Team Project Updates-Week-2 Team F MGMT591 May 11, 2017 Dr. Nader Daee Do an assessment of the employee satisfaction in one of the organizations led by the Leader. (Chapter 3) For companies to remain competitive to existing and prospective candidates as well as have an edge over like employers, employee satisfaction must remain an integral part of their business. Research shows that employee satisfaction has a direct correlation to retention. A happier workforce is more productive and therefore provides better customer service to clients of the business. “If employees don’t like their work environment, they’ll respond somehow, though it is not always easy to forecast exactly how” . Employees also thrive in pleasant work environments that provide for both physical and interpersonal needs. However, the only way a company can truly know how engaged and satisfied their employees are, is through their own research and assessments. Many companies use either interviews or questionnaires to understand the reciprocal relationship between employer and employee. However simply knowing is not enough. Companies must be transparent in evaluating the feedback employees provide and implementing solutions to employee concerns. In the following example, we assess employee satisfaction with Centegra Health System. Centegra Health System is series of hospitals in Illinois. Michael Eesley, along with the Board of Governors, signed a non-binding letter joining Centegra Health System and Northwestern. Centegra Health has opened a new hospital in the Huntley area in August 2016. It was the newest hospital in 35 years. There are a total of 7 hospitals, 3 from Centegra Health System and 4 from Northwestern Medicine. There are 3,948 associates, 208 Centegra primary care providers and 563 physicians with a total of 4,719 members . Management assessed their employees with 2 different surveys. The first was a Workforce Engagement where they ask the employee to rate different departments from a 1 to 5 1 being not satisfied to 5 being satisfied of that department. The second survey is Centegra Action Planning Readiness, which provides direction for work unit managers to follow up on survey results. The Action Planning Readiness (APR) score gives us feedback about how the behavior as a leader affects team openness, trust, candor and creativity. This feedback can help prepare management to lead there team's discussions of the survey results, and to make changes that improve there working relationships with the team. Finally, after analyzing the results, I can conclude that the employees Centegra System Health are satisfied with the leadership of management. The participation of the surveys has increased from 80% in 2010 to 94% in 2017. Centegra Health System used fair question in there Action Planning Readiness when evaluating their employees. “Managers should be interested in their employee’s attitudes because attitudes give warnings of potential problems and influence behavior. Creating a satisfied workforce is hardly a guarantee of successful organizational performance, but evidence strongly suggests that whatever managers can do to improve employee attitudes will likely result in heightened organization effectiveness all the way to high customer satisfaction and profits” . Assess the "mood" of this Leader and also assess the level of Emotional Intelligence of the Leader especially applying the analysis on pages 1-9 - 113 of the textbook. (Chapter 4) Mike Eesley has been the CEO of Centegra Health Systems for fifteen years and has managed the organization through multiple changes and challenges. His ability to manage his mood and emotional intelligence has enabled the organization to reach its current goals for both quality clinical outcomes and associate retention. Mike started the long arduous journey of fulfilling his dream of opening a brand new hospital in Huntley, IL in 2006 keeping in mind the mood and necessity of providing high quality care to the growing young community in this area. During one of our leadership meetings, Mike shared how even though he knew the credibility of his proposal and excitement around his vision of opening a new hospital, he felt nervous right before entering the board room. From high positive affect Mike’s mood shifted to high negative effect in minutes without him getting affected by a stimulus (Robbins & Judge, 2014, p.113). August 9th 2016 was a historic day not only for Centegra but for the state of Illinois, as after 35 years a new hospital was opening its doors to provide medical care for those in need. At the inauguration ceremony a day prior, Michael Eesley seemed to be calm and relaxed as his hard labor had finally paid off and his legacy was standing behind him for everyone to admire this beautiful hospital campus. Mike has been a dedicated leader that has defined clear goals for this organization to succeed by developing a network of supportive leaders ready to have required crucial conversations to freely exchange ideas and constantly improving communication between different departments. In our most recent system leadership meeting, Mike showcased not only his communications skills but also the high level of emotional intelligence he possess, before the meeting started all leaders were assigned a table number to break the mundane routine of leaders sitting with familiar faces and forcing them to break out of their comfort zone and interact with different members of the leadership team creating more dynamic discussions at the tables with an opportunity to network amongst associates. Mike utilized the surface acting skills when reminding everyone not to check their emails and messages during a presentation and/or team exercise and set forth the below ground rules. The entire group’s mood always changed to boredom and fatigued when we had to look at countless slides on topics that at times were not relevant to all of the 120 leaders present at the meeting. In order to combat this Mike decided to limit the slides to certain number per presentation and also confirmed future presentations will be on topics that will be geared more towards new leadership concepts, so we would have the tools to expand our knowledge as leaders and support our areas better by being the ideal servant leader with following traits. In all my interactions with Michael Eesley he has always displayed a high positive mood that is contagious and has a profound effect on you to perform and strive for higher goals not just professionally but also personally. Apply the Big Five Personality Model to the Leader. Assess how much if any of the Dark Triad applies to this Leader. Michael Eesley is clearly a man of great success with personality traits that are well received by his employees. Taking a closer look at the individual personality traits of Mr. Eesley can give us a better outlook on exactly what type of leader he is and if he takes on any traits of the dark triad. Our texts describes personality traits as: “Five basic dimensions underlie all others and encompass most of the significant variation in human personality. Moreover, test scores of these traits do a very good job of predicting how people behave in a variety of real-life situations. These are the Big Five factors: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience” (Robbins & Judge, 2014, p. 126). Unfortunately we do not have actual test results from an individual or observer assessment to get an exact score of each trait. However, we can use various statements and actions made by Mr. Eesley to determine which personality traits he most embodies. Figure 6 Model of How Big Five Traits Influence OB Criteria First we shall look at the personality trait extraversion, which our text describes as, “describing someone who is sociable, gregarious, and assertive” (Robbins & Judge, 2014, p.125). Mr. Eesley has shown in multiple ways that he leans more on the extravert side rather than the introvert side. “He is a corporate board member of Centegra Health System, board member of Centegra Health and Wellness Network, board member of Centegra Insurance Services, chairman of the Illinois Health and Hospital Association, regional policy board member of the American Hospital Association and founder of Leadership Greater McHenry County” (Centegra Health System, 2016). This shows that Mr. Eesley is quite assertive and sociable in his role as CEO. He sits on the board in multiple areas of the medical field, which tells us that he connects with many members within the organization and that he wants to be well informed on the decisions of his company. The next personality trait is agreeableness, which our text describes as a “dimension that describes someone who is good natured, cooperative, and trusting” (Robbins & Judge, 2014, p.125). By seeing how involved he is within his organization, employee’s satisfaction reports, and his positive mood that he has shown, we can say with a decent amount of certainty that Mr. Eesley shows traits of agreeable leader rather than a hostile one. Conscientiousness is the next big five personality traits which the text describes as, “someone who is responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized” (Robbins & Judge, 2014, p.125). Mr. Eesley has been trying to open up a new hospital for years and finally completed this monumental task in the summer of 2016. (Centegra Health System, 2016). It is easy to see that he would have scored high in conscientiousness on any personality assessment as opening up a new hospital would take all the attributes that are described under this personality trait. Emotional stability is a, “dimension that characterizes someone as calm, self-confident, secure (positive) versus nervous, depressed, and insecure (negative) (Robbins & Judge, 2014, p.125). Michael Eesley has a lot to deal with as any CEO would, and the pressures of the job can lead to stressful times. Great leaders typically will carry themselves with a positive attitude as Mr. Eesley does at the beginning of every annual report. He addresses his readers by excitedly explaining what the company has accomplished and what we can all look forward to in the future. The last personality trait is openness which is described as a “dimension that characterizes someone in terms of imagination, sensitivity, and curiosity (Robbins & Judge, 2014, p.125). Centegra has partnered with multiple organizations to expand their horizons. These partnerships show that Mr. Eesley wants his company to be multi-faceted and is always open to new possibilities. When it comes to the dark triad of personality traits, it is hard to think of Michael Eesley being guilty of embodying any of them. The three dark triad traits are Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopath. Each one dealing with negatively treating your employees or co-workers to get ahead in the company or to let nothing stop you from your goals. The reason it is hard to imagine Mr. Eesley in having any of these traits, is because his commitment to improving his community and his organization. This is a statement made by Mr. Eesley in regards of Centegra, “We approach all we do with integrity and concern for our patients and their families. We want Centegra to be an integral part of preserving and improving the health of the communities we serve” (Centegra Health System, 2016). Read and apply from the DeVry library the following article- Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons. Authors: Maccoby, Michael (Chapter 5) According to the article Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the inevitable Cons, a Narcissistic, personal are independent and not easily impressed. These leaders are passionate about their business and are looking for power with glory of success. Mike Eesley, has some characteristics of a narcissistic leader in that he was passionate about making sure his vision of a new hospital will be fulfilled so he can successfully expand Centegra's reach in McHenry County, but the similarities ends there. Even though states approval of this new hospital was latented with controversies according to www.chicagotribune.com it did not deter Mike from fighting the uphill battle. Mike's, unwavering determination regarding changing Centegra's culture to embrace servant leadership and making sure all the key players required for this organizational transformation were involved in the process to have the crucial conversation. As mentioned earlier Mike's high positive energy has changed the mood of this dynamic organization from lethargic to flamboyant and agile. Team-Steps are another process improvement tool utilized by Centegra's senior leadership team to have inclusive and engaged associate. The 2017 Associate Engagement Survey proves Mike's obsessive personality that has influenced everyone in the organization to work collaboratively and achieve the highest level of quality patient care with a genuine respect and joyful spirit. “Centegra's brand needed a clear definition apart from the competing hospitals in the greater Chicago area. He is an apt personification of the brand's tagline, “Always Looking Ahead.” Eesley's message of innovation through leadership doesn't just speak on the airwaves, it echoes to associate ears throughout the halls of Centegra” . Apply the criteria on Creative Behavior to the Leader. How does the "Choosing to Lie" box on page 178 apply? Creativity is described as the ability to produce novel and useful ideas and it also allows decision makers to fully appraise and understand problems. Creativity is a very important trait for leaders because it allows them to think in ways that will allow them to make the best decisions for their company and their employees. Mike Eesley does show some traits of a creative leader through his decision making and the way he runs his company. It does seem that he shows a lot of interest in the overall leadership aspects of his company, and he provides resources to help his employees become better leaders as well. Creative behavior exists in generally four steps: problem formation, information gathering, idea generation, and idea evolution. These steps allow for critical thinking to be used in order to solve problems as well as to reach goals. When leaders follow these steps to exhibit creative behavior, they are able to create new and insightful ideas that can be built upon in order to solve problems, grow an organization, or even to provide motivation to employees. Mike Eesley is a leader that clearly uses creativity and creative behavior in his leadership style. He has set goals for his company to provide excellent healthcare to the people of Illinois, and the opening of one of his hospitals, being the first new hospital in the state in 35 years, definitely showcases his creative leadership and the ability to reach goals. Studies suggest that one way to help leaders like Mr. Eesley to reach goals through creative behavior is to take steps to help prevent lying as a leader as well as within the corporation as a whole. This process involves three steps; stop lying to ourselves, trust, but verify, and rewarding honesty. Studies show that lying can be a habit that is formed at a very young age. In order for leaders to help decrease the amount of lying within their corporations, they should identify the areas that need the most help with the problem, and to bring attention to these areas when the problem occurs, in order to stop it from happening in other areas as well. (Robbins & Judge, 2014, p. 172) Many leaders provide their organizations, and the management within these organizations, with ethical training to help avoid issues such as lying. Mike Eesley provides his organization with different workshops and conferences to help with the leadership skills needed to help prevent these ethical issues from happening within the Centegra Health Systems Corporation. Keeping employees aware of these issues and providing them with the steps to prevent and combat them, are actions that can be seen within leaders such as Mike Eesley, who exhibit strong creative behavior and problem solving skills that help their organizations grow as well as to meet their goals as a company. References