aviation and leadership

A manager's responsibilities can not be carried out haphazardly. A strong manager must be able to perform the basic tasks of arranging, scheduling, staffing, managing, and leading. Planning involves laying out a strategy for achieving a certain goal. For example, if a corporation wishes to raise its market volume, a manager is in charge of enforcing the appropriate steps in the strategy. If the strategy is created, a planner must implement it while ensuring that the goal of increasing the organization's revenue is met. When the location is established, the manager is critical in organizing the staff and materials in accordance with the schedule. Allocating duties and granting power are essential aspects of organizing. Once the manager identifies the needs of the organization, he/she decides to increase staffing through recruitment, selection, and employee development and training. In any organization, the manager collaborates with the human resource unit to achieve this objective (Johnston and Marshall 2016). Besides, planning, organizing, and staffing, the manager is responsible for ensuring that his/her team accomplishes an objective. A manager must lead and this entails motivating, good communication and encouraging. In this case, the manager plays the leading role, by coaching, guiding and problem-solving with workers. The manager also plays the role of continuously checking results against target objectives and implementing effective strategies to ensure plans are in the right direction. A manager receives data on external and internal events to have a good understanding of the firm's environment. Generally, this is realized through wider reading and talking to other managers to recognize the changing customers' preferences and demand; competitors’ tactics among others. Management approach, personality (Use the Big 5 Model) and leadership style of MuilenburgDennis Muilenburg Leadership styleMuilenburg uses transformational leadership style, which focuses not only on Boeing bottom line but also efficiency. On many occasions, he has cited the firm's "One Boeing" mantra and its cost-cutting initiative with suppliers. Transformational leaders are ready to adapt and seek new ways to address continuously changing the business environment (Cote 2017). Additionally, they are aware of the fact that if they do not act, their competitors can out-compete them; hence, they get open-minded to changes and always learning (Caulfield et al. 2017). This is clearly demonstrated by Muilenburg’s attribute of charting the course. In other words, Muilenburg is strategic, has the ability to envision the future and the capability to define the strategy that is aligned with the right direction. Moreover, Muilenburg has the ability to use a wide range of talent, which is important when it comes to understanding experience or knowledge gaps. As a transformational leader, Muilenberg works with teams from various backgrounds, views, and experiences that are valuable in decision making and forming a better corporate entity.Furthermore, Muilenburg drives inspiration from the firm's tough times, which offers him an opportunity to expand connection and the significance of investing in human capital while learning. Inspirational motivation is an important attribute of transformational leaders. They inspire confidence and purpose in their followers. This component of transformational leadership calls for good communication skills because the leader has to pass his message with accuracy and authority (Nahavandi 2016). In this respect, Muilenburg inspires workers to produce good results, which is important in the aerospace sector, where any failure can adversely impact its operations. Additionally, Muilenberg alleges that individuals' lives rely on what Boeing does and it drives excellence in how they conduct their duties (Cote 2017).By way of transformational leadership, Muilenberg has been effective in communicating Boeing's vision, to ensure that every person works to realizing it and highlighting the right course for the organization. Specifically, Muilenberg is sure that the first person to go to Mars will use Boeing rocket because of innovative products the company has developed including 737 MAX, 777X and 787 (Coyd 2016). This reflects an exciting future and an opportunity for Boeing. Furthermore, being a transformation leader, Muilenberg believes that the company had been involved in various changes in the first 100 years such as individuals riding horses to flying planes; persons walking on earth to expeditions on the moon. Therefore, in the next 100 years, Muilenberg believes that innovation in aerospace would be greater.Personality and Management approachThe fact that Muilenburg brings on board a plethora of experiences, his hands-on experience from the engineering side offers the technical capabilities that Boeing requires to undertake on certain tasks. And yet, Muilenburg personality of agreeableness is instrumental not just in terms of creating a positive impression but also inspiring confidence by putting the needs of employees before anything else. Nonetheless, because of this personality trait, the manager will easily get along with employees, an aspect that makes it easy to communicate the company’s goals but also ensures the change narratives advances towards realizing meaningful change. Essentially, human skills play a critical role as far as working in collaboration (Coyd 2016). With the help of this skill, Muilenburg will cultivate at Boeing the spirit of openness, enthusiasm and candid involvement engagement in interpersonal ties. Moreover, because of exceptional human skills, Muilenburg exhibits a high degree of self-consciousness and the ability to comprehend or commiserate with others (Chaston 2017).Muilenburg has the emotional stability to withstand frightening news. This is demonstrated during the wake of 9/11, which marked a turning point in the aviation industry. As the deputy president for programmes and engineering, Muilenburg was required to set up the company’s Air Traffic Management in Washington DC. After the 9/11 attacks, the entire equation had to change from the capacity to safeguarding the skies. Although the terrorist attack was really gruesome, Muilenburg was never crashed by the ordeal, instead, he drew strength by expanding his connections across the organization and talent was rearranged to meet the new challenge (Church et al. 2016). It was also during this period that Muilenburg undertook the need to invest in the human capital more than anything else. While staying on the outside, Muilenburg reengineered the aviation safety to counter acts of terrorism. However, coupled with conceptual skills, Muilenburg has the capacity to think analytically. Analytical expertise will, therefore, allow for breaking down of complex organizational anomalies into smaller segments, to grasp the relations among the parts and identify implications of problems (Coyd 2016). Moreover, as Muilenburg assume tough responsibilities at Boeing, analytical skills remain crucial in terms of dealing with ambiguous anomalies that lasting outcomes. Effectiveness of the Muilenburg’s leadership style and how it has affected the performance of the organizationMuilenburg's leadership style has positively affected Boeing's performance. In addition, his leadership style is applicable in operations such as how they conduct business, customer and employee engagement. Moreover, Muilenberg leadership style puts high expectations on employees with respect to performance. Boeing operates in a highly competitive sector, but with transformational leadership style he communicates clearly to employees that is, they cannot compromise performance and values. This is to say, they cannot perform well while overlooking the organization's values. Therefore, Muilenberg leadership style helps workers to focus on values and eventually generates high results. Because of transformational leadership style, Muilenberg takes into consideration integrity in decision making, which leads to better results. Conducting business with integrity helps Boeing to only improve performance but also gain competitive advantage. He believes in the idea that competitiveness and performance depend on high-integrity choices. Financial PerformanceUnder Muilenburg’s leadership, the company delivered second-quarter 2017 financial results that demonstrate strong operating activities and vigorous cash generation. The company generated $5 billion during the first quarter in terms of operating cash. Moreover, the company also bought back Boeing’s stock amounting to $2.5 billion, returned the money to investors and advanced ahead to invest in modernization, future growth and human capital. When it comes to the second quarter, about 183 commercial airplanes were sold generating a profit of $15.7 billion with ten percent as the operating margins. Currently, the company has more than 5700 airplanes to deliver. Employee FeedbackMuilenburg thinks that employee feedback is refreshing and helps in mentoring individuals at higher levels of the firm and high-potential persons joining Boeing. Moreover, he believes on the use of social networks like blogs to get honest feedback frown workers. Therefore, since his appointment as Boing CEO, Muilenburg has provided a conducive environment when workers gave open and honest feedbacks.AwardsMuilenburg holds a doctorate degree from Iowa State University. He is also an associate of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) as well as the Royal Aeronautical Society. He is also a member of the different board of directors of many companies in more than three industries. ReferencesCaulfield, J.L., Caulfield, J.L., Senger, A. and Senger, A., 2017. Perception is reality: change leadership and work engagement. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 38(7), pp.927-945.Chaston, I., 2017. Managing Process. In Technological Entrepreneurship (pp. 169-190). Springer International Publishing.Church, A.H., Fleck, C.R., Foster, G.C., Levine, R.C., Lopez, F.J. and Rotolo, C.T., 2016. Does Purpose Matter? The Stability of Personality Assessments in Organization Development and Talent Management Applications Over Time. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 52(4), pp.450-481.Coyd K., (2016).Global defence and aviation projects keep Dennis Muilenburg on his toes. Here, the Boeing CEO discusses his career to date. Retrieved on October 21, 2017, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/better-future/boeing-ceo-dennis-muilenburg-career/Johnston, M.W., and Marshall, G.W., 2016. Salesforce management: Leadership, innovation, technology. Routledge.Nahavandi, A., 2016. The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition. Pearson.