Week 8: Selling the Vision

Authentic leaders have some basic characteristics that employees trust and find inspiring. These characteristics include embodying a positive mind-set, using a moral rationale, being aware of oneself, and having a moral compass to guide decisions so the leader can remain balanced in self-adjusting behavior and being open and honest about his or her practices. Transparency is that frank and honest behavior authentic leaders embody. Your Discussion question will relate to transparency.

Your Assignment will culminate with the business case study involving Dr. Craig Marsh. In fact, you now have an understanding of the challenges Dr. Marsh faced as he was delegated with the responsibility of changing the organizational culture for his team. You placed yourself in his position, you considered his challenges as well as his strengths, and you have adopted a model for corporate change. This week, you will compile the elements of organizational change and cultural change philosophy into one PowerPoint presentation and include your strategic plan to sell your vision to your organizational team.

Learning Objectives

Independent scholars will:

• Evaluate appropriate use of transparency by leadership in organizations
• Create a strategy for realizing a leader’s vision

Learning Resources

Note: To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.

Required Readings

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

• Review Chapter 8, “Transformational Leadership” (pp. 161–194)
  Consider the following two scenarios:
  

  Scenario 1

  Employees work in an atmosphere of distrust and fear. Leaders make decisions behind closed doors. Changes to processes and staffing often occur unexpectedly without warning or explanation. A few select people are given information and guard it jealously. Most employees do not get an opportunity to give input or feedback.

  Scenario 2

  Employees work in a small company where everyone knows everything about everyone and the rumor mill runs rampant. Leadership gives both praise and reprimands in public. They frequently discuss employees’ personal affairs.

  These scenarios illustrate two extremes of transparency in business. Maintaining the right degree of transparency is a challenge for many organizations. Some leaders operate their organizations with an open-book management style. Others believe in carefully maintaining the security of information. Leaders must determine the appropriate level of transparency necessary for their organizations to stay healthy.To prepare for this Discussion, consider your experience with transparency of information and decision making in organizations of which you have been a part, such as businesses or schools.

  By Day 3

  Post your evaluation of the appropriate use of transparency in an organization. In your analysis, be sure to address the following:

  • Explain what you believe to be the most appropriate level of transparency for an organization.
  • Identify any instances in which transparency would not be a good strategy.
  • Explain how a leader might exert influence-using transparency.

  Be sure to support your work with a minimum of two specific citations from this week’s Learning Resources and one or more additional scholarly sources.Refer to the Week 8 Discussion Rubric for specific grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use this rubric to assess your work.