Personal Construct of Leading Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Personal Construct of Leading - Essay Example This includes: the wisdom to develop an organizational vision, good communication skills, knowing one’s skills and employing it, ability to empower and motivate his/her subordinates, able to establish trust by being reliable and constantly competitive, creativeness and resourcefulness. The challenge of having outstanding leadership skills in managers continuously increases as a result of the tight competition in domestic and international markets. A good managerial leadership is important since it could lead to the success and profitability of the company. In most cases, effective leadership skills could enhance the business operations. In line with having an efficient operational system, a company could reduce its unnecessary operational costs due to mismanagement and other operational errors due to miscommunication and lack of a structured operational system. The savings that could be derived from establishing good leadership skills could result to the increases in the revenue generation of a company. Leadership in management also has a role in retaining the best talents within the business organization. Failure to have a good leadership within the business organization could result to a lot of dissatisfied employees. Losing these talents could be very costly because of the costs of training and developing new employees to adapt with the mission and vision of the company. Over the years, a lot of philosophers have come to develop a lot of leadership theories in order to enable these organizations to have the knowledge of the different types of leadership strategy. Some of these organizations would even go through a trial-and-error so as to determine which among the existing leadership theories is the best and effective strategy. Trail-and-errors in determining the most effective leadership strategy should be avoided. Businesses organizations today are already facing a lot of internal and

Transurban Group Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Transurban Group - Essay Example The name of the company is Transurban Group and its ASX code is TCL.The main office is located at 505 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.The reporting period of the company starts from 1st July and ends on 30th June of subsequent year The article â€Å"Transurban rejects Canadian takeover bids† appeared on May 12, 2010 and outlines the refusal of the group to accept two takeover bids on different grounds. (The Sunday Morning Herlad, 2010). The new article discusses about the two new takeover bids by the two pension funds from Canada and one from Australia and why Transurban Group has actually refused to accept the bids based on the value offered owing to its past performance and future prospects. Article however, mentions that the firm is willing to work with these firms in terms of due diligence and may also consider the options if the right price is offered. The article has also mentions the capital raising efforts of the firm to expand the business and ho w same may have an impact on the overall price offered by the acquiring firms. This article is interesting in the sense that it provides a concise picture of the details about the potential deals in which Transurban Group may be involved in near future. 4) The stock price on 5th April 2011 was $5.340 per share whereas the price on 8th April 2011 was $5.350 per share. The net change in the share price was $0.10 per share during the period. 5) The net profit as on 30th June 2010 was $59.605 M whereas the same was ($16.134m) during 2009. (Transurban, 2010, 51). Considering the above figures, it is evident that the firm was incurring losses during 2009 and it recorded an overall net profit of more than $59M during 2010. Net profit margin in 2010 therefore is 7.93% showing impressive performance considering the fact that the firm has incurred losses during 2009. It is also important to understand that the improvement in the profitability of the firm has become possible owing to the cost control. Firm has been able to reduce its key costs such as business development costs and corporate costs in order to improve the profitability of the firm. It could therefore be concluded that the firm has been able to achieve increase in profitability with better management of its costs and expenses. 6) The largest liability of the firm is borrowings which is to tune of $4.005 B and it is non-current liability. Note 16 of the notes to accounts indicates that these liabilities include infrastructure facilities, term loans, capital markets debt, US Private placement as well as the syndicated facilities. The infrastructure loans have been taken for the purpose of building and expanding the existing infrastructure base whereas other facilities have been taken for various purposes over the period of time. Borrowings also included working capital facilities having expiry of more than one year therefore they are reported in the non-current liabilities.(Transurban, 2010, 52) 7) There are four different streams of revenue reported in the annual accounts of the firm and each stream of revenue is recognized in the books based on different criteria. The revenue generated from the toll and fee is recognized when the actual charge is made by the user whereas other road revenues include advertising, rental and other associated revenue which is recognized as per the normal criteria. Construction revenue is recorded by the firm when the intangible asset is its construction phase whereas the development assets are recognized in sales when they are sold to third parties. Business development revenue is based on the provision of business support services and revenue is recognized accordingly. (Transurban, 2010, 74) 8) PriceWaterhouseCoopers is the auditor of the firm and based on the Independence of External Auditors Policy of the firm, the external auditors are not involved in any other activity on behalf of the firm. During the year, auditors have been paid to the

Flexibility-security Nexus: the Concept of Flexicurity

Flexibility-security Nexus: the Concept of Flexicurity Meenakshi Shree Gautam Introduction Workers, companies, sectors of industry, national governments have usually been found facing a twofold expectation. On one side, there is a strong demand to bring more flexibility to labor markets, employment and work organization, while at same time an equally strong demand for providing security to employees, especially the vulnerable groups. Flexicurity suggests that the flexibility and security can co-exist at the same time. But increasing flexibility in the labor market can be seen with decreasing security in the labor market, because it might reflect a relaxation in the regulation of hiring and firing and in flexible forms of employment. The concept of flexicurity has been addressed at a various EU summits. In the mission of the European Union, enhancing of both flexibility and security has been considered with an aim to ensure sustainable economic growth with greater jobs and increased social cohesion. In India, when examined under the purview of the flexicurity, schemes like the MNREGA, and Unemployment Insurance Scheme on the planned extension of social security turn out to be the elements of an emerging domestically developing form of flexicurity. The analysis of the Indian labor markets in the context of flexicurity have been found to exist in the organized sector, but that too requires a clear-cut analysis of real rigidities and of security issues. Peter Auer, in his short paper on â€Å"Security in labor markets: Combining flexibility with security for decent work†, has discussed the concept and analyzed the topic of flexicurity, its importance, employment stability, country differences and convergence/ divergence in the European Union and the issues of what looms beyond flexicurity. Flexicurity: The concept and the shift from job to employment security Flexicurity is not merely a certain ‘species’ of the labor market policy/strategy but it also concerns a certain state or condition of the labor market. In the case concerning the flexicurity as a condition of the labor market, flexicurity has to be defined both as a typical form of security and as a typical form of flexibility. Flexicurity refers to the job, employment, income and ‘combination’ security that encourages and allows for enduring and high quality labor market participation and social inclusion, and at the same time provides a degree of numerical, functional and wage flexibility that allows for timely and adequate adjustment of labor markets and companies to changing conditions to ensure and enhance competitiveness and productivity. In the former generation of labor economists and the industrial relations school (for example the internal labor market â€Å"school† – Doeringer et Piore, 1971) job and employment security, were considered as related to one another in the following manner: job security was taken to be analogous to the task security. The job classification, under this system, proved to be inflexible in regards to new needs of polyvalence and multi-skilling with new types of goods and service production. And therefore, the job security rule was often replaced by employment security that guaranteed employment with the firm, but not on any particular job. This shift in the concept was seen with a shift from qualification to competence, more polyvalence and new forms of work organization creating space for more internal flexibility than before. There seems to be a trade-off between job and employment security comprising of employment and job changes. The shift from job to employment security was a shift from an internally rigid system towards a more internally flexible system that maintained employment security and long-term jobs with one company. The transition from job to employment security has been described as: Internal and external adjustments Internal adjustments are important for flexicurity because they can compensate for the missing external forms of adjustment. To illustrate this point, author has quoted the example of Germany where internal forms of adjustment are preferred to external ones. The author mentioned about the research conducted by an institute which confirmed the author’s proposition that internal adjustments are indeed used to compensate for the external forms of adjustments. Wage flexibility, important for providing cost flexibility, has been excluded from the concept of flexicurity. Internal flexibility is used both as an emergency measure at the time when job cuts come into view and as a preventive approach for eliciting more efficiency and upholding the occupation affiliation. An important question raised in the paper is whether one can balance the flexibility needs of individuals arising out of their choices and the needs of the employers. Both tend to be determining the steadiness of flexibility and security. It has been seen that in flexicurity countries, both the above mentioned aspects of the flexibility are complementary, while in the rest of the countries, there seems to be a trade-off between the two. The author has also highlighted, based on the empirical evidence that the flexible countries with moderate employment protection but bounteous protection by labor market policies do better in terms of decent jobs. This observation suggests that a certain degree of mobility, when â€Å"protected† is desirable for worker’s security and delivers better results than either â€Å"unprotected† mobility or too much employment stability. Therefore, labor market reforms that account for the need of stability, flexibility and security result in optimal outcomes. Neglecting any one of these elements, along with the social dialogue, tends to produce suboptimal results either for productivity, employment performance or workers’ security. Conclusion The author concludes by suggesting that one cannot imagine an absence of stable jobs and a total shift of security towards public unemployment and employment schemes. The author also highlights the fact that more research is needed to establish a strong link between objective and subjective data as for now, one can only conclude that maximizing of employment protection needs more than tenure in order to match objective and subjective employment security. Following common elements have been outlined by the author to achieve â€Å"in-employment flexicurity† combined with â€Å"out-of-employment flexicurity†: Employment protection through innovative employment contracts High degree of social protection by active Labor Market Policies Access to social rights since they link possibilities for temporary exit from the labor market (flexibility) with return options (security).) Complementarity between the individual and employer oriented flexibility High degree of internal flexibility in high performance work systems Effective social dialogue Developing, sustaining and improving such a system has to be complemented by a functioning social dialogue which would allow the industry and the government to bargain over possible trade-offs, accountabilities and expenses of the system. References Auer, P. (2012). â€Å"Security in labor markets: combining flexibility with security for decent work†, Economic and labor market analysis papers, ILO (International Labor Office), Geneva. Auer, P., Jha Praveen (2009). â€Å"labor market reforms in India: Barking up the wrong tree?†, The Indian Journal of Labor economics, Vol. 52, No. 1, pp. 71-81. Lerche, J. (2012). â€Å"Labor Regulations and Labor Standards in India: Decent Work?†, Global Labor Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 16-27.

Case Study on Alcoholism Essay -- substance abuse case study

Introduction: The ingestion of alcoholic beverages for their enjoyable effects is a custom which has been around for thousands of years, and alcohol continues to be a popular drug because of its short-term effects (Coleman, Butcher & Carson, 1984). An enormous amount of damage can be attributed directly to alcohol abuse as a result of lost jobs, accidents caused by drunk drivers, and so forth (Maltzman, 2000). Alcohol also compounds other problems--an estimated 25% to 40% of hospital patients have problems caused by, or recovery delayed by alcohol abuse (Maltzman, 2000). Clinical psychologists spend about one-fourth of their time dealing with people who are suffering in part from alcohol or other substance problems (Vaillant, 1995). Although alcohol problems have been around for so long, it is only recently that these problems have begun to be associated with medical or psychological difficulties. The first to advocate alcoholism as a disease was Benjamin Rush (1785-1843), and he even proposed that hospitals should be established to aid in the treatment of this disease (Cox, 1987). Since Rush, there have been many more definitions of alcoholism including the Statistical Abstracts (1979) account that an alcoholic is defined as ?one who is unable consistently to choose whether he shall drink or not, and if he drinks, is unable consistently to choose whether he shall stop or not. ?Alcoholics with complications? are those who have developed bodily or mental disorders through prolonged excessive drinking? (O?Brien & Chafetz, 1982, p.26). Further, Mark Keller of Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcoholism in March of 1960 stated that alcoholism is a ?chronic disease manifested by repeat implicative drinking so as to ca... ..., Publishers. May, R. (1977). The Meaning of Anxiety. New York, NY: Washington Square Press. Menninger, W.W. (1994). Psychotherapy and integrated treatment of social phobia and comorbid conditions. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 58, A84-A90. Miner, C.M., & Davidson, J.R.T. (1995). Biological characterization of social phobia. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 244, 304-308. Potts, N.L., & Book, S., & Davidson, J.R.T. (1996). The neurobiology of social phobia. International Clinical Psychopharmacology, 11, 43-48. Uhde, T.W. (1994). Anxiety and growth disturbances: Is there a connection? A review of biological studies in social phobia. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 55, 17-27. Wittchen, H. (2000). The many faces of social anxiety disorder. International Clinical Psychopharmacology, 15, S7-S12.

Communications in Society Essay

MGMT 351 Exam 1 Directions: Respond to five of the following questions. Responding to more than five will not earn extra credit. If you decide not to follow this direction, the five lowest scoring answers will constitute the grade for this test. There are some important considerations for successful completion of the text: 1. Accurate information is important, and it must directly address the question. 2. Use all terms appropriately. 3. Several questions have more than one part. Complete and accurate answers will earn maximum credit. Make sure that all of the requested information is provided. 4. Each complete and accurate answer is worth 20% of the grade for this exam. 5. Assignments are automatically sent through Turnitin to check for appropriate use of material (e.g. paraphrasing, citations). Make sure that your work follows all the guidelines for academic honesty. 6. Use the numbers as here listed. Do not renumber. 7. Watch the deadline. Late exams will not receive credit. 8. Answers must reflect college level writing skills, i.e. clear sentence construction and correct spelling, grammar and use of punctuation. Deductions from the test score will be made for failure to meet this standard. 9. If anything is unclear, ask rather than assume it doesn’t make a difference. To complete this exam, follow these steps: 1. Download this exam and save it as a MSWord document. 2. Read through all the questions and choose those you will attempt to answer. 3. Provide complete and accurate answers to those five questions. 4. Save. 5. Post your saved response to the exam under the Assignment by the deadline for this assignment. Questions: 1. Effective organizational communication is truly an interactive process. The people taking part in the communication exchange must listen carefully and respond accurately to the other interactants. There are ten elements that contribute to interactive communication (see Figure 1.2 on page 5 of your text). Using an example from your own experience, identify how these ten elements impacted the communication process, making sure to accurately label all ten. 2. Organizational philosophy has significant influence on management practice and communication in an organization. Briefly distinguish between classical, humanistic and systems theories. Now describe possible impact of each of these perspectives on the writing of job descriptions. Be specific. 3. Strategic communication relies on effective tactics in four areas. Name them and define them. Now consider this situation and apply what you know about these four areas to this situation: Next week, Clark will be giving a very important budget proposal presentation. This could be a boost to his career, or a bust. If he hopes to have his proposal accepted, he needs to be strategic in the plan and delivery for this presentation. How should he use the four areas of strategic communication to accomplish his goals? 4. What is communication anxiety, what role does it play in communication, and what are the causes? Choose five of these causes and offer suggestions for effectively managing anxiety resulting from each of these causes. 5. What is organizational culture and how does it determine standards for communication, both internally and externally? Next, as an advisor to someone considering joining an organization, direct your advisee to some avenues to explore to discover what is the culture of an organization in order to determine if this is the right organization for your advisee to join. Lastly, how important is cultural match? 6. The American culture is certainly not uniform. There are considerable differences in how members view the world (e.g. values, beliefs, opinions, etc.). Not using national origin/heritage (e.g. Italian-American), choose three subcultures present in the American workforce and explain how the values and beliefs of each subcultures impact how those employees behave at work. 7. Communication competence is based on interactive listening. Questioning techniques improve listening by making the speaker more efficient, and they facilitate goal accomplishment. Imagine that you are a manager who has been approached by a subordinate who manages others, i.e. you are the manager’s manager. One of the manager’s subordinates, who up until recently has been a good performer, has been making significant mistakes lately. Using all of the five types of questions, help the manager design his/her own set of questions to get to the issues behind this dwindling performance. Make sure to accurately label each type of question used. Lastly, explain how this strategy is likely to help the manager correctly identify the performance issues involved. 8. Name and define each of the three D’s. Then list two consequences and two strategies for overcoming each of these problems. 9. Put yourself in a work environment. List all, naming at least five, of the nonverbal messages you notice, making sure to accurately label each. Now summarize the impact of this combination of nonverbal messages on the people working there. Is it a positive impact? Lastly, if you could change any of these messages by instituting a new personnel policy, what would you do and what would the policy look like? 10. Does gender make a difference in how employees communicate in the workplace? Using specific examples, support your conclusion. Now think of a time when communication was effective during communication involving coworkers of the opposite sex. Lastly, describe a time when communication between members of both sexes was not effective. What could have been done differently? Be specific. 11. Leaders step up when needed. Will you recognize when you should rise to a leadership position? First, write down the names of leaders (at least 3) that you admire or seek to emulate. Explain what you find admirable in their leadership styles. Now, choose at least one, of these leaders and note a situation in which he or she acted as a leader. Be prepared to discuss what elements of the situation combined with elements of the leader’s ability to lead resulted in an effective combination. Do you have any of the same leadership characteristics in common with their chosen leader or any of the other leaders? How will you recognize the right combination of situation and style for you to be a leader? 12. Managing change is something good leaders expect and have developed the skills necessary to be successful. Imagine yourself as a leader of the following organization: You are the CEO of a playing card company that has existed since 1889. Your company began producing its first electronic playing cards game in 1970 and has been highly successful. Now in the electronic age, it is important to acknowledge the lack of hand-held playing cards and embrace the video game era. You want to eliminate all hand-held playing cards from the company plan but the employees who have been around for a while wish to keep the cards around. How can you manage this change and the anxiety that it produces in your employees? General answers are not enough to earn points on this question. Identify specific steps you will take to achieve desired outcomes.

Leadership/Drum Major Paper Essay

I think I would make a great drum major because I believe people take me as a leader and respect and listen to what have to I say. Though I usually am the leader I also am a good listener. When people have problems or have ideas to make the show better I will listen to whatever has to be said. To me being a drum major would be a great accomplishment and an awesome chance to help out our marching band. I have found from being in the marching band that each member wants respect. I intend to give respect first and in doing that I believe I will receive it from my piers allowing this whole experience to be a perfect one. I understand that with this job comes great responsibility, and I am definitely ready for it! Being a member of the Woodland High School marching band for two years, I now have an idea of how to make band more attractive to everyone. Making the time spent in band class and at after school practices most effective is a major prerogative of mine. I would like to make it our number one goal to get every band member to learn, and memorize their music. This will allow the show to be ready as early as possible so it gives ample time to perfect formations, add character to the show, and make it our own. By doing this I know our scores will be significantly higher than last years. Most importantly each member will understand that hard work does pays off. I love music. I never hesitate to sign up for any extracurricular band I can get into. I love being involved, I love growing as a musician. I also love marching band- it’s so challenging and so draining, but it’s such an amazing experience. I have a zealous enthusiasm for music and marching band that propels me forward, and can apply this to my role as drum major. Energetic leaders are much better than halfhearted ones. * My philosophy on leadership is simple: lead by example, always help, and never quit. When I was a freshman, I looked up to the marching band veterans because they were already excellent at something that I was struggling to master. Having role models is inspiring; it gives people something positive to emulate. Additionally, I always offer to help- whether that means * Moving and unloading equipment, or coming in early to work with a marcher who needs a little extra assistance. Furthermore, quitting is out of the question for me. Using excuses instead of giving your best, giving up on something (or someone), or abandoning your responsibilities are things I absolutely do not believe in. Promoting excellence in others starts with promoting it in you. * I am unique among the other applicants seeking this position because of the qualities I have listed above. My musical experience, my determination, my diligence, and my passion for music make me singular among the many.

Gap

Gap 1. Floor plan: According to the layout of the floor plan for this section (Fresh) of Express. There are some different types of skirts and dresses are hanged on different locations. Merchandises in the wall are only have two types of tops (long and short sleeves cotton ribbed Tee) that are folded or hanged. Like the walls, merchandises on the floor are also displays by showing variation of merchandises with fixtures, T-stands, rectangular-stands, and four- way stands. There are only two types of ribbed tees are on the wall, and some dresses are hanged under the tees. In front of the section there are 4 mannequins display some of the dresses, and those merchandise are on the back. The rest of other dresses are hand on the both T-stands, 4-way-stands and rectangular stand. Hanged merchandises are size smallest to largest from right to the left or from front to back while folded merchandises are size smallest to largest from top to bottom.English: The Ferry Building in San Francisco alo ng...On the left-hand side of this store ¡Ã‚ ¦s section. It has 2 dressing rooms at first, mirror in the middle, another dress room by followed, an emergency exit on the back. On the right-hand side, there is other section of the store.In the Fresh section, merchandises in the walls are folded and hanged and shown in cotton rib tee with short sleeves of hot red, and white, long sleeves of dark blue and black. And some of the dresses are hanging under the tops, which are 3 style of 4 different color floral dress. It has soft fit a- and  ¡Vshare with wide straps. Button front whit/blue/orange/yellow /green. The merchandise on the floor are carried by 9 fixture, 6 T-stand, 2 for 4-way-stands and a rectangular-stand. ¡P T-stands and 4-ways are used to hold: ~ Striped twin set...