What kind of leader Am I ?” “Am I the General or the visionary or the Coach?”

Part 1

Question 1.

1. The two ultimate questions that the leaders need to ask themselves are- “What kind of leader Am I ?” “Am I the General or the visionary or the Coach?”
2. The two main aspects of leadership are-

Emotional resonance- intelligent leaders use this in the emotional climate of an organization for positivity and productivity.

Emotional dissonance- skilled leaders use this at the time of emergency to detach themselves from destructive emotions and find a suitable solution.

1. Leadership theory is theories that emphasize the traits that an individual possesses that enables him to become a great leader.
2. The two different types of leadership styles that are perfect for the VUCA environment are-Democratic leadership- it is the type of leadership that involves the participation of every individual of the team in giving their opinion in decision making. Transformational leadership– this leadership would also be appropriate for the new environment of VUCA as it involves innovation and creativity participation of the team by encouraging them.
3. The aspiring leaders should have an in-depth knowledge of the leadership styles with the pros and cons as it would help them to choose their preferred styles of leadership in the future.

Question 2

1. The mission of the organization is the core of the business, from where the objectives prevail and what takes to reach that objective is known as Mission.

The vision of the organization gives direction to the organization. It is a long term goal of where the organization wants to reach in the future.

1. The individuals can help in mission and vision by maintaining a great working environment and treating their co-workers with respect and dignity and by embracing diversity in the workplace, which would smooth out the business.
2. The contributions made by leaders in executing mission and vision are the efficient leaders perform the tasks in a strategic and well-planned manner so that they can reach the desired goals easily.
3. The stakeholders that are the government, communities, customers, and investors can also influence the mission and vision of an organization. The better the shareholders would understand the purpose of the organization, the better they would be able to corporate in the strategies and implementation.
4. The aspiring leaders must know the contributions of the above leaders, individuals, and stakeholders so that they can understand how each of them plays a vital role in achieving the mission and vision of the company.

Q3

Question

1. Leadership strategy is a means by which leaders use different styles of management, and create a vision for their organization to achieve; this helps to remain competitive in the changing dynamic environment.
2. Changed leadership is the ability of a leader to influence other’s thought processes by means of leadership, mission, and drive. Hence creating a social platform for change from traditional ways to betterment.
3. the organizational potential is the potentiality is the ability to increase the productivity, processes, or procedures to the organization’s best capability. It also involves the motivation and encouragement of the workforce.
4. business context is generally a context where special types of vocabulary are used.  This could be for a single business organization or a group of business organizations as a community or a specific project.
5. the aspiring leaders are required to learn the different ranges of strategies and its different business context to get benefited when they become leaders in future days, this would provide them with the confidence of knowledge skills and developed character if they have an idea beforehand were to utilize which strategy

Question 4

1. Motivation theory is the famous theory that was proposed by Abraham Maslow, where he explained motivation in the forms of needs and satisfaction arranged in a hierarchy.
2. The two categories of motivation are intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation generally occurs in an individual when they do the work that they love doing or finds interest in.

Extrinsic motivation occurs when an individual does something in order to earn a certain reward that can be in the form of gift or money or because of the fear of negative consequences.

1. The recent term that is used in the modern-day for employee motivation is Equity theory. The equity theory is based on the principals of individual fairness, and the employees identify the input and output ratios with themselves.
2. The appreciative inquiry theory is a changed management approach where the main focus lies in identifying the work well, then to analyze how that is working well, and then to practice it on the regular measure (Eva et al. 2019).
3. the aspiring leaders must have certain abilities to critically evaluate motivational theories as it would help them in motivating their employees and keep them interested and productive towards their work during the later days when they would become leaders.

Question 5

1.  I would describe my potential leadership styles as the Authoritative Leadership style, also known as the Visionary style. It is the leadership style where the followers need to follow their leaders; it is for the confident leaders who pave the way for the follows and sets expectation goals.
2.  the two main strengths that I have are-

Determination-  I believe I know what I want to do as a leader in my life. I never wanted to stay as an employee. I always wanted to be at the top of the game running an organization’s business.

Confident- I am always willing to push through all odds and drawbacks, this generates self-confidence in me. I always see positive aspects in every negative situation and bring out the positivity, which makes me a confident individual.

1. the two key challenges I face while any kind of volunteering are-

Delivering  Bad News- as one becomes the leader in any organization, he would face situations of the product fail or deadlines missed, or goals are not reached.

Stay motivated-  as a leader, I am always required to be motivated for big projects or even after failure.

1. the personal development that I would like to intake to become a leader in training to learn the techniques of a leader to influence other people to follow the right way.

Part 2

 Introduction

The assignment is on Star Bucks and the leadership tactics of the president and CEO of Starbucks Kelvin Johnson. In the assignment, it has been discussed what made Star Bucks stand out from the rest of its competitor and what unique servant leadership has been followed in the company, how Kelvin Johnson’s leadership has improved the performance of Star Bucks. Discussion of Kelvin Johnson, as an effective leader, has also been made in the assignment. Finally, ending it with two vital recommendations on the leadership of Johnson regarding sustainability and competitive advantage of Starbucks, followed by an appropriate conclusion.

Servant leadership style and Challenges in Starbucks

According to Robert K Greenleaf who for the first time coined the term Servant Leadership management explained the concept by stating it should begin as a selfless feeling of serving others, it should be a conscious choice made by the individual, it’s to make sure that all the highest priority needs of the individual are being served so that they can develop as a person who is healthier, freer, wiser and are ready themselves to serve their people as servants (Ziliani, 2019).

The CEO of Star bucks has been described as the true servant leader. He was the one who took the servant leader relationship to another level of success from the time he opted for the position of leader. As most of the leaders follow the concept of power, orders, instructions, and hierarchical positions and servants are to follow as instructed by their masters. It looks paradoxical when a person at the same time leads and also serves its people (Sork, 2019). The modern servant leadership model was launched in 1970. Wherein it was cleared, this main model concept is to keep the servants or to say the employees at priority even before the leader. Servant leadership has higher purposes; hence if the individuals of the organization recognize these higher purposes, then in a broader sense, everybody is servant to these higher purposes. The main aim of the servant leadership model in Starbucks is also to keep the people working there united, and it does not focus on only one individual or transcends any individual. It is this working culture of the organization that keeps the people united and maintains a similar understanding of every individual about the organization’s mission and vision (Snell and Lemley, 2017).

Hence it can be said that servant leaders are not the servants of the individuals that they lead. Servant leadership is not sole for helping people and being the best version of them. It is also about involving every one of the organizations to contribute their part in the growth of the organization. The broader definition of Starbucks on servant leadership is also applied to their stakeholders. Leadership is a very complex mixture of relationships, connections, and expectations. So if an organization wants to maintain the relationship and connection of the leader to his stakeholders like that of in Starbucks, the same concept of higher purpose needs is required to be shared for long-lasting and successful results (Chapter, 2017).

Servant leadership along with its association of hierarchy and the unequal power of dynamics, has not such a satisfying description of the concept. It can be said as the inadequate means of describing the requirements to place the greater goods that can be served. The reasons why most of the employees come to work at Starbucks as they believe they are making a difference in the relationship of the leadership and their themselves (Glowik, 2017).

Kelvin Johnson’s Leadership style

The critical evaluation of Kelvin Johnson’s leadership style on improvement of Starbucks financial performance, the ethical challenges and practices at Star bucks ,and the views of some of its employees (Thi, 2017). The following are the changes that Kelvin Johnson has brought about for its improvement-

Johnson was not afraid to bring about big changes

When Johnson entered Starbucks after leaving Juniper, he wanted to make big changes in the organization for better, and he knew he wants the changes within 12 to 18 months or else it would be let to bring about any big change. Hence he started making strategies of change involving his key people who include his leadership team, key customers, employees, and partners and investors of the board. Investing as much time as required to develop a big strategy for a massive change. From the first day of Star bucks, Johnson started making changes to improve the financial status of the organization (Gupta et al. 2018).

He kept his employees at first

A former colleague named Brad Brooks, who has worked with Johnson during his days at Microsoft and Juniper said that Johnson always keeps his employees motivated as he believes that they also influences the growth of the organization at a considerable amount (Logan, 2016).

Johnson was also reported to start his own internal program where an allowance was given to any employee who can submit an application for receiving funds to make his own project. Thus this innovative approach of Johnson enabled the employees to understand the creative and collaborative sides of themselves. Johnson also has the habit of meeting his employees in a friendly manner and learn as much as he could from them about their work and their own selves (Yu et al. 2016).

He takes technology and advancement as a crucial part of business

At the initial days of his starting career Kelvin Johnson was an engineer but later on his focus was mainly on marketing and sales as the business leader. But he always preferred working with tech teams who are expert in technologies, thus he showed how essential technologies are at recent times to run a business successfully. Johnson has always wanted to create a condition for his team where the individuals would be allowed to work independently and free excavating through their creative sides and innovations to create new products and advanced technologies (Alwaleed et al. 2019). Being the CEO, he conducted the coffee giant created its loyalty program and the reward mobile app as one of the significant source of revenue generation. The popularity has seen to also become an issue in the stores , where the lien for the mobile app orders is so lengthy that it often prevents some customers from entering and they prefer visiting elsewhere. Thus this discouragement of the customers and Starbucks losing its customers have worried Johnson. After which Johnson took the matter into his hand and introduced the voice recording technology where the customer can place their order either through Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. From the beginning Johnson believed that it is important to look into the sequence of an individual’s own decision making and action (Clements, 2019).

Having anon-defensive attitude and listen before speaking

Johnson believed that it is one of the most important thing that one can do. It makes individual specially a leader strong at the time of crisis. Defensiveness usually breeds anger which in most of the cases worsens the situation. The incident that took place and led into a shameful misshapen, Johnson himself took the effort and met the two effected man and listened to what they have to say in constructive dialogue. It always tempting to open mouth in defence but as a good leader he listened to the victims and what they have to say. Johnson is also a preacher of listening as progress begins with dialogue and dialogues begins with listening (Kelleher and Thelen, 2019).

Character as the corner stone is the ethical practice of anyone’s leadership. The following are the five ethical practices that are followed in Starbucks under the guidance of Kelvin Johnson after the mishap that has happened in Starbucks (Leduc, 2017).

• Creating community and encouraging ethical conducts
• Servant leadership style of management is followed there where the employees are always kept in priority. The leaders, managers see to it that all the employees of the organization are growing along with the growth of the company.
• Encouraging communication and collaboration among the employees
• A culture of healthy relationship among the employees, leaders and customers are maintained under the leadership of Kelvin Johnson.
• Starbucks entertain open forums in the working place where the employees can ask or communicate directly to their superiors (Talhelm et al.2018)
• Starbucks after the incident has started a policy of anti-discrimination in their organizational culture. Since then it has improved the connect and sharing of the employees among themselves and customers which has eventually gave a better shape to the organizational culture, facilitating the success (Peiritsch,  2019

Johnson as a personal brand for effective global leader

Johnson says that no matter whether one is an employee leader or an entrepreneur personal branding is important. He says his employees and his customers represent his organization and hence the employees are always kept at a priority at Starbucks. Another reason for a personal brand is that it has become more common in interviewing through social media at the time of recruitment. A survey gives the result that about 70% of the employers are using social medias to screen out candidates at the time of recruitment process. Personal branding can also be useful from the perspective of an employer. Companies are required to encourage their employees more for building a strong brand. Kelvin Johnson was able to build a strong brand for Starbucks and hence Starbucks have been doing good business since then.  When the employees are required to represent his companies name at an event, they not only develop themselves but gives the organization a respectable exposure. In this way the employees can get new customers in their business as well as retain the existing customers of the brand. Another reason Kelvin Johnson opted for personal branding is that in personal branding the reputation, fame, success and economy would not be diminishing away any time soon (Real and Percell, 2018).

Starbucks brand promotion strategies are also unique even at recent times; it is unconventional and does not usually follows any type of tried or tested model’s advertisement. Though Starbucks are never seen to advertise its products in newspapers or billboards, magazine or poster but still it has its popularity in a huge level all this shows the Starbucks as a international brand in itself under the effective leadership of Kelvin Johnson (Liu  and Zhang, 2019).

As an effective leader Johnson has also tried to bring out the best disciplines in the financial, performance and employee engagement tenures of the business. It is also seen that most of the provided investments returns to the shareholders in the form of cash. Johnson has always maintained data oriented work and analysis in his organization. Johnson has also focused in providing improved customer services and make the customer satisfied with their demands. At the recent times the company has been planning to introduce more innovative drinks and more varieties of beverages to retain the customers and be in the top game of competitive advantage (Mason et al.  2017).

In the case study provided when Johnson was asked about his leadership as a global leader. Johnson replied that the retention rates in industries like Starbucks are usually higher, he also said that they were successfully able to retain all their partners which is also one of the reason behind the huge success of Starbucks, this has eventually helped to understand the demands of their customers as well. This has helped the customers to like the service provided at Starbucks, helped them to connect with the brand and thus they have been visiting Starbucks repeatedly and more and more time here (McCluney et al.  2017).

Two recommendations to maintain Starbucks sustainability and competitive advantage

The two recommendations that Johnson could do to build on to his current success, sustainability and competitive advantage-

Increased competition and the need for constant innovation

As Starbucks has been expanding in new markets all over the world, it has started facing competition from various regional and local brands of those areas. Among them some competitors are from the local chains while others are its global competitors.  The experimental aspects has one of the strongest points of Starbucks , but at recent times the consumer taste towards coffee and other beverages has also been changing, according their demand has also evolved to sophisticated and finer tastes. Hence if Starbucks is unable to cope up with the evolved and constant changing taste of the customers then they might lose customers to their potential competitors. The local coffee chains who are most likely to have known the taste buds of their natives and heritage, this local chains can easily replicate the product and offer them with a local tough of the place, which are more likely to be accepted by the locals of the region. Starbucks customers hence can move towards the other options who would give them the same equality of coffee at cheap price (Leavy, 2016).

Starbucks my product portal idea was a nice start but they are now required to advance their game to another level if they want to remain in competitive advantage position. This can only be brought about through stronger innovation strategies and compete effectively in global markets. The term innovation is sometimes misused by the popular press of many brands. Although innovation can be conceptual in many ways- innovation should be used in the context where consistent business processes are done which would allow the companies to simultaneously improve in their existing products and services, while also investing in inventions and innovations for the organization significantly.

Competitors usually copies the innovation of coffee much easily, hence the innovation for coffee should not be limited from the Starbuck’s end (Kay, 2019).

Need for diversification but consistency in brand experience

Starbucks has given the strongest possible hint for their upcoming future diversification strategy, they are to announce the launch of the program title Starbuck’s Evening, where thousands of the company’s stores would be selling different types of alcoholic beverages over the next couple of years. So these are the sure signs that the company have been working towards diversification and they are required to keep on maintaining the various diversifications in their company to keep on enjoying the competitive advantage and unlock growth opportunities (Li, 2017).

Starbucks is also required to make some more effort that the same brand experience is experienced every time by the customers in any store all across the world. This recreating the same experience required to be tied along with the local culture and practices to make the customers comfortable and interested in the product and services. When the locals would be able to feel a touch of their ethnicity in the international brand they would feel more homely (Gino et al.  2019).

Conclusion

Thus it can be concluded from the critical evaluation on Kelvin Johnson’s leadership style in Starbucks as mentioned in this assignment is noteworthy. Kelvin Johnson has brought about some of the biggest changes in his organization to improve the financial, performance and ethical conduction. He is an excellent leader that has been proved in his servant leadership style. His effective leadership has Starbucks to its epitome of success throughout the world.  Two recommendations are also provided to sustain the competitive advantage and success of Starbucks for long terms.

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