Assignment #2:Leadership System
Kevin Hayes
Sandermoen School of Business, University of Fredericton
EMBA 7031: Strategic Operations Planning (C202210b)
Dr. John Latham
December 5, 2022
1
Purpose and Requirements
Conway Consulting is a sales and mindset training company. The vision is to improve the
human experience by making mindset study and mentorship essential. The values that support
the vision include faith in the unseen, extraordinary service, agility and speed in creativity,
decision-making and implementation of ideas, high standards, direct/honest/loving
communication, order and integrity. The organization serves the global market of entrepreneurs
and high-ticket salespeople.
The purpose of the leadership system is to create infrastructure within Conway
Consulting that supports the Criteria for Performance Excellent (CPE). Table 1 describes the
CPE criteria to help the leadership team create a high performing customer acquisition model,
develop sustainability systems, and to develop high performance leaders within the company.
Conway's business is profitable and growing because of the caliber of talent that contributes to
all parts of the organization. The leadership system's infrastructure will identify and develop
more high-performance leaders within the company.
Table 1
Criteria for Performance (CPE)
CPE
Conway Action Items
● Create a high performing
customer acquisition model.
● Develop systems leadership
model to address revenue and
customer growth
● Identify and develop
upcoming leaders
● Measure effectiveness of stakeholder
(internal/external) satisfaction
● Align growth plans more directly and values
with between company and employee
● Identify pathways for feedback mechanisms
and loops around performance
The Best Leadership System
According to Latham (Latham, 2013, p. 12) There is some consensus on what makes a
successful leader in a company; however, there is little to no agreement on the best leadership
system approach for the organization. Therefore, the other purpose of this paper is to provide
Conway Consulting's leadership team with a framework to align the vision, values, and
stakeholder values that will provide sustainability and durability in the company's context. The
leadership system's purpose is an approach that integrates into other managerial systems by
delivering outputs and receiving inputs. This systems approach to leading the company will
2
provide an environment where all of Conway’s employees, partners, customers, suppliers and all
key stakeholders can operate in a manner that reflects our vision and key values.
Information & Knowledge System
Conway Consulting has a consumer buyers journey that spans over six months before a
product. Understanding this information impacts how salespeople, our creative teams, and the
leadership team looks at revenue goals and customer growth targets. The nature of the
information and knowledge system for Conway Consulting includes creating data-gathering
systems (automated) that focus on consumer buying activities. The data gathering system
includes client acquisition data from customer relationship management (CRM). CRM is an
automated system that includes sales, email, marketing, and social media activities. From lead
generation to the lifetime value of a client to marketing activities, the data from this system
needs to be analyzed and inputted into the leadership system to inform the output of the strategic
direction. Dashboards and automation in the data collection and reporting, along with the human
analysis of the information, will result in a system that has enabled leaders and managers to
perform more accurate analyses. This goal of the system will provide the accurate and required
information to the leadership team with minimal effort and cost (Latham, 2016)
Creative System
The information knowledge systems create bookends for more innovative systems to
work within. The creative systems at Conway lay within the marketing and product systems that
manage and execute the lead generation revenue acquisition and client acquisition pieces. The
standardization of customer acquisition is reasonably low from a creative standpoint. The
information system provides data-backed information on what external environment offers
higher quality leads, but the marketing systems can mobilize around creative solutions. Although
the creative system has latitude, the system still feeds into the leadership system's values
framework and vision. The KPIs required from a creative system are outputs of the leadership
system and provide minimal, but still present, structure for the creative systems to operate in.
This means that at Conway Consulting, the quality of client-facing marketing activities, such as
advertising and live events, must adhere to the vision and values of the company.
Bespoke
Flexibility is going to be paramount to the circumstances of the clients who are having
financial difficulty. Conway's preferred payment methods are a structured payment plan (PP) or
3
having our services paid in full (PIF). However, there are occasions when clients cannot afford
the payment plan they want to purchase. Hence, leadership systems allow the financing credit
teams to create custom payment systems with some parameters around delinquency and payment
frequency.
Theories and Concepts
Servant Leadership
The primary tenant of servant leadership is that the manager or leader's role is to serve
their employees and empower them to create more synergy between clients, employees, and
managers (Kenton, 2022). In addition, servant leadership prioritizes integrity and shows
morality, and invests in personal relationships with employees at other company stakeholders
(Canavesi & Minelli, 2022). This leadership approach drives increased employee engagement,
team cohesion, positive culture, and better performance in high-pressure environments (Canavesi
& Minelli, 2022).
Fiedler's Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness
A complementary leadership support system to servant leadership is Fiedler's
Contingency Theory. Fiedler's theory contains two leadership styles - relations-oriented and taskorientated (Hill, 1969). The relations-orientated leader in this model is very concerned with
rating high team synergy to achieve goals. This leadership model in Fiedler's theory is vital to
Conway Consulting because of the company's global employee base. Extra emphasis is required
to ensure relationships stay strong and relevant without physical presence.
The second component of Fiedler's contingency model is the task-orientated leader. As a
relatively new company, the execution of tasks are essential. A task-orientated leadership style
will leverage their ability to organize and execute ass to achieve the company's goals and targets
(Asana, 2022).
Transformational leadership
Transformational leadership empowers employees to update and implement the necessary
changes to help the company succeed and reach its goals . This leadership style has shown that
employees are far more satisfied in many organizations when they have transformational leaders
and that their commitment to the company is increased (White, 2018). Conway Consulting aims
to create a leadership structure that allows employees to operate in their genius zone. Giving
4
employees at Conway Consulting the autonomy to achieve their goals as they see fit aligns with
the company's values and is required to produce higher outputs and more satisfied employees.
Inspiring Examples
K&N Management
A key characteristic of the knowledge management system concerning leadership
systems is the precision of the data collection. First, there is a definition around the required data,
nothing more than the necessary data collection. Then, that information integrates into
measurement and analysis tools. Lastly, there are crystal clear parameters on how to read that
data in the context of what is important to the organization (K&N Reference p 21). Clarity on
data collection systems is critical to ongoing optimization at Conway Consulting. Conway's
biggest challenge is identifying what data is important to collect, what data is not required, and
how to align the data to the organizational goals. K&N management has determined what data
they need. In addition, they have invested in data systems that collect and store the data.
The last piece is that K&N is constantly benchmarking against itself and the industry.
(Page 21). This benchmarking is an output of the listening systems, data systems, and competitor
analysis systems that provides significant Input into the leadership systems that impact strategy
and feedback loops. In addition, this whole system of collecting and analyzing data provides
inputs into the larger leadership system around performance metrics.
Lastly, K&N has specific reporting mechanisms that compile and collect information into
a single, concise report that can be generated and delivered to various management teams. This
reporting system allows clear communication on performance measures and standard and
reliable metrics. There's also automated reporting, a system that will enable each store to
generate its own reports without causing any burden on the human resources within the
organization and within each store.
Conway Consulting will develop its data collection system and other supporting systems
- competitors listening systems, internal listening systems, and data reporting systems. This
systems approach to data collection and analysis will allow the leadership system to take inputs
and enable senior leaders to access better information for strategy development.
GBMC HealthCare - Greater Baltimore Medical Center
From a leadership systems lens, the communication systems in GBMC have a sturdy
system for creating clarity and ownership throughout all levels of the organization. The typical
5
approach to this organization's entire system is the Plan, Do, Study, Act framework. With the
communications process, clear goals become identified as the first step, and then the
responsibility for those goals is assigned to specific stakeholders. Groups are assigned
Communications for internal and external communications, which clearly outline the purpose of
communications, key customers, and frequency. One of the components of the system is
communications delivery in an effective and timely manner. This simple criterion is the
operation of a system that impacts other systems in the organization. Critical information such as
hospital updates, client load, or other emergent medical communications have a vital time and
clarifying component.
Improving the communications system at Conway will drive increased engagement and
trust from all stakeholders. Identifying key stakeholders at Conway Consulting and then
assigning communication people to those key stakeholders will increase the frequency and
communication structure. In addition, a more robust communication system will reinforce the
leadership models around servant leadership, relation--based leadership, and the empowering
outcomes of transformational leadership.
Unique Context
Global Workforce
Consulting has 15 global employees. Having a global Workforce means that employees
and stakeholders do not get to experience the relationship-enhancing experiences that take place
when employees are face-to-face. Fiedler's contingency theory, servant leadership, and
transformational leadership theory have a common thread of empowering employees through
relationships and positive reinforcement. Conaway Consulting will deploy feedback loops and
listening structures to receive and evaluate feedback on employee satisfaction. The design of the
leadership system will overcompensate for strategies to build relationships that may happen
naturally in face-to-face environments. This includes developing more advanced remote
communication systems that integrate into HR and leadership systems.
Ownership Structure
There is a challenge in the business's ownership structure if the company chooses to bring
on more people to the leadership team. The ownership structure involves a married couple with
tangled personal and business finances. This ownership structure creates a visibility issue in the
6
leadership system. Conway will develop a finance and budget system to address performance
systems, measurement systems, and profit systems.
Type of Business
Conway Consulting is in the information delivery business. The organization delivers
information to its client, and those clients use that information to increase their capacity for
thinking and action. As with many self-improvement businesses, all the world's best information
is not helpful if that information does not see action. The model of Conway Consulting is
dependent on the success of its client as that impacts customer renewal systems. Clients' success
does not depend on the information delivered but on how the complete Conway Consulting
system runs. Clients need access to the content they purchase, but they also need content
provided to them in such a way that it's convenient and applicable. For example, giving a person
the location of a diamond mine halfway across the world is not helpful unless a plan is in place
to help them get to the mine and tools provided to them to help them dig out the diamonds. The
leadership systems must address negative and positive feedback loops to help determine when
internal systems that deliver the product to clients and internal systems that build those products
are achieving their targets and goals.
Design Principles
Balance
The balance will influence the resources allocated to direct client acquisition efforts such
as supporting advertising, product development and overall organizational goals such as revenue
and client acquisition.
Congruence
Design communication and feedback loops (positive and negative) to drive solidarity
around systems performance for all stakeholders and address unacceptable deviation or
over/under-resourced inputs/outputs.
Convenience
Create easily understandable tools to manage the human resources systems, product
systems and other components required to feed into the inputs and outputs. Specifically, this
includes reports and dashboards on system performances and investment into operations at a
leadership level at Conway to support process and policy development.
Coordination
7
Taking inspiration from the K&N Management Organisational meetings (P2 in K&N)
focused on including key stakeholders within the company to develop strategy, review key
systems, and deploy improvements when necessary. At Conway, identify key leaders to support
and coordinate strategy implementation, performance review, and systems performance
implementation.
Elegance
Conway will evaluate what is sufficient but not necessary and necessary but not sufficient when
it comes to all aspects of the operation. Prioritizing the most important items to work on, the
systems they provide input/output to, and the leverage that impacts them most will help identify
the most helpful management systems to address (McKeown, 2014).
Human
Following the leadership principles outlined above, develop HR systems to receive
frequent feedback loops on employee stakeholders' opinions on job satisfaction, growth
opportunities, and meaning found in their work.
Learning
Iteration will occur when reflection and learning loops appear in the system's activities to
measure performance, review Performance, reinforce behaviour, and learn and improve the
system activities.
Sustainability
Using the strategic plan as the road map, evaluate and document the needs of all
stakeholder groups and review both short-term and long-term goals to get alignment.
System Integration
Leadership systems sits on top of all other systems Add Conway Consulting and cut into
other systems while also receiving from other systems. The first output is to the management
information systems. The management information system receives a clear picture of
organizational targets and kpis. the output also includes the vision and values That are critical
for the management system to adopt and align with in order to motivate Employees and to
navigate the HR systems. If the porper output is not delivered to the management system, this
leverage point will disrupt a significant part of the whole system
The management system also feeds into the leadership system as there is feedback
mechanisms from the management system that the leadership system utilizes in order to align
8
with its own running. The performance metrics in the management system feed right into the
overall performance metrics of the leadership system. Without the proper input to the
management system, performance evaluation will not give the adequate visibility.
Connecting to both the management system and the leadership system are performance
metrics from employees. This would be more formally known as the employee performance
review system where alignments between employee performance add Conway broccoli leaves
into overall company performance. Not only are tasks important at Conway Consulting, but the
culture which those tasks are executor on is critically important.
Communication system feeds into all of the above systems. As an output,
Communications is a critical component that come from the leadership system in order to help
set the direction of the company, reinforce the values of the organization, and communicates all
Pern import information around kti's and items such as that. Also though, the overall feedback
mechanism for the business in order to make better decisions comes from see all
Communications between our Frontline staff, our salespeople, our marketing people and our
managerial team. This is critical in designing
System Integration
Leadership systems sit on top of all other systems at Conway Consulting, providing output to
other systems and input from other systems. For example, the information and knowledge
systems, employee performance systems and data and collection systems directly impact the
leadership system at Conway Consulting. These systems connect and receive inputs from each
other, deliver outputs to each other, and ultimately feed into the leadership system to provide
feedback on the strategy's performance and meet stakeholder expectations.
The information and knowledge systems provide direction for Conway's marketing
system on the effectiveness of marketing efforts. The marketing system depends on the data from
the information and knowledge systems, such as quality of lead generation, revenue recorded,
and business activity as an input and provides business-generating results as an output for the
leadership system to receive as input.
The employee measurement system at Conway requires more structure around clearly
identifying what performance metrics from employees impact strategic objectives, which are a
component of the leadership system. It is common knowledge that better-performing employees
9
often produce more profitable results, so creating a stronger relationship between employee
performance systems and leadership systems is essential.
The data and collection systems significantly impact the performance measurement,
finance, marketing, and almost every other system sat Conway Consulting. Adopting a data
maturity system that identifies where Conway can mature its data infrastructure will provide
more visibility into the function of other systems.
Lastly, the communication system feeds into all of the above systems. As an output,
communication is a critical component of the leadership system to help communicate the
company's direction, reinforce the organization's values, and share all pertinent and essential
information at Conway. Also, the overall feedback mechanism for the business to make better
decisions comes from seeing all Communications between our Frontline staff, our salespeople,
our marketing people and our managerial team.
Design
The design of the system leadership system shown in Figure 1 holds the external
stakeholders' needs and expectations at the core of it. The drivers of the internal and external
stakeholders' expectations are communication, essentialism and innovation. These three pieces
ensure that Conway understands the root problem they are trying to solve as clearly. After the
stakeholders needs and requirements, then the strategic direction of the company is formed. Once
the strategic plan is complete, the information disseminates to all the managers and staff at
Conway Consulting so that there's organizational alignment on the goals, KPIs and targets.
Once there is organizational alignment, implementation takes place. A structured
leadership system offers the freedom for creativity within the bounds of the values, vision, and
KPIs. The organization alignment moves into implementation but also has a feedback
mechanism to ensure that the implementation aligns with the organizational strategy. Move past
implementation, and it is time to look at the measurements. The measures and implementation
have an influencing relationship as the measurement tools have to be elegant and report precisely
on the proper mechanisms to show performance at Conway Consulting. If the measurements
aren't correct, the reporting must go back to implementation. The evaluation must see why the
implementation is not working, which could lead to organizational misalignment. Upon
completion of the measurement system, then learning and improvement happen. That learning
improvement inputs into the strategic direction.
10
Figure 1
Conway Consulting Leadership System
11
References
Asana. (2022). Fiedler’s Contingency Theory: Why leadership isn’t uniform. Asana.
https://asana.com/resources/fiedlers-contingency-theory
Caldwell, C. (2020). Ebscohost.com.
https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzI1Nzk5NTJfX0
FO0?sid=481568cf-d6ac-4465-94d0c871b378bb77@redis&vid=4&format=EB&rid=1
Canavesi, A., & Minelli, E. (2022). Servant Leadership and Employee Engagement: A
Qualitative Study.: EBSCOhost. Ebscohost.com.
https://web.s.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=68b48141d4bc-47b5-9af6-613c7063c97a%40redis
Hill, W. (1969, March 1). Academy of Management Journal. Ebscohost.com.
https://web.s.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer
?vid=4&sid=4dfe5bf7-442d-43f4-b377-967481476a4f%40redis
Kenton, W. (2022). Servant Leadership: Characteristics, Pros & Cons, Example.
Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/servant-leadership.asp
Latham, J. R. (2013). A Framework for Leading the Transformation to Performance
Excellence Part I: CEO Perspectives on Forces, Facilitators, and Strategic
Leadership Systems. Quality Management Journal, 20(2), 12–33.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10686967.2013.11918095
12
Latham, John. (2016) (Re)Create the Organization You Really Want! Leadership and
Organization Design for Sustainable Excellence. Organization Design Studio. ISBN:
9780998149110
Maiden, N., Zachos, K., & Lockerbie, J. (2021). Evaluating an information system to
provide creative guidance about health-...: EBSCOhost. Ebscohost.com.
https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=8&sid=03503fa6-fc6548a8-aab2-8d14564877bf%40redis
McKeown, G. (2014, November 27). Entrepreneur Article “How to Prioritize When Everything
Is a Priority” - Greg McKeown. Gregmckeown.com.
https://gregmckeown.com/entrepreneur-article-how-to-prioritize-when-everything-is-apriority/
White, S. K. (2018, February 21). What is transformational leadership? A model for motivating
innovation. CIO; CIO. https://www.cio.com/article/228465/what-is-transformationalleadership-a-model-for-motivating-innovation.html
13