Effective Leadership: Teamwork, Crisis, Diversity, and Change
Week 8: Leading Teams
- Clarify goals and roles
- Foster shared leadership
- Get the team together physically
- Virtual: monitor progress through tech
- Recognize style of leadership may change
- Keep lines of communication open
Week 9: Handling Crisis
- 3 stages: pre, acute, post
- Immediately take action
- Do sufficient scenario planning
- Implement crisis management strategies
- Sustain organization’s credibility
- RESILIENT: accept change, establish boundaries, seek feedback
- Communicate frequently
Week 10: Leading a Diverse Workforce
- Cognizance of bias
- Curiosity to understand how others see the world
- Cultural intelligence
- Cross-cultural groups
- Provide training and education
- Build accountability
- Women, minorities, elderly: Stereotypes, obstacles, strategies
Week 11: Facing the Entrepreneurial Challenge
- Founders need to bring more than just money
- Maximize your trust
- Focus on value, not just valuation
- Understand the VCs assessment
- Foster innovation: tell employees to think outside the box
- Good reward system
- Give less direction to let them think freely
Week 12: Leading Ethically and with Courage
- 4 Principles: Truth, promise-keeping, fairness, respect for individuals
- Utilitarianism: morally right course of action
- Rights: considering laws or codes
- Fairness: giving each what they deserve
- Common good: acting to benefit society
- Virtue: focus on what people should be
Week 13: Managing Projects and Time Efficiently
- Steps: Concept and initiation, definition and planning, launch or execution, performance and control, project close
- Time: be organized, plan ahead, and prioritize tasks, be flexible
- Meetings: agenda, prepare, start on time, and stick to the agenda
Week 14: Leading Change and Innovation
- Kotter’s 8 steps: establish a sense of urgency
- Form a powerful guiding coalition
- Create a vision, communicate the vision
- Empower others to act on the vision
- Plan and create short-term wins
- Consolidate improvements
- Institutionalize new approaches
How to Create a Culture of Change
- Lead with the culture
- Involve every layer
- Assess and adapt
Effective Leader Skills
- Inspiring the vision, then developing it
- Sensing needs and opportunities
- Celebrating accomplishments
Obstacles:
- Women: superwoman complex, lack of mentor
- Minorities: tokenism, 150% of white men
- Elderly: bias in hiring, expensive training
Strategies:
- Women: be competent, build networks
- Minorities: find a mentor, diversity training
- Elderly: intergenerational teams, tech training
Case Studies:
Henry Tam/MGI Team: MIT competition: different people coming together to create a music app. About effective teamwork, understanding each other’s roles, and setting the direction of the group.
David Dao and Airlines: their failure of crisis management. Insensitive comments, can’t condemn workers for doing a job, but not handled the right way.
Alex Sander: high-performing, but critical and demanding. Perceived as arrogant.
Seaside Organics: expanding into other territories. Whether to let the new CEO run the show or still do it. The founder wants to be intrapreneurial, but the CEO does not. Shows tendencies and splits of power.
McKinsey & CO.: how to maintain a strong culture, and not get too far from founding ideals. How to handle a scandal, and what to do to overcome it. Make sure stakeholders are taken care of.
Caesar’s Casino: Lean operations. Efficiency within the casinos. Breaking it down so no rock is left unturned. Continuous improvements with high employee usage and satisfaction.
Netflix: studies their unique organizational culture. No entry-level positions, so allows them to give freedom and responsibility to employees. They are constantly adapting and changing, allowing them to flourish in the fast-paced world we live in today.