FINAL NARRATIVE

Hi everyone,

I see a lot of familiar faces but for those of you who I haven’t had the opportunity of meeting yet, my name is Krystal Brownfield.  I feel honored to have been selected for the Marriott Management Development Program and will continue to contribute to the leadership team here at the beautiful San Diego Marriott Marquis and Marina in the DW’s Restaurant food and beverage outlet.

I am privileged to be here with all of you  and I am really excited to being this process.  Just to give you a brief background of myself- I was born and raised in a small city in Northern California.  I decided to move to San Diego because it just seems like a city that has it all, and I won’t lie and say that the 70 miles of gorgeous beaches didn’t help with the decision.

I am a recent graduate of San Diego State University’s Hospitality & Tourism Management program with an emphasis in meetings and events.  My goal is to remain in a constant state of growth while consistently setting new goals for myself and this team. I am a driven individual and confident that my understanding of the importance of communication, teamwork, organization, passion and dependability will work well with the amazing team that has already been
established here.

For the last two years, I have been working at this property. I began my time here as a seasonal server at the Tiki Bar during the summer.  Upon completion of that, I was asked to stay on staff and work at the Lobby Lounge as a food runner and then later on a cocktail waitress.  As most of you know, I later moved over to this outlet and have been a host and server here with you at DWs.  I am very aware that most of you have been working in this particular outlet and in the hospitality industry much longer than myself. I want each of you to feel empowered to make your own decisions when faced with situations and know that I will support you 100%.  If for some reason it wasn’t handled properly then we can work together to find an approach that will be more effective in similar situations in the future.
  

During my time as your co-worker, I learned that each of you possesses different strengths and each have a passion for different aspects of your jobs.   I don’t know about you, but I am most inspired by people who are passionate. Passion is one of those traits that are contagious.  If you care strongly enough for something, it will radiate and make others want to be a part of it.  I would like to work together to make this restaurant not only a great place where we can provide exceptional service and amazing experiences to our guests but also a place that you are proud to work at. 

 In order to achieve this, I will be spending my first week speaking to each of you in turn. We will have a one-to-one opportunity to acknowledge challenges that you are facing in your role as well as what needs to be done for you to reach your goals.  I want to highlight the fact that I will rely on you to be honest with me and, in turn, I will be honest with you. I have high expectations for every one of you and I have no doubt that, together, we can exceed our goals.

To me, leadership is not a role, it's a process involving how an individual influences others towards a particular goal. I have included the image of a sunflowers life cycle to help you grasp my idea of leadership.  After preparing this and trying to place myself in a singular stage, I realized leadership is not always a linear process. There is a lot of back and forth that takes place.  I believe leadership development occurs across one's life span.

My leadership journey is just about to pick up pace as I take on this new challenge.  Each individual encounters different experiences that shape their views and values and no two leaders are identical.  Some of us are more relationship oriented while others are much more task oriented.  In my opinion, I fall somewhere in the middle.  It is important to me to connect with my team but still be as productive as possible.  

I am a big believer in the Situational Leadership Theory which states that there is no "best" style of leadership.  I plan to analyze each situation before making any decisions on how it would best be handled.  The most successful leaders are those that adapt their leadership style to the maturity of the individual or group they are attempting to lead.
 

Along with the values I have already mentioned, I believe that a leader should be empowering, inspirational, empathetic, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, have integrity, the ability to adapt & the endurance to conquer whatever adverse obstacles they encounter. 

During this coming week I would like you to come up with a few values that are most important to you to discuss in our one- on-one meetings.  This will help me get a better understanding of what is most important to each of you.

I am a very approachable person and my door will always be open to each and every one of you.  If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.

Thank you!

My Leadership Map

HTM491- Krystal's Leadership Map

Vroom-Yetton-Jago Normative Decision Model

I believe that a huge part of being a leader is based upon the ability to effectively make decisions.  Leadership is based around being able to make decisions, set goal, conceive vision, all while keeping in mind the ideas of your followers in order to gain their buy in and support to achieve a goal. Vroom-Yetton-Jago Normative Decision Model is similar to the situational model in the sense that it explains the importance of making decisions that pertain to each situation.  A leader will be most accepted when making decisions and suggestions if the decision is appropriate to the situation.

This theory is based around two ideas: decision quality & decision acceptance.

Decision quality is defined as “the selection of the best alternative, and is particularly important when there are many alternatives. It is also important when there are serious implications for selecting (or failing to select) the best alternative.”

I really enjoyed the steps that were laid out on the website: http://decision-quality.com/intro.php
1. Realize when and why you need to make a decision.

2. Declare the decision: decide what the decision is, how you’ll work it, and who should be involved.

3. Work the decision: generate a complete set of alternatives, gather the information you need to understand the possibilities and probabilities, and ultimately make a choice that best fits your values.

4. Commit resources and act

The second idea is decision acceptance.  This is “the degree to which a follower accepts a decision made by a leader. Leaders focus more on decision acceptance when decision quality is more important.”

Vroom and Yetton defined five different decision procedures (ranging from autocratic to consultative to group-based decisions) on the situation & level of involvement.

These procedures include:

“Autocratic Type 1 (AI) – Leader makes own decision using information that is readily available to you at the time. This type is completely autocratic.

Autocratic Type 2 (AII) – Leader collects required information from followers, then makes decision alone. Problem or decision may or may not be informed to followers. Here, followers involvement is just providing information.

Consultative Type 1 (CI) – Leader shares problem to relevant followers individually and seeks their ideas & suggestions and makes decision alone. Here followers’ do not meet each other & leader’s decision may or may not has followers influence. So, here followers involvement is at the level of providing alternatives individually.

Consultative Type 2 (CII) – Leader shares problem to relevant followers as a group and seeks their ideas & suggestions and makes decision alone. Here followers’ meet each other and through discussions they understand other alternatives. But leader’s decision may or may not has followers influence. So, here followers involvement is at the level of helping as a group in decision-making.

Group-based Type 2(GII) – Leader discuss problem & situation with followers as a group and seeks their ideas & suggestions through brainstorming. Leader accepts any decision & do not try to force his idea. Decision accepted by the group is the final one.”

I found the following list to be very insightful.  It explains situational factors that influence which method should be used.

• When decision quality is important and followers possess useful information, then A1 and A2 are not the best method.
• When the leader sees decision quality as important but followers do not, then G2 is inappropriate.
• When decision quality is important, when the problem is unstructured and the leader lacks information / skill to make the decision alone, then G2 is best.
• When decision acceptance is important and followers are unlikely to accept an autocratic decision, then A1 and A2 are inappropriate.
• When decision acceptance is important but followers are likely to disagree with one another, then A1, A2 and C1 are not appropriate, because they do not give opportunity for differences to be resolved.
• When decision quality is not important but decision acceptance is critical, then G2 is the best method.
• When decision quality is important, all agree with this, and the decision is not likely to result from an autocratic decision then G2 is best.

http://leadershipchamps.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/vroom-yetton-jago-normative-leadership-decision-model/

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/theories/vroom_yetton.htm

CRASH

CRASH

Transformational Leadership

“Transformational leadership occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.”
                                                                                                                                              - James MacGregor Burns

In the article, “The Themes and Theory of Leadership: James MacGregor Burns and the Philosophy of Leadership” by Matthew R. Fairhol it states that “A professor of management once told a friend, that if he comes upon an article on leadership and notices the bibliography does not include Leadership by James MacGregor Burns (1978), he dismisses it as unthoughtful and incomplete.”  James MacGregor Burns was born in 1918 and has since become a well known figure for those who study theories of management and transformational leadership.  He has won many awards for his innovation in leadership theory.  Burns theory shifts away from studying the traits of leaders to focus on the interaction of leaders.  His theory is based upon the interpersonal relationships that a leader must form with his/her followers in order to achieve a mutual benefit.  Burns’ theory of transformational leadership creates a clear distinction between the concepts and functions of leadership versus management.  Based on their values and morals a leader should be able to connect and engage their follower in order to achieve a higher sense of performance, fulfillment, and purpose for both parties.  His theory can be applied to virtually any institution whether it be a political, corporate, social, family, or volunteer group.

I chose the Karate Kid trailer to illustrate an example of transformational leadership. The two main characters in this film create a relationship in order to accomplish a common goal.  The leader in this example has a strong moral compass and stands strong in his values.  He is able to connect with the young follower in order to motivate him to become a much more confident and strong individual.

"Life Is Like A Cup Of Coffee"

I stumbled upon this video and thought it was only appropriate that I share it because the name of my blog is COFFEE con (with) Krystal Ann... Hope you enjoy!

YOU DID WHAT?! Situational Leadership Theory Match/ Mismatch

In the post right below this I discussed the Situational Leadership Theory developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard.  Based on this theory I will recount an instance from the follower perspective and indicate how the “matching” made the instance positive as well as how the “mismatch” made the instance negative.

I serve out at a pool during the summer.  The incident I am about to describe happened on a very hot (meaning BUSY) summer afternoon.  I was one of two opening servers on this particular day.  Around noon we had a call off meaning that we were now under staffed and still just as overwhelmingly busy.  At my work, missing meal breaks is taken very seriously.  However, when we are working out by the pool it can be difficult to take a break due to how we organize the sections and the rate at which our “tables” turnover. My sixth hour was approaching and I needed to take a break but I had 15+ checks open, nobody to cover my section (because ever server was just as busy) and I couldn’t reach a supervisor on their phone.  Our supervisor was nowhere to be found. The window of time that I needed to take my break passed. About an hour later my supervisor showed up as things were beginning to slow down and asked in front of a group of guests if I had taken my break.  I replied calmly “No, I was unable to because we were so busy out here.”  She literally yelled at me like her five year old child and reprimanded me in front of a co-worker and a group of guests.  This can be described as a “mismatch” in Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory.  She came into the situation with a much different view on what was happening and addressed it in a manner much different from what I was anticipating.  This “mismatch” in leadership styles created an array of negative emotions on both accounts.  I was so incredibly shocked that she had yelled at me about not taking a break in front of people.  At first I thought she must be joking but soon realized that she was not joking at all.  Being a subordinate I tried to stay calm and replied with, “We were extremely busy and there was nobody out here to coordinate sections or help out with breaks. I tried calling you multiple times but you were not answering your phone.”  I apologized for missing my break but I had way too many checks out to just walk away and go on break.  Things escalated very quickly and I asked if we could take the disagreement to her office to spare the rest of my associates the uncomfortable situation we were creating for everyone.  Due to the mismatch of leadership styles used in this situation I lost a lot of respect and trust for this particular supervisor. 

After we talked for about half an hour we came to understand each other’s views on this particular situation.  Things had calmed down and her style of leadership slowly began to change to match what I had initially anticipated.  We were able to communicate on a similar level and resolve the situation.  In order to effectively communicate we had to both compromise and adapt to one another.  The Situational Theory focuses on the leader transforming their leadership style to the situation and their followers.  However, the initial response and behavior to this situation would definitely be an example of a mismatch that created very negative responses.