CHAPTER 1: QUALITIES OF LEADERSHIP

Course Objectives
a) Explain the role of effective leadership and identify the key leadership traits effective in the
successful formulation and implementation of strategy and change management.
b) Apply the concepts of entrepreneurship and ‘intrapreuneurship’ to exploit strategic
opportunities and to innovate successfully
c) Apply in the context of organisation governance and leadership qualities, the key ethical
and professional values underpinning governance.

UNIT 1: Traits of Effective Leadership

- Managers that are concerned with strategic management are strategic leader
- Strategic management: process of setting goals, procedures & objectives to make
company more competitive
- Demonstrates certain traits
- One that is forward-looking that is able to spot trends & opportunities
- Why need the traits: Assist in formulating an effective strategic formulation &
implementation
a) Emotional stability: able to control emotion when making decision (Ex: Under pressure)
b) Admitting Error: Admit to error when wrong decision is made to cut losses than justify
decision which is costlier
c) Interpersonal skills: Ability to communicate & interact with others. Work well with the
employees
d) Intellectual Breadth: Having knowledge & experience is essential to manage a company
successfully (know the industry & right attitude- self motivation)
 LEADER

TRAITS STRATEGY

INTELLECTUAL BREADTH
INTERPERSONAL SKILLS TRANSFORMATIONAL
EMOTIONAL STABILITY CHANGE

ADMITTING ERROR

- Vision
- Sell Vision
FORWARD - Manage delivery
LOOKING - Build Trust
QUESTION:

Two university graduate set-up a bookstore in 1971 after they failed to get existing
booksellers to adopt their system for tracking sales and inventory that could predict demand
in specific communities. They started revolution in book retailing. Their bookstore was a
place where employees were devoted to their jobs, where they prided themselves on their
knowledge of their assigned sections. For customers, the stores became a library, a refuge, a
place they could come to and simply get “lost”.

After 20 successful years, the company was acquired by a discount department store with the
hope that they can resurrect the department’s own mall based book chain. However, it was
not meant to be with many management staff leaving the bookstores. Three years later, the
bookstore went for listing with new large store format being set-up like in the past.
The digital era came in 1990s, when Amazon was launched in 1995 and it took the bookstore
a few years later to have their own website and that venture also cost the company to lose
millions of dollars. Follow on, the bookstore then moved into CDs and DVDs just as
consumers were moving into digital delivery systems and it was late into developing e-
reader.
Evaluate the failure of the bookstore.

Spencer Answer:
Management staff leaving- different management took over and there is different in culture.
They were unable to communicate and interact with each other. They were unable to blend in
with the culture.
large store format being set-up like in the past. The management choose to maintain their
past practice despite not being able to be successful and they are not taking advantage of the
successful bookstore that they acquired
They were progressing in a slow pace when the company is adapting towards the changes in
the industry as the management has failed to spot trends and opportunities.
My Answer:
The CEO of the company which acquired bookstore is not successful in establishing and
maintaining a good relationship with the management staff that made the bookstore successful
resulting with several management staff leaving the bookstore. The CEO has failed to adapt to
the changes in the market and it costs the company to lose millions of dollars. Despite going
through the loses, CEO did not make the right decision in order for the bookstore to adapt to
the current environment which resulted the company’s failure to be evolved towards the digital
delivery systems.

UNIT 2: Transformational Leadership

Successful leadership: Has loyal employees, motivated employees, employees who goes extra
miles to complete their task
- Transformational leader is the one that motivates its employees towards a greater success
- Transformational leader has the ability to encourage people towards improvement
- Transformational leader will ‘walk the talk’ , basically leading by example
- If the transformational leader expects their team to perform with high standards, then
transformational leader will have to demonstrate a high level of performance
4 steps to be a transformational leader
a) Vision- Create inspiring vision; create & communicate (Get employee to buy into your
vision)
b) Sell Vision- Demonstrate on how the vision benefits the employees as we want employess
to be loyal, motivated and willing to go the extra mile (Relate back to the employees)
c) Manage delivery- provide necessary support to the employees, understand what are the
limitations of each of your employees, what makes employees task difficult
d) Build trust- Showing the benefit of the vision, reward them, understand what employees
want, when employees receive their reward for achieving the vision, it will motivate them
to work towards their inspiring vision

UNIT 3: Entrepreneurship & Intrapreneurship

a) Entrepreneurship- a person who develops and starts a business with her own capital &
raising her own capital, bares all the risk and reward & makes profits, innovative to develop
her business
b) Intrapreneurship- encourage employees to be innovative, making them act as
entrepreneurs, providing reward when profit increases, capital provided by company, risk
and reward with company but employees will receive a share of reward.
Scenario Based Learning
The exam results at the school had deteriorated in recent years and they were very poor
indeed. The budget had increased and a number of new teachers had been employed to
address the issue. Despite all the steps taken, exam performance continued to fall. To
make matter worse, recently there is budget overspend.
a) To reduce the budget over spend , i'm going to close part of the school library and the
sell off the sports field. Do you think its the right strategy?
- No, it is not the right strategy. Well done, a school needs library, without a library possibly
the results will decline further. Sports field is essential to ensure total education. It shows u
have intellectual breadth.
He has been in the role for many years & well liked by the teachers as he tries not to intervene
wherever possible & he dislike confrontation. He disagreed with the board on some changes to
improve.
b) Do you think i'm wrong to rely on what i believed were tried and tested ways of managing
my teaching staff even though the board of governors proposed changes to improve
performance?
- Although you have interpersonal skills but not changing your methods and relying on
the tried & tested method will not yield the result needed.
Tips to pass SBL
- Answer is in the case study, find the evidence, apply to a module
- If question ask for
55.48
QUESTION:

Write a report to the chair of NCG which evaluates the suitability of the shortlisted candidates for the
position of CEO of Rail CO & recommend with justification, which candidate you consider to be the most
suitable

Evaluate: Advantages & Disadvantages; Strength & Weakness ; Pro &Cons ; Must provide
recommendation/conclusion
REPORT

To: Chair of NCG

From: Senior Business Analyst

Date: 5/1/2023

Subject: Evaluation of shortlisted candidates for CEO position

The first part of the report focus on an evaluation of the shortlisted candidates for the CEO position in
RailCo. The second part of the report contain my recommendation on the most suitable candidate.

Candidate A

The candidate has a longer work experience as a Chief Executive and his work experience as Chief
Executive is in the rail industry. Candidate A has a previous work experience of liason with government
and rail interest groups, this experience will be useful for Rail Co.

The candidate key skills & competencies include strong focus on internal control , this is relevant to Rail
Co given that customers are complaining ticket prices up and they are not getting value for money
services.

The candidate also has a successful track record of cultural change, this will help him to manage the
cultural change needed in Rail Co when the new CEO implement changes that are necessary too
address the poor performance of Rail Co.

Candidate B

Although this candidate has less years of experience as CEO, but he offers greater knowledge on
financial management as he was a finance director and involved in reviewing and authorizing budget.
This skills and experience will assist Rail Co to manager its cost better.

However, candidate B not only has less work experience as CEO but his experience is in another industry
and will not suit Rail Co. Although he has ability to network & liaise with different stakeholders,
unfortunately it doesn’t seems that Candidate B has the experience of dealing with government.
Government essentially a different stakeholder compared to customers or suppliers.

Recommendation

Based on the above evaluation, I would conclude that Candidate A is the preferred candidate for the
CEO position of Rail Co given that he has more and relevant experience and his skills in managing
cultural change with strong internal control that is needed by Rail Co currently.
PYQ JUNE 2013

Before

Sully subscribed to theory X where employees are seen as lazy and must be forced to work. He believe in
command and control, thus it can be seen from the tight admin procedure and monitoring.

Sully is very dominant where he makes all the decisions, all employees will look for Sully to make
decision, while their role is to implement it.

After

Implemented empowerment by delegating decision making responsibility to Contract Office. Thus, it can
be said that Sully is moving from Theory X to Theory Y, where he starts to believe that people seek
responsibility and they must be motivated.

The change in leadership style failed, because those employees who believe in empowerment has left.

He implements empowerment without proper training and education to its employees who never given
a chance to make decision before this.

Sully also do not provide a system that can encourage empowerment. Employee need information for
decision making.

Practice Question

Failure:

Kath did not manage to communicate and interact well with her co-workers. Kath has quickly dismissed
the alternative strategies that were put forward by the marketing director. Kath has issued a number of
public rebukes towards the staff members and employees that found her direct approach unacceptable.
Thus, the staff members and employees involved quicky resigned and moved into another companies.

Success:

Kath has an in-depth knowledge of the business architecture training market.

SPENCER ANSWER

Success of A2K at the initial stage was mainly due to the earlier leadership quality of both Lee & Kim.
Each leader was able to demonstrate innovative in delivering the services of the company. This shows
that both leaders have good knowledge of the business. Their innovation has led the company to be
competitive as they are able to stand out from its competitor.

Failure of A2K

At later stage, we notice that the performance of A2K deteriorated , this is attributed to the new leader
Kath who does not posses sufficient interpersonal skills where she was unable to relate to the staff, she
is more dominant where she is not receptive to the ideas of others. Her action has resulted in many staff
leaving thus co losing its key employee.

Lack of change management skills

When Kath invited back Lee & Kim recounting the good old days, this clearly shows that Kath continue to
adopt old strategy. This is resulting is A2K no longer competitive as customer and business environment
has changed . The issue with Kath leadership quality is that she lacks change management skills. She was
unable to adopt new strategy even though the business environment has changed.

Lack of engagement

Kath also seems not able to gather input from its trainer who are dealing with the customer. The trainer
are rated excellent by its customer but Kath did not engage them for its strategy formulation. Thus,
input from the employees are not taken into account, this is another contributing factors to A2K failure
at the later stage