How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be
When we think of leadership, we often focus on external characteristics, practices, behaviour and actions that exemplary leaders demonstrate as they take on complex challenges. While this line of thinking is a great place to start, the authors-both from McKinsey-argue that we cannot reach our potential as leaders by looking at only what is visible: we need to see what lies underneath to understand how remarkable leaders lead, and that begins with mindsets. They provide four simple exercises can help you recognize-and begin to shift-the mindsets that are limiting your potential as a leader, including 'practicing the pause' and 'making time to recover'.
Swot Analysis of "How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be" written by Joanna Barsh, Johanne Lavoie includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Mindsets Leaders facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Talent management and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mindsets Leaders, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mindsets Leaders operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mindsets Leaders
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Mindsets Leaders
Strengths How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mindsets Leaders in How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mindsets Leaders has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mindsets Leaders has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Mindsets Leaders is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Mindsets Leaders in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mindsets Leaders are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mindsets Leaders has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mindsets Leaders has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Mindsets Leaders in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Mindsets Leaders is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Mindsets Leaders
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Mindsets Leaders does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Mindsets Leaders is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Mindsets Leaders is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Mindsets Leaders has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Mindsets Leaders to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mindsets Leaders has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mindsets Leaders to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mindsets Leaders to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Mindsets Leaders needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be, it seems that the employees of Mindsets Leaders don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Need for greater diversity
– Mindsets Leaders has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Mindsets Leaders supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Mindsets Leaders vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Mindsets Leaders has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mindsets Leaders has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be, is just above the industry average. Mindsets Leaders needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be HBR case study mentions - Mindsets Leaders takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Mindsets Leaders, firm in the HBR case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Mindsets Leaders products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Mindsets Leaders needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mindsets Leaders is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Mindsets Leaders needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mindsets Leaders to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Mindsets Leaders can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Mindsets Leaders can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mindsets Leaders in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Mindsets Leaders can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Mindsets Leaders to increase its market reach. Mindsets Leaders will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mindsets Leaders can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Leadership & Managing People segment.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Mindsets Leaders to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Mindsets Leaders to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Mindsets Leaders has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Mindsets Leaders to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be case study. Mindsets Leaders can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mindsets Leaders can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mindsets Leaders has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mindsets Leaders to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Mindsets Leaders to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Mindsets Leaders can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mindsets Leaders to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mindsets Leaders can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Threats How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be are -
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Mindsets Leaders.
Environmental challenges
– Mindsets Leaders needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Mindsets Leaders can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mindsets Leaders is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Mindsets Leaders can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mindsets Leaders has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mindsets Leaders needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Mindsets Leaders needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Mindsets Leaders in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be, Mindsets Leaders may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Increasing wage structure of Mindsets Leaders
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Mindsets Leaders.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mindsets Leaders high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mindsets Leaders can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of How to Lead at Your Best: Embracing four aspects of 'centered leadership' will help make you the best leader you can be is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Mindsets Leaders needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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