Finance and Accounting: Leveraging ResourcesSeeing Details Others Miss
What qualities do leaders such as Steve Jobs (Apple), Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Ursula Burns (Xerox), and Sam Walton (Walmart) have in common? Probably many! But one that stands out is business savviness.
Business savviness combines a high level of understanding about an industry or company with the know-how, technical skills, and foresight to be considered an expert. Those qualities enable highly savvy business leaders to take calculated risks that pay off. According to DeBorde (n.d.):
Or as one business blogger put it when discussing PepsiCo’s turnaround: Enter Indra Nooyi, the new CEO of PepsiCo who took the helm just long enough to spawn an idea so crazy that it was perfect. Even crazier—it’s made the company more successful than it’s been in years, and it’s all thanks to one entrepreneur’s skill for seeing details others miss. (para. 2)
Reference
DeBorde, C. (n.d.). How PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi’s leadership style saved Pepsi. https://www.expertmarket.com/focus/success/indra-nooyiThis week, you will examine how business leaders in varying industries have demonstrated exceptionally savvy leadership, explore the effect of innovation on models of leadership, and consider whether bosses are really necessary.
TO DO LIST
What You Need To Know: Learn about business leaders in varying industries who have demonstrated exceptionally savvy leadership, explore the effect of innovation on models of leadership, and consider whether bosses are really necessary.
Discussion: Participate in the weekly discussion activity in Yellowdig.
Discussion OverviewFor this week’s discussion, you will choose one of the topics explored in the What You Need to Know activity and provide your thoughts and experiences, or share which readings this week are most relevant to you.
What You Need to KnowSavvy Leadership
Fralich, R. (2016). Bet-the-company decisions: When do they pay off? Journal of Business Strategy, 37(1), 44–50.
Due to external drivers or internal interest, some executives make bet-the-company type decisions to drive a company to be more competitive. This article includes examples of executives making these types of decisions.
Watson, M. D. M. (2019). The leadership that facilitates innovation. Talent Development, 73(4), 24–26.
Leaders today are becoming savvier in how they promote and grow innovation in the workplace. This article digs into some techniques and examples of facilitating innovation.
Schoemaker, P. J. H., Heaton, S., & Teece, D. (2018). Innovation, dynamic capabilities, and leadership. California Management Review, 61(1), 15–42.
The environment in which a business operates is not always stable. The research here digs into decision making by leaders who need to be a bit more business savvy in their decision making when changes stress a business.
Skålsvik, H., Adriaenssen, D., & Johannessen, J. -A. (2016). Leadership aiming at innovation: Suggesting and discussing four roles of an innovation leader [PDF]. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 14(3), 537–548.
You will learn here what it takes to be an innovative and a savvy leader as defined by the four roles in this article.
Inclusive Decision Making
This two-part series explores how innovation is pushing organizations beyond their comfort zone and driving new models of leadership.
Larson, E. (2018). How to use inclusive decision-making to drive innovation and performance. https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriklarson/2018/06/11/how-to-use-inclusive-decision-making-to-drive-innovation-and-performance-part-one/#30c68d1e5ea0
Larson, E. (2018). How to use inclusive decision-making to drive innovation and performance: Part two. https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriklarson/2018/06/13/how-to-use-inclusive-decision-making-to-drive-innovation-and-performance-part-two/#16602dcd6a7d
Are Bosses Necessary?
Read the following articles to prepare for a lively discussion this week about what happens when companies decide to take an entirely difference approach to management.
Tossell, I. (2014, August). Who’s the boss? Report on Business Magazine.
This report discusses how some companies are creating a flat structure with no bosses. Decision making is totally decentralized and employees are empowered to act as leaders.
Feintzeig, R. (2015, August 19). Careers: Radical new idea: Middle managers—When experiments in self-management fall flat, companies give bosses another try. The Wall Street Journal.
This article about the company Treehouse describes how it grew so fast that some employees did not have a boss and the issues that resulted.
Write Your Discussion Post
Instructions
For this week’s discussion, choose one of the following for your post:
Savvy leadership: For this choice, consider the studies on savvy leadership this week. Are you savvy? In what way? Why do you think this is true? Consider providing examples.
Inclusive decision making: Using The Wall Street Journal or another online journal, find an example of inclusive or non-inclusive decision making. How did the decision-making process in your example affect outcomes? What could be done differently in the future?
Are bosses necessary? Share your thoughts and experiences on the role of bosses and how they are relevant in today’s workplace.
Share which of the readings this week offered information you can immediately use at school, home, or work.
Response Guidelines
As you respond to your classmates, share your ideas, experiences, and anecdotal feedback regarding their posts. How have your personal experiences resonated with their ideas? What can you add to their ideas, building upon the connections you have made to the material so far? Don’t forget you can love or like their posts as well.
Do the following when writing your post:
Do not create your post as a reply to this pinned post. Instead, use Yellowdig’s Create option to create a new post.
Label your post with the hashtag for the week (#Week 7) so that others can sort posts by the week’s topic.
If you wish, include links to credible or scholarly articles, videos, images, or other Web resources. These resources could be used to support your post or provide examples.
You may also choose to create a slideshow or use audio or video as your discussion post.
For help using Yellowdig, please see Using Yellowdig [PDF] and Grading in Yellowdig [PDF]. Or visit Yellowdig Forums, Capella’s Campus support page for Yellowdig, with links for technical support.
