Level 5 Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Level 5 Leadership - Essay Example 68). Likewise, as explicitly indicated, the definition of the term ‘Level 5’ is â€Å"the highest level in a hierarchy of executive capabilities†¦ that elevate companies from mediocrity to sustained success† (Collins, 2001, p. 68). In an interview with Jim Collins by Stuart Crainer, which was published online on January of 2006, Collins synthesized his definition of Level 5 Leadership: â€Å"The central dimension for Level 5 is a leader who is ambitious first and foremost for the cause, for the company, for the work, not for himself or herself; and has an absolutely terrifying iron will to make good on that ambition† (Dearlove & Crainer, 2006). In addition, there were reported evident exemplifications of duality traits such as shy but fearless, modest, yet willful (Collins, 2001). It can, therefore, be deduced, that for a leader to be identified as manifesting Level 5 Leadership, that leader must exude traits such as extreme personal humility, strong professional will, a committed and dedicated pursuit and resolution to steer the organization to prolonged and sustained success. The Level 5 Leadership style is apparently different from other leadership styles in terms of accurately identifying the unique and distinct duality traits of leaders who were identified to exude these in companies they led towards prolonged success. According to Collins, there are other levels in the leadership hierarchy: from highly capable individuals (Level 1), contributing team member (Level 2), competent managers (Level 3), and effective leaders (Level 4) (Collins, 2001, p. 70), whose differentiating characteristics and traits are not enough to sustain prolonged and unprecedented success to organizations. The importance of having been apprised of the Level 5 Leadership lies in the knowledge and awareness provided to other contemporary

Did the history of the People's Republic after the 1949 fulfil or Essay

Did the history of the People's Republic after the 1949 fulfil or depart from Mao's promises before 1949 - Essay Example This further resumed the civil war in China, after which the war restarted only in 1946, a year after the conflict with Japan. The war ceased in 1950, and the Republic of China was under the jurisdiction of the islands of Taiwan, Quemoy, Penghu as well as several other outlying areas. Mao Zedong was commonly regarded as Chairman Mao, who was a Chinese communist, revolutionary and a political theorist. He is known as the father of People’s Republic of China since its foundation in 1949. He ruled the nation as the chairman of the Communist Party of China until his death. Here the topic under discussion is the changes that were brought about in China during Mao’s period, after the Chinese revolution of 1949. There existed some inequalities in PRC due to the dissimilarities between the Mao period and the reform eras. To know the underlying nature of the Chinese society, one needs to understand China’s transition into the present era after Mao’s period. This ch ange was brought in its due effect after the era of Mao. Analysis: The changes that took place during Mao’s rule were based on the economy of China. There was the involvement of foreign capital in China from economic zones such as southern and eastern coasts. There was a connection of the part of China in terms of family and cultural relationships to other countries like Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. During this time, the economy of Asia was growing fast and starting to play a more important role all over the world. This was one of the advantages of China; this led to the economic reforms in the country. China took its steps for development through various fields such as agriculture in the private sector, independence in the non-state sector in industry, transport and construction, which was in crisis during the USSR times. There arose some problems in the economy. â€Å"There has been a tendency for cycles of economic boom followed by centrally – induced restraint , but these have not called the whole project into question† (Bowles et al. 70). Even if there were problems in China, there developed some reform programs such as agricultural reforms in 1978, the industrial, commercial and urban reforms in 1984 and again the coastal strategy reforms in 1978. Some legal facilities were provided in order to surpass all the rights and duties when the economic policies were being developed in China. It was the situation of flexibility in the rules rather than the communist regime. In Mao’s rule there were limitations to implement rules and regulations over the labourers in the aspects of wage rates, trade unions and working conditions. This raised market oriented businesses in the economy, and the Cultural Revolution resulted in the independence of China from other foreign countries. The banks in China followed liberalization, and authoritarianism was not acceptable anymore in the Chinese society. In this era, discontent with socialism ha d started to grow. Chinese economy survived after the Cultural Revolution of 1966 by the implementation of Five Year Plan; however, this revolution overwhelmed the political system of China, and as a result, chaos spread. â€Å"Two years after the Cultural Revolution ended in October 1976, the principal survivor of that cataclysm, onetime CCP general Secretary Deng Xiaoping, initiated

Symbolism of Education in Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

Symbolism of Education in Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi Pinocchio is a childrens story, and the primary purpose of most childrens stories are to be taking some kind of educational responsibility. For many of us the story will exist only in our mind and imagination, nevertheless it is helpful, when reading a childrens story, to have in mind the practical problems faced by the producers or the characters trying to interpret the story. Certainly the plot of Pinocchio is exciting and full of education. We would not, of course, expect education to be the dominating theme of a childrens story which seeks to explore how a child like Pinnochio grows up rather than merely to excite the spectator. Yet some educational scenarios are important dramatically in Pinocchio and it is not artificially contrived. Thus it seems that Carlo Collodi, the author of Pinocchio tend to offer clues towards his ideas of the puzzling aspect of childrens educational processes. It is brought about by the natural behaviour of characters, and often by the unpredictability of Pinocchio. This essay is going to explore whether Carlo Collodi wants to promote or critique educational processes through Pinocchio. The story begins with master Anthony finds a piece of wood which is able to speak, laugh and cry, then he gives this piece of magic wood to his friend Old Joe, who always longs for a piece of wood that can be turned to a fabulous puppet. It is noticeable here, that why Collodi has to introduce two men relate to Pinocchio as he could have had only Old Joe himself alone finds the wood and uses the piece of wood to create Pinocchio? And if we look back to the moment when Master Anthony encounters Old Joe, these two old fellows even fights twice for some funny reasons! Perhaps Collodi would like to remind us of the impact of family background can have on a child: Pinocchio is born in a single parent family. Being parents is a job hard enough, but I reckon doing it alone just doubles the difficulty. The phenomenon of single parent family is not as common in Collodis time as it is in our time now, but possibly Collodi might have already noticed the effect a single parent family may bring o n a child. Then the story continues with sort of chaos, when the puppet Pinocchio runs away from home after he is just completed and given a name. This naughty (or even worse rebellious) personality of Pinocchio marks his fortune and the relative education he is going to accept as the story unfolds. Unlike any infant or new born kids that symbolize pureness and naivety, Pinocchio seems to be very distinctive because of his wildness and naughtiness. The scenario of Pinocchio runs away also leads to poor Old Joes life in jail for a few days, yet it is worth noticing that Old Joe does not condemn Pinocchio for his wildness. Perhaps it is because the miserable experience Pinocchio has while Old Joe is in jail distracts his attention. It is what normally happens when parents see their children get hurt even it is their own accounts. Possibly Collodi is not criticizing if it is right or wrong, yet according to Old Joes attitude towards Pinocchio more or less indicate Collodis acquiesce i n parent spoiling their children. Pinocchios naughtiness and wildness leads his father Old Joe to think about letting Pinocchio go to school. But Old Joe makes up his mind too soon, in despite of considering the possibility and availability. At this point Collodi shows his mastery of creating touching and emotional scenario: Poor Old Joe sells his cape to buy Pinocchio an alphabet book. As a father, no doubt that he wishes his child could learn to be a sensible and amenable child. Nevertheless it appears this kind of orthodox education process does not work on Pinocchio. Thus one may argue, is going to school the only way to teach children to behave properly and be sensible? It is reasonable to speculate that Collodis answer is likely to be: No! Because in fact even until the end of the story when Pinocchio eventually becomes a real boy and behaves appropriately, school is something never has any obvious positive effect on him.   Though going to school is a daily requirement in his life, however he is in constant m ental battle whether to go or not. There is just too much temptation ahead of him, such as puppet play, the land of toy, etc. In order to watch the puppet play he sells his book which costs his father the only cape and he takes the risk of not becoming a real boy to go to the land of toy, where he and his ‘friend Candle-Wick turned donkeys. His desire of becoming a real boy is so strong, yet his remarks are always inconsistent with what he promises. In a way Pinocchio stands for ordinary immature children, who need proper guide and appropriate help from the adults. However the images of ‘adults are pretty grim throughout the whole story, apart from his father Old Joe, the talking cricket and the Fairy. Considering those adults from the beginning: the careless police who puts Old Joe into jail; the puppeteer Swallowfire almost makes Pinocchio a great contribution to his dinner (but he could be positive as he shows his mercy by giving Pinocchio 5 gold coins); the fox and cat swindles Pinocchios money, etc. I do not think Collodi is being cynical but surely he shows his concerns of the social environment, in which children grow up. What shall we expect from children when they are growing up in a society which is full of dishonesty, lies and incredibility? Furthermore, it is funny that we hardly see any glimpse of Old Joe as the action progresses. As Pinocchios only family, Old Joe is bound to teach Pinocchio things like how t o tell right from wrong or how to avoid mixing with wrong people. Whereas until Old Joe joins the reunions with Pinocchio inside fish, he scarcely appears and his role is ironically fulfilled by the talking cricket and the Fairy. In this crucial stage of growing up, it is quite a pity there is hardly any trace of Old Joe. Despite his wildness and rebelliousness, Pinocchio does not seem to be a precocious child and he gives an impression of genuine simplicity and naivety, particularly when it looks as if everything is so convincible to him. Nevertheless there is one thing is highly noticeable, that is he is unable to tell any lie. Of course it is the way the Fairy helps him to always tell the truth and learn to be honest, but is it not too cruel for a child, when he must be totally honest otherwise his nose gets longer as punishment? It seems the world have no mercy on him, because his destiny is to be an honest man. When the story comes to the end, Pinocchio finally becomes a real virtuous boy, but the price for it, I am afraid, is a bit too high, as he makes his dream come true by overcoming too many troubles like a yoke which is too heavy for a child to bear. Moreover, even though he is merely a puppet, he has the human traits. He shows true warmth and love towards his father Old Joe and the Fairy. In conclusion, of course the whole story of Pinocchio is rather an example of the kind of presence of mind with which educational stories are wont to amaze the children and thus successfully becoming a real boy is a tribute to Pinocchios tireless effort to behave properly and learn to be a virtuous boy, however the progress of his grow-up is riveting. Yet with the examples of traditional education processes presented by the author in the story, and his occasional critiques on the society in which children are brought up, the confrontation remains as we dare not assert if Carlo Collodi himself is promoting or criticizing educational processes. Thus it is reasonable to argue, that the balance between promoting and criticizing educational processes is well maintained by Collodi. Bibliography Collodi, C., (1996). The Adventure of Pinocchio. trans. A.L.Lucas. Oxford: Oxford University Press Stewart Steinberg, S., (2007). The Pinocchio Effect: on making Italians 1860 1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Zipes, J.D., (2007). When dreams came true: classical fairy tales and their tradition. New York: Routledge

Subdivisions and American Agriculture Essay -- Geography USA Essays Pa

Subdivisions and American Agriculture Across Wyoming and the West, you can see miles and miles of undeveloped land. However, in the next 100 years will that be true? This once-frontier land has had massive growths in population. For retired people, the West and Midwest are becoming more attractive due to the cheap land that is less populated. Subdivisions are moving farther and farther out into the country. From 1990 to 1995, the counties in the Rocky Mountain region increased three times faster than the rest of the United States (Theobald, Miller, and Hobbs 26). Due to this increase, other areas in the environment have been negatively affected. Numerous problems have surfaced as a result of 5 acre plots. Wildlife habitats have been disturbed through construction. In conjunction with the disturbance of wildlife, plant population and landscape have also been removed and disturbed. The recent building increases have also sparked arguments over water rights and ground water. From â€Å"Ranching the View: Subdivisions versus Agriculture,† the authors suggest subdivisions can have profound impacts on rural areas. This is primarily due to the organization of the subdivisions to gain the most housing sites possible, the subdivisions have been arranged into small plots. The houses then take up a large amount of acreage and are compacted. However, separately each individual plot is around 5 acres. And this is especially relevant if the subdivisions are located near protected areas. With an increase in human population more housing is needed. Valuable farmland, range land, and grassland have been constructed into subdivisions. Besides the subdivision layout problem, subdivisions also bring roads, fences, wells, lawns, and buildings. Ano... ...tion biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology 9.2 (1995): 459-461. Agricola. 29 March 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com. Radeloff, Volker C., Hammer, Roger B., and Susan I. Stewart. "Rural and Suburban Sprawl in the U.S. Midwest from 1940 to 2000 and Its Relation to Forest Fragmentation." Conservation Biology 19.3 (2005): 793-805. Academic Search Premier. 28 March 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com. Theobald, D.M., Miller, J.R., and N.T. Hobbs. â€Å"Estimating the cumulative effects of development on wildlife habitat.† Landscape and Urban Planning 39 (1997): 25-36. 29 March 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com. Veech, Joseph A. "A Comparison of Landscapes Occupied by Increasing and Decreasing Populations of Grassland Birds." Conservation Biology 20.5 (2006): 1422-1432. Academic Search Premier. 29 March 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com.

Cisco Systems, Inc Essay

Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American-based multinational corporation that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking and communications technology and services. Headquartered in San Jose, California, Cisco has more than 65,000 employees and annual revenue of US$40. 0 billion as of 2010. The stock was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 8, 2009, and is also included in the S&P 500 Index the Russell 1000 Index, NASDAQ100 Index and the Russell 1000 Growth Stock Index. [4] Cisco is one of the world’s biggest technology corporations. Corporate history One of the many buildings on the Cisco Systems campus in San Jose Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple who worked as computer operations staff members at Stanford University, later joined by Richard Troiano, founded Cisco Systems in 1984. Lerner moved on to direct computer services at Schlumberger, moving full time to Cisco in 1987. The name â€Å"Cisco† was derived from the city name, San Francisco, which is why the company’s engineers insisted on using the lower case â€Å"cisco† in the early days. For Cisco’s first product, Bosack adapted multiple-protocol router software originally written some years before by William Yeager, another Stanford employee who later joined Sun Microsystems. The company’s first CEO was Bill Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988. [5] In 1988, John Morgridge was appointed CEO, and succeeded in 1995 by John Chambers. While Cisco was not the first company to develop and sell a router,[6] it was one of the first to sell commercially successful routers supporting multiple network protocols. [7] As the Internet Protocol (IP) became widely adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. Today, Cisco’s largest routers are primarily used to deliver IP packets. In 1990, the company was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Lerner was fired; as a result Bosack quit after receiving $200 million. Most of those profits were given to charities and the two later divorced. Cisco acquired a variety of companies to bring in products and talent into the company. Several acquisitions, such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred. During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corporation, a start-up company located in Petaluma, California, for about US$7 billion. It was the most expensive acquisition made by Cisco to date, and only the acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta has been larger. Several acquired companies have grown into $1Bn+ business units for Cisco, including LAN switching, Enterprise Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), and home networking. Cisco acquired Linksys in 2003. In late March 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, Cisco was the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than US$500 billion. [8][9] In July 2009, with a market cap of about US$108. 3 billion,[10] it is still one of the most valuable companies. [11] The company was a 2002-03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award,[citation needed] a U. S. presidential honor to recognize companies â€Å"for the exemplary quality of their relationships with employees and communities†. In 2010, Cisco bought Starent Networks, a mobile technology company and Moto Development Group, a product design consulting firm that helped develop Cisco’s Flip video camera. [12] The Company has built its Globalization Centre East in Bangalore for $1 billion and 20% of Cisco’s leaders will be based there.

Through the Eyes of Modern Society

The intriguing documentary of Killing Us Softly 4 by Jean Kilbourne, provides for a controversial topic of the basis of advertising in the media and how it affects women directly and indirectly. Consequently, harsh results are perceived from these advertisements. Of all the â€Å"factual† statements made by Jean Kilbourne during this documentary, many fallacies arose. The media leaves us extremely vulnerable to assimilating ourselves to all aspects of mass media.I can closely identify myself with the situation at hand because I am a part of a society that is raised up on a pop culture that is ubiquitous. We are constantly consumed in the media every single day with advertisements flooding our brains. In fact, I feel that women are not as materialized, dehumanized, or objectified as they are overpoweringly depicted in Killing Us Softly 4. Essentially, Killing Us Softly 4 is an examination of the media and, especially, advertising’s influence on the society and negatively targets and affects women.It characterizes how women are portrayed as objects, not humans. This is represented by a series of advertisements focused on certain body parts, for instance, a woman’s legs or breasts, which apparently dehumanizes women. The issues related to the advertisements presented in this film include a major decline in self-esteem experienced by adolescent females, eating disorders, and violence against women, among other examples. As a result, Kilbourne immediately stresses her opinions that females are bombarded with a multiplicity of insecurities compared to males growing up.She blames this imbalance of self-esteem to the models that indirectly push women to look up to the unreachable ideal image portrayed in advertising. The result is damaging to our collective psychological makeup as far as the way we view women in the real world and how women view themselves. Is it the woman’s body that has been objectified for the sole purpose of this adverti sing? For instance, as stated in the video, it states that the perfect ideal women figure is always shown with a light-skinned, straight-hair, skinny figure.â€Å"Women of color are only considered beautiful if they resemble the white ideal† (5:48-5:56). In fact, I tend to disagree with this very statement. Women can be attractive and be a successful model no matter what skin color they are born with, where they came from, or what their heritage or race may be. Also, it was stated that certain races that are not light-skinned are usually represented as animals instead of human beings, which is an absurd statement. The quote given was, â€Å"Black women are featured as exotic animals, like leopards. Never shown modeling† (8:13-8:30).A statement like this is completely racial and stereotypical as well as close-minded against welcoming of other minorities into the modeling world. As a matter of fact, The United States consists of a melting pot of races, religions, and gen etic make up. So, by making an outlandish statement that is very hypocritical in many senses. When a young girl sees a model in an advertisement and asks herself, â€Å"What do I have to do to look like her? † In addition, women are not as materialized, dehumanized, or objectified as they are overpoweringly depicted in Killing Us Softly 4.Jean Kilbourne tries to formulate a ridiculous piece of research that she complied about the direct relationship between the ideal image of women. This is exemplifies, and coincides with the way that men view women with higher standards, which directly sparks violence against women. The evidence lies in the following quote: â€Å"It creates a widespread violence against women by turning a human being into a thing, which is the first step toward justifying violence against a person. † (9:19-9:42). There is not valid information to backup this â€Å"research† that Kilbourne is referring to and tends to have no apparent correlatio n.She went on to say, â€Å"This is the case with homophobia and terrorism. Dehumanization means violence is inevitable† (9:35-9:42). Respectively, these are all valid examples of groups of people that are alienated from society, certain people desire to inflict violence on them. However, once again the majority of women are not a part of those groups so this information essentially, remains irrelevant. In conclusion, many fallacies were present as a result of the statements made throughout the documentary.Jean Kilbourne tries to provide valid facts,  research, and propaganda against the objectification, dehumanization, and role of women in advertisement. An example of a fallacy is the thought that only women closely related to the white ideal are considered beautiful and modeling material. Another example of a fallacy would be the creation of an ideal imagine of women through advertising, directly pushes violence against women. Although Kilbourne brought forth some apparen tly true information and concern up front, the majority of the information is drawn directly from her own emotions, views, and opinions.