Leadership Interview Project



Leadership Interview Project

LEAD 505 ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP & ETHICS

March 2009

Jessie D. Stament

Southwestern College

Professional Studies

ABSTRACT

I chose to interview Mr. King because I respect his regard for leadership and wanted to learn Mr. King’s views of what he thinks it means to be a leader. I took this opportunity to interview someone within my organization who I felt I shared similar values with and that I thought would provide valuable insight for my growth as a leader. I am also interested in researching who influenced Mr. King to be the leader he is today.

I included the questions and answers from the interview as Appendix A of this document.

Table of Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1

Mr. King’s Professional History…………………………………………………………..1

Mr. King as my Leader………………………………………………………………….1-4

Key Findings………………………………………………………………………….....4-8

Mr. King’s Core Values…………………………………………………4-5

Learning from Influential Leaders………………………………………5-6

Learning from Bad Leadership………………………………………….6-8

Summary……………………………………………………………………………...…8-9

References……………………………………………………………………………..…10

Appendix A: Interview Questions & Answers…………………………………........11-16

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INTRODUCTION

We all learn from other leaders we come across in our lives. The lessons we learn from these leaders, mold us into the types of leaders we become. I chose to interview Mr. King because he taught me valuable lessons that I used when I first became a Task Manager, and that I still use today when I am faced with difficult decisions or challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to present key findings from my leadership interview with Mr. Stacy King. I will provide a brief history of Mr. King’s professional background, followed by details of how we met, and highlights of Mr. King as my leader. I will also cover Mr. King’s core values, the influential leaders who have inspired him in his life, and his views on bad leadership.

Mr. King’s Professional History

Mr. King has been employed with Stanley Associates for just over two years. Prior to his employment with Stanley, Mr. King served 22 years in the Marine Corp before retiring as a First Sergeant. He is certified in Project Management, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice, and is currently pursuing his Master’s in Business Administration. He had worked as a Task Manager for the majority of his two years at Stanley, but is currently a Project Manager where he is responsible for four projects. Mr. King has six people who report to him and directly support his projects, and an additional 35 people indirectly supporting his projects.

Mr. King as My Leader

Mr. King offered me a position with Stanley Associates during my transition from the military back to being a civilian. I started working for Mr. King in January of 2008,

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as a member of a new training team he was assembling for a training contract that had been awarded to our company. We would be primarily responsible for developing training curriculum on the operations of a hand-held tactical radio, and teaching that curriculum to Marines. The position required us to travel to various military installations where we would teach a two-day radio operations course.

This training contract was a new venture for our company and for Mr. King. This project presented several challenges to him and the team. The most interesting aspect for this new team was the fact that we would be working hand-in-hand with another contracting company, Eagan McAllister (EMA), who has been working training contracts for over two years. We were essentially going to be working with our competition. Our team would be located in an EMA building, where we would be surrounded by EMA employees. As Mr. King would later call it, we were behind “enemy lines.” At the time, EMA held contracts on multiple radios and were very familiar with the training realm of contracts, whereas our company was new to this type of work. This made for an interesting work environment. Here we are, coming into their building, working a contract that they are primarily known for, and being completely clueless on where to start. Because of Mr. King’s leadership, we were able to overcome many challenges that we would face throughout our time on this contract.

According to Gini (2004), “Leaders help to build the tone, develop the vision, and shape the behavior of all those involved in organizational life” (p. 26). I took notice of Mr. King’s leadership qualities right away. He immediately set the tone for our team by providing his expectations of us in the unusual situation we were being placed in. He

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developed a vision and made it a priority to communicate that vision to us through team meetings. He also shaped the behavior of the team by empowering us to make the day to day decisions required to accomplish our tasks.

Ciulla (2004) describes empowerment as, “… giving the people the confidence, competence, freedom, and resources to act on their own judgments” (p. 59). Mr. King could have easily held our hands through the entire situation and I think most of the team would have understood why since we were brand new employees, being placed in an unwelcoming environment, doing unfamiliar work. But Mr. King did not do that. He gave us the freedom to make important decisions which in turn built our confidence in him and each other. For example, I found the format EMA was using for the curriculum was not in compliance with the Marine Corp standards. I decided not to follow that format with our curriculum and EMA employees were very unhappy with my decision. Mr. King could have easily submitted to EMA’s demands and made me change the format, but he trusted in my ability and judgment. The trust that he showed for me and my decision boosted my self confidence and my confidence in Mr. King as my leader.

People doubted our team’s ability to succeed in this venture. They doubted we would be able to create a Program of Instruction, and that we would be able to send a trainer to teach in a combat zone. Not once did Mr. King believe the doubters. He trusted in our abilities as a team and as individuals. We were able to create the Program of Instruction before the deadline, and we were able to send a trainer into a combat zone. Mr. King never had doubts about us, because he believed in his teams and his own ability to produce the results that were required of us.

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Although Mr. King is no longer my direct supervisor, I still look to him for guidance and view him as a leader. He recommended me for my current position within the company. Now that I am in a Task Manager position, I find that I use many of the lessons I learned from him while I was on the training team to guide me in my actions and decisions as a Task Manager.

Mr. King’s Core Values

What drives a leader to be successful? Locke (as quoted in Ciulla, Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, p. 107) states, “The purpose and need of a moral code are to enable one to live successfully.” Within every leader exists a core of values or a moral code for which we rely on to guide us as leaders.

Our core values play an important role in every decision we make and every action we take as leaders. Gini (as quoted in Cuilla, Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, p. 35), defines values as, “…ideas and beliefs that influence and direct our choices and actions.” So where do these values come from? I believe our values are primarily influenced in two ways. One is through life’s experiences which develops and instills in us our core values. Secondly, I believe we learn from other leaders, both good and bad, that we encounter in our lives. This may include our parents, teachers, coaches, friends, coworkers, and any other leaders that influence us in one way or another.

Mr. King discussed some of his core values and explained how different people have influenced what he values as a leader. Mr. King credits his mom for teaching him about “work ethic;” his wife for teaching him what it means to be a “real man;” and several Marines that taught him to be “ethically sound.” Mr. King also values truthfulness,

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integrity, supporting his people, and believes that leaders should praise in public and punish in private. Mr. King went on to discuss three other leader-figures that influenced him to become a better leader.

Learning from Influential Leaders

“Work is how we spend our lives, and the lessons we learn there, good or bad, play a part in the development of our moral perspective and the manner in which we formulate and adjudicate ethical choices” (Ciulla, p 28). Valuable lessons can be learned from the workplace, especially from the leaders we encounter on a daily basis. We spend so much time in our lives at work, that it is inevitable that we will at some point, encounter both effective and ineffective leaders. Leaders, whether effective or ineffective, have a lifelong impact on our own development. We tend to emulate leadership qualities of leaders we believe to be effective, and we never forget the ineffective qualities of bad leadership.

Mr. King discussed three effective leaders that influenced him in his life. He explains what he admired of each one, and credits each for teaching him different qualities of effective leadership. The leaders he discussed were Ms. Tamika Pernobol, Mr. Kenneth Park, and Mr. Craig Alridge.

Ms. Tamika Pernobol taught Mr. King what it means to be an, “effective communicator.” He said, “She could speak to anyone at any level and make them feel that they mattered. She was also a very good problem solver, motivated, and led by example.”

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Mr. Kenneth Park taught Mr. King the power of persuasion. Mr. Park was the, “ultimate persuasive leader.” Mr. King mentioned, “He had the ability to get people to do whatever he wanted them to do, and they would be happy doing it.”

Mr. Alridge taught Mr. King that, “ethnic background doesn’t matter” as a leader. Mr. King said, “…you can effectively lead anybody of any color, creed, or national origin if you treat everybody the same.”

All three of these leaders influenced Mr. King in some way to become a better leader, and he learned valuable lessons that he still uses everyday. The same can be said for all of us. We each have learned from leaders we have worked with in the past, and we will continue to learn from leaders we work with today and in the future. These lessons add to our leadership abilities and make us better. As much as we learn from inspirational leaders in our lives, I believe, we also learn valuable lessons from bad leadership.

Learning from Bad Leadership

Kotter states, “One way to develop leadership is to create challenging opportunities for young employees” (Kotter, p 51). Challenge can come in different forms in the workplace. I think one of the toughest challenges is working for bad leadership. Mr. King discussed the lessons we can learn from bad leadership. He views bad leadership as an opportunity for personal growth. He goes on to say that ineffective leadership prepares you for dealing with adversity, and that we should view at it as a challenge.

Mr. King makes a good point. Challenge is an opportunity for personal development. Some would view working for a bad leader as a hardship, rather than as a challenge. It is very difficult and frustrating working for bad leadership, and it would be easy for us to

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give in to the frustrations and give up or quit. However, it can also be an opportunity to adapt and overcome. We can learn what not to do, or what not to be, from bad leadership. This is something I have always had high regard for. We have all heard the saying, “What doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger.” This especially holds true in this instance. The experience is what you make of it. If you view bad leadership as an opportunity to learn or grow, you will be better off in the end. There are valuable lessons to learn associated with working for bad leadership that are essential to the growth of people who aspire to be effective leaders.

Currently, my team and I work for a few bad leaders, our government customers who are in charge of leading the project. It is very frustrating at times, and we could easily give in to those frustrations and request a transfer to another project. Rather than give in or transfer, we choose to make this challenge a learning experience. I thrive on the challenge of overcoming bad leadership and I think my team does as well.

Our government customers seem to purposefully set us up for failure and tend to enjoy working in reactionary mode. For example, they tasked us with preparing over 5,000 individual components to be shipped in five days. I argued that this would be very difficult, especially with the other tasks we were working, but they were unwilling to compromise. In two days, we were able to package all the equipment together, and I called to give our customers a status update. They then directed us to break down the shipment, rebuild it into kits, and still meet the same deadline. My team could have easily folded under the pressures of bad leadership. Instead, they took the challenge head

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on. We were able to complete the shipment a day early. It took everything we had, but we wanted to show that we can succeed even when being setup for failure.

We all have had leader-figures in our lives that have contributed into molding us into the leaders we are. It does not matter whether these leaders are deemed good or bad, but rather what we learn from their examples. The lessons Mr. King has learned through his experiences and from his mom, wife, the Marines, Ms. Pernobol, Mr. Park, and Mr. Aldridge have molded him into the leader he is today. The same can be said for each and every one of us. We are all shaped by the challenging experiences and people who have influenced us both positively or negatively in our lives. How we utilize the qualities we have gained from these experiences will dictate the type of leader we become.

Summary

We all learn valuable lessons throughout our lives that influence us in our decisions and actions as leaders. How we use these lessons and our values in our decision making process plays an integral role in our ability to be effective. During our interview, I asked Mr. King, if he thought there was a difference between good leadership and leadership. Mr. King’s response to this question was the most intriguing answer of the entire interview. He replied, “I don’t believe in such a thing as good leadership and leadership. I believe there is effective leadership and ineffective leadership.”

His answer contradicts a statement made by Joanne Ciullla during her study of leadership. “The ultimate point of studying leadership is, “What is good leadership?” (Ciulla, p 13). She makes an assumption that good leadership incorporates effectiveness into the definition and that effectiveness is easy to judge. After Mr. King’s answer, I

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found myself questioning Ciulla’s point of view of why it is necessary to study good leadership. What does good leadership really entail? How is good leadership measured? Is being good a level that we should all try to achieve? The word good is positive in meaning, but there are more levels to just being good. Something or someone can be better or they can be the best. Should we label leaders as being better than others or as the best leader? If so, how do we make those determinations? We cannot make a solid definition for what it means or takes to be a good leader. Rather than trying to be good leaders, we should strive to be effective leaders.

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REFERENCES

Ciulla, Joanne. (2004). Ethics, The Heart of Leadership, Westport, CT: Praeger

Publishers.

Gini, Al. (2004). Moral Leadership and Business Ethics. In Ciulla, J., Ethics, The Heart

of Leadership, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Kotter, John. What Leaders Really Do. In, Harvard Business Review on Leadership,

Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing. (Original work published in

1990).

Locke, Edwin. (2004). Should Leaders Be Selfish or Altruistic? In Ciulla, J., Ethics, The

Heart of Leadership, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. (Original work

published in 2002).

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Appendix A: Interview Questions & Answers

1. Question: Can you provide me some professional background history and your current duty within Stanley? Please provide how many people you oversee, your responsibilities, and how your position relates to the company.

Answer: I spent 22 years in the Marine Corp and retired as a First Sergeant. I have a degree in Criminal Justice and a certificate in Project Management. I’m currently pursuing my Master’s in Business Administration. I came aboard here 2 years ago as a Task Manager and I’m currently a Project Manager. I run four projects with six people directly reporting to me and 35 people indirectly supporting my projects.

2. Question: What are your core values? Who or what influenced those values to be instilled in you?

Answer: My core values are work hard, be truthful, work with integrity, support your people, praise in public and punish in private, and when your people are successful…that should determine your success as a manager. My parents influenced me, especially my mom and her work ethic. My wife, who has taught me to be a real man. Several Marines who have taught me ethical sound in my work.

3. Question: Do you think there is a difference between leadership and “good” leadership? If so, what are those differences in your opinion? How do you define “good” leadership? (Leadership Ethics p 13)

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Answer: I think there is a difference between leadership and ineffective leadership. I don’t believe in such thing as good leadership and leadership. I believe there is effective leadership and ineffective leadership. I think an effective leader has situational awareness, understands risks and plans for it, is decisive and makes decisions quickly, can explain all their decisions when tasked to do so, consistently performs. Ineffective leadership is shown because their people are not informed; they have more excuses than results, usually not respected, usually do not produce consistent or sustained exceptional performance. That’s what you get from ineffective leadership.

4. Question: Do you feel there is a difference between leadership and management? What are those differences? Which, if any, of the two do you feel are more important to being successful?

Answer: I think a leader never forgets the qualities they learned as a worker and a supervisor. A manager sometimes forgets those qualities and is more in tune with paperwork than people. A leader never forgets his roots.

5. Question: What is your opinion of the importance of empowerment in the workplace? What are some ways that you empower your employees?

Answer: I think empowerment is the single greatest tool for team success. Some people call it delegation, but I don’t believe delegation equals empowerment. I think empowerment is allowing your people to effectively do all that they are entrusted to do within the realm of their delegation. I think delegation is passing away your work to people that you don’t want to do.

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I challenge them. I think you empower people by giving them more and more responsibility as they gain more and more experience so they are never stagnant in their growth.

6. Question: Do you feel that trust is something that should be earned or given and why?

Answer: I don’t believe you have time to earn trust in the business environment. I believe trust is something that is given and is either maintained or rescinded in the business world.

7. Question: What do you believe to be the most important aspect of being an “effective” leader? Do you believe more in taking care of people or getting results?

Answer: From my military background, we’ve always balanced welfare versus mission. Ultimately mission will always outweigh welfare because if you don’t perform your mission you won’t have a job to observe welfare of your people. So there close but mission will always outweigh welfare of your people.

8. Question: Do you think Stanley provides good training to new employees? If so, how? If not, what could be done better?

Answer: No it doesn’t. I think that Stanley needs to invest in a training program. I think every skill set should have a process that people have a documented career progression path for each functional area that we work in. Number one, we need to get that established. Second, we need to establish training programs that allow people to know what they need to get done to get promoted. Thirdly, we need to

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have people properly placed in labor categories so that their job is in line with what they are paid by and what they are supposedly deemed to be promoted by.

9. Question: What do you think is the biggest problem within Stanley (Charleston Division) today?

Answer: Training, safety, career progression. I think the lack of those three things destroy morale. Basically, people don’t understand why some people get promoted and some don’t. Because we have no established process and people ultimately think it’s because of who you know vice what your experience is.

10. If you were CEO for a day, what changes would you make and why?

Answer: I would automatically give people sick days. I think a lack of sick day’s forces people to take vacation days. If people have to use vacation days, then people are more likely to come to work sick vice burn a vacation day. I think it would promote health in the workplace.

11. Question: Can you name a few leaders whom you admired and provide a brief description of why you selected those individuals and how they influenced you?

Answer: Tamika Pernobol. She was a very effective communicator. She could speak to anyone at any level and make them feel that they mattered. She was a very good problem solver, very motivated, and led by example.

Kenneth Park. He was the ultimate the persuasive leader. He had the ability to get people to do whatever he wanted them to do and they would be happy doing it. I learned the power of persuasion from him.

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Craig Alridge. What I learned from him is that it doesn’t matter what your ethnic background is, you can effectively lead anybody of any color, creed, or national origin if you treat everybody the same.

12. Question: Have you ever worked for bad leadership? If so, what lessons did you learn and how do you incorporate them into your leadership style today?

Answer: Yes, I have. I think everyone is going to have worked for someone who has bad leadership abilities. The lessons I’ve learned is that adversity is always an opportunity for personal growth. There are ways of learning from both effective and ineffective leadership. I think if you’re not challenged by ineffective leadership, you are going to miss a lot of growth opportunities. If everything was always good, you would never be prepared for adversity. It’s a personal learning experience; I don’t think people should be scared of ineffective leadership. I think people should take it at is a challenge. How do I tackle this adversity? How do I maneuver around it to take care of me and my people?

13. Question: What qualities do you look for when you are looking to assemble a team, select a new hire, or promote someone? Why do you look for those qualities?

Answer: I’m looking for motivation, sustained performance. I don’t like people that have jumped from company to company so I want someone that are consistent. I’m looking for someone who is coming to me looking to give the company something, rather than someone looking for what the company is going

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to give them first. I like someone who is eager, well-spoken, well-dressed, can think on their feet, problem solvers, and people who can handle change.

14. Question: What is the hardest part about being a leader and why do you feel that way?

Answer: I think the hardest part of being a leader is the isolation. To be an effective leader, you have to set some distance between you and the people of your team. And sometimes you have there is natural distance set between you and your peers. You will only be understood by people who are effective leaders. Ineffective leaders will be challenged by you because they fear you and they will not bond with you because of that fear. I think the isolation that comes from being proficient and confident puts you on an island.

15. Question: What is the most rewarding part about being a leader and why do you feel that way?

Answer: It’s always going to be personal development of your people. When you observe the growth of a subordinate, and you see them go from a certain point under you to a certain point with you. Watching them go forth and do great things. Watching them go out and spreading that leadership throughout an organization. I think that’s the greatest part of being a leader.

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