Colorado State Leadership Skills and Management Assignment Portfolio Outline and Interview Questions and Answers attached. Research and Reflection Paper

Colorado State Leadership Skills and Management Assignment Portfolio Outline and Interview Questions and Answers attached.

Research and Reflection Paper

Ruminate on what you learned in your interview—especially anything that helped you gain a deeper insight into the topics we have studied in the course—and write a research and reflection paper in which you draw upon our shared learning, your individual learning, and the additional discernment you have gained from the interview to demonstrate a more in-depth understanding of the foundational principles of management. In your paper, go beyond a mere recitation of memorized facts or regurgitation of information; strive to synthesize the most important topics of management (i.e., leadership, personality, motivation, decision making, communication, and the importance of good management to yourself and to society) into a hybrid research and reflection paper.

Your paper should integrate responses to each of the following areas in a well-organized and coherent paper:

Discuss the leadership precepts you gleaned as a result of your interview.
Describe how the leadership precepts dovetail with one or more of the modern theories of leadership.
Describe any management weaknesses or failures your interview imparted on you.
Discuss how to address these weaknesses or failures in light of the leadership model(s) you have discussed.
Describe one or two tenets of motivation theory you have taken away from the course, in light of your interview, the leadership model(s) you have discussed, and your own personality.
Discuss how your understandings of motivation theories impact your conceptions of the best practices when it comes to making decisions and communicating at work.
Based on your interview and on learning from this course, summarize what it takes to be an effective employee, a successful manager, and an exemplary citizen of society.

Your well-written paper should meet the following requirements:

Be 8-10 pages in length.
Be formatted according to the CSU-Global Guide to Writing and APA. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Cite at least five scholarly sources, at least one of which is not provided in, or linked from, the course, to support your assertions and strengthen your arguments. The CSU-Global Library is a great place to find these sources. Q. Do you have a favorite manager that you’ve worked with? Why was she your favorite manager?
A. So, and I thought about this one for a while. My favorite manager was Cindy Gonzales. And she was
my manager at Disney. Why she was my favorite manager is because was always in charge. Like she
commanded the room, but she was super friendly and super nice. So, you always knew who the boss
was. But at the same time, her demeanor to you, she was very approachable. So anytime you have an
issue or problem, it wasn’t like, Oh, crap, I had to go to the manager. It was like, I know, Cindy has my
back. And that she’ll, she’ll take care of the situation. And she was definitely my favorite.
Q. What do you believe makes a strong manager?
A. A manager needs to be multifaceted. They have to have the time management side, but they also
have to have the people-oriented side. And you can have a manager and you can have a leader. And if
you can fuse the two together, then that makes really the perfect leader. Someone that can inspire
others to do something rather than demand or command them to do something. Someone who’s there
to support you 100% along the way but knows how to push you to be your best.
And an open-door policy for me is a must. Like for instance, Brandon Thompson. I know like he’s so chill,
you know, and his doors always open. I can go on there any point in time, and he never makes me feel
like what I have to say, is it important for that he’s too busy. Right now. He always stops and addresses
exactly what you know what’s going on. And I think that makes a good manager. it’s nice to know that,
you know, your manager is willing to stop and take a minute and actually talk to you when you really
need to talk to them.
Q. What do you believe makes a weak manager?
A. Being yelled at for one, because I have had a manager that legitimately took me aside to scream at
me about something that I had no power over or control over. And just decided to take it out on me. I’ve
had managers, instead of dealing with the issue, put the blame back on the lower guy. Instead of just
being like – there’s problem, we had a solution and it’s taken care of – you get “Oh, it was this person’s
fault.” And to me to be a leader to that person means they are there to protect you and you are there to
support them. You know, it’s a symbiotic relationship. So, if it’s all about them, that’s a bad or weak
manager.
Q. To do you aspire to be a manager someday?
A. Yes, I do. I like being there for people, I like supporting people. And I like seeing people’s best science
come out. I found at least with my experience of Panera, I had a lot of opportunity to work with a
younger group of teenagers. And the teenagers, it wasn’t just about, you know, we’re going in, we’re
doing production, and then we’re cleaning up or closing for the day, we were able to talk about stuff
that’s going on in their lives. And the hard the hard times they were going through. One of my most
memorable moments of being support for one of my team was when I found out one of my employees
had an extreme alcohol addiction. And it was at a point where she was choosing to spend her money on
alcohol instead of feeding herself. And she got caught stealing food. But we sat down, and we had a talk
and I was like, you need to straighten your life up because this is not okay. And we had a very real
conversation about how she was a good person, and what she was doing was not okay, but that she
could do better if she chose to do it. And that I hope she did. And we put her on a week suspension. And
she texts me a week later that she was in Canada with her mom, going to classes and getting the help
she needed and really working on fixing herself and she was able to become sober because of it. And so
being able to have that kind of impact not only in somebody’s professional life, but their personal life as
well is awesome. What I’ve been able to do is help people get the jobs that they want. Put in a good
work for Bernie who is going to the bank and for Steve who’s going to work for the city of Tallahassee, is,
you know, helping them professionally. And as well as personally, I think that’s the best thing. Because if
you’re people are the best people that they can be, they’re going to want to come into work and they’re
wanting to give it their 100%.
Q. Do you believe leaders are born? Or do you believe leaders can be taught to be a leader?
A. I think it’s both. I think there’s natural born leaders. And you can just you can tell, sometimes from a
young age, you might see a four-year old and a four-year old’s, you know, telling its teddy bears, “okay,
class, this is what we’re going to do today.” And then sometimes, it’s it really to me, I believe, being a
leader is all about having a teachable spirit. And if you are the kind of person that can take constructive
criticism, and not let it just like you, but make you stronger because of it. That you can take somebody
who has no leadership skills, and if they want it that bad, they can absolutely become who they want it.
But it’s do they want it or do they not? Because if they’re not willing to put in any kind of effort, they’re
not going to grow. So, you might have a good leader that could be a great leader. But if they’re not
willing to, you know, learn more and broaden their horizons, and they’re okay to settle for where they’re
at, they’re going to be a good leader and not a great leader.
Q. What roles do goals, objectives, decision making, and communication play on the job on a regular
basis?
A. Well, I will tell you that for me, I’ve always been very much so a spontaneous person. However, I
realized that in life, we’re always putting boxes around things so that we can make them simpler and
understand them. Things like love, we can use an emoji, that’s the heart. And we know exactly what that
means everything that love is, we see in a simple, little shape. So, you know, how do you define it? How
do you define light, what really is like, it’s the absence of darkness, there’s a whole complex theory
behind it. But instead, we make it very simplified. And we, we call it something a lot simpler. So, it’s, it’s
all about finding the simplicity. And if you can make something simple, something where if someone has
an aha moment, I understand exactly what you’re talking about. And because of that, I can reciprocate
in and do exactly what you’ve asked me to, then then that’s what you need is that good communication
to where you don’t talk so much. Because talking so much, you can either cause confusion, or you’re
going to lose somebody’s attention, but having the right message at the right time, and not, you know,
the right length, you can make an impact so and not only that setting goals is if you don’t set a clear
expectation, how do you ever expect anybody to meet or exceed it? Because if you say, hey, I need you
to, you know, I need you to go write a paper. Okay, well, what font is it supposed to be? Okay, well, how
long is it supposed to be? What am I supposed to write about? And if you have just a simple bullet of 12point font, five pages on dinosaurs, you know exactly what’s expected.
Q. How do you handle changes at your organization? And what specific challenges have you
encountered with managers in the past?
A. Well, changes in the organization, I would say, the main thing is to be self-aware and be cognizant of
what the implications of a change could mean. Because if not, is going to run you over, right? At least if
you know, it’s coming, you know how to start to prepare. And I have seen managers really take the time
to create a well-documented and outline plan to handle a change. Versus haphazardly, okay, this is how
we’re going to try to deal with this, because this is how we think it’s going to happen, right? And so, you
have something like we have in work right now, where we’ve implemented a new system, and the
people that created it are from a completely outside mindset, they don’t understand how this, this
business unit works. And now we have a mess that we’re cleaning up.
When if leaders took the time to understand, down to the little guys, what exactly all the processes
were, learn what was going on from the ground up, they would have had a much easier time to
implement everything, for sure. It’s tough when you’re struggling so much, and they don’t understand
why but they’re not seeing the entire process. They’re not seeing everything that you have to go
through to get to where they think it should be because they haven’t gone through that process.
I had a very, very high up manager, the last quarterly report that we had, say, I don’t really think it’s that
bad. I think they’re using it as an excuse. And it’s like, you just don’t understand, because you’re eight
levels higher than any of the people who are directly affected by this. So, there’s another example of a
week manager.
Q. And what advice do you have to offer for someone looking to become a manager?
A. I would say, definitely have a teachable spirit and an open mind and an open heart. And in addition to
that, knowing that, ultimately, people who can be make the job of a difficult workplace, or not the
problem, but they’re the solution. So how do you work with difficult people? How do you work with
people who don’t have a teachable school spirit? How do you work with people who are in different or
have a different culture than you are a different thought process, or maybe they, they blurt things out
fast, you know, it’s definitely learning how people think and how people like how to work with people.
My best class I’ve ever taken, was a management organization class. And from that class, it taught about
things like the difference between self-esteem and self-efficacy. And self-advocacy is where you, you do
something. And when you do what you get it right, and you get that feedback that I’ve accomplished
this, and then you can move on to the next goal with the confidence that you have the ability to do it,
because of what you’ve done in the past versus self-esteem, it’s just that kind of thing in the back of
your head that says I can do this no matter what.
And when you can build your people to have both right, not just give them more than they can chew,
but you know, something that’s challenging, and then build them up and help build their self-esteem,
then they will be able to be their best. So, if you can learn how to handle people that come from
different backgrounds and different mindsets and also understand that if they’re having a bad day, and
they’re crabby about something it might not be the project that you’re working on, it might not be that
they really have a problem with you – they can be dealing with something at home and being sensitive to
that.
Q. Do you feel that a bad leader can become a good leader, or can a bad manager become a better
manager?
A. if they want to and are willing to re-evaluate themselves and change, yes. I work with somebody who
is in a different category as me, but we work together, and he has a very unteachable spirit, and you can
try to help him – but the problem is he will never be better than who he is today and he seems content
with not moving forward. So, you know if someone who is not great, can stretch and is willing to change,
I believe they can become a better leader. Because I had been in that position where I was not good at
time management skills whatsoever. I was not good at planning whatsoever. But through practicing
them and wanting to be better and having that drive, I was able to overcome a lot of those things. So,
it’s really about whether you are willing to make the change.

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