Feature Article
Leadership – The means to transform your future
James MacGregor Burns’ book Leadership, describes two types of leadership: “transactional” and “transforming.” Burns writes, “The relations of most leaders and followers are transactional - leaders approach followers with an eye to exchanging one thing for another…Transforming leadership, while more complex, is more potent. The transforming leader recognizes and exploits an existing need of demand of a potential follower. The transforming leader looks for potential motives in followers, seeks to satisfy higher needs, and engages the full person of the follower. The result of transforming leadership is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents.” Which leader are you?
Do you engage your suppliers, external service providers, fellow employees, and business associates as a means to achieving an end goal, that being to achieve a certain level of business success for you and your company? Do you see yourself, and your overall objective, as contributing to a broader societal objective, perhaps trying to develop relationships of mutual benefit, development and growth? Outcomes that have a exponential win-win for all engaged parties.
Many of us spend a significant portion of our lives in pursuit of business and career endeavors. In light of the aforementioned comments, what is the context in which you pursue your business goals? Have you taken time to reflect on this area? If not, perhaps doing so might bring a new context from which to succeed, contribute, and provide a legacy of business achievements.
What would your day be like if instead of operating from a context of what can I get accomplished today you shifted your objective to how many people can I contribute to and create value for today? If you focused your efforts outward instead of inward would your leadership style alter and thus become more impactful for you and all you lead? Would the result be an exponential level of business performance for your work teams and your customers? I say it absolutely would.
As a business leader it’s important to develop a powerful context in which your work teams can develop, learn, and gain satisfaction for their contributions. People want to feel wanted, to be provided an atmosphere where they can contribute and explore new ways of making a difference, and to ultimately feel aligned with the company’s vision and operating objectives. You’re role as a leader is to get the best productivity out of your resources and to do so it requires a transforming leader willing to inspire and lead yourself, and others, to new heights of achievement.
The staff at ASIL is experienced in assisting companies with creating powerful futures from which to achieve new levels of leadership. We assist your leadership team with envisioning the future for your company, assessing and understanding your core competencies, and developing roadmaps to new levels of success. We have a proven track record of pragmatic solutions and welcome the opportunity to serve you and your clients. Call us today and let us help you achieve new areas of profitability and success in this ever changing economy.
Contributed by Warren White
July Spotlight
Letting go is hard to do
‘Letting go is hard to do’ is much easier said than done. Whether you are a manager, a parent, a coach, or even the President, letting go is hard to do. For some it is more difficult to do than others and it can create a feeling of a loss of control.
Holding on too tight can have a negative effect in many ways. It can limit one’s personal growth and opportunities. The energy consumed in such a tight focus creates blind spots all around you. It can become increasingly difficult for those influenced by you to grow, as you become the limiter to change and even success.
In the work place we see this happen every day. Whether it is the new employee trying to learn their responsibilities from someone that feels no one can do it as well as they could. Or the people that trickle out bit by bit the keys to your success as they continue to hold you in check. It happens at a peer to peer level as frequently as it happens within the management ranks.
Letting go to grow in the business world requires confidence and trust in your co-workers. It requires clarity of direction and accountabilities. Many fears of letting go are based in deeper concerns related to having the right foundations, guidelines and standards in place to operate. Do the checks and balances to measure, learn and grow exist in your world? If not, then it is more likely that it will be difficult to transition activities and responsibilities. This can be evidenced through increased time to transition activities, or the incomplete transfer of knowledge.
All of these impacts are part of a larger issue. A cultural issue tied to the heart of any organization. Do people live in fear to survive or are they encouraged to be bold and thrive? Learning to let go is about building the right mechanics so that the entity can operate predictably. The professionals of ASIL have established an approach to help companies identify the obstacles that make them hold on so tight that it stifles their ability to grow.
The bottom line is that you can’t hold on to everything and then expect to take on more. Focus on building the bridges that transform individuals into teams that can enable companies to expand and prosper. Are you ready to let go to grow? Contact ASIL, Inc. for help in letting go in order to grow.
Contributed by Peter Pazmany
Industry Trends
Sustainable Packaging To Grab 32% Of Market By 2014
Sustainable packaging will grow to 32% of the total global packaging market by 2014, up from just 21% in 2009, according to a new study from Pike Research. This translates into a market opportunity of over $160 billion for producers of sustainable packaging.
Plastic based packaging, which represents 35% of all materials used, will be the fastest growing sector of the sustainable packaging market over the next five years. Metal based packaging, one of the easiest materials to recycle, will continue to be the sector with the highest percentage of sustainability – by 2014, more than 63% of metal based packaging will be environmentally friendly.
“The $429 billion global packaging industry is huge but extremely fragmented, with no clear market leaders,” says Pike Research’s managing director Clint Wheelock. The move toward sustainable packaging represents a broad based effort by manufacturers, retailers, industry groups, and governments to promote the design of minimal packaging that can be easily reclaimed or reused. Innovation is going into reducing energy requirements to manufacturing packaging, using recyclable materials, and developing multi-use packaging.
Today, the demands on packaging are greater than ever. As the world population continues to grow, the packaging industry must react to new issues that often were never even considered in the past. Concerns such as the energy required to produce and transport packaging and the pollution created during package manufacturing and use did not appear on our radar screen until the last quarter-century. Moreover, the problem of what to do with all that packaging once it has performed its function has only recently come into focus.
Contact ASIL, Inc. for help in turning your Supply Chain packaging opportunities into profits.
Contributed by Michael Singleton
Our Software Products
Click on the links below to view ASIL, Inc.'s MAX Partnering® self paced software demonstrations:
Self Assessment Sample Questionnaire - This demo will enable you to respond to a small sample of self assessment questions focused on change management and create a Heat Map of your responses to see areas that may need attention. The Driving Complex Change® methodology addresses the six areas of Direction, Ability, Incentive, Resources, Structure, and Action that can impact your effectiveness of change management.
