Ursula burns Video analysis

Ursula burns Video analysis

            Ursula Burns’s vision of leadership entails having a clear strategy in one’s position of leadership. Ursula advocates for inclusive leadership, a trait I find essential. She argues that a leader should lead the people efficiently. She describes her mother as one of the best examples of being a leader. She says that her mother had clear objectives and strategies for each of her children. The role was to study hard in school while she takes care of their needs, like school fees and other expenditures. Thus, for any business strategy to succeed, I think that any leader should exercise her leadership role efficiently (Akakpo,2018). This can be through giving every employee his/her position and setting goals on how to achieve it while the leader makes sure that the goals are achieved.

Secondly, she believes that for one to be a leader, he/she should be flawless in his/her job. She argues that one has to be good at what he/she does. For instance, she gave an example of when she was a board member at the American Express Company. She said that the Chief Executive Officer of the firm was so brilliant that they, the board members, took notes from what the CEO was saying. Therefore, through her insights, I feel that for an efficient business strategy, the leader of the firm should have clear objectives, focused, and have sufficient knowledge required to exercise his/her duty.

Thirdly, Ursula Burns talks about humility. Her company, Xerox, is an international corporation. Therefore, she says that privileges are coming with her position. For example, she talks of a large delegation accompanying her everywhere she goes. The security, business delegates, etc. However, she says that her ability to have to learn something every day comes down to being humble. Secondly, she says that nothing gets done without other people. Therefore, humility brings people closer to her.

A humble leader can have massive benefits for a company. For instance, to ensure that the firm’s strategies and objectives are achieved, it takes humility on the part of the CEO to work hard and mobilize employees irrespective of their differences to strive towards that goal. A leadership role is a large playing field that is full of people with different characters (Herrera,2012). Therefore, for such a leader to succeed, I think that he/she should be humble and positively strategize on how to make the firm successful.

Ursula Burns says that the world is big and different. She goes on to say that American companies compete with the world and not domestically. She says that the field of engineering is the most underinvested. Therefore, getting to the basics of combining all professions into one rotating wheel will be advantageous for the American economy. She argues that one profession cannot be practiced without the help of the other. Thus for the American economy to maintain a competitive edge, all professional fields have to work for the same cause closely.

I agree with Ursula’s perspective that nothing gets done without the people. Ursula argues that for any leader to succeed, he/she has to give the people the freedom to air their opinions and thoughts. Ursula says that the success of her company is attributed to its strategy of having people from diverse places on the planet. For instance, she says her company has employees from Belgium, Portugal, etc. as a sense of diversity and inclusivity. Thus, I feel that her strategy and that of her company’s perspectives on diversity is a positive achievement worth emulation (Carter,2016).

The most effective leadership style, as highlighted by Ursula’s insights, is transformational. It is a leadership style whereby a leader works with teams to identify change, create change through inspiration, and execute the change in line with the priorities and objectives of the group (Medley,1995). Besides, this leadership style gives employees a chance to give their opinions, thoughts, and ideas about a certain strategy in the company. Transformational leaders enhance motivation, morale, and high-quality job performance. Ursula’s insights on her role, starting from her family to her leadership position at Xerox, gives a clear perspective on how transformational leadership style comes about.

Transformational leaders improve the job performance of their followers through connective them to their self and collective identities. Secondly, being a role model for the employees inspires them to focus and work hard for the project. It also entails understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each employee in the company. This allows the leader to align his/her priorities in tandem with those of the followers, thus, bring out the best of them. Ursula Burns experiences shed light on a transformational style.

She highlights that a leader should be good at what he/she does in order to serve as a role model for the rest of the employees. She also highlights the fact that for any leader, nothing gets done without involving the people. I feel that giving people the right to give their thoughts freely, opinions, and ideas constitute the best leadership strategy. Therefore, for any leader to be effective, the traits from this leadership style will have massive advantages to his/her efficiency.

From Ursula Burns’s perspectives, it is evident that leadership requires hard work, humility, and dedication to one’s role in leadership. Ursula’s success, for instance, is attributed to her brilliant combination of positively calculated strategies in leadership. Having relevant priorities, humility, and teamwork, is what makes her the best CEO, as seen in her insights. Therefore, for any leader to emulate Ursula’s success story, strategizing one’s priorities and striving hard to achieve them, will go a long way in improving one’s leadership traits.

References

Akakpo, A., & Gasaro, N. (2018). Female leadership: The case of ursula burns. SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals.

Carter, D. R., & Peters, T. (2016). The underrepresentation of African American women in executive leadership: What’s getting in the way. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 7(4), 115-134.

Herrera, R., Duncan, P. A., Green, M. T., & Skaggs, S. L. (2012). The effect of gender on leadership and culture. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 31(2), 37-48.

Medley, F., & Larochelle, D. R. (1995). Transformational leadership and job satisfaction. Nursing management, 26(9), 64JJ.