Running head: SYNTHESIS ARTIFACT 1

Synthesis Assignment Artifact

Deem N. Silva

South Texas College

Dr. Carlos Margo

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Synthesis Assignment Artifact

The job of a CEO in marketing research company is highly intensive when competing

with other intelligent data-driven disciplines that have propagated with the development of new

technological forces, such as virtual organizations scattered around the world; to create efficient

environments. In order to keep a marketing research company buoyant, it is crucial to

continuously find ways to improve and innovate in an expanding market. The CEO is a key

team player with the responsibility to handle challenges and changes wisely. Inevitably, every

decision and action made at this level; it will produce a downward effect on everyone in the

organization. The CEO is accountable for choosing the best action possible to lead the company

to success. Effective leaders are mindful for the well-being of the employees, the community,

and the world. “Leadership ability is the lid that determines a person’s level of effectiveness.

The lower an individual’s ability to lead, the lower the lid on his potential. The higher the

leadership, the greater the effectiveness” (Maxwell, 1998, p. 9). Admittedly, there is a lot at

stake in this company; where the CEO has decided to adopt a leadership style – dictatorial and

structured – that better suits his personality instead of adopting a style that will meet the demands

of the marketing research company.

The CEO of the marketing company has stereotyped an age group of young people by

claiming that they are addicted to social media with no sense of responsibility. The CEO feels

that the older and more experienced employees are more qualified for business because he can

better control them. Up to now, the business is moving ahead, with some good contracts doing

marketing research for several new and existing companies. Therefore, the CEO had determined

that it is time to grow and possibly expand into foreign markets. This case study will analyze the

leadership style, ethics, motivation, and communication that an effective leader should have.
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There will be discussions about globalization, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility

and how these play an essential role in the plans the CEO has for the company. Furthermore, best

practices for the situation will provide insight on how to improve the CEO’s strategy. Ignoring

best practices could frustrate the efforts while attempting to stay in the forefront for performing

marketing research for companies that sell consumer electronics.

The first point to address is the CEO's leadership style, which is worrisome to know that

the CEO feels being dictatorial and structured is the best way to control his employees.

Adopting a leadership style is a crucial decision the CEO must make. If the reasons are not

coherent, it would be a sign of feeble leadership and be predisposed to use power or influence

inadequately. According to John C. Maxwell (1998), "everything rises and falls on leadership"

(p. 134). The CEO's feels that being dictatorial and structured is better to manage current

employees. This type of leadership concentrates too much on the tasks rather than employees,

and it will impose by making statements such as, it needs to get done yesterday. There is little

room for empowering his employees; in fact, he will communicate better by the "telling"

approach – putting others down – instead of asking, using a humble approach. The imposition of

unrealistic deadlines, pushing to meet unrealistic goals might cause his employees to become

unmotivated and frustrated as it creates a demoralizing environment. This style is susceptible to

present unethical dilemmas when things do not go as expected.

Although the CEO might argue there is a benevolent version of dictatorial leadership, the

plans the CEO has are to fulfill a personal agenda governed by self-centered feelings instead of

adopting a method that will meet the needs of the organization. Being self-centered is often

driven by the individuals' lack of emotional intelligence. In order to succeed, the CEO must

develop a new attitude and behavior and become mindful about the needs of the organization and
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employees. Adopting a situational leadership style will bring more benefits to the company,

especially when he is in the midst to recruit new people to help the business grow. Situational

leadership is based on the leader's abilities to adapt to the followers and their competencies and

capabilities, or their progress from immaturity to maturity (McKee, 2014). Another practical

approach the CEO could take is to adopt the transformational leadership to take the company to a

different level. This type of leaders are visionaries; they understand how to disseminate the

company's vision in a way that will make employees feel inspired and committed. They are

sensitive to the environment and people's needs. They are good risk-takers, responsible, ethical,

accountable, and they are contagiously passionate in all what they do. Moreover, lastly, they are

culturally and emotionally intelligent (McKee, 2014).

The second point to address is the CEO leading a marketing research company, that is in

the midst to recruit new people to expand the business with a high probability of joining the

global business environment. To begin, the CEO has a dilemma that introduced stereotyping.

The CEO feels that all people under 30 years of age are addicted to social media, lazy,

uncommitted, irresponsible, and they are always distracted, wanting to have fun. For the rest of

the case, the young group will be referred to as the millennials group. The millennials generation

falls between 18 and 35 years of age. The millennials generation has been stigmatized due to

generational behavioral characteristics that imprinted in them for circumstances that occurred at

an earlier age. For example, technological advancements, globalization, economic setbacks, and

other world events are some of the factors that set this generation's lifestyle apart from others.

Millennials are the first always-connected generation and are considered to have an innate ability

for managing social media and any other form of technological communications.
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A research performed by the Pew Research Center, a survey revealed that millennials

sleep with their phones next to them to make sure they can attend their social network, texting, e-

mails and calls whenever they want or need ("Millennials a portrait generation next", 2010).

These generation's uniqueness should not be taken for granted. It will take an assertive

situational leader to mentor this generation and guide them to success. Despite of the stereotypes

that had been adjudicated to this young group; they possess unique traits that could potentially

bring excellent benefits to a growing business. The business is bound to explore these traits

ethically. Some facts are: the millennial generation will be the majority group forming the

world's workforce; they dominate technology natively; are open to challenges; are collaborative

and group-oriented; are enthusiastic about working abroad. When it comes to achieving, they

will want clearly defined structures and objectives ("PwC's Millennials at work Reshaping the

workplace", 2011).

The CEO of the marketing research company might want to take into consideration

changing his leadership preference for the well-being of others and the needs of the organization.

The CEO declared that he likes to control; this decision is not bringing the interconnectedness

nor the interdependence his team’s needs. Besides, that is why he prefers to stay with the people

he can control the most. There is a problem, he is running a marketing research company that

performs research for companies selling consumer electronics, and this is the area of expertise of

the millennial generation. To illustrate the point lets elaborate a different scenario. The CEO has

decided to change because it was recognized that being selfish and arrogant was not the right

choice. After going through the process of unlearning and learning new competencies, such as

developing emotionally intelligent and looking at the humble inquiry approach as a new method

of communication. One day the CEO meets with all employees to define new goals and
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objectives to grow the business and expand to into foreign markets. Restructuring with a clear

vision of what is best for the business and adopting the transformational leadership approach,

everyone got inspired to get on board with the new initiative.

Moreover, part of this initiative is to recruit millennials to take on tasks and projects. The

CEO’s self-awareness has triggered the importance of motivation in the work environment; as a

result, the company will be providing workshops, training, mentoring, coaching, group learning

activities and other materials to develop new competencies everyone working in the company.

Undoubtedly, the CEO will be promoting employees that have shown management competency

to absorb some of the responsibilities, and empowerment will be a form of motivation for

managers to take new challenges. With new organizational initiatives and the arrival of the

younger group; undergoing organizational cultural change will be inevitable. The establishment

of shared goals and vision will define the company’s reason for existence. Conversely, Human

Resources involvement will be imperative to support the development and maintenance of a

healthy organizational culture. Convincing employees to comply with the rules and regulation

established by the leaders, and to guide the employees to adopt cultural values and to observe

behavior to create a positive environment (McKee, 2014) will be some of the endeavors. For the

most part, with all the changes and enhancements the CEO’s well-established vision, the

marketing company is aligning to be part of the global business environment.

The third and last questions to address about the CEOs is the strategy to support

sustainability and corporate social responsibility. How is this company going to maintain the

health and well-being of the community? How will the company integrate corporate and social

responsibility as part of their daily operations? These are two of the most critical questions that

any accountable CEO must be aware without any hesitation, as this will uncover his ethical
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views about the leading global concerns. Climate change, globalization, unethical business

practices, and the global economic crisis are the most relevant concerns that set human life at

risk. The CEO needs to create awareness about the new changes in the organization – business

growth and going global – will create a perfect opportunity to contribute to the local community

and the world. The before can be achieved by aligning the business practices to attend the

environmental, social, and economic concerns, and at the same time sustain the efficiency of the

organization (McKee 2014).

Equally important, another form of sustainability is corporate social responsibility or

CSR, which should be on the agenda for self-regulating the company's operations to protect the

community and the environment. Having a growing business, the CEO can utilize CSR to bring

more clients. Especially when the company is looking at foreign markets, it will be tremendous

for them since many global companies are looking to do business with socially responsible

organizations. Additionally, millennials are highly aware of the importance of being socially

responsible. World's past and current events and the circumstances that imprinted in them at an

earlier age, this group will have the potential to keep future companies in compliance. They will

be the future world leaders that will wear many hats, and one of them it the servant leadership

style, which will seek the well-being of others before anything else.

In conclusion, it is important to remark that today’s CEOs are facing many challenges.

CEOs need to lead, influence, empower, they need to connect and communicate with people

effectively, embrace change, and challenges with integrity and determination; they need to be

cultural and emotionally intelligent. They need to be humble and create interdependency with

those down the ladder. They need to be agents of change with the ability to add value to

everything they touch. Running a marketing research firm can be challenging, and it will need to
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be continually finding ways to be more efficient to compete with other firms. As it was

mentioned at the beginning, “everything rises and falls on leadership” (Maxwell, 1998, p. 134).

The CEO made a choice based on what was best to fulfill a personal agenda and to micromanage

the team. This behavior sets the CEO below the line for trying to justify and rationalize dislikes

towards millennials. The CEO must turn to situational leadership to be able to adapt to the

followers and their competencies and capabilities, or their progress from immaturity to maturity

(McKee, 2014). His firm needs to have fresh talented people that will be able to collaborate with

older employees, by creating a healthy work atmosphere of inspiration and commitment. The

CEO can become an agent of change by adopting the transformational leadership style that the

world needs when exploring the international markets doing marketing research for the critical

world organizations. Globalization and technology have become unstoppable forces that have

formed complex networks; demanding world leaders to be more cognizant of the forces driving

today’s data-driven world. With this in mind, leaders need to support sustainability and

corporate social responsibility to support local or global communities as they depend on it to be

able to exist.
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References

Farkas, C. M., & Wetlaufer, S. (2014). The Ways Chief Executive Officers Lead. Retrieved

from https://hbr.org/1996/05/the-ways-chief-executive-officers-lead

Finn, D., & Donovan, A. (2013). PwC’s NextGen: A global generational study. Retrieved from

https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/hr-management-services/pdf/pwc-nextgen-study-2013.pdf

Maxwell, J. C. (1998). The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership: Follow Them and People Will

Follow You Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.

McKee, A. (2014). Management: A Focus on Leaders. (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Pearson Education.

Millennials a portrait generation next. (2010). Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/wp

content/uploads/sites/3/2010/10/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change.pdf

Millennials at work Reshaping the workplace. (2011). - PwC. Retrieved from

https://www.pwc.de/de/prozessoptimierung/assets/millennials-at-work-2011.pdf

Schein, E. H. (2013). Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling (Vol. First

edition). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.