Answer Q 1 & 3 from Lt Colonel Case 3.2, p 62 5 pt

EXPLICITLY APPLY textbook material in your answer!

Also, view the …RIVER QUAI video again, and use its material on ethical perspectives in your discussion And respond to 2 classmates.

Questions 1 & 3

• Based on the skills model, how would you assess Lt. Col. John Adams’s ability to meet the challenges of the base administration position?

The skills model is a leadership performance analysis which measures a leader’s skills and performance. The skills model allots for a vast number of individuals the ability to become effective leaders determining leadership can be taught and developed, unlike the great man theory which states that leaders are born with certain traits which will result in their effective leadership abilities. Much like River Quai video, Lt. Col. John Adams must overcome difficult challenges, similar to the British Officer who would not budge on having officers conduct manual labor, while maintaining his ethical foundation and moral rules of his position. The skills model has five elements utilized to determine Lt. Col John Adam’s ability to meet the challenges of the administration position.

(*Assessment score based on low, average, high rating)

• Individual Attributes
  • General Cognitive Ability: an individual’s ability to problem solve, a natural intelligence level.
    • High: Lt. Col. Adams has historically shown levels of high general cognitive ability by outperforming his peers in advancement timelines.
  • Crystalized Cognitive Ability: knowledge and skill an individual has attained or learned over time.
    • High: Lt. Col. Adams has received a Master’s degree in engineering, a very difficult acumen which he accomplished.
  • Motivation: an individual’s ability to show willingness, dominance and social good towards a responsibility.
    • High: Lt. Col. Adams has shown great willingness to tackle the responsibility of a Commanding Officer of an Administration branch with his engineering background and history of assignments. Col. Adams has also demonstrated dominance in his ability to meet the imposed staff levels for the entire base while attempting to meet operational missions. Lt. Col. Adams finally demonstrated social good towards the organization by trying to meet all organizational goals and operate under new fiscal restraints.
  • Personality: an individual’s personality trait that enables them to tackle difficult tasks without getting over stressed.
    • Average: Lt. Col. Adams got over his head by trying to meet every order resulting in losing the big picture.
  • Competencies
    • Problem Solving Skills: an individual’s ability to overcome constraints
      • Average: Lt. Col. Adams was able to create ways to meet budgetary constraints but was not able to meet overall command objectives.
    • Social Judgement Skills: an individual’s ability to understand and empathize with the stress and struggles that organizational change creates.
      • Low: Col. Adams altered his organizational structure to successfully complete the orders. He did a poor job of showing empathy towards his workforce resulting in stress, discontent and frustration throughout the employees he led.
    • Knowledge: An individual’s ability to exhibit subject matter expert skill.
      • Low: Lt. Col. Adams is an engineer and has a low level of knowledge in the HR field.
    • Leadership Outcomes
      • Effective Problem Solving: an individual’s ability to develop and implement solutions to complex problems.
        • Average: Lt. Col. Adams was able to develop solutions to fiscal constraints but was not able to maintain command mission.
      • Performance: evaluation of how an individual is able to achieve organizational goals.
        • Low: although Lt. Col. Adams developed plans to meet fiscal constraints he did not meet command mission and developed a disgruntled workforce.
      • Career Experiences: skill developed from challenging assignments or through mentoring or training.
        • Low: Lt. Col. Adams has not had challenging HR assignments leading to his inability to prioritize the fiscal constraints against overall command mission.
      • Environmental Influences: internal and external factors driving decisions and results.
        • Low: Government defense budget cuts resulted in being the source of constraint for Lt. Col. Adams.

• If you were to coach Adams on how he could improve his leadership, what would you tell him?

If I were to coach Adams on how he could improve his leadership, I would advise him to utilize Mumford, Higgs and McIntosh’s nine steps of problem solving to aid him in meeting constraints and still meeting operational mission.

• Problem Definition & Forecasting: the ability to accurately define the problem vice the symptom to accurately assess the affects those changes will produce.
  • Reduce manning by 30% while maintaining operational readiness
• Cause/goal analysis: ability to perform root cause analysis of problem to implement affective corrective actions to achieve organizational goals.
  • 30% manning reduction will result in insufficient manning
• Constraint Analysis: ability to define the most limiting constraints
  • Base closure resulted in needing a 30% manning decrease.
• Forecasting: utilizing prior lessons learned to implement into plan
  • Utilize prior base closure plans to highlight lessons learned or areas of success.
• Planning /Creative Thinking/Wisdom/Idea Evaluation: ability to create plans to overcome constraints
  • Develop a team developed POAM (Plan of Action and Milestones) that reduces manning efficiently to maintain operational readiness.
• Sense making/Visioning: the ability to communicate a vision that will inspire a team to comprehend the issue and motivated to overcome.
  • Once POAM is developed, conduct weekly meetings to discuss purpose, status and obstacles of meeting POAM completion goals and deadlines.

References

Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and Practice (8th Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications

1) With the information given, I believe Lt. Col. John Adams did the best he could with the deadlines that were in place. With this being said, the skills model has five components with three competencies that are the key factors to the model (Northouse, 2018). Adams reviewed the relevant orders regarding the base transformation and memorized the early retirement plan. In River Quai, the British officer memorized rules of the Geneva Convention, which shows that leaders need to be prepared to discuss the rules or guidelines that are in place. When it comes to general cognitive ability vs. crystallized cognitive ability, general cognitive ability is described by a person’s intelligence in which Adam possessed. This was demonstrated through Adams background in aeronautical engineering and his completion of a masters degree. On the other hand with crystallized cognitive ability, Adams progressed in rankings quickly and was thrown into this assignment. He went from overseeing a 15-20 person shift to overseeing over 100 personnel with five different areas on the base. With the crystallized cognitive ability the intellectual ability is gained through experience, which Adam did not have time to develop before gaining this assignment.

3) After reading the passage, I can tell Lt. Col. John Adams would be an exceptional leader one day. It appeared that Adams had difficlt assignments at an early stage, but great leaders are always challenged and have great guidance around them. My advice to Adams when looking at the big picture would be that he needs to involve others and distribute the different assignments. Adam also needs to motivate others around him that they still have a mission and need to focus on completing their tasks. In River Quai, they did not move when the Japanese officer asked them. They only moved when the British officer commanded them to. For Adams to have the same result, he needs to have a personal connection with the people he is overseeing and develop a relationship with them. When doing this, he can motivate them and distribute his different assignments. I would also put Lt. Col. John Adams in different leadership classes so he can be taught different technics on leadership. Every leader is different, but the ones people follow are the ones who can motivate while inspiring others.

References

Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and Practice (8th Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications