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Final Project
Kylie Ferland
Southern New Hampshire University
MBA-530-11490
Professor James Kanellos
August 15, 2024
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Tools that can assist leaders in their development are part of the adaptive leadership
toolkit. This toolkit will help leaders integrate the skills that they lack while learning how to use
those skills. It can also help to navigate to solutions that can be intricate. After looking over the
Employee Satisfaction Survey, it is obvious to see that the company is facing many problems.
The biggest thing is that the company is seeing issues related to the leadership practices being
utilized within the company. Main problems include communication, trust between employees
and the leadership team, development of the employees, satisfaction with the job, and employees
receiving rewards and recognition for their hard work. When employees feel that they are unable
to trust the leaders they work for and they feel as though they do not have clear direction, they
are not going to be successful.
It is important for a company to have an adaptive leadership toolkit as it gives the
company the capability of reviewing issues that they are facing and addressing them by
improving upon the leadership skills. Leaders need to improve their relationship with the
employees that they lead. They can do this by creating a comprehensive adaptive leadership
toolkit for the company. Leaders can focus on an area that is important to the development of
their skills with the tools available like the Employees Satisfaction Survey and SMART goals.
While the company is facing many challenges, there are also many thing that they are
doing right and are successful at. According to the Employee Satisfaction Survey, there are
strengths that are important to their overall success. Over the past few years, the results show that
the company endeavors to maintain a working environment that is safe and clean. They also
consistently attempt to provide great value to their customers and clients. There are a plethora of
reasons that the strengths of an organization are essential to the company’s success. When a
clean and safe work environment is maintained, moral is boosted, the physical health of
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employees is also boosted. Germs are not spread and work is able to be completed at a faster
pace. Having a safe and clean environment makes the workplace healthier, have better
production, and be more professional. A second strength that employees were able to point out
through the survey was that the company was able to provide them with the tools that they need
to complete their jobs. This increases the efficiency of the employees. When a company ensures
that the employees have the correct tools to complete their job, it can increase the productivity of
the employees and more importantly, it can affect the satisfaction of the job (Tran, 2024). When
employees do not have the tools they need, they are made to be inventive and use what is
available to them. This can lead to some great ideas, but it is not ideal and not what should be
done in the first place. This can also cause problems for the company because it can cost the
company money they were not planning on spending.
Skills and behaviors that are current areas of weakness for the company would be the
working conditions, job satisfaction, and the company and strategy. Leadership skills that are
recommended for development would be positive communication, motivating the employees,
and building relationships between leaders and employees. Communication is more than just
talking back and forth with someone. It allows you to connect with people. It can also improve
employee engagement, productivity, satisfaction, and morale (Cooks-Campbell, 2022). It is
valuable for all organizations and companies to focus on communication while showing their
employees that they are important and that they matter.
There also needs to be time set aside for employees to bond through activities and
exercises. It can also strengthen the relationships between everyone if they can bond outside of
working hours. When they work on communication, the employees and leadership can build
better relationships with each other that can benefit the company. Employee engagement is
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important to every company and organization because the employees will feel connected and feel
as though they have a purpose within the company. It can also drive the work ethic. Employee
engagement needs to be constructive and sustained. Employees will be able to excel and be more
enthusiastic about their contribution to the company. When communication and engagement with
employees are established, trust in the leadership will also improve. Once the leaders have closed
the gap in trust between them and employees, the employees are able to take their concerns to the
leaders and build the trust. Leaders also need to trust employees and this will help with that.
A personal development plan is able to help leaders to determine how personal and
professional believes and goals are able to align with the goals of the company. When anyone
develops themselves personally to grow, then they are going to be in a better position to help the
company that they work for. Everyone that is involved in the company is strongly encouraged to
create personal development plans. The plan can help leadership determine the varying levels of
strengths and weaknesses as well as areas that are needing improvement. It can also help leaders
see what skills are needed or wanted. If there is no personal development plan, it is like planning
to fail. A personal development plan can support the adaptive leadership toolkit as it allows
everyone to come together with an objective of creating an inclusive and diverse workplace.
Personal Development Plans should include individual skill assessments, mentorship programs,
and training and development programs. With these, the issues and frustration that the employees
are experiencing will improve. This can also empower everyone in a personal and professional
way.
A SMART goal is a technique that helps people achieve their goals. It is designed to
create goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (CFI Team,
2022). Goals are a necessity for both personal and professional growth. They can be a metric for
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evaluating progress. They help provide a purpose and clear pathway. When leaders and
employees set SMART goals, they a can develop a growth mindset. They can also have a boost
in the motivation of the team. Performance will also be better overall.
Once leaders had determined their strengths and weaknesses, they need to create a
personal development pan that can help them improve as a leader. The Adaptive Leadership
Toolkit is a system that is designed to help leaders foster adaptive leadership skills to help
improve their weaknesses (American Public Human Services Association, 2020). The Employee
Satisfaction Survey shows that employees are less satisfied with leaders, supervisors, and the
actions of the organization over the last four years. The organization had determined that the
supervisors and leaders need to improve in many areas so they can set examples for the
employees. Looking at the results, the organization needs to improve in areas around the working
conditions that the employees are in, improve on the training and development of the employees,
including supervisors, and recognizing and rewarding the employees for their hard work and
dedication. Leaders need to strengthen behaviors in the following areas: Model the Way,
Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. Supervisors need to be
there both physically and mentally so that they can support and encourage the employees. They
should be giving advice and allowing the employees to grow through training and development.
According to the survey, supervisors do not build relationships with employees and they do not
recognize the work and dedication that the employees have given to the organization. When
leaders focus on inspiring a shared vision and challenging the process, employees can
acknowledge the leadership team as role models. It can also challenge the employees’ and
supervisors’ growth and allow them to be successful in the goals and vision of the organization.
This will allow the employees to see a boost in the knowledge, confidence, and morale that they
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have. When supervisors and leaders improve the behaviors that Enable Others to Act and to
Encourage the Heart, employees will be rewarded and recognized. They will also feel connected,
appreciated, and respected within the organization. This is important because when employees
feel this way, they are more willing to communicate openly and freely. They are also more
motivated to perform at a higher level.
While it is important for the company to improve in the lower scored areas, it is equally
important for the company to maintain the high level of satisfaction in the other areas:
Client/Customer, and Company & Strategy. The organization has a high ranking with the
behaviors for Model the Way because the goals, strategy, and vision are clearly defined for the
employees. This means that the employees are able to complete the jobs to keep the customers
satisfied. By maintaining the leadership behaviors for these areas, the relationships with the
customers will be maintained and the customers will continue to be satisfied. Employees will be
motivated by meeting the customers wants and needs. When the leaders manage the leadership
behaviors successfully as well as improve of the behaviors that need to be improved, employee
satisfaction with the organization will be improved.
The process that is used to rollout and implement the adaptive leadership toolkit is a vital
one. The first step is to inform the members of leadership that changes are coming. The next step
will be to create the development plans and to communicate them to the employees directly. This
should be done through companywide communication. Then there needs to be notifications to
the different departments that are ongoing. Communication with everyone is important to have,
especially when it pertains to the upcoming changes occurring over the next two years.
During the next few months, the departments and employees will be assessed and the
training and development courses will be put together strategically. Once that is complete, the
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performance improvement plans will be formed and directly communicated to the departments
and the employees that are involved. All personal performance improvement plans will include
metrics and deliverables that are associated with the changes being made. This will allow the
employees and departments to be evaluated with checkpoints. The Executive Leadership and
Human Resources will be involved with process of implementing the adaptive leadership toolkit.
This will ensure that the programs that are implemented will be optimized. Evaluations will be
conducted every 60 days to measure the benchmarks and goals set by the plans. Rewards and
Recognition programs will be started from the start of the whole process. When leadership and
management recognizes the efforts, hard work, and dedication of the employees, the morale will
improve. This can help employees be more willing to participate in the programs that are
implemented. The steps and measure will help build trust and professionalism between the
leaders and employees. This can also improve the organizational culture, which will show on the
next employee engagement survey.
It is also important to get shareholder buy-in to the adaptive leadership toolkit. This
means that they are willing to commit to the project’s goals. They are also able to actively
contribute to the project. They are not passive participants (Subramaniam, 2024). In order to gain
support, the first step will be to communication effectively. It needs to be clearly communicated
to everyone involved.
It is important to choose the right methods of communication for the company. It is also
important to be consistent. This will help to build an understanding of the changes and will also
help the staff to prepare for the changes that will improve the workplace culture. When a
company faces resistance from all shareholders, the project could be impossible. It is important
to have buy-in so that the process and procedures can be improved (Strange, 2019). To get the
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buy-in needed, there needs to be meetings, visual aids, data that has been analyzed, graphs, and
emails dispersed to stakeholders. Leadership needs to be directly communicated with regarding
the survey results and the timeline for the rollout and implementation. Upper level executives,
board members, and leadership need to be provided visual aids that are updated in real time with
the analyzed data. The benchmarks and checkpoints will be a way to clearly communicate the
progress that is being made. It will also show the areas that still need improvement. The
company will also be able to compare the results from the beginning to the end.
When it comes to the employees, communication that is direct is important to gain buyin. One of those methods is Town Hall meetings with all involved. This will give everyone the
chance to understand the changes that are being made. It can also be seen as non-biased because
everyone will be there and no one person will be called out. The company can also re-establish
the foundational goals and objectives. Emails will also be imperative to help remind the staff
regarding the training and development that will be occurring.
One thing that is important when introducing change to an organization is that there
needs to be a sense of urgency established. This is because you need to be aggressive to start
anything. If there is no motivation, which a sense of urgency creates, then those that are
impacted by a change, in this case employees and leaders, then there will be no by-in (Kotter,
2007). The toolkit is the company’s solution to the challenges that have been brought to the
attention of upper management. It will help the company maintain their goals and will show the
employees the impact that the toolkit will have.
To fully measure the changes and if they are working and to see if the steps being taken
are allowing the goals, objectives and needs to be met, there needs to be feedback conducted
intermittently. There could be issues, ideas, or roadblocks that arise. Feedback from employees is
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imperative. It should be gathered starting from the beginning of the rollout and continuously
throughout the rollout. This will give the company the ability to adjust things throughout the
entire period. Feedback can be gathered from employees in various ways. The employees can
give feedback directly to their supervisors, in meetings with the departments, or through surveys.
It is important for employees to understand that transparency will be imperative for the success
of the program. Feedback can be received by upper management through email and suggestion
boxes. This gives the employees the ability to give feedback anonymously.
All updates to the adaptive leadership toolkit needs to be communicated from leadership
down to employees clearly. Employees are already distrusting of leadership and feel as though
they are not valued. By hearing directly from the leaders, rapport can be improved upon and trust
can be rebuilt. Being honest is the best policy, even if the news is not the best. By being honest
about what is going on, the leaders can improve the workplace culture.
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References
American Public Human Services Association. (2020). Adaptive Leadership Toolkit.
https://cfpic.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Adaptive-Leadership-Toolkit-FINAL.pdf
CFI Team. (2022). SMART Goals. Corporate Finance Institute; CFI.
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/management/smart-goal/
Cooks-Campbell, A. (2022, July 14). Communication is key in the workplace. Here’s how to
improve. BetterUp. https://www.betterup.com/blog/why-communication-is-key-toworkplace-and-how-to-improve-skills
Kotter, J. P. (2007). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail . Snhu.edu; Harvard
Business School Press. https://eds-p-ebscohostcom.ezproxy.snhu.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=c70d0c80-930c-4fe8-873fbab8367c8dc5%40redis
Strange, J. (2019, October 14). 12 Tips to Get Buy-In from Internal and External Project
Stakeholders. ProjectPractical.com. https://www.projectpractical.com/12-tips-to-get-buyin-from-internal-and-external-project-stakeholders/
Subramaniam, S. (2024, June 21). How to get buy-in from stakeholders for your project.
Rocketlane.com. https://www.rocketlane.com/blogs/internal-project-stakeholder-buyin#:~:text=It%20goes%20beyond%20merely%20obtaining
Tran, C. (2024, August 12). Council Post: Why It’s Important To Equip Your Employees With
The Right Tools. Forbes.
https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescommunicationscouncil/2022/02/03/why-itsimportant-to-equip-your-employees-with-the-right-tools/