8-2 Project Two: Statement of Leadership

8-2 Project Two: Statement of Leadership

Shanon Beck

Bus-210 Managing/Leading in Business

December 13th, 2023

Over these past eight weeks, I learned so much about what makes someone a leader manager, as well as the differences between being a leader and being a manager. I really enjoyed this course as it has helped me develop a lot as a leader by learning about my personality traits, leadership style, and the many different ways of leading a team. My strongest leadership skills would have to be leading by example and serving my associates to the best of my ability. I prefer to lead from the front, and set the example of how I want something done, work side-by-side with my associates to inspire them to do the best that they can.

Being a strong leader is important as it sets the tone for the entire workplace, being a leader in the workplace, whether you are one by title or by action… inspires others to go above and beyond, keeps the workplace organized, and pushes the team towards the common goals. While being a leader is important, you also have to know when to follow. I myself, often learn from my associates and other managers, and that’s a good thing. Knowing when to follow and to listen allows you to grow as an individual and as a leader.

Additionally, my personal leadership style is democratic and participative, but I still ultimately have the final say when it comes to important decisions. I prefer to give my associates a voice in the conversation and hear them out when they have an idea that might be better than what I have them doing … I have found that to be very innovative in how my workplace runs and has led to my team adopting a lot more efficient policies than what I had originally intended. I plan to continue this leadership style into the future, but I would like to implement many more ways for my associates to be involved and feel like their heard … especially in the form of daily huddles and giving them more autonomy when it comes to day-to-day activities.

7-3 Project One: Organizational Evaluation Proposal

7-3 Project One: Organizational Evaluation Proposal

Shanon Beck

BUS-210 Managing/Leading in Business

December 9th, 2023

Speaker Notes:

Slide 1: 7-3 Project One: Organizational Evaluation Proposal

- Hello, my name is Shanon Beck, and I have been recently hired as the new manager of the SNHU Pet Supply Company. The purpose of this presentation is to introduce and implement my management style, as well as go over several concerns and points important to our employees.

Slide 2: Introduction

- The SNHU Pet Supply company started like any other small business right here in Manchester, New Hampshire, and has since expanded to include 200 employees based in Manchester, as well as a satellite office in Denver, Colorado, which employs 100 pet enthusiasts. Alongside our office staff, the SNHU Pet Supply company also employs an extensive digital workforce, numbering over 300 employees. These past few years, we’ve seen rapid growth and expansion due to consumer demand for our products.

Slide 3: Leadership and Management

- The goal of being in a leadership position is to influence employees to work towards the common organizational goals (Soomo Learning, 2023) by ensuring inter-communication for ease of information, developing employee relationships, and building a culture that promotes diversity and inclusion. I believe I am a strong leader because of my high level of openness, high level of conscientiousness, and low neuroticism. According to my self-assessment, I have a democratic and participatory leadership style that builds trust and confidence with employees during high-stress situations (Soomo Learning, 2023). Our company needs to put diversity and inclusion at the forefront of our goals to ensure innovativeness and competitiveness in today’s market, as well as implement an open-door policy to encourage our employees to speak up and share ideas or concerns.

Slide 4: Followership

- My personality traits are that I am highly open, have high conscientiousness, high agreeableness, and extraversion, as well as low neuroticism. These personality traits allow me to be heavily social, friendly and someone that people want to be around. Additionally, I am an active listener and have been told by many employees in the past that they felt heard by me. I am innovative and open to change but will be assertive when I need to be. I can be calm in stressful situations but know when to act quickly. These personality traits will allow me to lead our business in a competitive and inclusive way.

Slide 5: Decision-Making Models

- The two most used decision-making models are the rational and intuitive models. The rational model is the most used model by leaders and managers (Soomo Learning, 2023). The rational model uses an eight-step process to determine the decision, while the intuitive decision model is based on a gut instinct formulated by a leader's past experiences, decisions, and knowledge. Both of these models have their place in our company, but the rational model is the best fit to ensure that we are making the best possible decision for our company, employees, and stakeholders.

Slide 6: Emotional Intelligence

- Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand your emotions and those of people around you. (Soomo, 2023) Being able to practice self-regulation and self-awareness is a cornerstone to the goals of our company and to the fundamental need to be diverse and inclusive. I have scored a higher level of emotional intelligence, leading me to be a strong leader when it comes to understanding our employees and making them feel at home while working. But this does not end at me; all managers are required to practice an open-door policy under my leadership, keep their door open literally and metaphorically to our employees, by practicing this policy it will lead to increased morale and emotional well-being for our employees.

Slide 7: Forms and Functions

- The SNHU Pet Supply Company currently uses a heavily centralized organizational culture, which leads to most decisions being made by high-level managers, decreasing the innovativeness and morale of our employees. Decentralization makes employees feel more comfortable and empowered in their workplace (Soomo Learning, 2023), giving them more authority when it comes to the day-to-day operations of the company increasing innovativeness and the efficiency of our operations.

Slide 8: Communication Practices

- In the past, the company has had a very decentralized network of communication methods, leading to each department and branch relying on different forms of communication. This has caused a delay in communication, impacting morale and productivity. My recommendation is that communication standards be set for all branches and departments, as well as standard communication medians. I suggest that G-Suite becomes our primary communication medium due to its vast number of communication possibilities, from text-based to conference-style meetings, as well as how innovative it is in today's world. Additionally, we must ensure team huddles are taken place both between managers as well as with employees to ensure inter-departmental communication.

Slide 9: Organization Mission, Vision and Goals

- Our company’s mission is to provide high-quality products of all types to our customers and their pets, which ties into our organizational goals of making products more affordable for our customers, increasing the efficiency in how our products are delivered, as well as increasing employee satisfaction. The importance of our mission has brought together a large and diverse group of pet owners dedicated to providing high-quality products for the sake of the pets that we are passionate about. --- Having a rich organizational mission, vision, and goals is important to our employees, as it makes them feel proud to work for us. It’s also important to our customers, as it lets them know what kind of company their money is going to, and the cause behind our company.

Slide 10: References

Soomo Learning. (2023). Managing and leading in business (2nd ed.).

    https://www.webtexts.com/

6-3 Assignment Organizational Structures

6-3 Assignment Organizational Structures

Shanon Beck

Bus-210 Managing/Leading in Business

December 1st, 2023

I have been asked by the HR department to design a new organizational structure to combat the various issues that have arisen from our current structure and company processes. These issues are communication between departments, inefficiencies in completing projects on time, and managers feeling overwhelmed due to the scope of their responsibilities. In order to achieve the desired outcomes, I moved the structure around to give each department rapid access to a variety of specialty roles, as well as decrease the workload of the department manager.

By giving each department, except the HR department, an employee of each role, it allows for quicker access to each of their specialties, improving the communication and on-time completion of projects. Additionally, I moved the project manager role to be directly under the department(s) manager, to relieve the manager of some of the work involved in supervising a project, which requires the knowledge specialty that a project manager has, as well as freeing them up to focus on the back-end of the department and ensure communication between teams is efficient and lively.

5-3 Assignment: Socially Responsible Practice Recommendations

5-3 Assignment: Socially Responsible Practice Recommendations

Shanon Beck

Bus-210: Managing/Leading in Business

November 23rd, 2023

Social responsibility is the idea that companies should be concerned about the welfare of society and how their actions impact the world as a whole. (Soomo Learning, 2023) These concerns and actions could include fighting hunger, animal welfare, or providing low-income housing. TOMS Shoes and The Body Shop are two examples of socially responsible companies. TOM Shoes has pledged to invest 1/3rd of their profits into grassroots goods in order to drive equity and sustainability. TOMS Shoes provides cash grants to community movements and organizations in order to support each communities unique needs.

The Body Shop’s purpose is to fight for a fairer, more equal, and just world, to empower Women and Girls, and to promote the belief that everyone is beautiful. According to their website, they source all of their ingredients and products ethically to avoid animal cruelty, negative impacts on the climate, and exploitation of farmers. They are committed to being a leader of change in the beauty industry.

Socially responsible practices and procedures benefit a company by improving public relations and the community that the company is based in, a favorable opinion leads to more sales and more competitiveness in the hiring process. Social responsibility leads to workers having more pride in their work, being less likely to act in a way that is not becoming of company expectations, and motivates them to go above and beyond.

Our recommendation for the SNHU Pet Supply Company would be to introduce a number of socially responsible practices and procedures to be more ethical and sustainable. Our suggestions would be to review where all products is sourced from and how to ensure that it is ethically sourced and does not exploit local communities. As well as establishing a fund to combat animal cruelty, working with animal shelters, the ASPCA and other organizations driven to combat cruelty. Doing this will lead to a more favorable opinion of the SNHU Pet Company and instill pride in both our employees and customers.

Works Cited

Soomo Learning. (2023). Managing and leading in business (2nd ed.).

4-3 Assignment: Organizational Culture and Leadership

4-3 Assignment: Organizational Culture and Leadership

Shanon Beck

Bus-210: Managing/Leading in Business

November 18th, 2023

The company I currently work for is (blank). Our mission statement is “To save people money so that they can live better,” while our vision statement is “to be the destination for customers to save money, no matter how they want to shop.” As a manager for (blank), I have seen these values reflected every day, and I myself have to ensure that they are reflected in our everyday activities wherever possible. For example, we’ve been putting a heavy emphasis on rollbacks and dropping prices during this holiday season to ensure that everyone can save money on their Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, as well as organizing our vast Black Friday deals to offer great discounts on general merchandise.

I like to think my store has a reasonably good culture that we’ve built, which has impacted employee morale and wellness significantly. For example, our mission to “Save Money, Live Better” also applies to employees; this year, we’re giving an additional 15% off for employees, closing the store for Thanksgiving, and offering a variety of discounts on travel and outside deals for the holidays. The culture of my individual store also impacts employee morale, which I have seen both positive and negative effects. For example, recently, we seen a shift in allocated hours, moving hours from the daytime to the night-time shift. This had a positive impact on our overnight team but negatively affected our day-time team by limiting the staff available for customer service and day-to-day activities, which is not aligned with company values.

For my direct reports, I feel like I’ve done a really good job for them, and my leadership style and traits are what decide that. I work directly alongside my employees, striving to work harder than anyone else to relieve the stress on my workers so they can focus on customer service and ensuring in-stock availability. I feel I connect heavily with our organizational goals, and have strived to live up to them, even when upper management isn’t.

3-2 Assignment Leadership Map

3-2 Assignment Leadership Map

2-3 Assignment Management Approaches

2-3 Assignment Management Approaches

Shanon Beck

BUS-210: Managing/Leading in Business

November 4th, 2023

Hello, SNHU Pet Supply Company management team. Thank you for reaching out to us about your concerns in regard to employee productivity and satisfaction. I am providing the following report to give an overview of the identified issues between the managers and team associates, including a brief overview of your concerns, employee feedback, and my suggestions for your team going forward.

To give an overview of the concerned issues as discussed with management and based on feedback from team associates; management states that they are simply following the management style that has been laid out by company guidelines and has been followed for years, in-spite of the reports by team associates that they are under undue stress. This stress is reportedly caused by associates being overworked, micromanaged, and not used to their full potential according to their specific skill sets. As well as the deadlines and expectations set by management.

Within the current workplace, the management style being followed is a traditional management style; as in the manager is viewed as the “boss”, and the employees are expected to follow every direction given to them and do it exactly how they tell them to do it. This is causing great conflict between the managers and employees, especially as it does not take into account specific and individual skill sets and strengths. Alongside the traditional management style there are several other management styles, including the contemporary style, which is a new modern style of leadership that introduces a number of management roles. Including top, general, line and staff managers, all of whom have different organizational responsibilities.

The top manager is there to assist in developing a strategy, and vision for the organization as a whole, while a general manager needs to communicate that message and ensure that it is being followed. A staff manager is responsible for employee-related concerns, while a line manager is responsible for production. (Soomo Learning, 2023)

As we we go forward, my recommendation would be for a contemporary management style to be introduced into the workplace. A contemporary management style will provide employees with the freedom to utilize their skill set to the best of their ability, as well as give them a sense of empowerment and accomplishment in their day-to-day workplace, as well as decrease the stress caused by the feeling of being overwhelmed and micromanaged to the point that they don’t feel like they can ever catch up.

Works Cited

“Chapter 2, Section 3 Type of Managers.” Managing and Leading in Business.

1-3 Assignment Leadership Assessment and Reflection

1-3 Assignment Leadership Assessment and Reflection

Shanon Beck

October 26th, 2023

I was not surprised about the results of my Big Five personality traits assessment, although it did help me better understand my leadership style and how I can better refine my leadership skills. I scored high on my openness, which I have always prided myself on; I am always looking for ways to improve the workplace for my team and instill change to improve my company as a whole. I scored very high on Conscientiousness, which I am semi-surprised about as while I thrive on organization, my developmental disabilities make it much harder for me to achieve and keep up with, although I do find myself being a workaholic.

I scored moderately high on extraversion, which I am very surprised about, as while I do find myself being very sociable on occasion, especially with my team. I am not an overly social individual outside of my workplace, and rather I lack quite a lot of social skills due to my disabilities. I do find myself being able to be assertive when I need to, but also open and accommodating depending on the situation, which has helped me foster a very agreeable and accepting work environment for my team, raising morale and productivity. This leads me to how I scored moderately high on agreeableness, which I am not surprised at all. I do not enjoy conflict and would rather work with my team side-by-side instead of trying to solve everything with an iron hammer. I unsurprisingly scored low on Neuroticism, which I believe helps me a lot with my leadership at (blank), especially during the long and hard holiday months.

Ultimately, I believe my high score on extraversion and agreeableness has helped me be a wonderful leader to my team, especially compared to our other “leaders,” are have relied more heavily on an authoritarian style of leadership. Additionally, leadership impacts an organization in many, many ways … it can impact the flow of a workplace, employee turnover, and customer experience. Having a true leader manager will lead to a better customer experience, lower employee turnover and ultimately high sale margins than if an organization had a lack of leadership.