Measuring Critical Thinking Skills and Leadership Style Measuring your Leadership Style This seminar is developed on the basis that individuals apply critical thinking skills based upon the decisions at workplace. Participants will therefore, be engaged in a variety of activities which will identify and describe how they apply their critical thinking skills. You will study how to logically reason successfully through complex problems and questions you may face at work. In this seminar, you will apply critical thinking skills simulated in a business organization and identify your preferred leadership style based upon these decisions. In conducting an analysis of your leadership you will: 1. Identify goals and objectives (Determine what the outcome should be). 2. Describe the problem. (Defines what we must answer or solve). 3. Gather current information (Data necessary to answer & solve a problem). 4. Interpreting or judging information (Making a decision based on information). Participants will engage in activities that utilize all aspects that describe how you apply critical thinking in problem solving and decision-making at the workplace. This participatory approach emphasizes a problem solving application-based technique, rather than just a lecture oriented process. How do leaders make good decisions? This seminar addresses five leadership styles that are utilized by leaders when they formulate business decisions. We will investigate how leaders make good decisions in a business environment. A leader can proceed with varying degrees of participation between the leader and members of the team. There are two types of decisions involving consultation with team members. One leadership style is to consult with members of the team individually, explaining the problem and giving team members an opportunity to influence the leader’s decision. The leader though decides the final decision. Another leadership style involves a group meeting with the team explaining the situation or problem. The leader acts as moderator in discussing the problem and the team makes the final decision. We will investigate five leadership styles that managers utilize in making decisions with the different level of participation involving teams. What is the benefit for increased involvement? As you increase the involvement of other people it improves the implementation of the decision. It also develops the capabilities of the team members to solve organizational problems for themselves. Involvement of team members helps align individual goals with the goals of the organization. Also, team members are exposed to problems that often occur at higher levels in the organization. How have you found this occurring in the corporate world? Many businesses today have reinforced the need for teams in resolving business problems within their organization. Organizations employ different degrees of participation among subordinates depending upon the current situation. Each one of these leadership styles is utilized under a certain set of circumstances. You will recognize the importance in matching the involvement with the nature of the problem before selecting a leadership styles. What can your participants look forward to? I have developed a leadership model, which measures the different levels of participation in decision-making. The participant responds to a set of questions about a particular situation or challenge. The participant’s answers are entered into a computer model, which identifies your strengths and weaknesses in making decisions as a leader. Specifically, each participant reviews 30 cases, which requires you to make a decision in each case. The responses are entered into the computer program and a five-page report synthesizing your critical thinking leadership profile. This is a very complex software program that produces an accurate leadership profile for all participants in the seminar. Available Leadership Decision-Making Styles Leadership Style I - You reach a decision alone, employing whatever facts you have at hand. Leadership II – You reach a decision alone, but first seek some specific data from those who report to you. You are not obliged to tell them about the nature of the situation your face. You seek only relevant facts from them- mot their advice or counsel. Leadership III – You consult one-on-one with those who report to you, describing the problem to each and asking fro the person’s advice and recommendations. However, the final decision is yours alone. Leadership IV – You consult with those who report to you in a meeting (or portion there of) devoted to the situation. You receive their advice and recommendations in this meeting, but the task of resolving any differences of opinions and of choosing one or more options is yours alone. Leadership V- You devote a meeting (or portion thereof) to a discussion of the situation and identification and consideration of possible decisions. Your goal is to help the group to concur on a decision. You coordinate the meeting, facilitate the dialogue, protect minority viewpoints, and make sure all-important factors are considered. Above all, you take care to ensure that your ideas are not given any greater weight than those of others simply because of your position. Measuring & Intepreting Your Organizational Culture Every organization should be able to identify its organizational culture before implementing strategy. Organizational culture is defined as a set of processes that binds together members of an organization based on the shared pattern of basic values, beliefs, and assumptions in an organization. Organizational culture allows an organization to address the ever-changing problems of adaptation to the external environment and the internal integration of organization resources, personnel, and policies to support external adaptation. The organization's culture serves as a foundation for an organization's management system. This foundation is a set of management practices and behaviors that both exemplify and reinforce those basic principles. These principles or beliefs are held in common by the members of a group or organization. Such expectations or norms specify the ways in which all members of the organization are expected to approach their work. They represent strategies for survival that worked well in the past and members believe will work again in the future. An organizational culture survey can help you identify and measure the cultures that exist in your business today. The Organizational Culture Survey provides a way to link organizational culture to tangible bottom-line performance measures such as: Profitability, quality, innovation, market share, sales growth, employee satisfaction. This survey is based on over 15 years of research involving over 1,000 organizations. Also the survey you complete will be compared with those cultures of high and low performing cultures. It has found that the following four culture traits can have a significant impact on organizational performance: involvement, adaptability, consistency, and mission. Traditionally, organizational culture surveys have taken a behavioral approach making it difficult to link the results back to business. This survey enables leaders, key stakeholders and employees to understand the impact their culture has on their organization's performance and learn how to redirect their culture to improve organizational effectiveness. The Organizational Culture Survey has 60 items that measure specific aspects of an organization's culture in each of the four traits and twelve management practices. Individual surveys are collectively tabulated into a graphic profile that compares your organization's culture to that of higher and lower-performing organizations. Repeated use of the Organizational Culture Survey provides a measure of the organization's progress toward achieving a high-performance culture and optimum performance. The survey and the prescriptive suggestions are written in easily understood business terms, making it a powerful and user-friendly tool. Completion Time for Survey: 15 minutes SWP Management Consulting will administrate the survey and interpret the results as it relates to your organizational culture. We can customized the seminar to fit your needs. E-mail to SWP Management Consulting