Dec' 19

The Effective Executive

Focus

Employee engagement is an extremely critical parameter that has direct impact on several positive business outcomes. Engaging and retaining talent is a business essential of utmost significance. The current issue of the journal focuses on �Engaging and Retaining Talent� and shares various leadership and organizational initiatives that contribute to effective talent engagement and retention.

The issue carries five handpicked papers that are in line with the focus of the edition, i.e., �Engaging and Retaining Talent�. The first paper, �Responsible Leadership and Engaging and Retaining Talent� by Colin Coulson-Thomas, articulates the definition, the actions and the role of a responsible leader. The author asserts that responsible leadership involves acting responsibly towards various stakeholders in an organization, while at the same time acting responsibly towards the environment and wider society. The author advises that acting responsibly towards them can involve ensuring stakeholders are properly supported and enabled to do what is expected of them. The paper articulates the characteristics and competencies of a responsible leader towards engaging and retaining talent.

The second paper is �Achieving Sustainable High-Impact Improvement with the �7-C-Butterfly Bow Tie�� Model: An Innovative Leadership Paradigm for Positive In-Depth Transformation� authored by Kai-Alexander Schlevogt. Schlevogt, an expert in strategic leadership, has created a framework called �7-C-Butterfly Bow Tie�� model that captures the critical components required for effective leadership. He asserts that effective leaders play a pivotal role in bringing about positive and lasting transformation in different walks of life. Citing the rising levels of uncertainty and complexity in the business environments, he introduces his �7-C-Butterfly Bow Tie�� model, which includes various components of leadership, making it possible for leaders to unleash the energy in the organization towards growth.

The third paper is �Personal and Interpersonal Assertiveness of Female Leaders in Skilled Technical Roles� by Kurt April and Namuziya Sikatali. As the title indicates, the paper focuses on the dynamics around women leaders at the workplaces. The paper shares the challenges that women leaders confront in the male-dominated workplaces. The authors lament over the research findings that women receive a lot of negative feedback about their assertiveness, misconstrued as their aggressiveness. The paper is a result of the research conducted by April and Sitakali, which captures several challenges that exist for female leaders, along with recommendations for aspiring leaders.

The fourth paper, �The Actions of Leadership� by Dan Coughlin, focuses on specific actions leaders can take to influence a group of people to achieve something truly remarkable. The paper is centered on some critical leadership aspects like clarifying the quest, nurturing relationships, effective communication, etc.

The final paper of this issue is �Working with Different Generations at the Workplace: Challenges for Leaders� by Stephanie Jones, Parth Chauhan and Amirbahador Torabian. The paper articulates the various characteristics, priorities, tendencies and preferences of people across various generations. The authors draw comparisons across the four generations who occupy a workplace, who are all at various stages of their career, the four generations being Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y and Generation Z. The paper very well brings out the challenges faced at the workplace that arise due to the variations and hence the conflicts across the generations. It offers several suggestions and potential solutions towards creating a harmonious and conducive climate at the workplace despite the inter-generational complexities.



-KBS Kumar
Consulting Editor

Article   Price (₹)
Responsible Leadership and Engaging and Retaining Talent
100
Achieving Sustainable High-Impact Improvement with the �7-C-Butterfly Bow Tie�� Model: An Innovative Leadership Paradigm for Positive In-Depth Transformation
100
Personal and Interpersonal Assertiveness of Female Leaders in Skilled Technical Roles
100
The Actions of Leadership
100
Working with Different Generations at the Workplace: Challenges for Leaders
100
Contents : (Dec'19)

Responsible Leadership and Engaging and Retaining Talent
Colin Coulson-Thomas

Responsible leadership involves acting responsibly towards an organization�s stakeholders. Engaging and retaining talent can be a particular challenge. The people of an organization represent a key group of stakeholders. Acting responsibly towards them can involve ensuring they are properly supported and enabled to do what is expected of them, and in particular that they are helped to understand complex areas and undertake difficult and on occasion stressful tasks. Talent Management 2 involves providing practical, accessible, affordable and easy to use support that enables key workgroups to excel at key tasks and deliver multiple benefits for individuals, organizations and the environment.


© 2019 All Rights Reserved.

Article Price : Rs.100

Achieving Sustainable High-Impact Improvement with the �7-C-Butterfly Bow Tie�� Model: An Innovative Leadership Paradigm for Positive In-Depth Transformation
Kai-Alexander Schlevogt

Throughout history, leaders have played a pivotal role in bringing about positive in-depth transformation in different walks of life. In contrast to the artful interventions of helmsmen in the past, nowadays, many executives facing increasing uncertainty and complexity in their external environments and inside their institutions are introducing ever more sophisticated guidelines. They thus hope to standardize behavior and reduce risks as a result. Those imperfect rigid codifications of past insights, crafted in the absence of complete knowledge, are bound to elicit wrong responses in rapidly changing environments with many unforeseen events happening. Given the key role of leadership for institutional and personal success and the current leadership void due to abdication in favor of rules, it is high time to reconnect to timeless wisdom and ensure that movers and shakers again take over the steering wheel to avoid implosion or explosion at various levels of aggregation. The new �7-C-Butterfly Bow Tie�� (BBT) model includes various components of leadership, making it possible for helmsmen to unleash seemingly unlimited individual and collective energy in the pursuit of noble objectives.


© 2019 All Rights Reserved.

Article Price : Rs.100

Personal and Interpersonal Assertiveness of Female Leaders in Skilled Technical Roles
Kurt April and Namuziya Sikatali

The skilled technical industries in the emerging economy of South Africa are mostly male-dominated and, in some cases, there are no females present at all. However, for the few female leaders who are in this industry, there are different means with which they assert themselves based on the levels of preparedness and how much support they receive on both personal and professional basis. Research has shown that women receive a lot of backlash and negative feedback when they are faced with situations in which they need to assert themselves, and are often referred to as aggressive. In similar circumstances, the same assertion is seen more favorably for their male counterparts, and this personal capability is ascribed to good- and goal-directed leadership, resulting in their receiving far less backlash and even praise and admiration. Our research took a qualitative approach and deployed a deep-insights phenomenological strategy to explore the lived experiences of 20 participants from technically-skilled South African workspaces. We sought to understand the ways in which skilled female leaders assert themselves from both a personal and an onlookers� perspective, as well as gain insight on the coping mechanisms that were employed by these female leaders in the face of workplace backlash. The results highlighted some of the challenges that exist for female leaders, and we also present a number of recommendations for emerging and aspiring leaders.


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Article Price : Rs.100

The Actions of Leaderships
Dan Coughlin

Leaders distinguish themselves by their actions, not by their titles, income, gender, race, size, or personality type. Leaders share certain actions in common. It is through their actions that they emerge as leaders. In this paper, we will focus on specific actions you can take to influence a group of people to achieve something truly remarkable.


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Article Price : Rs.100

Working with Different Generations at the Workplace: Challenges for Leaders
Stephanie Jones, Parth Chauhan and Amirbahador Torabian

A typical workplace can include four different generations, all working together. How can leaders deal effectively with them? Generation Z is just entering the workforce� these are the money-conscious, entrepreneurial and individualistic young first-level entry hires, born between 1997 and 2015. Meanwhile, Generation Y or Millennials� born between 1981 and 1996, and more keen on work-life balance�already make up a large proportion of employees. Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980 and trying to keep up with technology, are often in management roles, whilst Baby Boomers (born after the World War II�in the 1940s to 1960s), known for being workaholic and disciplined, are now either retired or on the point of retirement. What are the attitudes toward tasks at the workplace and what are the values and priorities of these generations, as employees or bosses themselves? These issues are among the challenges experienced by leaders in managing many aspects of workplace diversity.


© 2019 All Rights Reserved.

Article Price : Rs.100