Browsing: leadership

Introduction. IT&C companies need to adapt themselves to an environment featuring a high level of competition. Innovation stays as the main vector of the domain, while the renewal rate of new technologies grows in speed (there are cases where new technologies emerge and replace the older ones in months). With this series of research we aim to analyse several local or global companies within the IT&C field, as well as the importance of leadership for their development.

Aim of the study. This first article will focus on leadership within a company called Research In Motion – RIM (currently named BlackBerry) and on the main problems that have arisen within the company after the organisation was left without support from the leaders that created its worldwide brand.
Keywords: information technology, productivity, leadership, management, operational improvements
JEL Classification: J24

Introduction. The new organizational changes caused by social, economic and politic reforms led to a shift in the strategic management of the companies. The growing need for professionals, who know how to generate profits, is growing and increase confidence of partners and clients, find new ideas and adapt to a dynamic market. Therefore, internally, we need an efficient management of human resources to find and retain the most suitable and efficient people which will increase productivity and face the increased acting globally competition. Currently, companies that succeed are the ones that integrate in their business strategy, an important component of development and valuation human capital.

Aim of the study. The paper aims to analyze and highlight the importance of human capital in the new organizational strategies, focused on achieving a high level of competitiveness, innovation and excellence.
Keywords: human capital, leadership, effectiveness, productivity
JEL Classification: J24, O15

Introduction. Business storytelling is a leadership tool, which, as recent studies show, has a significant influence on the employees’ performance and the competitiveness of the organizations. The American researchers in this field emphasize that a business cannot exist without a story – there’s no business without story business.

Aim of the study. The research addresses a new concept introduced into the managerial practice of the insurance industry from Romania and it aims to test the hypothesis that success, performance and competitiveness of the organizations in the insurance industry depend also on the quality of the leadership and the leaders’ ability to use storytelling, taking into account the intangibility of the insurance products. The main tool that this exploratory, qualitative research has used is the structured interview with three target groups, which we considered to be relevant: CEOs/managers of insurance companies and insurance brokerage firms, public relations specialists and economic journalists. The results of our research endeavours may be of interest for both the managers, employees and communication specialists in the insurance industry and the business world in general, for which the introduction of storytelling in the leadership practices might increase the attractiveness not only for employees, but also for stakeholders and customers.
Keywords: Storytelling, leadership, insurance, communication, efficiency

Introduction. People in general, leaders especially, are influenced by the organisational culture and the other way around. Organisational culture represents a determining factor regarding the display of leadership, since these two processes create each other, adding value and consistency to one another. Moreover, organisational culture can be created and developed in a fluctuant business environment, in which the external factors influence its progress. The development of society has incessantly been emphasized by the relationship between the sexes, by their individual evolution, but also by the interdependency between them.

Aim of the study. Considering the fact that, in the current turbulent economic environment, certain qualities such as flexibility, intuition, development of communication networks and motivating the employees represent values that are considered to be “feminine”, one can assert that, in this case, gender is an opportunity. However, if we should take into consideration the impact of culture, of certain mentalities and misconceptions that are still present, regarding the woman’s standing in society, economy and politics, we can state that gender is a discriminating factor, because there is still the tendency to consider men as being better leaders.
Keywords: leadership, leader, organisational culture, opportunity, discrimination
JEL Classification: M12, M14

Introduction. Peter Drucker famously stated that “management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things”. Great leaders possess dazzling social intelligence, a zest for change, and above all, vision that allow them to set their sights on the “things” that truly merit attention. Not a bad skill set for the rest of us, either.

Aim of the study. I will try in this article to go over some lessons that can and should we learn from leaders in different fields (sales, politics, sports). Some of these lessons can be translated even in a lifestyle, it can help us all to change our perception of things that we were coming forward as we wanted and we can understand how little effort it takes to change this situation. Some of these leaders didn’t had learned how to be successful from school or books but they have qualities like drive, passion, commitment. They have had the courage to go away from what they did before, and gone to something that didn’t exist before. They have built bridges to be crossed by them and their followers.
Keywords: leaders, leadership, golden circle, achievement, success

Introduction. Today, more than ever before, modern leadership calls for a greater interest in message composing and conveying from the perspective of persuasive communication. High performance requires varied, extensively elaborated capacities used with maximum impact at the proper moment.

Aim of the study. This paper aims to highlight that now when the communication means are rather developed and varied and quite easily accessible by anybody, besides the other capacities a real leader should feature, oratory or the art of (public) speaking takes its place back and redefines its part in relation to these modern means of conveying messages precisely by recurring to the ”human” essence of the communication relation. Amid the hundreds, thousands of electronic messages, face-to-face interaction fetches that bundle of feelings and emotions the bits and hertz still fail to convey.
Keywords: Oratory, Leadership, Persuasive communication, Motivation, Empathy, Public speaking, Efficiency, Rhetoric, Expressivity

Introduction. Organizing the manufacturing processes constituted probably the most difficult challenge in the American automotive industry in the 1920s. A. P. Sloan Jr. was one of the greatest captains of industry and shaped General Motors Corporation into the largest automotive manufacturer of the world. His creative approach on how to mix a degree of decentralized responsibility with centralized control remains a useful example for every corporate leader.

Aim of the study. The aim of our paper is to emphasize the contribution of Sloan Jr. to the development of leadership. The methodological approach is literature review.
Keywords: A. P. Sloan Jr., leadership, General Motors Corporation, organization
JEL Classification: M1, L23, L62

Introduction. In a world subject to a continuous process of globalisation, the concept of cross-cultural is frequently encountered in all fields of activity and at all levels. This is the reason why I undertook to approach such issue, not in its generic meaning, but customised for the leadership pattern.

Aim of the study. The present paper is meant to outline the positive effects that diversity may have on any organisation, subject to the condition that the said diversity be appropriately managed. As the leader is a person who, by power of example, makes other people adopting a similar attitude, the actions of the same oriented towards the fructification of the advantages of a cross-cultural environment, which are depicted in this study, are not only directly, but also indirectly, by synergy, impacting, in a positive way, on the organisation. Innovation, performance, competitive advantage and reputation are just some of the outcomes of finding unity in diversity.
Keywords: leadership, cross-cultural approach, globalisation, unity in diversity, competitive advantage
JEL Classification: M12, M14, M54

Introduction. An appreciated manager coordinates efficiently the team and both his abilities to be a leader and assume his decisions is crucial for the success of the project. In the empirical study “O nouă abordare asupra învățării practice” several conclusions show that some leadership problems were related to the prioritization of the objectives, an efficient coordination of the members by the leaders, fear in assuming the leadership, not defending the leadership position and tension within the group when facing competition. As a leader, a certain state of mind is required to solve a long-term goal, to have a consistent behavior and adapt a certain leadership style to motivate in a specific situation the members of a team. In an emotional intelligence approach, controlling the afflictions of the mind means reducing the barriers towards being “able to” manifest a leadership style.

Aim of the study. The aim of this article is to argue that the quest of developing leadership skills can become useless when the leader fells into an inappropriate state of mind.
Keywords: emotional intelligence, leadership, afflictions of mind, leadership styles, creativity.
JEL Classification: J50, M12, M54

Introduction. Established in 1911, IBM is an example of leadership in technology. IBM has been linked since the beginning of computing, being the company that invented the tabs (forerunner of the current computer). In 2012, IBM ranked No. 2 in the U.S. in terms of number of employees (435,000 worldwide, 100,000 in the United States). IT vertical market is characterized by a very important contribution to innovation and, therefore, the rankings are very dynamic field. IBM was able to create a value system in the organization and also a leadership system, thus managing to retain its leading position in the market.

Aim of the study. This paper highlights the most important moments in the IBM history.
Keywords: IBM, technology, leadership