Week 5 discussion
The 21st Century leader has some unique leadership
challenges
Theme one is to define the four major qualities necessary to
be a successful 21st century leader. Adaptability (change leader), knowledge
management, sustainability, cultural diversity, gender, and generational
diversity
Learning Activity 1
Augustina Artos, a 25 year old female graduate of Harvard
Business School, has just been appointed to the job of Director of Finance in a
medium size business. Her immediate junior in the business, Jacob Jones is a 53
year old long term employee of the business. He was passed over for her job.
Referencing this week’s material create the opening
interview between Artos and Jones on her first day. Identify all the issues that might be
suggested by this fact pattern. In your conversation with Jones be sure to have
Artos deal with all the identified issues using her “leadership relationship
building skills”.
Learning Activity 2
Top executives and board members of a large international
bank in New York are meeting to consider three finalists for a new position.
The winning candidate will be in a high-profile job, taking charge of a group
of top loan officers who have recently gotten the bank into some risky
financial arrangements in the Middle East. The bank had taken a financial bath
when the dollar dove in the past few years especially in their Yemen office
because of their risky loans.
The board voted to hire someone to directly oversee this
group of loan officers and to make sure the necessary due diligence is done on
major loans before further commitments are made. Although the bank prefers for
decisions to be made as close to the action level as possible, they believe the
loan officers have gotten out of hand and need to be reined in. The average age
of the all-male group is 39.
The effectiveness of the person in this new position is
considered to be of utmost importance for the bank’s future. They are also
aware that certain cultural differences have made the problem even harder to
solve. They need a candidate who will know how to work with the Yemen employees
and has some knowledge of the customs and language of the country.
After carefully reviewing résumés, the board selected six
candidates for the first round of interviews, after which the list of finalists
was narrowed to two. Both candidates seem to have the intellect and experience
to handle the job. Before the second-round interview, the board has decided to
ask you to devise a set of questions that will help to elicit the information
as to how familiar the candidates are with handling the cultural diversity
issues the job will present. For your information one candidate is female the
other male. The male candidate is 34 while the female is 36. Both candidate are
attractive and single.
In addition to the reading for the week you may want to
research on the internet some of the cultural bias issues unique to the Yemen
culture. (Hint consider women in the Arab workplace
