Leadership Task 2

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Utah Valley University *

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Management

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Jan 9, 2024

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Describe an existing organization with which you have had personal experience and its objective(s). I currently work for DHL Supply Chain, a global third-party logistics company. We provide our services to many clients across multiple spheres of business. These clients include but are not limited to: Danone, Lego, Nike, Yeti, Rio Tinto, Hormel, P&G, Goodyear, Pizer, and many more. At DHL Supply Chain we have three goals or objectives as a company, and they are to be the employer of choice, the provider of choice, and the investment of choice. As the provider of choice, we want all companies that are looking for a logistics solution to think of and contract with DHL Supply Chain (DSC). We understand that the world is only as strong as its supply chain. We live and breathe supply in every way, whether you need manufacturing, warehousing, packaging, etc. DSC is the right choice. We ensure that we hit KPI’s by driving a result-oriented workplace. This ensures that both DSC and their clients are profitable. Being profitable makes us the investor of choice. We want potential investors and shareholders to see us as a profitable investment. As a supply chain company, we understand and value the ever-changing world that is the global supply chain. These we be continually growing as a company, usings the top technologies and practices that are available, allowing us to promote a profit minded growth approach that investors want to be a part of. Being the employer of choice simply put means that we want everybody to think of DSC when they think of where they want to work. We want to be recognized as a great place to work to by current and prospective employees. We want to achieve this by having well trained transformational leaders in all leadership positions. Having the right leaders in place creates a great place to work culture. Leaders or managers can make all the difference between an

employee staying with us or leaving. For me, working for a company that values it leaders and gives them constant training on how to be the best leaders they can be is quite empowering. Describe three leadership practices of the current leader, other than yourself, in the existing organization. One leader I would like to speak of is a man by the name of Jason Beck. He is my General Manager at DSC. Jason is my example of the ideal transformational leader. He guides his team to success not by transactional punishment or reward, but by empowering his team members to use their own skills and strengths. He encourages them to improve in the weak areas and turn them into to strengths. He has the optimum balance of leading for head, heart and guts. He knew exactly when he had to drop the hammer, and when he needs to just listen to his employees and let them know their concerns would be heard. The first leadership practice of Jason’s I would like to speak about is his biweekly meeting with site leadership. Jason felt that for us to be effective as the leadership team of our site, we all needed to be on the same page. This was difficult to do, since we are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week 365 days a year. This means that we have three members of our management team that work graveyard shifts, making it difficult to have cross team communication unless someone stays late or comes in early. Jason’s solution was to have a bi-weekly meeting with all members of the leadership team, in a sort of group think approach. In these meetings we go subjects such as policies, discuss top and bottom performers from our teams, and give each other advice on how to handle difficult situations. These meetings have helped the leadership act as one and be supportive of each other.

Secondly, Jason is what I call a master delegator. I have had interactions with some managers who will delegate tasks to their subordinates just so they don’t have to work. That was just the opposite with Jason. When delegating tasks, he likes to assign tasks to an individual in a way that not only plays to their strengths but works to their weakness as well. As a leader he wants to make sure that his team is always improving, and delegation is one of his main tools. He assigned special projects to all members of the leadership team. My project was to oversee all the 5S practices in the warehouse. When discussing this assignment with Jason he has specific reasons he gave the assignment to me. He knew I struggled with email communication and this project would require me to communicate with outside vendors via email. This is a prime example of delegating the correct way. Lastly, Jason is a fantastic hands-on leader. He believes in the sentiment, “do ask you employees do something you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself?” Jason was not afraid to get down and dirty with the team. When we had an important machine go down on my graveyard shift, Jason showed up at 1am to help me repair it. We both ended up covered in grease up to our elbows. Jason has expressed that he feels as the GM of this site, his shift is 24 hours a day 7 days a week. He feels that if he needs to get up and he can help, he will. He did not want to be the type of manager that just sits in an office on the computer all day. I guess you could say he leads by example, he shows how to lead and work, he does not tell you how to do it; thus bringing out the best in his employees. Discuss how the current leader has affected organizational culture. As a transformational leader Jason really values growth and self-improvement. Before Jason came to the site, the site very transactional, and not in a good way. There was a lot of emphasis on punishing bad behaviors and praising and rewarding of good behaviors. Everyone saw the

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leadership as dictators that wanted to punish people for the sake of punishing them. Jason reshaped it all. He stressed the importance of regular reviews with members of our team, to help them set induvial goals. He explained that just saying good job and thank you can go a long way to motivate employees and increase morale. He encouraged us as leaders to just check on teams and see what we could do for them as leaders at the site to improve work for them. Overall, Jason helped the leadership remember that we are only as good as our teams we lead. That the employees on our teams are our best asset and we should treat them as such. To give all employees that opportunity to succeed and grow to be their best. The change in culture and morale brought on by Jason was almost palpable. SWOT analysis Strengths 1. Training Programs . DHL Supply Chain has a goal to be the employer of choice. One way they do this is to offer a very extensive training program. They offer yearlong trainings that guarantee a promotion upon its completion. Additionally, there are trainings on a variety of topics ranging from leadership improvement, six sigma, even foreign language training to better communicate with employees and coworkers for whom English is a second language to name a few. The training programs help both leaders and employees within the company to be best versions of themselves. 2. Sustainability. DHL Supply Chain has a goal to be carbon neutral by 2025. This is done in combination with reducing carbon emissions and promoting sustainable chain practices. They employee things such as electric trucks, airplanes, and other equipment.

Weaknesses 1. Complex Operations. Running and managing a global company is intrinsically complex. You must navigate through differing cultures and customs, and other challenges with international border crossing business practices. Shipment delays, strict government regulations, and added costs of delivery. 2. Too Many Different Systems. DHL Supply Chain has many different customers and clients, each who use different Warehouse Management Systems and technologies. This causes difficulties in training and employee growth. Each time they have an employee move to a new warehouse location they have to learn new software, which in turn can cause production delays. Opportunities 1. Technological Growth. Today technology is king. DHL Supply Chain needs to focus on bringing in new forms of AI, and other technologies. If they do so they could see a increase in efficiency, productivity and customer satisfaction. 2. New Markets. As the world starts to see growth, new untested markets keep emerging. DHL Supply Chain can and should consider moving in these markets as the need for logistics will soon be needed. Threats 1. Competition. The 3 rd party logistics business is very saturated and competitive. Your big name companies such as FedEx, UPS, Amazon, and many other small and mid-level companies vying for business. This means DHL Supply Chain must remain competitive in all they do, from pricing to servicing in order to remain profitable.

2. Global Economy. Being such a global company, any change in the global economy can and will affect DHL Supply Chain. This can be changes in policy, inflation, or just an increase or decrease in trade volumes, all of which can drastically impact all aspects of their business. Conduct a leadership evaluation of the current leader discussed in part A1 Strengths When I think of Jason Beck, the leader I am discussing today, I think of many strengths he displays as a transformational leader. However, the three that stick out the most are the following: the way he motivates and inspires his team, his ability to have all team members performing at a high level, and his push for personal growth for those he leads. Transformational leaders push us to accomplish more than we ever thought we could. (Lee, 2014) Jason as a leader knows it is his job to motivate his teams to want to perform and see value in their job. He does so by speaking to the company’s goals and relate them to each person individually. This gives his team the drive to want to perform at a high level. How does he get the teams to perform at such high levels? He incorporates a focus on high performance. He lets team know what the expectations are and how to meet them. He does this through weekly reviews and progress updates. This allows his teams to understand where they stand and how to reach the goal without the need for a punishment.

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Personal growth is something Jason is proud of. He always loves to see when employees get to advance in their lives, both personally and professionally. He wants people to take on as much training as possible. Jason believes the key to personal growth is learning and expanding your knowledge in all ways possible. Weaknesses Most people may think that transformational leadership is the most effective form of leadership, with very few weaknesses. This is not the case. Jason’s teams at times displayed the ugly side of transformational leadership. The ones that came up the most were that his team grew dependent on him, they would tend to get burned out, and they had trouble with change. Change is part of life we can not avoid. Jason’s teams had to learn this quickly, since Jason is usually successful at getting high performance from his teams. He would move to different locations that were struggling, in order to turn them around. Jason was loved by his team, and they always struggled when he would leave, and another leader would come in. This resulted in a reduction in performance as they resisted the change in leadership. This resistance to change is the proof of how dependent on Jason his teams are. When Jason would move to a new location, many members of his team have followed. This goes directly against the want for personal growth that Jason pushes his team for. If you can only work for one leader, you cannot progress. You never learn different approaches or styles, which can lead to being singled minded, which is an undesired trait in an ever growing diverse minded job market. Burnout. We know what it is, we have all faced it at one point or another, and this also stands true with Jason’s teams. His teams would hit burnout because they would fulfil his vison

and goals for the team, no matter how ambitious they are. (Lee, 2014) . Having a team, a team that would move mountains for you if asked is a good thing. Though you must remember to not push them too far or too hard, and this is a struggle of Jason’s. Actionable Items A good transformational leader must know how to improve on his weaknesses. They must know how to continually improve on themselves. Jason excels at this, he saw the weaknesses, and worked to turned them into his strengths. Some things he could do to continue doing this are make sure his gets adequate time off to avoid burnout, help his team understand that there is always more than one to approach a problem, and help his team learn that change is a good thing that they should embrace. A good transformational leader desires to see change in organizational performance. (Lee, 2014) As a leader, Jason can work to remind his team how important it is to embrace change. This can be done by having an employee suggestions box and implementing some of those suggestions. This works in two ways. First, it helps the employees know that their voice and concerns are heard. Second, it helps normalize change and teach the team the positive side of change. As a transformational leader, Jason needs to understand that his team will be unequivocally devoted to him. They will move heaven and earth for him. This is what makes it difficult for his team to move on and work with a different leader. What may work to mitigate this issue would be a formal induction of the new leader. An introduction allows the team to meet the new leader and start to build trust with him. Additionally, it allows Jason to show his

team that he has confidence in the new leader, leading the team to wanting to work just as hard for the new leader. Lastly, when it comes to overcoming burnout, the most important thing Jason can do for his team is remind them to take time off. Jason needs to remind his team that vacation days are okay to take. Also, that if they feel they are being pushed too hard or asked to do more than they can handle, to vocalize it. Doing all these things will help Jason work on his weaknesses. References Lee, M. (2014). Transformational Leadership: Is It Time For A Recall? International Journal of Management and Applied Research, 1 (1), 13.

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Leadership Task 2

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