Welcome to the June 28, 2006 issue of The Total View

Published by Success Performance Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Visit our Human Resources Blog and Perfect Labor Storm Blog where we can post daily (and more often) human resource updates, news, and Perfect Labor Storm facts. 

What's Inside:

1.  Leadership, Values and Attitudes

Regardless about what you think about the future, change is inevitable. For a leader to harness the power of change, he must empower and engage his employees. Superior organizational performance is possible only by understanding personal values, attitudes, and motives.

The transformational leader is defined as one who motivates followers to do more than they originally expected to do. For example, studies have found significant and positive relationships between transformational leadership and the amount of effort followers are willing to exert, job performance, and effectiveness.

Values help determine the attitudes leaders have about themselves and about their followers. These attitudes also bias evaluations – either positive or negative – about people, events or things. Values and attitudes form the very core of personality as they influence the choices people make, the appeals they respond to and the way they invest their time and energy.

Values – a means and an end

Values may affect leaders and leadership in a number of ways. One way to think about values is in terms of means and ends values. As early as 1973, Milton Rokeach defined a value as an enduring belief that a particular mean or end is more socially or individually preferable than another end or mean. After values are developed they act as filters through which deliberation is reduced and choices are made.

Values do not in and of themselves determine what is good or what is bad but provide a standard for individuals to decide what is better or best for him or her. There are two types of values: means and ends. End values are beliefs about the kinds of goals or outcomes that are worth trying to pursue. End values refer to the future, a purpose, which can either be social or individual in focus. World peace and national security are end values. Means values are beliefs about the types of behaviors that are appropriate for reaching goals. Mean values shape the decisions we make whether we go to war or protect our borders. Mean values can also be focused on the greater good (social) or personal (self-preservation).

Each person has a unique combination of means and end values that are used constantly to sort experiences and make future choices. These combinations cluster into what we call a value system. The priority we place on these values is developed with time and experience. This doesn’t mean our decisions get easier or better. It just means we can go along with the results because with time and experience choices seem more right or more wrong.

One of the implications of change management is that leaders need to pay close attention to the ends and the means values of employees if a change is to be effective. Weak value system congruence between an organization and its employees could result in lost productivity and turnover.

More information about Understanding and managing values.

2.  Perfect Labor Storm Alerts # 547 to 548

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Fact #547: Chronic conditions are the major cause of illness, disability, and death in the United States. Almost 100 million Americans have chronic conditions and millions more will develop them as America ages. The continued growth in the number of elderly—as baby boomers age and as people live longer—will cause an increase in the number of people who are most vulnerable to and most affected by chronic conditions. Projections indicate that by 2040, almost 160 million people will have chronic conditions. The cost of medical care for Americans with chronic conditions was $470 billion in 1995. By 2040 that cost could be as high as $864 billion. Projections indicate that by 2040 the number of people in the U.S. with chronic conditions will increase by 50 percent.

Fact #548: The 2002 State of Aging & Health in America, as well as other sources, indicates older adults use more health care services than any other age group. Today, those aged 65 and older represent 13% of the population and account for half of physicians' visits and half of all hospital stays. The average 75-year-old has been diagnosed with three chronic conditions and uses five prescription drugs.

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3. Leadership Clues for Self-Development and Managers

Leadership Identifier is typically used by management to look at internal employees and how their core traits fit within a typical leadership role. The report shows a "Good", "Ok" or "Poor" fit for each of the individual's traits as compared to general leadership traits.

Leadership Self Development is designed to be used by an individual who wants to explore their own core personality traits and how they affect their leadership style. The report provides tips as to how the individual can develop themselves in a leadership role.

LeadershipClues reports will tell you how an individual's personality traits will affect:

• Win-Win Team Approach
• Decision Making
• Feedback and Follow-up
• Handling Confrontational Situation
• Motivating Others
• Problem Solving
• Planning and Organizing
• Consistency
• Making Presentations
• Handling Change

View a sample Leadership Clues report

View a sample Leadership Identifier report

4.   Quotes from Hire Authorities

I have an irrepressible desire to live till I can be assured that the world is a little better for my having living in it.
Abraham Lincoln

5.  Assess360 Feedback Survey

This web-facilitated multi-rater survey component of the ASSESS platform utilizes dimensions and behaviors populated directly from the organization's competency model. A participant can rate multiple people at a time and the system allows for comparative ratings. Reports provide detailed individual feedback on:

Competency Rankings

Behavior Ratings

Developmental Suggestions

Action Planning Guidance

View a sample Leadership ASSESS 360 report.

6. The Leader Within

Best-selling authors and Fortune 100 consultants, Dr. Drea Zigarmi, Dr. Ken Blanchard, Dr. Michael O'Connor and Dr. Carl Edeburn reveal the results of an in-depth, seven-year statistical study of leadership in Corporate America. Their new book, The Leader Within, Knowing Enough About Yourself To Lead Others, shows how leaders exert influence and how disposition, values, beliefs, and persona contribute to their very success—or failure.

Learn more about "The Leader Within"

Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2006 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission