Shveta Sharma

Leadership is all about HAVING A VISION and motivating people to share that vision and work towards achieving the goal set. But there should be only ONE VISION. The lack of a clear and a singular vision will most likely result in bad alignment, fragmented efforts, and personal agendas driving the organization, instead of the best interest of the customers and the organization. Having a recognized vision will encourage confidence and promote trust within the organization.

Leadership by committee poses problems to this singular vision. When the organization is large, like a country, leadership committees are helpful. However, in smaller organizations, these committees might not be a very good idea.
Every committee has diversity within it which hampers decision making. Every person in the committee will have different ideas and views as to how to go about a problem. As far as long term decisions are concerned, these committees can sit together and discuss how to get it done.
However, certain problems like customer related issues need to be addressed immediately. Problems like these are not often sensitive to long debates about vision and direction. In such cases a single leader or Monocratic Leadership is called for.
Hence, in issues where immediate action is called for, leadership through committee is not a very good idea. Furthermore, smaller organizations should avoid such committees as it will only hamper its growth. Singular leadership should be the standard to rally such organizations and problems.

Posted by Shveta Sharma at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

All leaders have the same basic traits. However, the style of leading differs from person to person. It all depends on the leader’s personality or the situation at hand. Each style has its own set of positives and negatives.
The three styles of leadership are:
1. Authoritarian or autocratic: In this style of leadership, the leader tells his people what to do and how to do without getting any feedback from them. This type of leadership is generally successful in situations where you are short of time and urgent action is called for.
However, this style of leadership is not a very effective one and often leads to some resistance. Hence, it should be used very sparingly.
(U.S. Army Handbook, 1973)
2. Participative or democratic: In this style of leadership, the team is made part of the decision making process. The leader allows his team to decide how the task will be done and who will do it. However, leader remains the final decision

(U.S. Army Handbook, 1973)

making authority. (U.S. Army Handbook, 1973)
This approach of leadership is useful when the leader wants to motivate his team and gain commitment from his team.
3. Delegative or Laissez-Faire manager: In this style of leadership, the leader doesn’t participate in the decision making process him self. He exercises very little control and lets the team decide what to do. However, he still is responsible for the actions taken and decisions made. (U.S. Army Handbook, 1973)
This approach is successful when the team is highly experienced, skilled and motivated.

REFERNCES

- U.S. Army Handbook (1973). Military Leadership.

- http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadstl.html

Posted by Shveta Sharma at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In This article, the author, Dr Gillette, tries to come up with a model that would define leadership in context of today’s period which he likes to define as the information renaissance era. He has divided the article into five main sections:
1. Context of our era -Welcome to the Information Renaissance: The word Renaissance means Rebirth or Revival. The author suggests this name for our era as he proposes that “historic events work out on a concept of increasing returns”, or put to it simply, “One even leads to another” (Leadership for the Information Renaissance, Dr Gillette, p.3). He implies that this era is based on the learnings and achievements that happened in the era before. He further suggests that this era is in no way an information revolution period as revolutions are often dramatic and come to an end abruptly. He states that this era is actually a post revolutionary era. He calls it so as this is when whatever has been attained in revolutionary period can be explored and learned more about.
Additionally, according to the author, this era is most like the European Renaissance period which is discussed in detail in the next section.

2. Characteristics of the European and Information Renaissances: According to the author, the Renaissance times are described as the times of “encouraging positives and distressing negatives”. Positive as new inventions and discoveries are happening leading to major progresses in all fields. On the other hand, the negative is that the old models are not ready to give way to the new ones and henceforth are now fighting back with the weapons of the new. As Dr Gillette puts it, “Renaissance times are times of reformation and counter-reformation. They are the times of revolution and counter-revolution.” (Leadership for the Information Renaissance, Dr Gillette, p.5)
The author tries to draw parallels between the two eras and has come up with some distinct similarities and differences between the European Renaissance and Information Renaissance.
He states that in the European Renaissance period, the publishing technologies were the important inventions and in this era it’s the information and communication technologies that take the importance.
Furthermore, the European era was characterized by explorations and new discoveries just like this era.
However, in the European Renaissance period, it was the trade that came first and then the information followed. However, in today’s era, it’s the information that comes first and trade followed it.
Additionally, in the European Renaissance humans were viewed as “homo faber”, which means “man the maker”. The human is seen as the maker of himself, the society etc. On the other hand, in today’s era humans are defined as “homo sapiens”, which the author translates as “human the knower”, hence emphasizing the importance of information and knowledge. (Leadership for the Information Renaissance, Dr Gillette, p.7)
3. Information Renaissance Success for Individuals and Organizations: The author suggests that in order to succeed in today’s times; we need to be Renaissance men or women just like Leonardo da Vinci and Vittoiria Colonna of the earlier era. We need to continuously keep learning all our life.
The author says that Renaissance person should be a “T-person”. He/she should be “both broadly comprehensive (the T-crossbar), as well as deeply competent (the T-base)-in one complete person”. (Leadership for the Information Renaissance, Dr Gillette, p.9) These attributes help make a person adaptable to any change and gives the professional Utility so that the person can “prosper by adding value”. These, henceforth, help in both personal and professional success.
Furthermore, the author suggests to, “Add knowledge-value to everything that you touch.” Knowledge-value is the coined by the author Taichi Sakaiya. Sakaiya defines it as “the price of, and the value created by, wisdom; and the worth, or price, a society gives to that wisdom.” (Leadership for the Information Renaissance, Dr Gillette, p.10)
Dr Gillette explains this by giving example of Mercedes-Benz, a high end vehicle. He says that these vehicles are not essentially better than their competitors. However, they command higher prices in the market because of their creative wisdom. Hence, an organization should add knowledge value in everything, be its products or services.
4. Information Networking as the Key Component in a Knowledge-Value Society: Out of all the forms of knowledge, information is the key component. The author says that there are two parts of information. One is outside part, that is the news or data that you get from outside. Second part is how this data is converted into information in your mind which further helps you to form ideas and hence get informed.
The author suggests that it’s the information networking that is most important for this era. Information networking comprises of Information, that is the message; and communication, that is the medium used to transmit the message.
The author here comes up with a model that explains how we move and use the information. According to this model, the primary categories of information networking are Access, Filtering, Storage, Retrieval, and Using. These are the main ways of dealing with information.
5. Conclusions and Recommendations: In the end, the author recommends
• To have full confidence in the future and lead with this confidence.
• To succeed in this renaissance era by taking ideas from the European Renaissance men and women.
• To prosper by seeking knowledge and adding value to everything that we touch.
• And last but not the least, use information networking to use the knowledge we have constructively and discover new information that we can put to use. Hence, “sharpen our skills”.

REFERENCES:

• Leadership for the Information Renaissance: Clarity, Challenges, Opportunity, Dr Jay Edwin Gillette

Posted by Shveta Sharma at 01:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

All over the world, people realize the importance of a good leadership for good performance of an organization, be it a company or a nation. It would have been almost impossible for India to get freedom without Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or achieve biracial harmony in South Africa without the guidance of a leader like Nelson Mandela.
Napoleon Bonaparte says, “A Leader is the dealer in hope”. (www.brainyquote.com). Leaders are the people with a clear vision who decide what the goal is going to be and how is he going to influence and motivate the people under him to achieve that goal. These people have the desire for innovation.
A lot of times, terms Leadership and Management are used interchangeably. Certainly the roles often overlap. However, to put it simply, both of these are two very different ways of organizing people.

Management is a process which includes planning, organizing, directing, and controlling an organization for the purpose attaining a goal or an objective. Typically, management includes the appropriate allocation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources (Kotterman, 2006)
Leadership is a process by which an individual influences others to attain a goal or an objective. The leader directs the organization in a way that makes it more organized and coherent. A leader influences others by applying his/her leadership various attributes, such as beliefs, personality, knowledge, and skills. Although the position of a manager gives one the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives; this authority may not make one a leader. Leadership differs in that it makes the followers want to achieve high goals, rather than simply directing people (Kotterman, 2006).

The primary focus of a leader is the people working under him. Leadership operates in an environment based on trust. On the other hand, a manger tends to focus on the system and structure and how to assemble the people to get the job at hand done. In other words, leaders lead the people and managers manage the work at hand.
Leaders try to amplify the strengths of the people and the organization. On the other hand, managers try to focus on the weaknesses and how to go about reducing them. A leader’s job is to create such an environment that helps motivate his people to do something new, unique and different. It might have risks of failure but a leader realizes that in order to bring about positive long term changes, it is important that the people learn from their own mistakes.
On the other hand a manager tries to avoid anything that might be risky. He likes to manage the people and the resources at hand according to principles or values that have already been established that ensure stability in the company.

Leadership can be a contributing factor to the strategy's failure or success. A good leader can motivate the organizations by providing appropriate feedback. In other words, a good leader would welcome and accept feedback from members of one’s team and those within the organization as a whole. Feedback is important and it can be used to increase performance of employee, as well as create an open environment in which people are keen to discuss both successes and failures. Thus, a good leader will help to rescue even the most obviously failing strategy

CONCLUSION
People who say that they are leaders but not good managers are just visionaries or somebody with unrealistic ideas. Until and unless he doesn’t know how to accomplish his vision, his ideas will remain impractical. Hence, it is very important for a leader to be a good manager.
A good leader should be innovative and have a clear vision as to where he wants his company to go. He can play a critical role in guiding a corporation in its transformation. A good leader can appropriately select, train, motivate, and lead the organization during crisis, change, transition, or growth (Shanks, 1989).
Hence, according to me, leadership is a trait held by a person who has a clear vision for his organization that he is able to communicate to his colleagues in such a way that they believe in the leader and that vision, and feel motivated to work towards achieving that goal. Furthermore, a leader is not scared of change, rather welcomes it.

REFERENCES
• Kotterman, James. (2006), “Leadership Versus Management: What's the Difference?” Journal for Quality & Participation, Vol. 29 Issue 2, p13-17, 5p
• Shanks, David C., (1989), “The Role of Leadership in Strategy Development . By: Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 10 Issue 1, p32, 5p
• http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/napoleonbo106371.html

Posted by Shveta Sharma at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let’s try to bring into focus the impact of social and cultural influences on the leadership process. Kristina Coburn states that, “Followers, culture and environment have a hand in creating that leader.” According to J. Thomas Wren and Marc J. Swatez, leadership is a process of interaction between the leaders and followers that is affected by the following contextual variables:
1. The Historical Context of Leadership: According to this, any leadership scenario gets affected by long term trends that may have taken place in the past.

2. The Contemporary Context of Leadership: The leadership scenario tends to get affected by the social values, cultural traditions and sub cultural norms and customs of the society. For example, in a traditional Japanese society, older generation tends to lead while in American society it is not the case.
3. The Immediate Context of Leadership: This encompasses the structure and goals of the organization, the culture prevalent within the organization and the characteristics of the task at hand.
The variables explained above helps a “leader to identify and isolate the specific relevant historical and cultural influences that impact his or her unique leadership situation.” (Wren, 1995, p.251)

REFERENCES

- Wren, J. Thomas. The leader’s Companion: Insights on Leadership Through the Ages, New York: Free Press, 1995.

- Coburn, Kristina. “Looking Further into Leadership.” CICSWorld.org, February 06, 2008.

Posted by Shveta Sharma at 02:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“If you know yourself, but not the enemy - for every victory gained you will suffer one defeat!” Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”
UNDERSTANDING COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE
With the growing number of companies offering the same products in the same market, a company needs to have something extra to survive. A company, in today’s world, not only needs to get acquainted with the latest technologies and its customer’s needs, but should also know more about its competitor’s strengths and weaknesses. This knowledge is known as the Competitive Intelligence. Using this knowledge, a company can survive and gain a strategic advantage in domestic or global market.
Hence, competitive intelligence (CI) is defined as the process of collecting and examining the data about their competitors and using it to gain an advantage over competitors in the market place.

COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE AND GLOBAL BUSINESS
According to the authors, David Blenkhorn and Craig Fleisher, in their book, Competitive Intelligence and Global Business, competitive intelligence should be recognized as an important part while taking important business decisions. They state that, “One needs accurate, complete and timely information before making key business decisions in a global context.” (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.3). This would help the company stay ahead in the competitive environment and hence assist in its success.
However, the authors further suggest that while conducting competitive intelligence on a global scale, one needs to be aware of various challenges like different norms and cultures in different countries, and difficulty in gathering data because of lack of understanding of language in those countries, etc. (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.4).
While trying to figure out the competitive environment, the companies should keep in mind the following issues:
1. Global Competitive trends: In the global marketplace, which kind of industry will be successful and which kind of company will be the trendsetter. (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.8)
2. Customer or End User Preferences and Trends: The factors for the change and the degree of change in the needs and desires of the consumers with the change in the marketplace? How are the competitors handling this change? Based on this information, how the company should be conducting its business so as to attract maximum customers. (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.8)
3. Technological Trends: Does your company have the latest technology and the capability to handle it? Also, how will your competition handle these technologies? (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.8)
4. Diversification Opportunities: How can the company diversify in the global market? Where all does the scope for this exists? And what kind of competition should the company expect? (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.9)
5. Internal Capabilities: Does the company have the necessary resources to compete in global market and if not how to attain them. (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.9)
6. Joint Ventures, Strategic Alliances and other partnering opportunities: How does becoming partners with other companies help you in the global sector? Are you compatible with these companies? (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.9)
7. General Nation-State and Regional Economic and Business Conditions: How to get accurate and unbiased information on the current and future business and political scenario in the global market? (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.9)
8. Regulatory Issues: What are the laws and regulations in the market are changes expected and how different are they from your current regulatory scenario? (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.9)
9. Supplier Trends: What is the nature of supplier base in the market, is it expected to change and how will change in the supplier base effect your operations? (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.9)
10. Understanding Reasons for Past International Success and Failures: Learn from your and other companies past failures and keep in mind the current winners in the market. (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.9)
11. Performance: What are the performance indicators in global market and are they different from your current market? (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.9)
CI Operation in a Global Company
Once these parameters are identified, the company needs to decide the structure and the system for effective CI monitoring.
• Structure: The need to decide whether the CI structure be centralized or decentralized. Centralized structure will be when the executives are sitting in one place and making decisions keeping the global market in mind. Decentralized structure will be handling the CI functions in local environment by the local people who know that market better. (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.10)
• System: It includes all the hard (technical, hardware, software etc.) and soft (policies, cultures, languages etc.) facets of the organization that will help in effective working of the company in global market. (Blenkhorn, 2005, p.11)

PROVEN STRATEGIES IN COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE: CI AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT CONVERGENCE
In this case study, author Bret Breeding explains how competitive intelligence at his company, Shell Services International (SSI), has been affected by employing knowledge management.
The author first explains the problems and issues faced by the intelligence producers and users. The users feel that the information is too shallow or is not credible enough. They further state that the information is not provided in a very timely manner and that the focus is missing. Additionally, they are not very sure as to how to gather the intelligence from the producers. (Breeding, 2001, p.47)
On the other hand, producers of intelligence feel that they don’t have enough time to satisfy all users, low budget; there is lack of feedback from users, no sharing of information, too much information to get through, etc. (Breeding, 2001, p.48)
The author realized that one can never get rid of all these problems, so the team devised plans to minimize these issues in following steps:
1. Corporate Processes Affected by CI (Audience Identification): In order for CI to deliver results and add value, it should interact with other corporate functions. To add value to SSI, the author and the team decided that CI should interact with new product development, strategy (mergers and acquisitions), sales and proposals, HR and recruiting, and marketing communications. (Breeding, 2001, p.49)
2. Activities Performed by CI Analysts: Once the audience to be served is identified, analysts need to identify the activities that should be performed to serve this audience. The projects that add highest value get maximum time daily than the ones that are just mundane tasks. The activities are:
a. Ad-Hoc Requests: CI analysts answer Ad Hoc request like, demographics, statistics, company financial comparisons, executive biographies, emerging marketing overviews, investment analysts’ reports, competitive information etc. (Breeding, 2001, p.51)
The analysts should inquire more so that they can figure out what exactly the user is looking for. As for finding the information, the analysts already have some in their databases (proactive requests). For the rest of information, they conduct researches (reactive requests). (Breeding, 2001, p.52)
b. Monitoring Market Alerts: The CI analysts should analyze the external market and report to the core audience. They should keep track of what is happening with their competitors, know about the latest technologies etc., add competitive implications and keep the audience informed. Finally, the analysts should conduct a survey the audience periodically to ascertain the quantity, quality, usability of information. (Breeding, 2001, p.53)
c. KM Systems: Once all this information is gathered, it is disseminated on the intranet system of the company which is called the CI Knowledge House. Further, it is required to check this information so as to make sure that the content is fresh. This also ensures reusability of the information. (Breeding, 2001, p.55)
Indra K. Nooyi, the CEO of Pepsi Co. believes in constant reinvention: "The minute you've developed a new business model, it's extinct, because somebody is going to copy it." (CNN.com)
Additionally, the core audience also gets access to this information. In this way redundant questions can be eliminated and work can be done faster.
d. Simulation Deal Support: The CI group should spend 25 to 50 percent of its time providing deal support. It involves ”simulating the anticipated competitive responses of SSI competitors” (Breeding, 2001, p.56)

CONCLUSION
Before entering a global market, an industry should keep in mind that it will not be the same as in the home country where it is established. So it should do a complete check on the scenario in the target market and collect all the competitive intelligence to have a good idea as to how to go about in that area.
Furthermore it is imperative that whatever competitive intelligence is collected from the market be properly distributed in the organization to ensure that this information is properly used and is continually updated. This is where knowledge management comes in.
Hence, coming together of these two areas helps in determining the knowledge flows and gaps to better evaluate where you are, what all you need to know and what is the best way to find out.

REFERENCES

1. Breeding, Bret. “CI and KM Convergence: A Case Study at Shell Services International.” Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons From the Trenches. Prescott, John E. and Miller, Stephen H. Wiley Publishers, 2001
2. Blenkhorn, David L. and Fleisher, Craig S. “The state of our understanding of research and practice in competitive intelligence and global business.” Competitive Intelligence in Global Business. Blenkhorn, David L. and Fleisher, Craig S. Oxford: Praeger Publishes Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005.
3. Clavell, James, The Art of War: Sun Tzu, Delta, January 1998.

Posted by Shveta Sharma at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will fight without danger in battles.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.” (Tzu, 2005, p.xii)

UNDERSTANDING LEADERSHIP
“Leadership is a trait held by a person who has a clear vision for his organization that he is able to communicate to his colleagues in such a way that they believe in the leader and that vision, and feel motivated to work towards achieving that goal.”(Sharma, p.6)

VISION OF LEADERSHIP (www.Businessinnovationinsider.com)

A leader should welcome change, accept feedbacks from his colleagues, be a renaissance man/woman, add knowledge value (Gillette, p.10), develop an inspiring vision (Peters, 1998, p.483), manage by example ((Peters, 1998, p.497), innovate, and create a sense of urgency (Peters, 1998, p.569) towards achieving the goals set.

UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
Business Intelligence is the knowledge about the organization, its competitors and the environment within or outside the organization. Furthermore, with the progress in Information and Communication technologies, businesses are becoming more successful in their own as well as global markets. Technology, people and the environment/culture all come together to facilitate business intelligence.
The right intelligence on the organization’s side leads to increased profitability, decreased costs, improved customer relationship management (CRM) and decreased risks.
UNDERSTANDING COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE
With the growing number of companies offering the same products in the same market, a company needs to have something extra to survive. A company, in today’s world, not only needs to get acquainted with the latest technologies and its customer’s needs, but should also know more about its competitor’s strengths and weaknesses.
Furthermore, organizations should also keep in mind the fact that as they might be using the competition’s information against them, the competitors will be doing the same to them. According to Deering (2002), any company facing competition for customers confronts the basic question, how do we anticipate and manage against initiatives intended to cut our share of the market?
This knowledge is known as the Competitive Intelligence. Using this knowledge, a company can survive and gain a strategic advantage in domestic or global market.
Hence, competitive intelligence (CI) is defined as the process of collecting and examining the data about their competitors and using it to gain an advantage over competitors in the market place. Kellogg USA President Gary costly says,” The big payoff for competitive intelligence is that it will point out weaknesses that you have internally because of the strengths of your competitors. Companies that don’t have this will fail.”(Prescott, 2001, p.xi)
UNDERSTANDING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
“Knowledge management involves best leveraging knowledge internally and externally in an organization and creating a process for valuing the organizations intangible assets.”(Liebowitz, p. 3)

Conceptual framework: knowledge management processes
informationr.net/ir/8-1/p141fig1.gif
This internal and external information is used towards making better decisions.
First the kind of knowledge required is identified. Once identified, this information is located or created. All the information collected is stored and organized in such a way so as to ensure proper sharing of this information. Hence, Knowledge Management is basically moving the right information between the right people within an organization so that they can use this information and on the basis of this information act for the betterment of their organization.
This knowledge is disseminated/shared using the intranet system. Further, it is information stored is checked continuously so as to make sure that the content is fresh. This also ensures reusability of the information. (Breeding, 2001, p.55)
Additionally, the core audience also gets access to this information. In this way redundant questions can be eliminated and work can be done faster.
STRATEGIC PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT
Dr Gillette says, “Strategy is coordinated action through time to achieve a goal.” (Gillette, p.3) A leader is the one who decides what strategy to follow for the success of the organization. It is he who is the main contributing factor in a strategy’s success or failure. Synergy between leadership, knowledge management, business intelligence, and competitive intelligence creates strategic intelligence.
According to Dr Gillette, for a successful strategy development, leaders and knowledge workers need to keep these four steps in mind:
1. Strategic intelligence: The leaders and the knowledge workers need to perform the following strategic intelligence actions:
a. Environmental scanning and Situation analysis: For a company to be able to compete in the market, it should gather the information from economic, technical, cultural/social, political/legal areas. Once collected, filtered and organized, the company should seek an “analysis of the external situation affecting your organization – it is the context in which you operate.” (Gillette, p.6)
b. S W T O analysis: The company should, in this phase, focus on itself and take an internal review of the organization. It analyzes its Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats and Opportunities. (Gillette, p.6)
2. Action options: Dr Gillette states that “Strategic planning always produces options for actions to take”. He further adds that there should always be more than two possible option actions. Additionally, the author states that for an organization to win an organization needs, “a good offense and defense, plus a combination that takes them both into account.” A defense can never win by itself and offense will fail if its strength fails. Hence both are required. (Gillette, p.7)
3. Agreement mechanisms for cooperation: Once the options have been agreed upon, a leader must “check and repair” the organization’s “mechanisms for cooperative action.” (Gillette, p.8)
4. Communication links for coordinated action: To carry out a synchronized action, communication within the organization’s people should be proper and complete. The options should be communicated to all the leaders and the knowledge workers. (Gillette, p.9)
Furthermore, feedback from all corners should be accepted and encouraged to ensure two way communications. A good leader can motivate the organizations by providing appropriate feedback. In other words, a good leader would welcome and accept feedback from members of one’s team and those within the organization as a whole. Feedback is important and it can be used to increase performance of employee, as well as create an open environment in which people are keen to discuss both successes and failures.
CONCLUSION
An organization requires intelligence to survive and succeed in the market. This knowledge gained should reach everyone in the organization to ensure effective use of this knowledge for the better of the organization. Using this information, actions should be decided and taken to reach to the goal fixed.
Finally, it’s the leader who is the contributing factor to the strategy's failure or success. A good leader will help to rescue even the most obviously failing strategy.

REFERENCE
1. Dr. Gillette, Strategy Development for the Information Economy: A Practical Guide to Coordinated Action through Time
2. Dr. Gillette, Leadership for the Information renaissance: Clarity, Challenges, Opportunity.
3. Jay Liebowitz, Strategic Intelligence: Business Intelligence, Competitive Intelligence, And Knowledge Management ,Auerbach Publications
4. Deering B.J. (2002) Chapter 11: KM for competitive advantage: mining diverse sources for marketing intelligence. Knowledge Management Strategy and Technology. Bellaver R.F. & Lusa J.M. Editors. Artech House.
5. Breeding, Bret. “CI and KM Convergence: A Case Study at Shell Services International.” Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons From the Trenches. Prescott, John E. and Miller, Stephen H. Wiley Publishers, 2001
6. Prescott, John E. and Miller, Stephen H. Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons from the Trenches. Wiley Publishers, 2001
7. Tzu, Sun. Attack by Stratagem. The Art of War. Tzu, Sun. NuVision Publications, LLC – Publisher. 2005.
8. Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for A Management Revolution, HarperPerennial: A division of Harper Collins Publishers, 1991.
9. Sharma, Shveta. Leadership: How Princes Should Keep Faith.
10. France Bouthillier and Kathleen Shearer, Understanding knowledge management and information management: the need for an empirical perspective, October 2002. http://informationr.net/ir/8-1/paper141.html
11. Innovation Vs. Implementation, Business Innovation Insider, <http://www.businessinnovationinsider.com/2005/11/06-week/>

Posted by Shveta Sharma at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, has been ranked fifth on Forbes magazine's list of the world's 100 Most Powerful Women. (money.cnn.com). She has also been named as one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in America.
Since joining PepsiCo in 1994, Ms. Nooyi has been leading worldwide strategic initiatives, merger, and acquisition and divestiture activities for the company. More significantly, in the last five years Ms. Nooyi has played a key role in developing successful recruitment strategies within PepsiCo, resulting in a share price that has appreciated almost 80 percent. (www.Hunt-scanlon.com)
Under her leadership, PepsiCo has overtaken Coca Cola, one of the oldest rivals, to be at number one position. She believes in constantly reinventing to stay ahead in the race. She says, “The minute you've developed a new business model, it's extinct, because somebody is going to copy it."(money.cnn.com). Her high degree of dedication, vision, focus and strategically using the competitive intelligence to her company’s advantage is what makes her an ideal leader

REFERENCES

1. Fortune: 50 most powerful women http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/fortune/mostpowerfulwomen/1.html2. Press Release Archives. “Hunt-Scanlon to Name Indra K. Nooyi of PepsiCo As Human Capital Award Recipient at February Conference. http://www.hunt-scanlon.com/releases/2001/010201.htm

Posted by Shveta Sharma at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The author, John W. Gardner in the chapter, Leadership in Large-Scale Organized systems, states that a leader should have the ability to work with not just the segments of the organization he is assigned to, but also with the entire organization as a whole. He says that, “Leaders must understand not only the intricate organizational patterns of their own segment but also the workings of neighboring segments.” (Gardner, 1995, p.298)

Problems associated with large-scale organizations

The size of a large scale organization can cause lot of problems. “In large organizations the chain of command becomes excessively long. Decisions are slowed and adventurous moves blocked by too many screening points and multiple sign-offs.” (Gardner, 1995, p.299) In such an environment, a worker feels like an anonymous person with no sense of responsibility.
In such an environment, effective leaders try to pay more attention to people and open a two way communication with them. Participation from the workers is encouraged. This induces a sense of belonging in the workers. (Gardner, 1995, p.300)
As Tom peters says, “Listen constantly, congregate, or share ideas/information, and recognize achievement.” (Peters, 1998, 366).

Turf Syndrome
The author quotes Henry Ford, who referring to conflicts between his chief lieutenants says, “I try to remind them that the enemy is not the guy across the hall. It’s the guys out there selling Chevy’s and Hondas.” (Gardner, 1995, p.301)
According to the author, it’s not the competitors that cause the real damage to the company but the enmity between the coworkers. An effective leader should be able to encourage informal exchange among the workers so as to overcome the enmity. As the author states, “Effective leaders tear down rigid internal walls and bureaucratic enclaves, counter segmental loyalties through the creation of working groups that cut across boundaries, and foster informal exchange throughout the organization.” (Gardner, 1995, p.302)

REFERENCES

1. Gardner. John W. “Leadership in Large-Scale Organized systems." The Leader’s Companion. J. Thomas Wren. New York, New York: Free Press, 1995.
2. “Listen/Celebrate/Recognize.” Thriving On Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution, Peters, Tom. Harper Perennial: A division of HarperCollins publishers. 1998

Posted by Shveta Sharma at 01:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” John Quincy Adams
All over the world, people realize the importance of leadership for the betterment of an organization, be it a company or a nation. It would have been extremely difficult for India to get freedom without Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or achieve biracial harmony in South Africa without the guidance of a leader like Nelson Mandela. As Napoleon Bonaparte says, “A Leader is the dealer in hope.”(www.brainyquote.com)
Leaders are people with a knack to create relationships. They have a vision and the ability to motivate and inspire their people to work towards that vision and hence make it a common shared vision. A good leader will help to rescue even the most obviously failing strategy.

According to Paul Piers Read, “Leadership is a complex phenomenon involving the leader, followers and situation.”(Wren, 1995, p.39) A lot of times people tend to use the terms leadership and management interchangeably. However, both of these are two very different ways of organizing people.
The primary focus of a leader is the people working under him. Leadership operates in an environment based on trust. On the other hand, a manger tends to focus on the system and structure and how to assemble the people to get the job at hand done. In other words, leaders lead the people and managers manage the work at hand.
Leaders try to increase the strengths of the people and the organization. On the other hand, managers try to focus on the weaknesses and how to go about reducing them. A leader’s job is to create such an environment that helps motivate his people to do something new, unique and different. It might have risks of failure but a leader realizes that in order to bring about positive long term changes, it is important that the people learn from their own mistakes.
On the other hand a manager tries to avoid anything that might be risky. He likes to manage the people and the resources at hand according to principles or values that have already been established that ensure stability in the company.
To sum it all, Dr Stephen Covey says, “Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out." (Covey, 1990, p.146)

REFERNCES

- Covey, Stephen R. “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful lessons in Personal Change.”, Franklin Covey Co., 1990.

- Wren, J. Thomas. The leader’s Companion: Insights on Leadership Through the Ages, New York: Free Press, 1995.

- John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States (1825-1829), Thinkexist.com
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/john_quincy_adams/

- http://www.brainyquote.com/

Posted by Shveta Sharma at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)