Capstone Presentation 

CLC Capstone: Strategic Leadership and Entrepreneurship

Jessica Cisneros

Nicholas Gaudet

Cory Nicholson

Rebekah Reno

MGT-485

April 9, 2017

Leadership Internal Influence

At Five- Star Cleaning Services, our leaders will have a fairly large sphere of influence. All of our managers will be experienced in housekeeping, and as often as possible, hired from within. While this kind of promotion process can be very problematic it ensures that the leadership we have for the company is well known and well respected. This also ensures that all leaders know the roots of the business and the business model. They were grown and breed from within the business and worked hard to show the upper management that they were ready to be a part of the plan. So because of our hire from within process all of our management has a lot of influence on the business as a whole. We instill great trust in our management as we did hand pick all of them and as a reward try very hard not to get too involved in their management process. Of course if there are signs of issue we must act but we try hard to let the managers handle their own business from within their walls. Every manager has quarterly face to face meetings with the boards of directors to be informed of new procedures and rules that have been implemented and to share ideas that they have and things they have learned from there time as manager. Managers are free to set their own rules within their walls but all changes must be sent in writing to the board. There is no approval process and red tape but the board must know what is happening at all businesses. We pride ourselves on having a very competent management system and great relations with them between the board and the management teams.

Leadership Bias and Hurdles

The traditional employee performance appraisal is a significant tool through which an organization can reward or penalize employees’ talents. Through this process, organizations have the potential of increasing the diversity as well as the strength of their pool of talents, and enhance organizational success by promoting best performers (Traub, 2013). With Five Star Cleaning Services expectations for high performance, it is anticipated that leaders may, in an effort at projecting their experiences as well as values, develop unintended performance based biases. And according to Traub (2013) some of the most performance based biases include rater bias, structural bias, calibration bias as well as self-rater bias.

The company may face numerous hurdles during strategy formulation and implementation. Some of the anticipated obstacles include cognitive hurdle, resource hurdles, motivational hurdle and political hurdle. Gingras (2015) asserts that leaders face challenges in getting everyone to agree on a particular issue and the importance of change (cognitive hurdle). Also many leaders recognize the importance of employee motivation but they need to use different forms of employee motivation rather than cash incentives, which may be expensive. Organizational politics are inevitable and leaders must be prepared for it. Finally, organizational leaders must utilize their limited resources in an effective way.

Leadership Styles

Within our organization, we will demonstrate transformational leadership. This is our preferred method because transformational leadership has been identified as one of the most effective leadership styles and we fell it is a great fit for us. This style entails motivating followers to exceed the expectations others have of them, to continuously enrich their capabilities, and to place the interests of the organization above their own (Hitt, Ireland, and Hoskission. 2015.). Putting the interests of the organization above our own allows us the ability to focus on the needs of our customers first. As a result, our exceptional customer service has aided us in identifying new clientele and establishing loyalty with our existing clientele. Servant Leadership, the ability to focus on the needs of others, especially team members, before you consider your own, has quickly integrated itself into our leadership style. Because we focus not only on the needs of our clients, but the needs of our employees and business as a whole, exhibiting servant leadership will allow us to continue to establish a future vision for our business, encourage motivation, and build a stronger team.

Leadership Strengths and Weaknesses

Our potential strengths include our product uniqueness, exceptional customer service, and customer retention rate. Because we have a proprietary, all natural eco-friendly cleaning solution, we have set ourselves apart from our direct competition. Additionally, all Five-Star Cleaning Services employees attend a mandatory, in depth, new hire orientation program with an in depth focus on customer service giving each employee the tools necessary to provide a Five-Star cleaning experience. Our customer retention rate will remain high due to our customer loyalty programs, unparalleled cleaning services, and tailored cleaning services that meet the needs of every client. While we have not clearly identified any major weaknesses in our business model thus far, our prices are slightly higher than the average cleaning services company since we pinpoint the luxury market, which can potentially make sales slightly more difficult. Despite this challenge, we plan to utilize our strengths to combat this weakness until we grow large enough to manufacture larger quantities of product to get the price down.

Leadership Impact and Influence

According to Bill Hogg (2016), there are five main ways for a leader to influence organizational culture: model behavior, establish a purpose to believe in, set expectations and help people build the required skill, reinforce a culture of accountability, and make it personal for your team. The leadership of Five-Star Cleaning Services stands by these five steps, and adds a sixth of our own: consistency. We believe that if the leadership is consistent in what they do and say, and in how they work to model the appropriate business behavior, how they establish and pursue a purpose, how they train others to meet the high expectations they set, how they stay accountable and keep others accountable around them, and how they emotionally and rationally connect with other leaders, their employees, and the customers, then the results will be a quality service force with a standard of excellence that our customers can trust.

References

Gingras, R. (2015). Tipping point leadership: NYPD. Center for Business & Economic Analysis Whitepaper Series. St. Norbert College. Retrieved from. https://www.snc.edu/cbea/docs/Tipping_Point_Leadership.pdf

Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E. (2015).  Strategic management: Competitiveness and globalization: concepts (11th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning

Hogg, B. (2016, October 16). 5 Ways for Leaders to Influence Organizational Culture | CustomerThink. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/5-ways-for-leaders-to-influence-organizational-culture/

Traub, L. (2013). Bias in performance management review process: Creating an inclusive talent pipeline by understanding our filters. Silver Spring, MD: Cook Ross Inc.