmental legislation, strategies and polices as highlighted by the European Union Compass work in this area. A healthy workplace can be described as one where workers and managers actively contribute to the working environment by promoting and protecting the health, safety and well-being of all employees. An academic report from 2014 suggests that interventions should take a 3-pronged approach:

• Protect mental health by reducing work–related risk factors.
• Promote mental health by developing the positive aspects of work and the strengths of employees.
• Address mental health problems regardless of cause.

Building on this, a guide from the World Economic Forum highlights steps organizations can take to create a healthy workplace, including:

• Awareness of the workplace environment and how it can be adapted to promote better mental health for different employees.
• Learning from the motivations of organizational leaders and employees who have taken action.
• Not reinventing wheels by being aware of what other companies who have taken action have done.
• Understanding the opportunities and needs of individual employees, in helping to develop better policies for workplace mental health.
• Awareness of sources of support and where people can find help.

Interventions and good practices that protect and promote mental health in the workplace include:

• Implementation and enforcement of health and safety policies and practices, including identification of distress, harmful use of psychoactive substances and illness and providing resources to manage them.
• Informing staff that support is available.
• Involving employees in decision-making, conveying a feeling of control and participation; organizational practices that support a healthy work-life balance.
• Programmes for career development of employees.
• Recognizing and rewarding the contribution of employees.

Consequences of poor mental health in the workplace:

Productivity and job performance. High performance is mental strength in motion. When we don’t feel good, accessing the behavioral skills that foster creativity and resilience is challenging. Without these skills, we don’t have the psychological resources to perform well at our jobs.

Engagement with one’s work. Poor mental health leads to demotivation and lack of focus. When we have mental health issues, our minds wander or fixate on our problems, making it difficult to regulate our thoughts and emotions.

Physical capability and daily functioning. From social anxiety to a reduction in cognitive performance and working memory, poor mental health takes a major toll on your daily living and physical capability. You feel depleted.

Poor decision-making. Poor mental health can lead to a lack of impulse control, unhealthy thoughts, and poor decision-making. Poor decision-making may lead to missed meetings, showing up late, dropping commitments, or not adhering to company policies.

Communication. It’s difficult to communicate well when we’re emotionally not feeling well. Poor mental health may lead to misinterpreting or over-reacting to colleagues. It may come across as speaking with a passive-aggressive tone, being a poor listener, or having a negative attitude.

Productivity Levels Decrease

The main goal of any corporation is to drive through sales from customers to maintain a strong presence in the business world. Unfortunately, when a level of unethical behaviour starts to form, it can cause productivity levels to decrease which surround the person or corporation in question. When this happens, errors start to form in a once productive production line. This, in turn can cause other employees to feel unmotivated resulting in a complete slowdown of the sale process that can lose you valuable time and money.

Loss Of Respect

In episodes where managers or leaders start to make unethical decisions, it can lead to employees losing a lot of respect for their bosses. When this occurs, it can be difficult for the leader to gain back the respect and trust that’s been lost. It also causes problems for them to run a successful business when their team feels as if they’re making poor corporate choices. Employees may also feel resentful towards their leaders. This is because, as a part of the company, they feel their reputation is also starting to fall apart along with the business’s reputation.

Loss Of Public Credibility

When unethical behaviour occurs in a corporate setting, there’s a high chance it will be publicized. This, in turn can cause your company to lose its credibility, resulting in customers abandoning sales with you, bad-mouthing your business, and not holding respect for you anymore. To gain credibility back a corporation needs to create a well-planned rebranding and marketing campaign, along with hiring a public relations team to help improve their reputation. This can lead to millions of dollars in costs, especially if you’re a well know and worldwide organization.

Legal Issues

In severe cases of unethical misconduct, it can lead to severe legal issues that result in loss of time, large fines, and other penalties with possible jail time. The cost of legal battles can go on for months to years and can lead into the millions of dollars depending on the corporation’s particular situation and level of unethical behaviour. In addition to this, executives who break the law can lead employees to also follow in pursuit in facing criminal charges.

Core Elements of a Strong Work Ethic

It is difficult to define the elements of good work ethics, as it is such an individualistic approach and thinking. What may be good work ethics for me may not be the same for you. Much depends upon how each organization or person looks at work ethics and the moral values that each follows. What moral values you practice in daily life will define your attitude towards work and your work ethics. But there are a few common elements that are universally followed and employers look for it in their employees.

Honesty: This is the core element of work ethics, all the other elements are based upon your honesty. Be honest about your successes and failures, take credit only where due, do not steal other’s works or ideas, and own up to your failures.

Integrity: Do not let people down, try to fulfill your commitments, and be consistent in your thoughts, action and behavior.

Impartiality/Fairness: Be fair to all, do not practice favoritism. Treat everyone as equals.

Alertness: Be aware of what is happening around and keep an eye on things.

Openness: Share your ideas, results and resources with the other team members, so that everyone has the same opportunity and know what you are doing. Being secretive is counterproductive.

Respect for others: No matter how urgent a deadline or heated that tempers become, remain diplomatic and poised and show grace under pressure. Whether serving a client, meeting a customer or meeting with management, do the best to respect other’s opinions, even in stressful circumstances. It shows one values other’s individual worth and professional contribution.

Reliability and Dependability: Means being punctual for work and meetings, delivering assignments within budget and on schedule. Be reliable about keeping promises for reputation precedes one so that clients, customers, and colleagues do trust in you to do all that you say you will everyone appreciates the stability this embodies.

Determination: Obstacles cannot stop you as they are a challenge to be overcome. Embrace challenges positively and know that your role is to solve problems with purpose and resilience. Push on, no matter how far it is necessary to go.

Dedication: Continue until the job is complete, and delivered. “It’s good enough” is not sufficient for you and the team, as you aim to be “outstanding” in content and quality. Put in the extra hours to get things right by attending to detail and excellence.

Accountability: Accept responsibility personally for one’s actions and outcomes in all situations, plus avoid excuses when work does not proceed as planned admitting mistakes or oversights are used as a learning curve and will not be repeated again. Employers expect employees to attain to high standards, and they should fully support staff who accept responsibility, instead of passing the buck.

Confidentiality: Any confidential information of documents you have should remain confidential. You cannot discuss it or show it to anyone else, other than the people authorized to do so.

Responsibility: Take responsibility for your thoughts, actions, behavior and work.

Legality: Always work within the legal boundaries, do not break or twist the law to fit your agenda.

Competence: Improve your performance and competence by constantly learning and including the new learning into your work.

Professionalism: From how one dresses and presents oneself in the business world, to how others are treated, professionalism is such a very broad category that it encompasses all the elements of a work ethic.

Humility: Acknowledge other’s contribution, and share credit for successes. You have integrity and are open to learning from mentors and others, even as you teach via your action, example, and words. Though you take the work seriously, you are also maintaining a sense of humor about yourself.

Initiative: Do not be afraid to put forth your ideas or volunteer for work.

In a corporation, a stakeholder is a member of “Groups without whose support the organization would cease to exist”, as defined in the first usage of the word in a 1963 internal memorandum at the Stanford Research Institute. The theory was later developed and championed by R. Edward Freeman in the 1980s. Since then, it has gained wide acceptance in business practice and in theorizing relating to strategic management, corporate governance, business purpose and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The definition of corporate responsibilities through a classification of stakeholders to consider has been criticized as creating a false dichotomy between the “shareholder model” and the “Stakeholders model” or a false analogy of the obligations towards shareholders and other interested parties.

Value creation is inclusive

For companies anywhere in the world, creating long-term shareholder value requires satisfying other stakeholders as well. You can’t create long-term value by ignoring the needs of your customers, suppliers, and employees. Investing for sustainable growth should and often does result in stronger economies, higher living standards, and more opportunities for individuals. It should not be surprising, then, that value-creating capitalism has served to catalyze progress, whether by lifting millions of people out of poverty, contributing to higher literacy rates, or fostering innovations that improve quality of life and lengthen life expectancy.

Stakeholder management contributes to corporate governance by helping to handle the multiple and often conflicting stakes held by the complex networks of groups that surround any company. The interactions, coalitions, behaviours, roles, resources, and preferences within and across the various groups composing these networks are highly dynamic. Individual stakeholders have various means of exerting influence, such as rhetoric, ethics, ruling, pressure, coercion, and market mechanisms. In practice, it is often difficult and costly, if not impossible, to identify and meet all the demands of a company’s stakeholders. Consequently, it is crucial for governance to identify, analyze, and assess the meaning and significance of each individual group of generic stakeholders and to determine their respective power in order to be prepared for the conflict that may follow from the prioritizing of competing groups of stakeholders.

Employees

Employees have a direct stake in the company in that they earn an income to support themselves, along with other benefits (both monetary and non-monetary). Depending on the nature of the business, employees may also have a health and safety interest (for example, in the industries of transportation, mining, oil and gas, construction, etc.).

Customers

Many would argue that businesses exist to serve their customers. Customers are actually stakeholders of a business; in that they are impacted by the quality of service/products and their value. For example, passengers traveling on an airplane literally have their lives in the company’s hands when flying with the airline.

Government

Governments can also be considered a major stakeholder in a business, as they collect taxes from the company (corporate income taxes), as well as from all the people it employs (payroll taxes) and from other spending the company incurs (sales taxes). Governments benefit from the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that companies contribute to.

Competitors

Mr. Schantz said that, FedEx and United Parcel services (UPS) are their main competitors in Sweden. He also said that there are times when they meet as a network to organize programs for the community as well as discuss different issues on customers and on CSR. He procited out that, although they are competitors in the courier service industry, they strive to reach a common goal for their customers on CSR issues.

For businesses to do well in the market place for the benefit of customers there is the need for competition between different brands, companies and parties. It gives incentives for self improvement. Business parties and competitors must do so in a mutual and fair manner taking into consideration the welfare of customers.

The concept of CSR should enable DHL and its competitors such FedEx and UPS as efforts on the market to stimulate innovation, encourage efficiency and drive down prices which are fair for the benefits of customers. It must create efficiency for commercial firms to develop new products, services, and technologies. This will give consumers greater selection and better products.

Society

Communities are major stakeholders in large businesses located in them. They are impacted by a wide range of things, including job creation, economic development, health, and safety. When a big company enters or exits a small community, there is an immediate and significant impact on employment, incomes, and spending in the area. With some industries, there is a potential health impact, too, as companies may alter the environment.

A system of beliefs that helps one to make decisions (personal/business) is known as a value system. In a professional environment, such core values form the foundations that build any business. These values need to be upheld and implemented across the entire business. The employees need to treat such value systems as sacrosanct and use them regularly throughout the decision-making process. When they are used optimally, these core values can provide benefits to a company to grow fast and evolve into a larger organization.

Importance of Workplace Values

Your workplace values are the guiding principles that are most important to you about the way that you work. You use these deeply held principles to choose between right and wrong ways of working, and they help you make important decisions and career choices.

Some (possibly conflicting) examples of workplace values include:

• Being accountable
• Making a difference
• Focusing on detail
• Delivering quality
• Being honest
• Keeping promises
• Being reliable
• Being positive
• Meeting deadlines
• Helping and respecting others
• Being a great team member
• Respecting company policy and rules
• Showing tolerance

Strong work ethics and values play an important role in the workplace. The following mentioned are few important workplace values in an organization.

Values are the foremost thing which makes a company:

Nowadays, the companies are not only mere business entities, but they are more than that. Now companies breathe, live by focusing on many brands at a time. The companies are tapping large part of the market, changing the demands and building altogether different environment to work in.

It promotes a cooperating environment in the company:

The company is known by the employees who work in it. If the employees leave the company one by one, the company will not work and may come to an end. So, this is the behavior of the employees which promotes a good and cooperating environment in an organization.

Promotes positivity among the employees:

If the employees will not adhere to good behavior in an organization, it will ultimately affect the work and the output. So, in order to promote happiness and positivity among employees, good values are expected within an organization.

Enhances the interpersonal behavior:

Interpersonal behavior means the communicating behavior among the employees within an organization. If there will be no rules and code of conduct for the employees to follow and the employees are unwilling to talk to one another, then it promotes negativity within the organization.

To prevent chaos within the organization:

No values in the workplace, no ethics in the workplace to follow, no codes of conduct, and then,

how can peace and friendly atmosphere be expected?

This is not at all possible. So, in order to make it possible, the first and the foremost thing is to let employees adhere to the values. Else there would be only chaos and no work within the organization. To avoid all those, the values are important for workplaces.

To maintain discipline within the organization:

Discipline is the father of success. If you are disciplined in your work, you are going on the right track, but if you are not disciplined you are astray from your path. So, if you want to achieve the goals you have desired, it is important to work with values within the company.

Values set the tone for the company’s culture:

The culture of the company is decided by the values it’s employees follow. It tells what is your organization on the whole. It is important that the people within the organization adhere to the values set by the company.

Values within the workplace attracts more employees:

The values are something which attract more employees. This is because if the company will follow proper values, it will establish a good work culture and if the work culture is satisfying then ultimately more employees would want to work within the organization.

Helps in the growth of the company:

The values form a good work culture. If there will be no values, no rules to follow, no one would want to work unless the environment is work friendly. So, the more valuable work environment is, more it will be good for the growth of the company itself.

Right things are done at the right time:

The values teach many other values like discipline and so on. The discipline helps in keeping the things at right place. Also doing the right things at the right time.

Generally, value has been taken to mean moral ideas, general conceptions or orientations towards the world or sometimes simply interests, attitudes, preferences, needs, sentiments and dispositions. But sociologists use this term in a more precise sense to mean “The generalised end which has the connotations of rightness, goodness or inherent desirability”.

These ends are regarded legitimate and binding by society. They define what is important worthwhile and worth striving for. Sometimes, values have been interpreted to mean “such standards by means of which the ends of action are selected”. Thus, values are collective conceptions of what is considered good, desirable, and proper or bad, undesirable, and improper in a culture.

According to M. Haralambos (2000), “a value is a belief that something is good and desirable”. For R.K. Mukerjee (1949) (a pioneer Indian sociologist who initiated the study of social values), “values are socially approved desires and goals that are internalised through the process of conditioning, learning or socialisation and that become subjective preferences, standards and aspirations”. A value is a shared idea about how something is ranked in terms of desirability, worth or goodness.

Familiar examples of values are wealth, loyalty, independence, equality, justice, fraternity and friend­liness. These are generalised ends consciously pursued by or held up to individuals as being worthwhile in themselves. It is not easy to clarify the fundamental values of a given society because of their sheer breadth.

Characteristics:

Values may be specific, such as honouring one’s parents or owning a home or they may be more general, such as health, love and democracy. “Truth prevails”, “love thy neighbour as yourself, “learning is good as ends itself are a few examples of general values. Individual achievement, individual happiness and materi­alism are major values of modern industrial society.

Value systems can be different from culture to culture. One may value aggressiveness and deplores passivity, another the reverse, and a third gives little attention to this dimension altogether, emphasising instead the virtue of sobriety over emotionality, which may be quite unimportant in either of the other cultures. This point has very aptly been explored and explained by Florence Kluchkhon (1949) in her studies of five small communities (tribes) of the American south-west. One society may value individual achievement (as in USA), another may emphasise family unity and kin support (as in India). The values of hard work and individual achievement are often associated with industrial capitalist societies.

The values of a culture may change, but most remain stable during one person’s lifetime. Socially shared, intensely felt values are a fundamental part of our lives. Values are often emotionally charged because they stand for things we believe to be worth defending. Often, this characteristic of values brings conflict between different communities or societies or sometimes between different persons.

Functions

• Values play an important role in the integration and fulfillment of man’s basic impulses and desires in a stable and consistent manner appropriate for his living.
• They are generic experiences in social action made up of both individual and social responses and attitudes.
• They build up societies, integrate social relations.
• They mould the ideal dimensions of personality and range and depth of culture.
• They influence people’s behaviour and serve as criteria for evaluating the actions of others.
• They have a great role to play in the conduct of social life.
• They help in creating norms to guide day-to-day behaviour.

Features

1. Integrity

Honesty and integrity are the cornerstone of sustainable success. In order for people to want to follow their leader they must have complete trust in his honesty, his dedication, his commitment and his unshakeable ethics and high standards and values. Managers who are open, truthful and consistent in their behaviors are more likely to inspire trust, loyalty and commitment in their teams.

2. Willingness to take Risk

Leaders are not afraid of taking risks or making mistakes. They take calculated as opposed to reckless risks and while they weigh their options and alternatives carefully they do not allow themselves to fall prey to the “analysis paralysis” syndrome. The best leaders learn from their mistakes and emerge from them resilient and ready to take on the next challenge.

3. Optimism and Enthusiasm

A great manager inspires others with their infectious enthusiasm, their disarmingly genuine keenness, passion and their zeal for what they do. Rather than dwelling on problems they are solution-oriented and focus on how to make things work and succeed. They are willing to see the silver lining in every cloud and have a ‘can-do’ optimistic attitude that leaves no place for negativity.

4. Commitment to Growth

Leaders recognize that learning is a life-long process and never stop doing what it takes to grow professionally and personally and maintain a grip with emerging trends and tools and business realities and technologies. The best leaders realize that to remain at the vanguard of their particular function or industry requires constant learning, enquiry, exploration and innovation as well as continuous self-scrutiny and analysis.

5. Vision

Leaders know precisely what they want and make clear detailed and achievable plans to get there. They are not vague or ambiguous in their goals nor do they leave anything to chance. Leaders are also able to articulate and communicate their vision clearly and in no uncertain terms and inspire and win others to their platform with their vision.

6. Pragmatism

While leaders may have lofty visions and ideals, they do not hide their heads in the clouds and are mindful of the hard facts and figures that surround them. They are very realistic when it comes to assessing the landscape they operate in and practical about the decisions they make.

7. Responsibility

Leaders can be depended on to take responsibility for their actions and to live up to their responsibilities completely. They stand firmly behind the commitments they make and do not let their teams down; nor do they assign or allocate blame to deflect from their own responsibilities. They do not have a victim mentality that holds others responsible for their poor choices and deficiencies but stare challenges in the face and confront them head-on.

8. Hard Work and Conscientiousness

Leaders work hard and accept no short cuts. The best leaders lead by their example demonstrating a stellar work ethic by being the first in the office, the last out and the most productive, persistent and dedicated while at work. They have a strong sense of duty and very high standards of excellence and they apply these rigorous standards to themselves first always seeking better, smarter, more effective ways of doing things.

9. Self-confidence

Leaders have no shortage of that essential commodity of self-assurance that enables them to risk giant strides, be bold and tough-minded and ‘fall forward’ in the rare instances when they do fall/fail. Leaders generally have little need for approval and are motivated by an inner strength, maturity and drive. Leaders are very cognizant of their inner strengths, weaknesses and the impact they have on others and knowledgeable of what they can and cannot realistically do/achieve/influence. They do not wallow in self-pity or guilt over past mistakes or doubt.

10. Emotional Intelligence

Empathy, self-awareness, decisiveness, self-discipline, intuitiveness and social competence are all key to successful leadership and all are associated with high levels of emotional intelligence. Congeniality, the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes and relate with others, the ability to read between the lines and analyze the pulse of a relationship or situation, the ability to focus on the positive and refrain from negative and self-defeating attitudes and behaviors, are all elements of emotional intelligence that contribute to leadership success.

11. Expertise in Industry

While there are many generalists in leadership positions the best leaders become generalists not by knowing a little about many fields but my being experts in a multitude of fields. Good leaders are characterized by a very high level of energy, conscientiousness and drive and spare no efforts to become experts in their field and harness all the information and knowledge and competence they need to maintain an edge over their competitors.

12. Ability to Engage Others

A key leadership trait is inspiring, motivating, engaging and bringing out the best in others. The best leaders encourage leadership in all around them and strive to develop and empower others to assume roles of leadership and responsibility. They are able to propel others to elevated levels of performance through their own energy and enthusiasm and insight and can maximize the strengths and capabilities of their team for the benefit of the whole organization.

Types:

(1) Individual values:

These are the values which are related with the development of human personality or individual norms of recognition and protection of the human personality such as honesty, loyalty, veracity and honour.

(2) Collective values:

Values connected with the solidarity of the community or collective norms of equality, justice, solidarity and sociableness are known as collective values.

Values can also be’ categorised from the point of view their hierarchical arrangement:

(1) Intrinsic values:

These are the values which are related with goals of life. They are sometimes known as ultimate and transcendent values. They determine the schemata of human rights and duties and of human virtues. In the hierarchy of values, they occupy the highest place and superior to all other values of life.

(2) Instrumental values:

These values come after the intrinsic values in the scheme of gradation of values. These values are means to achieve goals (intrinsic values) of life. They are also known as incidental or proximate values.

Values Formation

Value formation is the confluence of our personal experiences and particular culture we are entwined in. Values are imposed from our family in childhood and reinforced through culture and life experiences. The value of, for example, kindness was imposed on me from my parents, and reinforced throughout early childhood. Then I applied that value on the school playground and experienced how it helped me create greater social bonds with my school mates. My personal experiences growing up reinforced the value of kindness as I experienced the adaptive effects of showing kindness and the maladaptive effects when choosing malice over kindness. All through my upbringing, both my personal experiences and cultural surroundings both reinforced the value of kindness.

Having been born and raised in Dallas, Texas, the values of rugged individualism, church, and God was ingrained in my psyche from birth. Each of those three values, as I grew older, eventually formed the foundation of my worldview and politics. In a sense, our values, imposed upon us early in childhood, become the spectacles in which we view and judge the world.

Our culture plays a huge role in our value formation. Culture gives us a community and shared reality so that we can cooperate in activities and customs that give meaning, purpose, and significance to our existence. Culture gives us prescriptions for appropriate conduct so that we can learn best how to get along with others. All you have to do is travel to another country to see how values ebb and flow with culture. You can travel to China and see how they elevate the group and family over the individual in contrast to most Americans; you can see how South Americans elevate hospitality and care for their elderly unlike most Americans; and how Hawaiians elevate relaxation and balance unlike most urban metropolitan cities in the U.S.

Value Based Management (VBM) is the management philosophy and approach that enables and supports maximum value creation in organizations, typically the maximization of shareholder value. VBM encompasses the processes for creating, managing, and measuring value.

The value creation process requires an understanding of the attractiveness of the market or industry where one competes, coupled with one’s competitive position relative to other players. Once this understanding is established and is linked with key value chain drivers for cash flow and profitability, competitive strategy can be established or modified to maximize future returns.

The three elements of Value Based Management:

• Creating Value. How the company can increase or generate maximum future value. More or less equal to strategy.
• Managing for Value. Governance, change management, organizational culture, communication, leadership.
• Measuring Value. Value Based Management is dependent on the corporate purpose and the corporate values. The corporate purpose can either be economic (Shareholder Value) or can also aim at other constituents directly (Stakeholder Value).

Benefits of Value Based Management

• Can maximize value creation consistently.
• It increases corporate transparency.
• It helps organizations to deal with globalized and deregulated capital markets.
• Aligns the interests of (top) managers with the interests of shareholders and stakeholders.
• Facilitates communication with investors, analysts and communication with stakeholders.
• Improves internal communication about the strategy.
• Prevents undervaluation of the stock.
• It sets clear management priorities.
• Facilitates to improve decision making.
• It helps to balance short-term, middle-term and long-term trade-offs.
• Encourages value-creating investments.
• Improves the allocation of resources.
• Streamlines planning and budgeting.
• It sets effective targets for compensation.
• Facilitates the use of stocks for mergers or acquisitions.
• Prevents takeovers.
• It helps to better manage increased complexity and greater uncertainty and risk.

Phases to developing a Value-based corporate culture:

1. Assessment:

Determine the company’s position on its values culture and figure out what the values need to be.

2. Improve initiatives:

To develop improvement initiatives that tightly align to the strategies developed means that they must contain measures and outcomes that link directly to the measures and outcomes stated in the strategy. To do this, management must look inward to its knowledge workers for solutions. This requires that management to communicate its strategies and objectives. It requires management to view the organization in terms of how its processes function and to pose challenges to cross functional groups that represent those processes.

Take the example of a car manufacturer who might have a strategy to improve customer satisfaction with its cars by building cars with low price, high mileage, good design, 5 years warranty etc. the management than organize a team of knowledge workers to purpose ways to achieve the goal. The team would comprise collectively and explore how to reduce material weight, streamline production, and develop engines that to achieve the goal.

All organizations have implicit values, yet few have taken the trouble to make them explicit. Aligning Values with the management practice is the essential component.

3. Program development:

Once the company determines where it stands on its selected values, it decides how to make progress towards them. Create a code of conduct that represents the ethical values established during assessment. Keep the code precise, based directly on the selected values. Establish a training plan for getting the required information to everyone working with the company.

Employees are not the only one’s to introduce to the new effort. Do not forget about vendors and contracted staff, though the company may introduce them to the program after its successful internal launch. Each of these other stakeholders needs training based on their role in the business.

4. Program Implementation:

Communicating the program effectively throughout the organization is an essential to a successful program. Communicating the program frequently is another important success factor. Distribute the “Code of Conduct” and train people so they understand it. Verify that all levels of staff are getting the desired message. Establish an anonymous reporting system to raise questions about the values and any suspected lapse. If the company is successful with investigations, several things can happen. First, giving each incident the appropriate investigation will establish the credibility of the program.

5. Re-assessment and Modification:

After the initial implementation of the program’s major elements, review if again. Find out the communications effective in getting the right message to all levels of staff.

6. Evaluation:

This process is more comprehensive than the re-assessment. It comes on a less frequent basis, usually annually. Consider adding questions about the ethic s program to your annual employee questionnaire. This will not only help the evacuation process but can also moderate the costs of gathering such information. Re-evaluating the program and keeping it relevant are essential to its continued health. Remember that ethics are about people and how they interact. The program is about building a culture that supports sound decision-making based on respect for all stakeholders. That asset is a way to draw concerned parties into the company culture and create an environment where they all can be productive.

Recent happenings about accounting practices, conflicts of interest, document shredding and retaliation against employees in companies heighten interest in spiritual values.

Secular Values in Management

• Profits: Business is done for profit for the organization by which it can survive and develop. This profit should be justified in context of service and development of society.
• Productivity: Business value emphasis on productivity through which an organization serve the society. It doesn’t make any difference on the basis of caste, religion or any other difference of customer.
• Goodwill and Reputation: Goodwill is the important things for the business people. All the customer of any society should be satisfying from the services of any organization. It makes an organization a real unit of service oriented industry.
• Strategy and Achievement: All the professionals of an organization have their strategy for achieving their goal and objective to serve the society and make profit again for the development.
• Responsibility: Business people and organization are equally responsible to the whole society for the safe development and harmony.

Characteristics of Secular Values

• Focus on factual realities: In secular value system approach the facts of life are the major source of inspiration and not the religious way.
• It treats the person on the basis of actuality.
• Secular values focus on scientific facts.
• These values believe in equality: it emphasis that there is no superior or inferior caste; in the same way there is no superior or inferior religion. All human beings are equal and should be treated in the same manner.

Spiritual Values in Management

Ego–Lessness: Spiritual persons have a concept of unity of all life they don’t have a sense of separate or individual existence where they feel egoistic. They see themselves in all and all themselves. They don’t have greed, anger, jealousy or any other such bad feelings, which made differences. Ego is the cause of all the evils.

Self-fulfilment: spiritual persons should have a feeling of self-completeness. They should have no personal desire or goal where they seek anything anybody. They should not deficit driven personality.

Universal or Unconditional love: Spirituality loves all the human being. It is concern for the sharing, caring and giving out their humanness to others their conduct and behaviour are guided by the ethics of love. They don’t have any fear from anyone and nobody has any fear from them. This is called the great spiritual value of ‘Abhaya’.

Complete freedom: Spiritual people are free from all human limitations or personal attachments. They have overcome all dualities conflicts and suffering of life. So, they are living a blissful life from heart and soul.

Characteristics of Spiritual Values

Wisdom and Skills: Any act performed by a person must follow an approach of wisdom which has always support of spirituality and is automatically get reflected in the skills. Every soul has a potential of God in it than all the skills he practice and exhibits get reflected in his deeds. With this belief he would enjoy his life more purposefully.

Consciousness: The spiritual value for managers suggest on having a higher level of consciousness, which means that a manager must be aware of positive and negative effects of his action and decisions undertaken, which are consciously performed.

Spiritual values in terms of divine qualities: There are number of divine qualities which are present in an individual and can be termed as spiritual values e.g. respect for self, respect for god, belief in giving than grabbing, enjoying satisfaction to maximum level. All these factors present the divine qualities.

Spiritual values in terms of Inspiration. High level of inspiration can be achieved through any of the source of life. Purification in terms of vale means purification of heart, feelings and expression. Inspiration can be achieved through God or may be form of any living or non-living objects.

Karma Yoga: to be able to perform one’s responsibility and duties properly, is a major source of inspiration.

Strong belief in Religion: the way we behave is the reflection of our religion on a broader level. People being different follow different religion, respect different god that leads to a moral strength in them. As has rightly been said, ‘belief in religion is a mirror of our spiritual values’.

Control over Mind: it is another important features in terms of our spiritual values. So right from the childhood one must be taught to keep a control and balance over mind also helps in proper usage of pure energy and resources. Aim is to attain a state of pure mind

Balance between Need, Wants and Demand: the most important factor in terms of spiritual value is to maintain a balance between need wants and demand. The most satisfied person is the one who has a clear idea about his expectations from life and accordingly identifies what are his need, wants and demands are.

Difference between secular and spiritual values in management

• In secular management, there are no spiritual values employed while on spiritual values of management there are spiritual procedures lain in order to manage any institution.
• On secular values in management there is no reference to any supreme being while on spiritual values there is reference to a supreme being.
• On spiritual values there is reference to a spiritual book whereas on secular there is no reference from any book.
• On secular values the leader can be selected from anywhere while on spiritual the leader must be one of the spiritual believers.

Highly important values in transcultural conflicts include equality, communication, respect, open-mindedness, honesty and truth, calmness, appreciation, politeness, co-operation, teamwork and punctuality. It is clear that values which have been under-represented in apartheid (Hart, 2002), particularly, lead to conflicts in the described context in South Africa. Managers highlighted equality as one major value which still stayed unfulfilled in their work context. Values such as calm and appropriate communication, mutual respect, equality, appreciation, politeness and co-operation were experienced as missing. This shows that values which were described as “Missing” in the apartheid society and which have not completely been reinstalled in post-apartheid South Africa still spill over into today’s organisations in this country.

Misunderstanding and transcultural conflict seemed to arise through miscommunication between members of different cultural groups. They particularly included values, such as non-existence of collective transparency in communication processes, as well as unacceptable and inappropriate behaviour, such as shouting or cursing. Transcultural conflicts were interpreted as occurring due to cultural variations in values across managers of different cultural groups. Managers did not seem to have appropriate skills to manage these value conflicts appropriately in all respects and therefore cultural and value diversity within the organisation could lead to transcultural conflicts.

Cultural practices & values have become significantly important in corporate business. The synergy between corporate culture & managerial values gives rise to cross-cultural practices which helps in making effective strategic options & performing the business tasks successfully. Skills, capabilities, knowledge, technology & experiences are better facilitated by cross-cultural approach particularly in multinational organizations.

Compatibility between societal values & managerial practices influences the critical organizational success. Institutions of higher education can serve as the sources for providing global perspectives of multicultural education.

Multicultural education has two viewpoints:

Assimilation or melting pot: In this, small cultural people should give their original culture, identities, language, values, behavior & communication styles & merge into the predominant bigger culture.

Global perspective: It promotes trans-cultural human values & equity amongst all cultural groups in the society. It allows people to respect & appreciate all existing cultural groups.

Trans-cultural competence is the process in which a person adopts multiple ways of perceiving, evaluating, believing & solving problems to understand & learn to negotiate cultural diversity among nations.

Equity pedagogy: It aims at achieving fair & equal educational opportunities for all the children.

Curriculum reform: It should include curriculum theory & historical inquiry so that bias in textbooks, media & other educational materials can be easily detected.

Teaching for social justice: It develops understanding of the evidence of the individual i.e. what exactly an individual is.

This dimension includes the value domains of:

Universalism: Referring to issues of respect, transparency, open-mindedness, tolerance, understanding and appreciation; and

Benevolence: Referring to helpfulness, honesty, forgiveness, and mutual giving and taking.

Transculturalism is the mobilization of the definition of culture through the expression and deployment of new forms of cultural politics. Based on Jeff Lewis’ From Culturalism to Transculturalism, transculturalism is charactized by the following:

• Transculturalism emphasizes on the problematics of contemporary culture in terms of relationships, meaning-making, and power formation; and the transitory nature of culture as well as its power to transform.
• Transculturalism is interested in dissonance, tension, and instability as it is with the stabilizing effects of social conjunction, communalism, and organization; and in the destabilizing effects of non-meaning or meaning atrophy. It is interested in the disintegration of groups, cultures, and power.
• Transculturalism seeks to illuminate the various gradients of culture and the ways in which social groups create and distribute their meanings; and the ways in which social groups interact and experience tension.
• Transculturalism looks toward the ways in which language wars are historically shaped and conducted.
• Transculturalism does not seek to privilege the semiotic over the material conditions of life, nor vice versa.
• Transculturalism accepts that language and materiality continually interact within an unstable locus of specific historical conditions.
• Transculturalism locates relationships of power in terms of language and history.
• Transculturalism is deeply suspicious of itself and of all utterances. Its claim to knowledge is always redoubtable, self-reflexive, and self-critical.
• Transculturalism can never eschew the force of its own precepts and the dynamic that is culture.
• Transculturalism never sides with one moral perspective over another but endeavors to examine them without ruling out moral relativism or meta-ethical confluence.

Theoretical Reflections on Transcultural Management

This report aims at describing the status quo of transcultural management in selected focus areas in two global firms. More precisely, as part of a so called “field project”, we conducted case study research which allowed us to understand and describe transcultural learning processes that we consider constitute an inherent and fundamental element of transcultural management. In the following, we will briefly outline the major theoretical concepts behind transcultural management and transcultural learning, which serve as a basis for conceptualizing and analyzing our case study research.

Culture and Leadership

Culture can most simply be defined as how we view and do things. Within our community we construct our own world. Thus, culture is a shared set of meanings and interpretations of a collective represented by a group, a community or by an organization. Culture is embedded invisibly in the deep structure, which is called the core or inner layer, and has fundamental impacts on perception and behavior patterns influencing the interactional dynamics of that community. The outer layers are visible. The inner layer consisted of basic assumptions influences the way we cope with daily life, solve problems and meet changes and challenges. Consequently, culture defines our perception of truth and shapes community’s identity. In that sense, culture is a social construction based on shared experiences reflected and expressed in history and memory, and representing of the past in multiple ways. Language is the vehicle to construct and deconstruct the meanings of the experiences, and supports the process of attachment or detachment of the members in regard to their community’s organization. Within this context, culture has several functions. First it is a system of orientation, second it defines identity, and third it supports internal integration and external adaptation. It is constructed by and refers to the process of defining meaning in which a collective is involved.

Thoughts:

• Setting direction: “Every organization needs to have its mission, vision, and values established, and everyone looks to the company leaders to either deliver that vision, and values established, and everyone looks to the company leaders to either deliver that vision or facilitate the process of generating it collectively…”
• Gaining commitment: “Leaders don’t make people do what the leader wants; they make people want to do what the leader wants, and feel valued for doing it. When people talk about what energizes them about a good company, they generally rave about the company’s people and, more specifically, about the values of the people. There has to be a fit between the values of the organization and the individual. That fit is easier to accomplish if the values are clear and the company’s actions match the company’s words.”
• Delivering results: “Set incremental goals and meet them. Deliver measurable results. What you measure is what people will put the most effort into, so make sure you’re measuring the right things. Vision is necessary, but it’s also important to set a plan and manage it. Make sure there’s follow-through on commitments, and check in on results. Focus on results, provide feedback, and monitor progress.”
• Building relationships: “Investing your time and developing an awareness of yourself and others builds relationships and can have tremendous payoff in the form of committed employees, suppliers, and customers. People like to do business with people they trust and will even pay more for a service or product knowing that you are there to take care of them when needed. Build consensus, collaborate effectively, and provide support.”
• Establishing credibility: “Having a strong moral compass, following through, and being good at what you do not just being the expert – are all part of establishing credibility. Don’t forget that you can also establish credibility if you are quick to acknowledge when you don’t have the answer. Bringing in other expertise to assist you isn’t an admission of incompetence, gain respect, think innovatively, and develop trust.”
• Encouraging growth: “Are you taking interest in developing your people? Empower others, support learning, and demonstrate appreciation.”
• Managing self: “Knowing and sharing your own strengths and weaknesses is a precept to leading others. A leader can create a supportive environment by modelling the need for support as well as a self-reliant approach to getting support in a timely and appropriate manner. Be persistent and reliable.”