Experiential Leadership Project Progress Report Essay

This paper is an existential attractionship project whose subject is, Sandra Ussery, my direct supervisor at work. Sandras title is Pricing Systems Supervisor, under FedEx study LTL. At present she oversees niner direct occupyees. Sandras boss is Diane Lia, the Pricing Systems Manager for FedEx National LTL. Diane has ii direct employees and nine indirect employees. The main reason I ease up chosen to focus on Sandra is because she is in a newly created position. cheeseparing supervisors be deal who, even when they must correct some unity, gouge smell on your toes without messing up your shine.They give concourse a shot in the arm without letting them feel the needle. People seem to need encouragement most when they sense that they make believe re every(prenominal)y failed. Perhaps they failed the boss, or the organic law or just failed themselves. In any case, it is at that moment that the leader needs to show her characterhow she is equal to help them along with th e mend work at. My supervisor, Sandra Ussery, is that kind of a boss and many some other(prenominal) much than. This paper aims to gather an military rate of her from those race under her. It shall in any case provide a copy of the questionnaire which I used in gauging the kind of leading she implements with her staff.The process of evaluating an individuals performance contains elements of positive and negative reinforcement. How wellhead people perform is more much than not determined by whether their performance is evaluated or rewarded. Many organizations, especially littler ones, do not set about formal evaluation programs because they have survived without them in the past and they see no benefit for them in the future. Yet, performance wariness is essential even among supervisors because they upgrade the level of the human performance of organizations. They post problem argonas in the workplace when it comes to human resources.Although the situation does not a ttend to be in need of full attention right now, the implications pull up stakes be felt later on by organization if they do not act consciously on the issue. There are adjustments that allow in minimum and retrieveorial charges, including additional adjustments in select lanes and go areas. The FedEx cargo Segment accumulated annual revenues of $3. 6 billion in fiscal social class 2006. This includes FedEx shipment, a leading U. S. supplier of regional next-day and second-day and interregional LTL incumbrance dishs. The lodge is known for its high performance and exceptional expediency and reli big businessman.FedEx Freight extends its service to all U. S. ZIP codes. It is supported by its principle of no-fee- money-back guarantee on all eligible continental U. S. shipments. It gives service to Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, atomic number 63 and Asia. Holding corporate office in Memphis, Tennessee, the FedEx Freight Segment also i ncludes FedEx National LTL, a leading supplier of long-haul LTL serve doneout magnetic north America. Looking at this description, this paper maintains that every organization needs to jumpstart where it should be rightly sothe individual.The FedEx National LTL, is a leading U. S. provider of long-haul LTL freight services. Federal Ex iron out purchased original employer, Watkins labour Lines last June. anterior to this purchase, the pricing systems department, which was called the auto rate department under Watkins, had no supervisor. The supervisor position was created to have someone to train new employees as they were added to that department. anterior to four some early(a)s and myself moving to the department in the span of a family, in that respect had been no new additions to that department for seven-spot years.After the acquisition, the supervisor product line was created so that the manager of that department could focus on workings with managers of other de partments at our location and at other operating(a) companies to integrate our systems in concert. FedEx National LTL, which is the operating familiarity that I work for, specializes in providing low-cost impartation to our customers with slower turn around sequences. Our partner freight guild, FedEx Freight, specializes on one to two day turnaround times at a high cost. The main reason we were purchased was to add the long haul, low cost service to FedExs already quick turnaround customers.FedEx National LTL operates in the get together States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, but we can transport a shipment through and through the mingled operating companies anywhere in the world. The main factors affecting the companies operation at this time is the integration of our system into theirs. Our department takes pricing that is negotiated with our customers and we stimulant drug it into our modify rating system. This system is designed to automatically apply pricing to freig ht bills so that no one has to manually rate them. This process is a huge cost saver to the company and is a extremely rivet on at FedEx.Federal Express has a mandate to input all pricing into this system, this way they have to pay few people to rate the bills. The problem we are facing is to integrate our automated rating program with theirs. Also, their operating systems are different than ours, but based on the same platform, so all the managers of the IT, IS, and Pricing Application departments are focused on integrating these systems. There is a comprehensive network of nearly 330 service centers and advanced training systems, FedEx Freight provides service to virtually all U. S. ZIP codes, including Alaska and Hawaii.The carriers regional and interregional LTL service is supported by a no-fee money-back guarantee on all eligible continental U. S. shipments. It gives service to Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia. Holding corporate office in Memphis, Tennessee, the FedEx Freight Segment also includes FedEx National LTL, a leading provider of long-haul LTL services throughout North America. In general, the company offers customers and businesses worldwide with services in transportation, e-commerce and business services.The annual revenue is a staggering $34 billion. It is known worldwide as having trustworthy and admired employers. It has more than 275,000 employees. Contractors employ positive safety with a high ethical and professional standard. As I said before, what I want to do with my project is put on feedback from my fellow coworkers, some of which have been there less than a year and others who have been there ten years or more. I have already discussed this project with my manager, supervisor, and coworkers and all of them have agreed to provide entropy and feedback, as I need it.Since, most of the senior people have worked with Sandra for at least five years, I entrust be able to get th eir impression of her and her leadership abilities. Sandra did not train many of the flavor people, so I testament discuss with the four new people how effective they feel she was as a trainer. I also program to evaluate her based on the leadership way of lifes I learned in the course. I want to see if Sandra tends to focus on one modal value or varies in styles and approaches depending on the employee and the situation.She has agreed to let me observe her a few times a week during the course of this project so that I whitethorn see her leadership style at work. I believe the best way to determine a particular style is to observe her actions towards me and other members of the department. I have contacted Human Resources to see if I can get a Job Description for her position in order to see what is leased from her and her charge tasks. While I am observing her I will use these criteria to see if she is confident in completing these tasks. I will use these criteria to evaluate her leadership office and her ability to meet the needs of the company.I plan to be as objective as I can with this report, especially since I have only been with the company for two years, and in this department for about seven months. I plan to use the leadership styles outlined in the keep back as a guide to determining her style or styles of leadership. I want to gather as much data from coworkers and my manager on Sandra, since I have spent little time working with her. I want to see how the perceptions of those employees that have worked with her for a long time differ from those of us that are new.I believe that using the information outlined in our book, the job description qualifications and expectations, and the observations and information collected from coworkers and myself will help to determine if she is an effective leader. According to Dennie Carey, senior vice president, marketing, FedEx Freight, Whether operating fast cycle logistics or planned distribution, shi ppers have told us they require a high degree of certainty, shipment integrity and actionable information. The company meets customer needs by continuing to invest in their people, equipment, facilities and technologies.FedEx Freight has improved service in 3,000 lanes. Add to this is the safety features to its tractors and this ushered the easy access to its regional and long-haul service via the internet. It has also taken over the operations of Watkins Motor Lines in September, FedEx National LTL. It now focuses on the market with a highly engineered network. Sandra Ussery is a manager with faith in her staff. Part of any working day is given over to tracking and checking the near that has been delegated throughout her staff.This is not about looking over the shoulders of her staff, but about monitoring the progress of the given program of the moment. Most people need reminders and her staff finds her as the ultimate reminderer in the organization. The people who most enjoy wor king with her are those who are self-starters, self-disciplined individuals who bring her the results of their projects before she ever has a mishap to check on their progress. After a while, she learns whom she needs to remind and whom she can count on to follow through without reminders.She is able to encourage authorisation of all staff since she recognizes that this is very important in make changes more effective. The more involved people are in the process of change, the more effective the change will be and the more lasting it will be for the company (Coyle and Kossek, 2000). Definitely, Ussery enhances her staffs ability to influence other subordinates in order to facilitate efficient decision making process within the organization. Those directly under her like and who worked with her within a year or so like Jessica, Jane, David, Daniel, Jerri, Sheila find that she exercises authoritative leadership ith them.This may be so because she trained them directly and she knows that these people would understand her when she wants things do perfectly. imperious leadership is the most effective in terms of generating changes for the company. Authoritative leaders as she is, she is very clear on what she wants to accomplish. She also has the ability to invoke to her staff the significance of their job in the accomplishment of the companys tendencys. This means therefore, that employees or the police squad knows their roles in the grand goal of the company.Through the strategic positioning of a vision, an Ussery provides standard on which the results of the team can be evaluated. The other staff like Scot, Cathie, Penny, and Diane, who is also Sandras manager, find her diversifying her leadership style to ensure that they are applied fitly to certain situations. These people say that Sandra balances her authority and democracy in her leadership styles. They evaluate her as having the sensitivity and emotional capacity to recognize what would be the most appropriate leadership strategy that is being called for by the situation.In many cases using just one strategy cannot generate effective results. One of the important components in leadership is also recognizing the authority of an appoint leader. Characteristics of the leader have been known to be very important in the acquisition of goals. This is very important in the context of the FedEx where implementations of projects are assigned to specific leadership and utmost excellence is needed. According to many mental studies, which aim to recognize the character behind some of the effective leaders in successful organizations, emotional countersign is very important for many leaders (Goleman, 2000).This has been widely reviewed in many literatures. According to Goleman (2000) this emotional intelligence can be reflected on the ability of leaders to have the prerequisite social skills. This means that they must be able work well with their people under different circumstances to ensure that there are no barriers to converse. This would help the problem to be resolved immediately and for improvements of the programs be initiated efficiently. They must also have high levels of motivation, which would allow them to do things through initiative and exceed the expected results.These are all seen in Sandra, as evaluated by her people and they especially find that she is really flexible as well to the call of the times and the moment. Finally she knows her limitations and admit that she cannot possibly do everything without the able help of her staff likewise. Ms. Sandra Ussery is a good manager because she taught me through her example how to get the job done. I started taking notes and wondering what I would do if I were in charge. I looked and listened and collected a compile of what people liked and disliked and collected a catalog of what people liked and disliked about management.She would often come up to me and say, here(predicate)s what we are going to do, and made us believe we could do it. From that moment on, I was ready. Are you ready? Youve got to take stock and candidly answer the question. It requires huge amounts of time and effort. Not everyone is willing to make the payload and the sacrifices. She often would say that she gets a high watching people succeed. qualification peoples actions visible by publicizing and recognizing their work strengthens others. It opens doors to potential new relationships because people are more aware of one anothers contributions.Success is an attractive magnet for pulling people together and increasing their attachment to the project. Ms. Ussery points out that building stable political coalitions is often based on making certain that participants involvement is publicized. She notes that good press is an essential political currency. While publicizing other peoples actions heightens peoples sense of personal power. It builds commitment because it makes it more fractious for people to dissociate themselves from the actions and activities that they were recognized for.There is also a ascension literature today on leadership that emphasizes the need to inspire collaboration. This is the appear mainstream form of leadership where power in the process of decision making is more decentralized. There is now a present emphasis on the ability of group collaboration to actually facilitate the achievement of the goals. collaborative leadership is practiced by Sandra as an effective means of communication that could actually imbibe greater productivity and greater creativity for the achievement of the goals of the department she is in.