Assignment 2: Moments of Truth: Global Executives Talk About the Challenges That Shaped Them as Leaders

Assignment 2: Moments of truth: Global Executives talk about the challenges that shaped them as leaders Looking at the many issues that top level managers had to endure in ensuring that their perspective organization is successful is a very important factor in determining how effective they would be as leaders and decision makers. Below are issues that helped to shape them as leaders and helped them to overcome challenges faced within their various organizations. Humility: The issue of humility is that when a person is in a leadership position he/she has to have the ability to look at things in their own perspective and be about to accept the suggestions, ideas, proposals from other people. Listening to your subordinates as well as your peers is a important factor in humility, by realizing that you as a leader work for the company and its people. Energy: If the leader in an organization does not have the energy or the drive for the success of the organization, the employees will not have the energy or drive for the success of the organization. Leaders have to lead from the front by introducing innovative ideas to keep the company fresh and vibrant. This will help to infuse the employees with the same concepts and keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive. Intuition: Many time when you want to take the organization into a new era of growth, this may be through an idea that you know in your gut will be a good move for the company. Sometimes as leaders you may not get the support from your endeavor from many areas of your organization, but as a leader you should take in the advice of your peers and subordinates and make informed decisions on what you should do. In many cases you may feel that no matter what this idea will be best course of action for your organization and despite all advice to the contrary you proceed on with your idea. Listening is very important in leadership as it allows you to understand the information that is given to you and allows you to make informed decisions on what it is you want to accomplish. Vision: Leaders have to have vision in order to be different from the rest and create new business functions within the organization. If you as a leader don’t have a vision for your particular field, you won't be able to create the innovation that will allow for future growth in the company. Looking at the market and seeing what it is lacking and building upon existing or creating new functions to fill that gap is important to future growth. Perspective: Having the vision to look ahead and anticipate what's coming is very important to growth and change of an organization. As the situation changes in the world around the organization, so should the organization. Leaders have to understand the environment in which they live in to full understand the global environment. If you are a leader that doesn't see the world as an ever changing entity then you and your organization are destined to fail. The global marketplace is constantly changing so you may not have the same employees conducting the same functions as in the past. Leaders have to understand this to continually move their companies forward. Passion: Leaders have to have passion about what they are doing. The introduction of new products and business functions are important to organizations. If the leaders are not passionate about what he/she is doing then the project is doomed to fail. Even as many of your peers in the industry feel that it is a waste of time, you should have the passion to see it through. Conviction: CEOs of organizations often have to make the tough decisions and many times these decisions are not received well by other members of the organization. What these CEOs have to do is look at what their long term goals are for the organization and have the conviction to see it through. Many times they have to do this despite everything that is being suggested by members of his/her team and declining profit margins of the company. Seeing it through to the end is a very important trait for a leader, as it shows other members in the organization that their leaders has the foresight and drive to see a project through to the end. Learning: Everyone has the ability to learn and it doesn’t stop once you are the leader of an organization. Leaders must be able to learn from the various mistakes that they make and make the organization stronger for it. The ability to listen to your subordinates and peers will help to make a well rounded leader that is capable of leading teams to be very successful. Leaders must take all the lessons that they learn to heart and apply those lessons to help create change or help to improve the existing functions of teams and organizations alike.