Strategic Leadership: Improving Business at Sim's Hardware

This report provides an analysis of leadership strategies for Sim's Hardware, a company facing business challenges due to ineffective management. As the incoming CEO, the author outlines plans for improved communication with stakeholders, fostering a positive organizational culture, and addressing stakeholder expectations. Key strategies include team building, managing organizational change, and representing the company positively in the media. The report also emphasizes demonstrating personal and professional competence, building trust, and making informed decisions that consider the needs of both internal and external stakeholders. The author identifies strengths and areas for development, particularly in team handling during change processes, highlighting the importance of effective communication and adaptability. This comprehensive approach aims to revitalize Sim's Hardware and prepare it for sustained business growth. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and resources for students.

Running head: LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS
Leadership in Business
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
Assessment task 1:...........................................................................................................................2
Q1: Communication with stakeholders.......................................................................................2
Q2: Linkage between organizational values and its members.....................................................2
Q3: Significance of stakeholders’ expectations...........................................................................3
Q4: Investigation and communication strategy...........................................................................4
Q5: Team building up..................................................................................................................5
Q6: Understanding change..........................................................................................................6
Q7: Support during organizational change..................................................................................6
Q8: Representing the positive image of the organization in media.............................................7
Q9: Demonstrating personal and professional competence.........................................................7
Q10: Strengths and capabilities...................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Assessment task 1:
Q1: Communication with stakeholders
Sim’s Hardware is facing some serious business issue mainly due to ineffective business
management by its ex-CEO. Now, I being the CEO of this Company will ensure that the
organizational mission, visions, goals, objectives, plans and strategies are appropriately known to
its stakeholders. It seems to me a better option to use the emails for regular conversation with the
creditors, directors and the owners if required. In the case of Unions, physical meetings on a
requirement basis should be helpful. Such meetings will be helpful to know their concerns for
their members and communicate the feasibility of their concerns. It gives a good opportunity to
answer all their questions, which should also improve their trust in the employer (Crilly, Hansen
& Zollo, 2016). Employees are very vital for a company’s success (Crilly, Hansen & Zollo,
2016). I being the future CEO of Sim's Hardware will rely more upon communicating minor but
valuable things through emails. I will go for regular meetings with them. Such meetings are a
good source of interactive sessions where the managers and employees can both share their
views on a management decision. The discussion sessions will produce ample feedback, which
could be helpful for the managers in their team handling process (Crilly, Hansen & Zollo, 2016).
Finally, I will take initiatives to improve the “Carbon Footprint” contribution to the Company.
An increased focus will be on corporate social activities to become a responsible business for the
community Sim’s Hardware is working.
Q2: Linkage between organizational values and its members

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The linkage between organizational values and its members is very vital for identity and
the image of the Company. Though the organizational identity and the image is subject to
external factors that influence a business, these are interrelated to its organizational culture.
Hence, for a strong and productive linkage between the organizational values and its members,
it is important to have a positive organizational culture (Elsmore, 2017). Therefore, I being the
future CEO of Sim’s Hardware will first try to figure out the cultural challenges in the company.
Once, the challenges are known I can go for its remedial steps. There are a few ways, which can
be very effective in developing a positive organizational culture. These are:
 Rewards and Recognition (R&R)should be unbiased and transparent as well;
 Performance appraisal should be purely based upon assessing the performance, and not
in terms of power hierarchy and personal relationship with an employee;
 Work distribution should be skill-oriented
Q3: Significance of stakeholders’ expectations
Unless there is a good understanding of whom the employees are serving for and what
are their expectations from the business, employee behavior will be less productive (Nejad et al.,
2016). Employees should know what their contributions mean to people who depend directly or
indirectly on a company. I being the future CEO of Sim's Hardware will emphasize addressing
the stakeholders’expectations. The Company I being interviewed into already lags in terms of
good synchronization between organizations' members and the organizational values. Firstly, I
will communicate to the team leads and the team members regarding the management’s
expectations of them. The employees should be aware of their significance in the company and

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the benefits they will be receiving on fulfilling each of the management’s expectations. Unless
the employees have a good realization of their significance in the company they will carry the
least concerns to each management decision (Nejad et al., 2016). Similarly, I being the CEO of
Sim's Hardware should know what my employees expect from us and what have we done for
them so far.
Q4: Investigation and communication strategy
I being the future CEO for Sim's Hardware will go for the investigation for major
incidents. This can be performed by deploying an Investigation Officer for the job. The person
should be well-versed with few techniques required in investigating an incident. Some of these
techniques are a root cause analysis and CAPAs to rectify dangerous circumstances (Hirose &
Kurozumi, 2017).
Communication is necessary to communicate and make people alert of an incident that
may potentially affect their work as well. I am expecting to join Sim's Hardware as the CEO of
this company. The ex-CEO was less effective with its management strategies and therefore, has
to lose the job. Hence, all eyes will be on me like how I perform or manages such things. It is,
therefore, vital for me to use the appropriate technology and strategy to effectively communicate
and maintain a positive working environment even if an incident has happened. I will use a few
communication channels to reach to the respective stakeholders. The list of communication
channels are listed below (Hirose & Kurozumi, 2017):
 Embedded status
 Email

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 A dedicated status page
 Workplace chat tool
 Social media
 SMS
Q5: Team building up
I am expecting to serve Sim's Hardware as soon as the CEO of this company. The
Company had previously lagged in forming and maintaining the true teams. Hence, this is
another area where my role will be of high significance. However, I have my limitations and may
not do all these things on my own. Hence, I need proper assistance from my people. I have
strategies in mind to promote a healthy team environment in the workplace provided if I had the
required assistance. These strategies are (Woodcock, 2017):
 Team alignment will be completely based upon the subject areas and role expertise;
 Best performances will be acknowledged in every reward and recognition (R&R) event
 Communicating with team leads on what problems they face in managing their teams.
The purpose will be to identify the challenges and provide an appropriate solution to
these challenges to support the development of team spirit;
 Each team will be given specific goals to achieve within a given timeframe;
 Failures and success will be celebrated together. This means involving each one of the
organizations' members in each of the organizations' event.
Q6: Understanding the change

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Change is integral to modern workplaces these days. However, meeting barriers in
leading a change is also very common to modern workplaces (Staddon et al., 2016). Therefore, I
being the CEO will be under huge pressure to effectively handle a change to happen. Emerging
technologies and globalization have fuelled the market competition. Companies have to face the
competition positively to attain sustained business growth (Staddon et al., 2016). To ensure that
any future change goes smoothly I will ensure the following things:
 Communicating the purpose of the change;
 Setting up motivating factors around it;
 Establishing an open-door policy;
 Communicating that the change will happen as this is for the betterment of both the
Company and its employees. Hence, if someone still finds opposing this change will no
longer remain a part of this Company (Staddon et al., 2016).
Q7: Support during organizational change
I am expecting to soon become the CEO of Sim's Hardware Company. Considering a
brief glimpse that I have about the problems being faced by the Company in the past I have
arrived at a fact that it needs to change. This is necessary to ensure that its employees are aligned
to the business goals, objectives and the values of the Company. I will use below-mentioned
strategies to counter internal resistance to change:
 Crafting an internal message containing components such as a problem statement, the
risk in if the change is a failure and explaining why these changes are necessary;

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 Constructing an internal communication plan to decide whether to go for a win-win
situation or else;
 Identifying key people in the Company who can assist me in the change process;
 Implementing the change;
 Making adjustments to the change plan if required based on the short-term outcomes of
the process (Shimoni, 2017).
Q8: Representing the positive image of the organization in media
As a positive role model, I am responsible for representing a positive image of the
Company in the media. For this to happen I will follow the below-mentioned steps (Plewa et al.,
2015):
 By defining the brand such as the areas where the Company is specialized in;
 By effectively managing the website by improving its contents regularly;
 By promoting the CSR activities of the Company if there is any;
 By taking responsibility for major incidents and politely addressing the same in media;
 By focusing on the production of high-quality products and services;
 By sharing the company story in its official website and media.
Q9: Demonstrating personal and professional competence
There is a good opportunity for demonstrating my personal and professional experience.
This will help to generate the leaders of the next generation. Sim’s hardware has struggled in the

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past due to ineffective leadership from its ex-CEO. I being the next CEO of this Company will
not repeat the same. Rather, I will demonstrate my leadership competencies to prepare the
leaders of the next generation. In this regard, a competency-based approach to leadership could
be essentially helpful. This will ensure people learn from their leaders and improve their
realization of the organizational values of Sim's Hardware (Lauermann & König, 2016).
Q10: Strengths and capabilities
a. According to Gopee & Galloway (2017), a leader should be able to build trust, respect and
confidence in its organizations' members. It is necessary to have a long-term productive
relationship with them. I as the CEO of Sim’s Hardware will have to ensure these things in my
leadership journey with the company. Though, I possess a good leadership experience still needs
to work on a few areas to make a good impact on my leadership. These include but not limited to
team-handling during a change process. I will overcome this issue by working closely with my
employees, gaining awareness of emerging technologies and market competition scenarios.
b. Effective communications in the opinion of Thomson et al., (2015) is an essential leadership
skill. I have been good in this regard as I have effectively handled change management processes
in all my previous experiences as the CEO of a company.

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c. As stated above, I have handled a few change management processes in my previous
experiences. I have been successful in all these instances. This is sufficient evidence to a fact that
I am very flexible as well as adaptable with the diverse business needs in different companies.
d. It is very challenging to make decisions in line with risk management plans. It does require
strict adherence to risk management policies from the employees, team leads, the managers, the
CEO and the stakeholders (Sadgrove, 2016). I too have faced issues in making people follow
these policies. However, things should expectedly be different here as it is a different company
and also that I am more focused this time on developing a positive organizational culture.
e. Indeed, this is challenging to ensure that a decision is being made after considering the needs
and expectations of both internal and external stakeholders. For example, a technology
implementation might be fulfilling the management needs of a company; however, not so of a
few employees who mainly due to the manual tasks. As the technology implementation will
leave no rooms of scope to these people (Cardwell, Williams & Pyle, 2017).
f. Empowering the teams and individuals require a leadership approach from the managers and
the higher management team (Fleisher & Hursky, 2016). However, I have plans for it. The best
thing is that I am good at achieving my personal goals. Below is a brief of my plans:
 Setting clear expectations
 Providing necessary resources

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 Giving constructive feedback
 Accessing ideas
 Recognizing employees for their hard work
g. The positive work environment is necessary to implement changes and attain sustained
growth (Shamian et al., 2016). To practice a positive work environment I have planned to
promote team spirit in every individual.
h. As the CEO of Sim's Hardware, I must strive to encourage individuals and teams to develop
innovative approaches. Various strategies can be used for this such as encouraging individuals
to participate in brainstorming sessions. Brainstorming sessions provide good exercise work to
individuals to reach to creative ideas (Rawlinson, 2017).
i. Conduct to work ethics is an essential element of organizational behavior (Barsky, 2019). To
ensure an ethical behaviour I will communicate the policy through emails and by personally
meeting to individuals. Moreover, strict observance of the process will help to avoid any lagging
in this regard.
j. Interpersonal and leadership styles vary from leaders to leaders (Cummings et al., 2018).
Unlike many leaders, I am very friendly to employees. At times, I get rude on things that are of

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serious concerns. I never give an undue advantage to employees. I find myself highly suitable for
the CEO position as people will feel free to work with me.
k. Implementation is an art to effectively cross the barriers of a change (Russ et al., 2015). I have
been through successful change cases in my previous employment. I am sure I will be doing it
here as well.

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