Pistorio's Authentic Leadership

http://www.eco-business.com/features/sustainability-leaders-taking-csr-personally/

This article describes how Pasquale Pistorio personally took charge of ST Microelectronic’s sustainability efforts. ST Microelectronics, one of the world’s largest semiconductor companies, is considered a pioneer and visionary leader in sustainability. They have over 50,000 employees and operate twelve main manufacturing sites.

After reading the article, I feel Pistorio fits the criteria for an Authentic Leader. It’s understood that authentic leadership is examined from three different viewpoints: intrapersonal, developmental, and interpersonal. In this case, I feel Pistorio falls under the intrapersonal definition. I feel this way because Pistorio seems to have a solid internal moral compass. He initiated a program to increase environmental sustainability and energy efficiency well before business benefits were present in the industry. This shows how he exhibits genuine leadership and leads from conviction. It’s also notable that he had his sustainability managers reporting performance levels directly to him. By being a pioneer in sustainability, Pistorio shows us evidence of his originality.

Starbucks Australia - Making CSR work

http://www.ceoforum.com.au/article-detail.cfm?cid=6326&t=/Charlie-Baker-Starbucks-Coffee-Australia/Making-Corporate-Social-Responsibility-Work-Starbucks-Australias-Charlie-Baker

INTRO :

The article includes a great interview with Starbuck's Australian Managing director regarding CSR with in Starbuck's organization. It discusses how Starbucks approaches CSR, what the CSR role should be, and how CSR has been implemented into the organization. In many of ways, the leaders of Starbucks are using the components of the Hill's Leadership Model in Chapter 11 to guide an effective team and company.

HOW THE HILLS MODEL IS USED EFFECTIVELY :

First off, the leaders realize that they have to continually take action to fulfill their corporate social responsibility. The leader in this cases decided totake action both internally and externally. " You also need to clarify and define the framework and objectives of why you want to take CSR initiatives and what you hope to accomplish," stated Baker. This is a huge action that Baker sees needed internally. The task performance is increased in subordinates because he is clarifying goals and structuring for results. He also puts in place recognition programs to let all be aware of the initiatives going on. Baker creates a strong vision and inspires motivation amongst his workers and teams to continue the CSR of Starbucks.

Relationally, Baker does a really nice job taking action with in his teams as well. " I see my job as being very much an advocate and an example." This goes to show how Baker is satisfying individual needs by advocating how vital the CSR is to all and supporting them each step of the way while modeling principled practices. Baker even allows workers to take a day off work to volunteer for a charity of their choice which is rewarding to team members. " I also sometimes participate in the actual planning sessions so that I can understand what their thinking is." Involving is another huge action Baker takes to get team effectiveness in which he collaborates well with his 12 member team.

Externally, Baker realizes he has to take action in order to improve the environmental interface with the team. The team looks out into the environment and analyzes ways to remain a top competitive company and continually sustaining their CSR. Baker is constantly networking with other like Plant Ark, Balmain Hospital, and other charities to help increase influence while at the same time advocating their cause. Their "Green Team" or CSR team, helps develop annual programs on how they can contribute in a positive way to the environment such as recycling or donating efforts to charities.

In conclusion, Baker seams to be acting appropriately internally and externally to really get great team performance and development, thus creating the team effectiveness needed to sustain Starbucks CSR. Baker monitors the team and intervenes or takes action when needed. Are there any other actions he may need to take to help out, that are not mentioned? Also, according the Larson and LaFesto's or Hackman and Walton research on pg 252 of the Leadership book by Northouse, do you see any group effectiveness or excellence indicators that may be displayed from this article? Lastly, can you pinpoint any personality types shown by Baker and the pros or cons associated with them?

- Kyle

Wal-Mart's Green Attempt

http://www.grist.org/article/griscom-little3

The article I read involved an interview with Wal-Mart’s CEO, Lee Scott. This interview regarded Scott’s attempts and goals for the company to go green. Many people do not have many positive things to say about Wal-Mart; many thoughts come to mind such as “exacerbating suburban sprawl, burning mass quantities of oil, producing mountains of packaging waste, polluting waterways with runoff from its construction sites, and encouraging gratuitous consumption”. These only happen to be a few complaints regarding Wal-Mart’s environmental problems.

CEO Lee Scott announced his goal of transforming Wal-Mart into a company that runs on 100 percent renewable energy and produces zero waste. Since the comment, Lee has made specific statements saying he would like to “cut the corporation's greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 percent over the next seven years, double the fuel efficiency of its truck fleet within 10 years, reduce solid waste from U.S. stores by 25 percent in the next three years, and double offerings of organic foods this spring, selling them at prices more affordable to the masses”. Scott realized that with Wal-Mart being such a large company, this meant the company had quite the large footprint in the environment. Scott realized many benefits of being green, one major benefit being reducing cost. Scott became conscious of many costs that were not necessary throughout the company, such as packaging and energy usage. Cutting costs is important to Scott, he states that Wal-Mart has always prided itself on offering the lowest prices to customers, and cutting costs throughout the company is one way to deliver customers the lowest price possible.

The positive of Wal-Mart being such a large company is it tends to have a large impact on the market and manufacturers. Such a large change in companies such as Wal-Mart, this could cause a “ripple effect” throughout other companies and manufacturers. Scott states that with the size of Wal-Mart, it enables them to create markets for clean technology that exists today, but may not have a fully established market. Scott is interested in the question of, if Wal-Mart decides to sell, or decides to implement a system such as solar panels, what will this do to the cost of solar panels in the market? Will this giant implementation of such a system make this affordable to everyone?

The chapter I could best relate this article to is Northouse’s chapter nine, Transformational Leadership (TL). “[Transformational Leadership] is concerned with emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals. TL involves an exceptional form of influence that moves followers to accomplish more than what is usually expected of them” (Northouse 2010). Scott is a very transformational leader in the sense that he is hoping that Wal-Mart’s change to better environmental business practices could potentially affect the entire market for green products and processes. Scott is attempting to influence other markets and manufacturers by the actions of Wal-Mart. Going green is definitely an ethical choice that involves many long-term goals. “Going green” is not a choice that can be made, and have change being accomplished overnight. Scott has goals that he hopes to set by 2015, keep in mind the article was written in 2006, making him set a goal 9 years in the future. Values come into play when thinking about the ‘green movement’. Going green is not something that is forced on companies, but rather a change purely to better the environment and world we live in.

In looking at personality characteristics, behaviors, and effects on followers of charismatic leadership in chapter nine, Scott possesses many characteristics and behaviors of a charismatic leader. Scott has a large desire to influence, as well as strong moral values. His behaviors show that he articulates goals by the very specific goals he set for Wal-Mart, and also that he communicates high expectations.

What I pose to my group members is, how would the situation be different if Scott was more of a transactional leader versus a transformational leader? Do you think it takes one or the other to be a successful leader in the green movement, or does a leader need to possess potentially both factors?

THE GOOD: Susan G. Komen CEO

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2011/10/21/susan-g-komen-ceo-too-much-pink-is-never-enough/

I stumbled upon this article by accident on forbes.com, and it happened to relate to a lot of leadership topics we have discussed in class. It also relates to The Good and The Future parts of our blog theme.

Have you heard of Nancy Brinker? Honestly, I did not know who that was, but I certainly know Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Brinker is actually CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and is Susan's sister. She has held many leadership positions in the past. These include U.S. Ambassador for Hungary, Chief U.S. Protocol under the Bush Administration, and perhaps her largest role being CEO and founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. For the past 34 years she has been working on the deathwish of her sister. She is on a mission to cure breast cancer.

Who are her followers? When we discuss followers in class it usually pertains to subordinates or those in the same organization. While those people are followers in this case, her followers are also ordinary people like you and me. Have you ever given money to this cause? It does not have to be a straight donation, but haven't you ever bought a breast cancer shirt, wristband, or anything for that matter? Those people are followers too. Without those people her organization would not be around.

Brinker is a transformational leader. According to Northouse, "transformational leadership is the process whereby a person engages with others and creates a connection that raises the level of motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower. This type of leader is attentive to the needs and motives of the followers and tries to help them reach their fullest potential" (172). There is no doubt that she has engaged with others and created a connection. Proof of that is the internationally recognized pink ribbon. It is hard to go shopping without seeing that symbol. Furthermore, when we see that symbol we know exactly what it stands for without thinking. The symbol is on cereal boxes, North Face jackets, and television programs, to name a few. If a family member or friend dies of breast cancer often I have seen tattoos of the pink ribbon. When followers buy the product they feel like they are doing their part and making a difference because part of that money goes to the cause. Brinker raises the hopes of billions of people that one day breast cancer will be cured. She realizes and pays attention to the needs of her followers as her organization provided 700,000 mammograms and helped over 100,000 victims with social and financial support.

As we know factor four of the transformational factors is individualized consideration. After reading the article I immediately thought of this factor because it represents leaders who provide a supportive climate in which they listen to their followers' needs. No one was there for her sister during her battle with breast cancer. In turn, she wants to be there in anyway she can for the victims, and she also wants her followers who are not cancer victims to show support. Brinker says, "We have a very special talent as an organization to understand that people with breast cancer need a community. You have to bring people into the community with hope, an understanding of your mission and an ability to have them join the effort. People want to do something about this."

I feel like this article has a lot of topics for everyone to address. I focused on transformational leadership to start out, but I also think Brinker exhibits authentic leadership as well. What do you guys think?

Treat Your Employees Like Neighbors

http://www.businessweek.com/management/treat-your-employees-like-neighbors-10212011.html

With permission of Dr. Sheep, I have decided to write about an article a little bit outside of our normal blog posts. I stumbled upon an article in Business Week that correlates with chapter four in our book, Style Approach. The article deals with what style a leader should have his/her company most emulate: a family, a neighborhood, a hierarchy, or a market.

Chapter four stresses the fact that there are basically two general kinds of behaviors leadership can compose of: Task behaviors and relationship behaviors. Where task relates to the goal or task, and relationship relates to interpersonal relationships with employees and how to try and combine those two behaviors together. The book says, “the central purpose of the style approach is to explain how leaders combine those two kinds of behaviors to influence subordinates in their efforts to reach a goal” (69). 

With that being said, in the Business Week article “Treat Your Employees Like Neighbors: Successful companies have elements of both hierarchies and neighborhoods” written by Art Markmen, who references Alan Page Fiske, a successful leader will combine the concept of a Hierarchy (Task Behavior) and a Neighborhood (Relationship Behavior). Markmen to a certain degree associates Hierarchy and Task Behavior by saying, “Most companies establish levels of management with the expectation that higher levels take on more responsibility for guiding the company—in exchange for higher pay and benefits. The hierarchy can be particularly effective when people can work their way up through the organization”. In other words, having a structured hierarchy will initiate a structure of organized groups, defined responsibilities, and that will stress technical and production aspects of a job. However, that is just half the style needed.

 

The other half is creating a Neighborhood (Relationship Behavior) so not to just be a structured organization without any consideration to others. Markmen states a leader can create this Neighborhood by, “Seemingly small actions like supporting families going through difficult times and providing education opportunities for employees create a general sense of community. This investment in community is repaid in behaviors that ultimately affect the company’s bottom line”.  Basically stating that building a relationship with employees is key so that there is camaraderie, respect,  and trust. There needs to be a liking or possibly even as far as to say a “human” side to the leader so that the employees don’t perceive the leader as heartless.

One of Markmen’s thoughts did have a bit of say “controversy” in my mind. He stated that, “A family relationship with your employees isn’t optimal either. Everyone has to shoulder a fair share of the burden. Indeed, this is one reason why many companies have strict rules about nepotism. Hiring family members (or treating employees like family) blurs the lines between relationships in ways that can cause trouble down the line”. I actually have to disagree with this statement to a certain extent. I myself am working for a family business that was established in 1949. With both family members at the head of the company, and employees that seem like family members. The company does only have 72 employees, nevertheless, there is a family like setting within the company and the CEO makes an effort to actually keep it that way. Now, this company of course is a private company and does not have a board of directors, but still if a company is effectively running well, is it that bad to be more of relationship behavior company? Does the answer may have to do in part with how large a company or organization is?

Combining a Hierarchy and Neighborhood, or in other terms task and relationship behaviors together is what the style approach preaches for effective leadership. This article, despite the different terminology, actually states the same correlation that our book Leadership by Peter Northouse states in chapter four. Does Markmen’s make a point here of Task and Relational behavior can simply be swapped out with the terms Hierarchy and Neighborhood?

Cliff Bars Solo Climb

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2004/12/01/8192527/index.htm

For years I have been eating Cliff Bars because they are all natural and taste better than other energy bars. After reading this article taste and the fact that they are all natural won't be the only reasons I choose Cliff Bars over the competition.

Cliff Bar is a privately held company owned and managed by founder Gary Erickson. The company competes with global giants in the food industry; including Nestle, owner of PowerBar, and Kraft, owner of Balance Bar. It may seem like Cliff Bar is destine for failure competing in this market, but that's far from the reality. Cliff Bar owner, Gary Erickson has done the opposite of what most business owner's would do. He has turned down multiple substantial offers from food industry giants to ensure the success of his company. Erickson is not focused on the money, he is focused on becoming the industry leader while standing by the ideals of corporate social responsibility.

Despite the doubt from industry experts, Erickson stood by his values and decided to keep the company under his control. As a result business partner and co-CEO, Lisa Thomas demanded a buyout and left the company, leaving Erickson to manage the company on his own. By making this decision Erickson proves he has what it takes to be a leader. He also shows signs of the five major leadership traits-including, intelligence, self-confidence, integrity, sociability, and determination. As a result of a buy out the company would have to make drastic changes Erickson was not comfortable with. For starters, the company would be moved from California to the Midwest, forcing Erickson to part with his 65 current employees. Also, many of the unique qualities Erickson worked so hard to establish at Cliff Bar would be at jeopardy. Including, twice-a-month three-day weekends, a twenty foot climbing wall in the office, and his commitment to backing multiple social issues. Erickson also shows signs of emotional intelligence. He continually shows signs of how the a leaders personality supports the leadership process.

It's all about reusing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO7a9wS_K2k&feature=related

The video I picked to discuss was an interview conducted with the CEO of UsedCardboardBoxes, Marty Metro at one of his warehouses. UsedCardboardBoxes is a company that buys cardboard boxes from major companies. Metro tells how cardboard boxes that are recycled here in the United States are actually shipped over to China, where there is a high demand for the fibers in the boxes. China then takes the fibers and makes cardboard boxes of their own to ship valuables all around the world. What UsedCardboardBoxes actually does is buy cardboard boxes, inspects them to make sure they are reusable, and sells them as moving boxes for the 43 million families that move in the United States every year. Metro explains how in the past few years, “reduce, reuse, and recycle”, has been a phrase commonly used, but over the course of time has been a saying that has been blended down into the term recycle. He poses the question, “Why break something down if it can be reused in its own form?” Metro takes reuse to a whole new level. He points as “green” as reducing cardboard boxes may seem, the fuel cost to ship the boxes across seas, to have large machines and plants use fuel and energy to break these boxes down and use fuel again to ship these boxes back, is not really a green way. Keeping the boxes domestically, and not having to do a thing to these boxes, the most the families that buy these boxes have to deal with is miscellaneous company names on their boxes.

This interview really opened my eyes as to how some forms of recycling actually are not necessarily green. This makes me wonder what other forms of going green are not necessarily environmentally friendly and what possible extra steps could be taken by major businesses to avoid issues like this.

Looking at Metro, he definitely encompasses leadership qualities in the sense that he has produced a major change in the way the cardboard box industry works, and hopefully he is producing movement along with the change. He’s inspired many companies that he buys the boxes from to donate them to his company instead of ‘recycling’ them to China. Since it is not a very large company, he also possesses manager qualities because he still has a good grip on the company through controlling and problem solving many day to day activities throughout the company.

And also looking at the Comprehensive Skills Model , Metro seems to have many qualities off of the model. His problem solving skills are what led his business to be what it is today. He discovered a major problem in the cardboard box recycling industry, and decided to make a major change. His knowledge about the issue, what was being done before he stepped in really helped him when he was creating a business. Metro also has incredible motivation for what he is doing. His motivation drives him to make his business bigger and better every day. What I’m posing is, does it take someone with many skills to do what Metro has done? Are all of these competencies and individual attributes necessary to start and run a business? If not, are there other possible ways to be a leader and make a difference without possessing all of these skills?

Green Beer?

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2003/06/01/346429/index.htm

http://www.newbelgium.com/culture/alternatively_empowered/sustainable-business-story/planet/energy-and-greenhouse-gas-emission.aspx

In 2010, the total sale of beer in America was approximately $101 billion, according to BA the Brewers Association. This multi-billion dollar product has never really been seen in many consumers’ eyes as being an “eco-friendly” product besides the occasional recyclable bottles associated with certain brands. New Belgium Brewing Co. has and still continues to lead the way in making the beer business in America more environmentally friendly. This is due to their CEO, Kimberly Jordan.

What is Kimberly Jordan’s Leadership style?

Kimberly Jordan’s leadership philosophy can nearly be summed up by her quote of the culture at New Belgium Brewing Co.,” Alternatively Empowered means making business decisions based on minimizing environmental impact, encouraging the growth of our employee owners, and being a socially responsible contributor to our community. It's rewarding, challenging, and educational. It's what makes us New Belgium” (newbelgium.com). She is concerned with the town and state that her business is located in, as well as being an industry leader in environmentally friendly innovation. In Chapter 4, we discussed the Ohio State Studies and the Michigan Studies. Jordan’s leadership style would closely be tied to consideration (Ohio State) or in other terms an employee oriented style (Michigan). She has empowered her employees to be owners as well as herself and management. An example of Jordan’s employee oriented style goes back to a decision made in 1999. “In 1999 it became the first brewery to use wind power, bought from the local utility, rather than electricity from coal plants. It costs about a third more, but the brewery's employees (who own 32% of the company) voted for the switch, even though the difference comes out of their yearly bonuses. As of mid-2002 the brewery had saved eight million pounds of coal and prevented 15 million pounds of CO2 emissions from being dumped into the atmosphere” (cnn.com).

The Green Culture

In addition to using wind power, Kimberly Jordan has also implemented many other ‘green’ processes within New Belgium Brewing Co. The company uses a closed loop circuit. Which at the on-site Process Water Treatment Plant (PWTP), “New Belgium uses microbes to clean all of our production wastewater… A byproduct of this process, methane gas, is harvested and piped back to the brewery, where it powers a heat and power engine”(newbelgium.com). Furthermore, New Belgium uses solar power, and a smart grid to effectively lower costs of the amount of energy used. The smart grid can gather information by itself to shut off non-essential functions to eliminate the waste of resources being performed when in fact these resources should not be being used at all, such as lighting in areas that do not need to be lite at the time.

The Future

The future at New Belgium Brewing Co. seems to be continual growth and innovation. Many consumers and people around the United States know the New Belgium product line, and Kimberly Jordan knows that her business has loyal customers. Where she is more interested in is about” being a business role model and creatively approaching the craft of brewing”(newbelgium.com)  The future seems to not only continuing the environmentally friendly culture at New Belgium but expanding their culture and their processes to other companies within the industry. “We are working with other breweries around the United States to develop some partnerships which may lead to bigger things.  I think it would be great to create a consortium of breweries that collaborate and brew across the country thereby minimizing our environmental impact and being closer to our customers.” (cnn.com)

Kimberly Jordan’s style to leadership goes to her core, which seems to really be a considerate, passionate, employee oriented type of leadership. She has a drive to be a leader in going green within her industry, but also wants to make partnerships within her competitive industry to slowly bring down the environmental footprint the beer companies have left behind already.

Enterprise: Leading for a better and greener environment

http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/16/news/companies/enterprise_green_cars.fortune/index.htm

Enterprise is the nation's largest car rental company and has a huge impact on the environment in which they interact. The company was founded in 1957 and is ran by Andrew Taylor, CEO and Chairman. Recently, the family owned company has really stepped up their part to save Mother Earth. In many ways, the company relates the Comprehensive Skills Model to follow through with their commitment to their followers.

Individual Attributes:

The general cognitive ability of the company's leaders is great. Enterprise understood they are a major contributor to the environment and used creative and divergent thinking along with great general reasoning to come up with a much needed change. CEO Andrew Taylor grew up into the business and developed a sufficient crystallized cognitive ability to help follow through with contributing to "going green" in some way or another as his father, former CEO, had done in his times. Taylor is certainly motivated by having dominance over the market, realizing he can make green changes that are for the social good, and has been more than willing to follow through with his promise to the members of society. The optimistic and caring personality characteristics of the company leaders lays a vital role in carrying out this process.

Competencies:

The company used their creative abilities to effectively approach upcoming and ongoing ill-defined problems. For example, the company pledged to plant 50 million trees in America's national forests, starting back in January 2008, to offset the carbon emissions of their rental cars. To compliment this program, customers can pay an extra $1.25 fee for their car rental to proceed in the process of offsetting carbon emissions. Enterprise matches this amount up to $1 million per year. Fewer than 1 in 10 people customers decide to pay for this option. More related to their particular operations, has been the on going process of reducing the consumption of resources their very own service uses, oil and gasoline. They do this by offering more than 440,000 vehicles that get better than 28 miles per gallon on the highway. 73,000 vehicles use "flex-fuel", containing a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline and they offer about 5000 hybrid electric cars.

Enterprise really took into consideration the perspectives of the society and has became behavioral flexible by being open and willing to change to ideas benefitting others. They have had effective communication to reach out to communities nationwide and provide the vision they are trying to warrant. With that comes knowledge. The company has accumulated loads of important data and were able to organize and use it in an effective manner.

Leadership outcomes:

Enterprise has a carried out effective solutions to the best of their ability in many aspects. They were very logical in they way they thought. They did research on ways to help offset carbon emissions. Two most logical ways they came up with and implemented were to buy vehicles with options of electric and E85 burning engines as well as planting trees that help reduce carbon emissions in the air. The solution has been effective as 1 in 7 trees planted in national forests in 2007 were funded by Enterprise. Taylor and his leaders certainly used a unique approach that is currently and will be providing a good deed to society for years to come. I would go to say Taylor has certainly led a very satisfactory based company and performance has been exceptional. The company is the largest car rental company in North America, containing approximately 75,000 happy employees. Enterprise was also rated 21st in the Forbes list of "largest private companies in America." The company was also rated 9th in customer service and amongst top 10 places to begin a career in the Business week magazine in 2006.

Career Experiences:

Andrew Taylor grew up into the company under founder and father, Jack Taylor. He began working his way up the company including jobs from an area general manager, to President and Chief Operating Officer, to CEO, and in addition chairman 20 years later. During this time he had a lot of hand on experience,tough challenges, and training to sufficiently and effectively build his company he runs today.

Environment Influences:

The environment has certainly played a huge role throughout Enterprise's career. Technology has been a key factor as it has allowed the company to build and obtain more fuel efficient vehicles. This provides the company the ability to have a leading edge in building a better company and provide more for the society.

Taking all areas of the comprehensive skills approach into hand, Taylor and the leader's of his company, seem to have it all together. The questions is, are they doing the right things to continue the successful business they have ran for years??

-Kyle Linnemann

Anderson: "The Green Business Pioneer"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericagies/2011/08/10/interface-founder-ray-anderson-leaves-legacy-of-sustainability-success/

Until reading this article in Forbes I didn’t know who Ray Anderson was or what his company, Interface, did. Ray Anderson passed away this August, and he was the founder of Interface. He founded the company in 1973 and the company brought a “European style of carpet tiles—which could be easily replaced if part of the carpet became stained or worn—to the U.S.”

WHAT MADE HIM A LEADER?
He is a “green business pioneer.” He saw a need for change in his company, industry, and the world he lived in and he acted on it. Carpet is usually made with fossil fuels and represents a large amount of waste in the country. If people needed new carpet they would rip the entire carpet out, throw it in a dumpster, and get new carpet. These carpet tiles were different. They did not have the fossil fuel, harmful waste, and you could replace one tile instead of the entire thing. Let’s face it why didn’t companies recycle or “go green” back in 1973? Well, from what I have learned it was more expensive. Costs went up across the board and people did not see the impact industries were having on the planet we live. A green product was seen as a risk. Why not take the easy way out and profit off of a cheaper product? Ray Anderson did not care about that risk. Instead, he cared about the world and environment that his grandchildren would live in. Therefore, Anderson influenced his followers (company) to achieve a common goal. His goal is to achieve a zero environmental footprint by 2020.
Anderson and his company “went green” in 1994. He has since generated many short-term wins for his team. The article goes on to say his team has cut greenhouse gas emissions by 82%, cut waste by 66%, and invented and patented new machines, materials, and manufactured processes which increased sales by 66%, doubled earnings, and raised profit margins.

IS ANDERSON MANAGING OR LEADING?
He is leading. Instead of looking for order and stability he sought out adaptive and constructive change. “At Interface, an important step was opening up the culture to tolerate failure, to encourage experimentation.” Anderson aligns people and empowers them to try new things to find better ways to achieve their goal. He created a vision not only for his company but for others’ to follow in his footsteps. His vision is to eliminate any negative impact his company might have on the environment.
Bennis and Nanus said, “Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing.” Isn’t that what Anderson did?

WAS HE BORN THAT WAY?
The author of the article heard him speak at a conference and said “his grandfatherly demeanor, southern drawl, and sheer niceness were somehow electrifying, and he held the packed crowd rapt.” According to the Trait Approach he was born with these traits which make him a leader. From what we know already he was intelligent, determined, sociable, and had integrity. The trait theory would say it is Anderson and his personality that are central to his leadership.

OR DOES THE SKILLS APPROACH MAKE MORE SENSE?
Maybe he has these traits but didn’t he learn from others? Anderson was changed by Paul Hawken’s book The Ecology of Commerce so I think the Skills Model is better suited. He has individual attributes which include those personality traits and what he has learned from experiences and reading—crystallized cognitive ability. He has the competencies of the model. He read the book and was faced with a large, ill-defined problem—where to start with environmental change. He defined the problem, formulated a new understanding, and generated solutions. Performance outcomes are evident given the statistics but maybe the judge of his leadership outcomes will be the answer to the question—WILL HIS LEGACY LIVE ON?

Welcome!

Hello Bloggers!

We are conducting a blog for our class MQM 382: Organizational Leadership at Illinois State University. Our group consists of 5 Seniors including: Michael Steinbarth, Lauren Brooks, Stephanie Repsel, Reed Decker, Kyle Linnemann.

The primary focus of our blog is to discuss and share our views and opinions on articles that involve leaders of companies leading change in the modern business climate. Some topics that will be discussed include: corporate social responsibility, successful changes within an organization, and companies that made successful internal changes for the future, along with many other interrelated topics.

Some issues and questions our blog is seeking to discuss and analyze are, how implementing these topics can add value to an organization.