“The Five Temptations of a CEO” by Patrick Lencioni is a must read for every aspiring business major. The book covers many very critical concepts that most business students have very little knowledge of. Self-examination is the stepping stone to becoming a successful CEO. Every CEO encounters difficulties and must know how to recognize them in order not to fall victim to the Five Temptations of a CEO. The Five temptations are status over results, popularity over accountability, certainty over clarity, harmony over conflict, and invulnerability over trust. The fist Temptation discussed by Patrick Lencioni is status over results. This occurs when a CEO becomes too concerned with their own ego that they become complacent with the business they …show more content…
In order for a leader to make rational decisions they must analyze their thoughts and get feedback from others. Many CEO’s are afraid to express their thoughts and ideas in fear they may be challenged. Heated discussions where people challenge one another without insulting others is beneficial for good decision making. The final temptation discussed by Lencioni is choosing invulnerability over trust. In order for a CEO and their employees to have a healthy relationship there must be mutual trust. A CEO must first trust their employees even if it seems they are vulnerable to be beaten. Employees will return their trust by respect and being honest. A healthy honest relationship between CEO and employees encourages communication and feedback. I would not have trouble falling victim to this temptation because I believe everyone deserves trust at first until they prove otherwise. Reading this book has given me great knowledge and understanding of the very demanding job of a CEO. Lencioni states that “the reason a CEO fails is not only because they fell victim to a temptation but because they refused to let others know of their failure”. The ability to accept failure when you are wrong separates those who succeed and those who fail. “The five temptations of a CEO” is a must read for every aspiring business
This book is important to business students because it shows that even the most seasoned executive runs into unexpected challenges and can find themselves in uncharted territory. Jim Barton’s experiences and lessons can be lessons for anyone. Any employee, whether they are support staff or a top executive, should always maintain an open mind and be ready to learn from a situation or the people around them at any time.
William Evan and Edward Freeman, in their essay “A Stakeholder Theory of the Modern Corporation,” argue that the objective of a company and its managers is not only to maximize profit for its owners and stockholders, but also to balance the benefits received or losses incurred by other stakeholders—employees, suppliers, customers, and the local community, all of whom may be influenced by company decisions. As the owner of MSO, your aim is ostensibly to maximize profits for yourself, but unlike most other indicted CEOs, you have not tried to obtain personal gains at the expense of the stakeholders of your enterprise. Rather, the charges that have been brought against you are for your dealings with another company; in this day and age where investors bemoan the lack of ethics of CEOs who use the power of their position in the boardroom to achieve selfish gains at the expense of their own company and its stakeholders, the charges of insider t...
Leadership is an important attribute in individuals such as managers, academic experts, and researchers. The topic of leadership continues to gain popularity and importance in almost all sectors. The way leaders in managerial positions communicate determines their effectiveness and success in achieving high levels of performance and success in their organizations. There are numerous books that provide an insight into effective leadership and communication. One of such books is by Atwater and Waldman (2012). This paper provides a summary, contextual analysis and critique of the book.
The business world is like a narrow bridge, all it takes is one wrong step and you fall off the edge. These executives are some of the greatest minds in their industries achieving rapid success, but end up driving the train off course. In this article Derailed, author Tim Irvin narrates the collapse of six high-profile CEOs (Robert Nardelli, Carly Fiorina, Durk Jager, Steven Heyer, Frank Raines and Dick Fuld) and the components that drove their depositions. The failure of character is a common issue along with deficits in authenticity, humility, self-management and courage. This article ultimately explains that derailment is foreseen long before the collapse. What we learn is how derailment occurs and how to avoid train wrecks in our own professions.
Buffet’s essay primarily discusses the declines his textile company had over the years due to lack of demand and how it eventually had to be closed down because of a drop in profits. He first supports his claim that lack of demand will cause failure when he argues that even when his company had well qualified and successful employees in management, it still was not enough to be successful in terms of economic revenue. He states, “When an industry’s underlying economics are crumbling, talented management may slow the rate of decline. Eventually, though, eroding fundamentals will overwhelm managerial brilliance” (56). Buffet argues that good management won’t save a company from going under, it can only slow the process of decline in that compan...
According to the text, “Control is defined as any process that directs the activities of individuals toward achievement of organizational goals. It is how effective managers make sure things are going as planned (Bateman, pp 520, 2007).” The combination of these two concepts, leadership and control help formulate an ideology that becomes an integral part of the success or failure of any business entity. This paper will give Team D an opportunity to delve into Sears Holdings’ leadership and control mechanisms. The focal point of this paper will be to identify the current CEO of Sears Holdings, and gain insight on his background, i.e., training, education, and previous employment. To identify his style of leadership, evaluate the effectiveness of this leadership style based on Sears Holdings’ performance, and to explain the various control mechanisms used in the organization to determine the effectiveness.
Though a little dry to read at times, I found this book to be an excellent beginner’s guide to leadership. Although the idea of “corporate” can be a bit dull after a while, Bennis and Nanus continuously attempt to liven it up with real-life examples of their strategies put into practice. They make it clear that the strategies are not what they came up with out of nowhere, but have been determined from years of various case studies. One of my favorite aspects of the book is its ability to imbue an “I can do this!” attitude to the reader.
The challenges facing leaders are of three kinds: external, internal and those arising from the nature of the leadership role. The external challenges stem from the fact organization faces lack of funds, economic, social and political forces (Kanter, 2003). The leader must be able to cope up with crises that threaten the survival of the firm. On the other hand,
Suddenly, some companies become extremely successful, while rest of them unfortunately remains a failure. There can be off-course a lot of reasons for this failure but one of the main reasons is lack of leadership qualities. There are many s...
We now know a few things about CEOs. Their job is to make their organizations look good, however troubled and ineffective they might be. They do not feel obligated to divulge troubling information that might affect public confidence, cause valuable employees to leave, or make it difficult to recruit in the future.
Mostly due to the large scandals in the late 1990s and early 2000s, like the Enron epidemic, most larger companies want to avoid any disasters that might even duarf in comparison to what we have seen in the past. Another powerful driving force behind CEOs’ popularity was the inception of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, this act established new standards for corporate accountability in America. Requiring companies to not only make stronger commitments to ethical st...
The selection of contemporary leader book was challenging at first, however after considering the attributes and qualities of different leadership styles Steve Jobs: Ten lessons in leadership written by Michael Essany was the best choice. This book discussed what can be learned as a leader and the lessons are relevant to my own leadership style. There is a direct relationship of the lessons and Steve Jobs’ leadership style identified including wait for nothing, fail big or don’t bother failing, limit your confidence to your field, there’s no substitute for passion, consider your legacy before you have one, and there’s always ‘one more thing’ (Essany, 2012). The lessons illustrated that Steve Jobs was progressive in his thinking and relentless to develop technological advancements that consumers could not live without. Therefore, Steve Jobs leadership style was influential and other entrepreneurs need to utilize these lessons in pursuit of similar success.
For the corporate culture in Enron, Enron employees and internal executives are largely influenced by groupthink. In Enron’s corporate culture, Enron’s members usually misuse motivation to help company achieving lofty growth goals. Enron promoted individuals who were highly motivated by monetary rewards and promotions (Bills 2001, paras 6-9). For example, company provided an incentive to employees to take risks on making profits, no matter the actions is ethical or not. No matter on peer influences or pressure from groupthink, it directly promotes
Cultivating a taste for failure and chaos Schmidt encourages it: “Please fail very quickly—so that you can try again.. he had praised an executive who made a several-million-dollar blunder: “‘I’m so glad you made this mistake. Because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don’t have any of these mistakes, we’re just not taking enough risk.’”
Leadership varies in many different organizations. The success of each organization generally relies on the support the leader gets from his or her employees. Each leader is commonly required to set goals for their employees in order for the company or organization to excel. Leaders are more than often criticized due to the lack of support or favouritism they produce in the organization, causing the success rate to decline. This leads to self sacrifice and leader effectiveness. Many leaders generally self sacrifice in order for the organization to achieve certain goals and expectations it may have. Though many organizations are dependent on leaders, the question of whether or not they are effective arises. To what extent does self-sacrifice