MBA - 530 Final Project

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Feb 20, 2024

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1 MBA – 530 Final Project MBA – 530 Final Project Communication Strategy for Adaptive Leadership Toolkit George Anagnostakos 02/11/2024

2 MBA – 530 Final Project The delivery of the communication strategy requires a comprehensive framework that understands the expectations and needs of the organization. "To foster team spirit, breed optimism, promote resilience, and renew faith and confidence, leaders look on the bright side. They keep hope alive. They strengthen their constituents’ belief that life’s struggles will produce a more promising future. Such faith results from an intimate and supportive relationship, a relationship based on mutual participation in the process of renewal" (Kouzes et al, 2021). Creating a consistent and fluent open communication from leadership and team members directly influences how individuals will collaborate to support the common mission and realize the organization's vision for success. Managing the improvements towards the organizational performance will further create enthusiasm and a genuine understanding of a supportive atmosphere within the workforce dynamics. Upon reviewing the employee satisfaction survey results it was very clear that the organization had a serious deficit with several aspects of leadership. One significant behavior that was easily identified to be on a decline is recognition. Team members stated through these survey results that they do not feel recognized by leadership within this organization. It is vital to understand how team members interpret recognition and how they anticipate the delivery of recognition. Some team members embrace private personalized acknowledgement, others embrace a public acknowledgement or within a group engagement. No matter the delivery, the team members identified that the lack of recognition from leadership directly impacted the positive perception of this work environment, and ultimately productivity and organizational culture will undoubtedly be negatively impacted.

3 MBA – 530 Final Project By addressing the recognition, this will directly translate from the improvement to consistent effective communication between leadership and team members. This action item will resoundingly improve the team morale and feelings of being appreciate for the efforts made. Furthering the open dialogue among all persons can in-turn surface dialogues for career growth, process implementation and understanding the individual vision and the collective direction. In order to prepare for the support of the transition into the Canadian markets, I have successfully completed a self-assessment to better develop my leadership skills. This self- assessment provided a comprehensive analysis of my strengths and weaknesses and will structure a foundation of leadership development. The self-assessment provided evaluation over five categories that corresponded with leadership behaviors: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. Each category supports a foundational aspect of effective leadership and creates a framework for consistent success strategies. “Trust is required to build collaboration and promote relationships where people work together cooperatively” (Kouzes et al., 2021). In order for leaders to be successful, they must first create a strong sense of trust and work to solidify efficient relationships with their teams to ensure that their team members feel supported. “Trust is the lifeblood of collaboration. To create and sustain the conditions for long-lasting connections, you have to be able to trust others, they have to trust you, and they have to trust each other” (Kouzes et al., 2021). For the leadership behavior of Enable Others to Act, this particular behavior shares a direct impact on the work performance of team members and directly correlates to workforce productivity. In order to improve on this behavior, fostering the culture of collaboration and effective communication will create a platform for successful relationships. Striving towards

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4 MBA – 530 Final Project those successful relationships also begins with investing time into the team members and showing them that you are working to better understand them on a personal level. Team members want to know that you will have their best interest in mind and that your action to make improvement is genuine when concerns are brought up. Using a collaborative focus will show team members that you are putting value and effort into ensuring they are part of the process in improving and making change, and that you are dependent and invested in their success. While reflecting on the organization’s employee satisfaction survey results that span over the last four years, one of the leadership behaviors that I have identified that requires focus for improvement is Encourage the Heart. The results of the survey display that there is a substantial decline in recognition from leadership and employees express that there is a deficit in recognizing successes and embracing opportunities to support improvement. Another leadership behavior that should be recognized for requiring focus to improve is Model the Way. The data from the survey suggests that employees have difficulty trusting their leadership and do not feel that matters pertaining to them are addressed efficiently or ethically. Developing these areas will allow team members to feel supported in their work and will feel encouraged to perform knowing that their efforts are recognized accordingly and the work they are doing is within the best interest of the team and all members are within the core values of the organization. The leadership behaviors that I have identified that are successfully presented within the organization are Inspire a Shared Vision and Enable Others to Act. The perception from the survey is that employees within the organization feel that their work encompasses the mission of delivering support to clients and team members that their efforts are impactful. This is supported by having a clear understanding of the expectations of assigned roles within the organization and how each team or role directly impacts those around them. With both behaviors working in

5 MBA – 530 Final Project tandem, employees have a clear understanding of their operational expectations and trust that their skills allow them to fully achieve what is expected. With these behaviors being met successfully, relationships between leaders and direct reports express clear understanding on those deliverables and do not negatively impact workforce productivity. While the organizational culture requires more development, productivity should remain successful. The intention of this personal development plan is to create a framework for success by strengthening the collaboration and communication between leadership and employees involved with the daily operations of the organization. This framework will continue to reinforce the learning and development initiative of senior leadership/management and can establish opportunities for team members with career growth aspirations. The leadership competencies that will be supported and developed are Communication and Mentoring Developing. These are imperative specific competencies will support an immediate commitment to creating the foundation for success and establish a long-term framework to be followed. The strategy is to accomplish an initiative that supports the development of my leaders and managers within the organization that will function on a routinely monitored plan. All persons involved within the development plan will meet in cohorts to collaborate and support one another in their individual and group successes. The measurable metrics for this goal is to establish a schedule for the cohorts to meet and create individualized schedules for each leader and manager involved within the initiative. A collaborative approach and frequent communication among cohorts will be imperative to the success to the continued success of the program and identifying challenges and obstacles and having open discussions on measurable items. The tools and skills required to achieve the goal is to establish routinely scheduled meetings with leaders and managers to ensure deliverable items are being met. Another

6 MBA – 530 Final Project achievable would be to monitor any aspects of budget as related to frequency of the program, reallocation of resources to ensure the success of the initiatives and to still maintain functional daily operations. This goal is linked to the improvement of communication aspect of the business objective because this will create a sense of belonging and value for team members. This will help promote the collaborative mindset and encourage the effective communication between leadership and operational employees. These goals should be evaluated closer within the first few weeks of the implementation of the program. Allowing for the cohorts to meet weekly to address initial concerns and inquiries related to the purpose and expectations of the program. As the program progresses, the cohorts should feel comfortable to meet less frequently to a biweekly or once a month frequency. The final due date should occur prior to the next employee experience survey to anticipate improvement on the previous results. With the results of the employee satisfaction survey, there is a present dissatisfaction with the abilities of leadership within the organization. In order to properly execute a strategic development plan, highlighting a focus on improving social intelligence, emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills will allow the organization to elevate the effectiveness of their leaders and their core skills for them to be successful. This company is using this measurement tool to identify strengths and weaknesses within the organization while measuring employee morale through specific survey questions. Based on the data provided, employees responses are less positive over the last four years through present time. One can safely deduce that employee satisfaction is less than optimal and feel they are overworked, understaffed and not recognized proactively. The trends in the data also present that operational leadership are not received well and steadily decline over the measured time. The data presented from this survey clearly outlines

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7 MBA – 530 Final Project deliverable action items to elevate the delivery of the adaptive leadership toolkit. By enforcing stronger organizational culture values and educating employees on the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion to transforming the workplace environment this supports the long-term success of the implementation of the toolkit. By establishing a consistent and exciting employee recognition program and diversifying initiatives based on role and skill level encourages the involvement of the workforce in the ownership of their development. Additionally by developing a leader development program to ensure that management are receiving proper training and skill workshops to improve base knowledge and critical skills.

8 MBA – 530 Final Project With the support of the Adaptive Leadership Toolkit, a guideline to ensure the success of the leaders of the organization and provide them with fundamentals to improve their capabilities as a leader. These core leadership skills that were chosen to introduce toward professional development directly correlate to the results of the survey and are being recognized as immediate priorities. There will also be assessment into the leadership behaviors that serve as guiding principles for the toolkit. The leadership behaviors will help perpetuate the framework for the desired organizational culture and workplace environment that will improve from the employee satisfaction survey results. The last component of the tool kit summarizes the current state of the organization, the desired outcome and state of the organization, outlines the obstacles preventing the desired outcome and the steps necessary to achieve the desired outcome. The current state will focus on the areas that present topics that are declining as indicated from the survey results and the desired state will outline the expectations and goal designated to support the development of the leadership toolkit.

9 MBA – 530 Final Project In order for the toolkit to be implemented and executed successfully, a clear understanding of the competencies as they are correlated to the areas of improvement from the employee satisfaction survey. Those indicated areas of improvement were reward, recognition, and training and development. The results indicated that the reward was inadequately supported for the efforts made by members of the workforce. There was a deficiency in recognition for the efforts made by team members and were not recognized as such for their contributions to the process improvement and productivity of the organization. There was equally a declined result for the training and development for the members of the workforce and the lack of direction for career growth. As it pertains to the strengths of the organizations, there is a clear understanding from the respondents that the organization makes a significant effort to ensure the workplace conditions are successfully and consistently addressed and delivered to team members. This is a foundational aspect of ensuring consistent productivity and supports the focus of work/life balance as well. Putting a strong effort towards the work/life balance shows members of the workforce that they show a conscious effort to support team members in their personal health and contribute to the overall wellness of the workforce. The organization makes a conscious effort to ensure that team members feel a sense of pride and belonging that they are involved within the overall mission and delivery of the organization’s goals. A significant weakness that is presented within the employee satisfaction survey results shows that the respondents have significant lack of trust in their management. When there is a lack of trust to an organization’s management and senior leadership, there can be an improved negative response to productivity and less desire to support the organization’s mission. As part of the tool kit, a significant effort must be made to the training and development of leaders. Within

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10 MBA – 530 Final Project the weakness of trust with management, an effort to repair the trust would stem from a lack of growth to develop the core skills of the leaders correlated to the results of the survey. Had there been any previous self-assessment tools that the leadership personnel could learn and develop from, this would encourage the previous results to help improve the competencies and core skills for those in leadership functions and actively pursuing career growth within the organization. Once each member of leadership has partaken in the self-assessment, each individual will have to create a comprehensive personal development plan. Once the results of the assessment have been analyzed and areas of improvement identified, creating the focus point for the development plan will require careful consideration. The goals set in place are meant to be measurable, attainable and relevant to the organization. The goals must be able to be quantified to address progression of the goals, they must be a realistic opportunity for success and must have an expected timeline for success. The implementation of the personal development plan requires the constant analysis of the goals and obstacles impacting the success of the SMART goals. Within the leadership assessment, properly understanding the weaknesses as well as the strengths is equally as vital to the success of the personal development plan. It is important to be reflective and embrace the opportunities for personal growth and development. When we discuss creating deliverables as part of the adaptive leadership toolkit, it is always great to remind ourselves of the buy in factor of the initiative. While change in general can be overwhelming process for some individuals or teams, it can be especially daunting when we are addressing topics such as organizational culture. People tend to feel a sense of security when they are comfortable in the work that they and can almost go into an autopilot type of mindset to achieve their daily activities and projects.

11 MBA – 530 Final Project When it comes time to implementation and communicate this new adaptive leadership toolkit, it is essential to deliver all phases of this toolkit in a clear and direct manner. We want to make sure that all team members involved in this process have a good visualization and understanding of the expectation being presented. As part of the implementation process it would be wise to utilize different channels of communication to convey the process. Using a written communication such as email and memo display the direction in writing, presenting on both virtual and in-person presentations for the group impacted and individual meetings to discuss the process of the leadership toolkit. Presenting the framework of the adaptive leadership toolkit helps support the buy-in for team members by expressing that they are part of the success of the process show that you are involving the individuals and investing in their success. To have this toolkit sustainable long term it requires the owners of the toolkit and implementation of the toolkit to constantly adaptive and evolve as operational needs and organizational initiatives arise. Developing the toolkit for leadership development programs and supporting the career growth model for team members expanding their knowledge base.

12 MBA – 530 Final Project References Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2021). Leadership Challenge (6th ed.). Wiley Custom Learning Solutions.

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