MGT 501 MoD 4 Case Leaders Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

MGT 501 MoD 4 Case Leaders - Essay Example The following entails a discussion of the problem along with suggestions for dealing with micromanagement leadership style. Discussion Stern demonstrated strong creativity skills in her job pertaining to marketing of products. At the same time, she lacked the skills required for management of production and formulation and negotiation of strategies. To this end it is important to note that the creativity in marketing (including public relations and design) that she possesses were difficult to harness and manage from a leader’s point of view. The nature of the job makes it hard to structure the work as various ideas can arise spontaneously which are beyond the supervisor’s control; in other words, micromanagement stifles creativity (Lavinsky, 2012). George could certainly not ask Stern to generate ideas as and when required simply because these ideas would flow in irrespective of time and need. Hence, this job required a greater level of diplomacy on George’s part to supervise Stern. It was crucial to give Stern the authority and autonomy with which she could feel a sense of belonging with the company and have the chance of contributing to the same through her creative ideas. However, George was doing much the opposite. Rather than empowering Stern, he was constraining her which was not conducive to her creativity. In situations where such difficult situations arise, it is the management’s job not to throttle creativity by destructive criticism but by reiterating and reinforcing the vision which provides a direction to work. It is then the task of the creative staff to come up with novel ways of and fulfilling that vision. The case depicts instances where George did not trust Shelly’s decisions and tried to influence them by bringing in ‘his’ version of things (Fryer, 2004). It seems that George wasn’t willing to let go of things; in other words, he was not delegating at all which was hindering Stern’ s creative abilities. Instances where George would abuse press releases or alleging Stern to make sales calls despite her position as the Marketing â€Å"Director† all point to George’s inefficiency as CEO (Fryer, 2004). It is surprising how (with such a mindset) was George able to rise up to this level in the organizational hierarchy. Perhaps, it was his technical skills or software skills that led him to this level. He was certainly not capable of managing the creative side of software project management. Another major issue with George is his preoccupation with and interference in employees’ activities that are insignificant. There are various examples of such trivial issues. Firstly, he was adamant at having managers incorporate his idea during the allocation of advertisements to the company’s products (Fryer, 2004). Secondly, he went as far as suggesting his subordinates to correct their sentences (Fryer, 2004). This is certainly not expected from so meone at the CEO level. George’s focus it seems was not on strategic issues but on operational and tactical issues which kept his mind preoccupied and prevented him from focusing on the bigger picture. This is one of the biggest issues of micromanagement- it does not allow managers time to focus on critical issues that desire the supervisor’s attention (Nadine Mockler, 2002). Recommendations Although Stern is easily offended by criticism, George ought to find a solution in order to control the funds that the company has

History of jazz Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

History of jazz - Essay Example The next brass band was formed in 1884 and it consisted of a Creole cornet player called Manuel Perez who was an addition to the group. Different bands continued forming after that as well and they consisted of Creoles up until 1898. Jazz consisted of several different kinds of music such as blues music, ragtime and the brass band fanfares. Religious music was however not included in the mix of music during formation of jazz. White music which was popular was also missing at the beginning of the jazz music formation but was later on incorporated to add a commercial sense to the music and enable it to sell widely. In 1898 immediately after US defeated Spain and liberating Cuba, troops who had been in the war landed in New Orleans on their way to other locations. They brought brass instruments with them and they sold them on the black market which was adopted quickly. These brass instruments were unlike what was used before as they were European instruments and hence the music played from then incorporated European aspect into the Creole jazz blending the two up1. This new form of jazz with both African and European music and instruments in it was soon picked up across New Orleans and it formed the basis of the present jazz as it is known to date. New Orleans was a city which was filled with people of different races. There were Africans who were slaves, the Spanish from Cuba and who were at war with the US as well as other races such as the French, Germans and even Italians all whom were in South America but some also resided in New Orleans. Even though they had different cultures and languages, they shared a commonality which was the love for music. Each race had its own form of music which they sang in different places. It is these different genres of music that combined together to form jazz. The most renowned historian of jazz was