Typically leaders and
managers generally come from the ranks they formally once manage. Exceptions to
this would be the military officer who was once enlisted and thus prohibited
from assuming a command they were in as enlisted. That said those who once were
part of a work force who aspired to and moved to a leadership position, often
have conflicting allegiances. Do they owe an allegiance to their former
co-workers, those who hired them for their current position, or the
shareholders or taxpayer in the case of public service?
In my humble opinion the
answer is… all of them which in itself can quickly become a conflicting
quagmire of being pulled in too many directions in an attempt to appease,
conduct business and maintain previous working relationships and not burn any
bridges. But that is one reason why we are hired into leadership positions, for
our ability to be flexible, yet still get the job done.
As discussed in Brown
(2011,) today’s leaders and managers face changes that are products of both
recession and financial setbacks which can inhibit an organizations desire to
innovate, transform and renew itself just to meet the changing forces in todays
global economy. Mark Herd, CEO of Hewlett-Packard so eloquently sums it up by
his analysis: “We cannot live in the past, Hewlett-Packard wants to be on the
news channel, not the history channel.
From my viewpoint for a
leader/manager to be successful in an organization, a code of conduct from
which a benchmark can be established would be beneficial and prudent for any
leader to aspire and grow in a leadership position and become a true asset to an
organization, its personnel, suppliers and customers as the case may be. To put
it another way, why would any organization relationship want to conduct
business with any organization that does not insist upon respect,
professionalism and courtesy toward its employees?
A true leader and innovator
that I have recently looked favorably upon is Michael Bonsignore, CEO of
Honeywell.
Mr. Bonsignore acknowledges
that some critical success factors, like cash flow concerns and future earnings
were a result of under anticipation of the difficulty of the degree that the
merger between Honeywell and Allies Signal were. He further stated that the two
differing cultures and organizational methods between the two companies would
be ironed out as time progressed by creating a newer culture from the best
attributes of both companies.
He says that Honeywell will
compensate and reward people that look for best practices from both companies
in creating a new corporate culture and punish those who do not. Although I
find the latter portion of his statement a bit harsh, I am not in Mr. Bonsignore’s
shoes and believe his sincerity is apparent in both his words and actions.
Honeywell will be successful simply because of the company’s method of open
communications between its employees, customers and the general public.
For example: the Bendix
brake issue that plagued an extremely small percentage of the operational
school busses. Mr. Bonsignore’s decision to alert the operators and recall the control units at great expense to
the organization, and not wait for individual unit failures is indicative of
his willingness to give back to the community. Much like his assistance with
home restoration and improvement in communities that Honeywell has a presence.
Reference:
Brown, D. R. (2011). An
experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall
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