Jim Collins stated that a company does not go from good to great overnight but by relentlessly pushing a giant heavy flywheel in one direction, building momentum until a point of breakthrough. The power of momentum is evident in the Harvard Business Review’s (HBR 2017) ranking of the world’s best CEO’s. Judged solely on the basis of financial performance the top leader would be Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos. However the rankings are now based on not just financial but also on environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics. This resulted in Bezos coming in at number 71. According to the HBR researchers, the use of ESG information is driven by financial rather than ethical motives.
1. In today’s turbulent world, how should the success of CEOs be evaluated?
2. What are the challenges of focusing on just financial metrics to the long term success of organisations?
3. What are the challenges leaders face in balancing financial and ESG performance metrics? Drawing on current leadership research (in the last 5 years) discuss how leaders should address these challenges.
Use examples of three current CEOs (leaders), to support your answers to questions 1, 2 and 3. Critically evaluate how each leader’s practice of leadership impacts the success of their organisation. You can use a different example for each of the questions above or use the three examples across the questions.
Use relevant theories and concepts from across the subject but especially from weeks 6 to 9 in addressing this task
A minimum of 10 academic/professional references must be used
Rationale
This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:
• be able to provide a comprehensive explanation of the role of leadership.
• be able to critically analyse, in the context of the framework of relevant theories and research, current and projected issues which impact on organisational leadership and organisational success.
• be able to synthesise issues for organisational leaders and evaluate plausible impacts requiring leadership decisions.
• be able to explain the relationship between effective leadership and the success of organisations.
GET ANSWERS / LIVE CHAT