Leadership Analysis Assignment - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1342 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Management Essay Type Argumentative essay Did you like this example? Leadership Analysis To define a leader, as previously read, one has to presume that an individualà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s character is conducive to the environment for which he/she leads. However, that is not always the case. Sure, it is true that character, value, beliefs, skills, attributes and multi-faceted cultures are what dictates the outcome of a leader, but it does not necessarily mean that the individual will do well in all environments. Yet, we can assess from our studies (Hughes, et.al, 2012), that a leader who doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t do well in one culture, may do well in another. All organizations possess different types of cultures (Bennis, 1999). These cultures consist of laborers, executives, etc. Yet, a laborer culture in an automotive industry may share similar commonalities with labor cultures of a different industry, and even though they are labeled with the same culture identification, will not encounter the same issues. Nevertheless, there will be similarities, but they will be experienced within a different set of circumstances. Though Bennis (1999) gave a significant amount of insight on culture and its influence on leaders, I still believe that it would be best to expand and redefine organizational cultures a bit further than the three cultures with subcultures. Great leaders are made, says Vince Lombardi (n.d.) (as cited, Hughes, et.al, 2012), and we have heard this throughout history. As true as this is, leaders do not start out in their life that way. Each individual has been shaped by their own set of personal circumstances, situations, life beliefs, etc. Even more so, you can take 2 individuals, who shared the same set of parents, home, friends, community, values, schools, etc., and they will relate a different experience on what life was like growing up. Some will say that life was hard; another would say that it was the best ever. Therefore, this illustrates that all leaders, being humans, are shaped by s uch and possess predispositions to certain behavior. In addition, I ascertained how extremely important it is to understand that a leader will evolve into a different type of leader; this is dependent upon what the leader deems to be the utmost important factors of the position (Toegel, G., Barsoux, J., 2012). If a leader is segregated from the people and numbers take precedence, then it is possible that this manager would likely see a definite change in their point of view (Bennis, 1999). Throughout my years and my careers, I have witnessed several different types of leader personalities and traits. Ideally, I can conclude that my preferred type of manager/leader would possess the style of a country club leader that was mixed with a team leader. I view myself as a combination of both of these styles (Hughes, et.al, 2012). However, I have seen managers that completely base their authority in management on fear and intimidation. Threats and fear lie at the very core of this appro ach. I have referenced to this style of management as the dinosaur style of leadership that once dominated leadership many years ago like the dinosaurs, may it fade away, as well. Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s not uncommon to see leaders early on, take on roles that reflect their personality. I have decided that it is common for a leader to be discovered, usually, early on in their lives. Whether as a student, or a newcomer, usually are seen in roles that are conducive to their predisposition (Karkoulian, et. al, 2009). Self-discovery is the key. Personally, I never knew the power that existed within me until a relative told me repeatedly that I could sell shoes to a snake. I was in my early 20à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s and didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t quite know if this was meant as a compliment or insult. Then, some years later, I realized that whenever I felt passionate, highly regarded something, or had solid views on a matter, I was able to convey that message accordingly. This proved beyond m easure that leadership is composed of passion, power, beliefs, views, communication skills, predisposition, etc. Though the list is very extensive, we have to analyze education and its effects on leaderà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s roles. Education has been shown to be an effective means to success for all individuals. It is show or display of commitment for the future. However, this does not settle itself just in the form of formal education, but in school of life as well. Life skills consist of learning to do for oneà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s own self and to hold oneà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s own, so to speak. Learning occurs from birth and should continue until one is no longer able to do so. Leaders must apply their skills, proficiencies to their positions not only to complete the task at hand, but rather, to gain the trust and credibility of the co-workers. When this is established, there is a form of respect amongst the team. Unfortunately, when this is not the case, it is more than likely that th e leader/manager will not like their job position, potentially suffer at the hands of irrespective employees and ultimately, lose their position. Additional reflection needs to be incorporated into professional lives, including the follower and leaders respective positions. Reflection is something that needs to be performed ritualistically in order to engage in continual improvement. This involves looking at day-to-day business, and realizing what could have been done better; more efficiently and effectively (Hughes, et.al, 2012). In order to apply this across board can be challenging, due to the complexity of the nature of leading within an organization. As I always say, wherever there are people, there are going to be challenges and mistakes. This, in my opinion is not a negative statement but rather an acceptance on what needs to occur in order to keep the ship flowing smoothly. Other areas of reflection should be of the leaders self. Self reflection takes a close look at o neà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s own goals, unwanted behaviors and patterns and gives/receives feedback. I find that feedback from co-workers, mentors, and managers, is the best way to see yourself from a different perspective. At times, I have witnessed specific dysfunctional behaviors, along with their detrimental effects to a leaderà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s authority and how it negates the respect sought. So, whenever possible, it is best to listen to feedback from co-workers, colleagues, etc., and see if their comments align with one another. Then, it is time to learn ways to disengage or cease the behavior. At this point, we can see that it takes a lot of time, energy, focus, commitment to earn the status of a à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“great leader.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Though, not easy, it is a great accomplishment. It takes an ethical leader to truly value the followers and co-workers. If this is not made a part of the leaderà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s life, then where is the true success? It is very important to never lose sight of the value and importance of those whom one leads. For it is in the followers, that make a successful leader and vice versa. References Barrow, J. C. (1977). The Variables of Leadership: A Review and Conceptual Framework.Academy Of Management Review,2(2), 231. doi:10.5465/AMR.1977.4409046 Bennis, W. (1999). The end of leadership: exemplary leadership is impossible without full inclusion, initiatives, and cooperation of followers. Organizational Dynamics, 28(1), 71- 79. Harland, L. K. (2003). Using Personality Tests in Leadership Development: Test Format Effects and the Mitigating Impact of Explanations and Feedback.Human Resource Development Quarterly,14(3), 285. Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., Curphy, G. (2012). Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Kalshoven, K., Den Hartog, D., De Hoogh, A. (2011). Ethical Leader Behavior and Big Five Factors of Personality.Journal Of Business Ethics,100(2), 349-366. Kark oulian, S., Messarra, L., Sidani, M. (2009). Correlates of the bases of power and the big five personality traits: an empirical investigation.Journal Of Organizational Culture, Communications And Conflict, (2), 71. Levine, M., Boaks, J. (2014). What Does Ethics Have to do with Leadership?.Journal Of Business Ethics,124(2), 225-242. Powell, C. (2005, November 6). Never Show Fear or Anger. Retrieved October 9, 2014. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/colin-powell-never-show-fear-or-anger Toegel, G., Barsoux, J. (2012). How to become a better leader.MIT Sloan Management Review, (3), 51. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Leadership Analysis Assignment" essay for you Create order

The Abstract Latent Factor ( Lf ) Models - 1591 Words

ï€   Abstract—Latent factor (LF) models have proven to be accurate and efficient in extracting hidden knowledge from high-dimensional and sparse (HiDS) matrices. However, most LF models fail to fulfill the non-negativity constraints that reflect the non-negative nature of industrial data. Yet existing non-negative LF models for HiDS matrices suffer from slow convergence leading to considerable time cost. An alternating direction method-based non-negative latent factor (ANLF) model decomposes a non-negative optimization process into small sub-tasks. It updates each LF non-negatively based on the latest state of those trained before, thereby achieving fast convergence and maintaining high prediction accuracy and scalability. This paper†¦show more content†¦Originated from matrix factorization (MF) techniques, their *This research is supported in part by the Pioneer Hundred Talents Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences, in part by the International Joint Project funded jointly by the Royal Society of the UK and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61611130209, in part by the Young Scientist Foundation of Chongqing under Grant No. cstc2014kjrc-qnrc40005, in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61370150, Grant 61433014, and Grant 61402198. X. Luo is with the Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chongqing 400714, China, and also with the Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory for Mobile Internet Application Middleware Technology of Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China (e-mail: luoxin21@cigit.ac.cn). S. Li is with the Department of Computing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, HK 999077, China (e-mail: shuaili@polyu.edu.hk). principle is to build a low-rank approximation to a target matrix. They first map entities corresponding to the columns and rows of this target matrix into the same low-dimensional LF space. Then a series of loss functions are built based on its known entry set and the desired LFs [3-5, 8-13]. Since its known data take only a tiny piece of its whole entry set, to focus on them rather than on the entire matrix leads to high

Bankruptcy Prediction Models Multinorm Analysis †MyAssignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the Bankruptcy Prediction Models Multinorm Analysis. Answer: Introduction The current study critically evaluates the financial as well as non-financial performance of a firm with special reference to the operations of Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand is essentially a big passenger and flag carrier airline company with operations based in Auckland. Essentially, this airline runs scheduled passenger flights to nearly 21 domestic as well as 31 transnational destinations in around 19 nations. Essentially, this report stressing on analytical evaluation of performance of the company using non-financial measures refers to quantitative measures/dimensions of performance that are not reflected in monetary terms. Again, critical analysis of the corporation Air New Zealand using financial dimensions namely horizontal trend analysis can help in assessment of different components of financial assertions that in turn can assist in gaining better understanding of the position and performance of the corporation. The current section carries out horizontal trend analysis of the financial statements of Air New Zealand that reflects the changes in the overall amounts of corresponding items of financial assertions over a specific time period. Essentially, this can be considered to be an important tool that can be used for analysis of trend analysis. In this, the financial assertions for two periods are utilized in horizontal trend analysis. Essentially, the earliest period is normally referred to as the base period and diverse items on the pecuniary pronouncements for later period can be compared with different other items of the base period. Comparative balance sheet with horizontal trend analysis: AIR NEW ZEALAND LTD BALANCE SHEET Increase Fiscal year ends in June. NZD in millions except per share data. 2016-06 2015-06 Amount Percentage Assets Current assets Cash Cash and cash equivalents 1594 1321 273 20.666162 Short-term investments 92 103 -11 -10.67961165 Total cash 1686 1424 262 18.3988764 Receivables 300 298 2 0.67114094 Inventories 103 120 -17 -14.16666667 Prepaid expenses 73 71 2 2.816901408 Other current assets 177 69 108 156.5217391 Total current assets 2339 1982 357 18.01210898 Non-current assets Property, plant and equipment Gross property, plant and equipment 6314 6845 -531 -7.757487217 Accumulated Depreciation -2253 -2360 107 -4.533898305 Net property, plant and equipment 4061 4485 -424 -9.453734671 Equity and other investments 428 230 198 86.08695652 Goodwill 0 Intangible assets 102 127 -25 -19.68503937 Other long-term assets 202 70 132 188.5714286 Total non-current assets 4793 4912 -119 -2.422638436 Total assets 6775 7251 -476 -6.564611778 Liabilities and stockholders' equity 0 Liabilities 0 Current liabilities 0 Short-term debt 46 239 -193 -80.75313808 Capital leases 207 225 -18 -8 Accounts payable 448 453 -5 -1.103752759 Deferred income taxes 20 54 -34 -62.96296296 Deferred revenues 1055 1111 -56 -5.04050405 Other current liabilities 352 389 -37 -9.511568123 Total current liabilities 2128 2471 -343 -13.88101983 Non-current liabilities 0 Long-term debt 616 841 -225 -26.75386445 Capital leases 1453 1262 191 15.13470681 Deferred taxes liabilities 228 164 64 39.02439024 Other long-term liabilities 385 405 -20 -4.938271605 Total non-current liabilities 2682 2672 10 0.374251497 Total liabilities 4810 5143 -333 -6.474820144 Stockholders' equity 0 Common stock 2286 2252 34 1.509769094 Retained earnings -351 -351 Accumulated other comprehensive income 30 -144 174 -120.8333333 Total stockholders' equity 1965 2108 -143 -6.783681214 Total liabilities and stockholders' equity 6775 7251 -476 -6.564611778 Significant ratios The ratios that are essential in estimating the trends of business that is the situation in which the entity is currently in and the ways in which the business will react to the upcoming future events are called significant ratios. The ratios that are analysed below are the Quick ratio, Debt Equity ratio and the Net Profit ratio (Bodie, 2013). Quick Ratio Current Liabilities ($M) Current Assets ($M) Inventory ($M) Current Assets - Inventory Ratio FY 2012 1683 1700 170 1530 0.909 FY 2013 1710 1858 155 1703 0.996 FY 2014 1872 1827 169 1658 0.886 FY 2015 2128 1982 120 1862 0.875 FY 2016 2471 2339 103 2236 0.905 Quick ratio = Total Current Assets - Inventories/Total Current Liabilities The quick ratio represents the entitys liquidity on a short term basis. An entity has both short term and long term obligations. The short term obligations are those that are needed to be paid within the current financial year. Essentially the quick ratio measures the capability of the liquid assets of the entity in order to pay off the short term obligations. For instance a quick ratio of 1.8 reveals that $1.80 of liquid assets that is available for the purpose of covering the $1 worth of current liabilities. Therefore higher the liquidity or quick ratio of an entity better is its liquidity position (Healy Palepu, 2012). In the above table the quick ratio of Air New Zealand has been calculated for the past five financial years. The total current assets have been identified from the annual reports of the respective financial years and according to the formula the inventories have been subtracted from it and then divided by total current liabilities. Therefore the quick ratio that has been arrived at show the liquidity position of the company. In the financial year of 2012 the liquidity position of the group seems to be fine. In the financial year of 2013 the quick ratio even improves more lifting the entity to a much better liquidity position. Though the liquidity position of Air New Zealand worsens in the following two financial years but the entity seems to improve in the financial year of 2016 thus stabilizing the liquidity position of the entity (de Andrs, Landajo Lorca, 2012). Debt Equity Ratio Total Liabilities ($M) Shareholder's Equity ($M) Ratio FY 2012 3771 1688 2.2340 FY 2013 3796 1816 2.0903 FY 2014 3978 1872 2.1250 FY 2015 4810 1965 2.4478 FY 2016 5143 2108 2.4398 Debt Equity Ratio = Total Liabilities/ Shareholder's Equity Shareholder's Equity = Total assets - Total liabilities The Debt Equity ratio essentially measures the financial leverage of the entity. The debt equity ratio is measured by dividing the total liabilities of an entity by its share holders equity. The specific forecast or indication that is measured by the debt equity ratio is that the amount of debt that a company has been utilizing in order to finance its assets in relation to the value that is there in the shareholders equity. The debt equity ratio is also known as risk or gearing ratio. In case of a debt equity ratio the total liabilities is compared to the shareholders equity because this will specifically show the extent till which the entity is utilizing debts or borrowed sources of money in order to fund the projects of the company. Aggressive practices related to financial leveraging are often not recommended. This is because such activities are associated with high levels of risk. The earnings that are incurred by the entity may result in volatile earnings due to additional inter est expense (Li, 2015). The above table shows a more or less constant debt equity ratio. But such a value is high enough to indicate that the entity heavily indulges in financing from outside sources. The ratio though decreases in the financial year of 2013 but it increases in the following financial years. The entity indulging in financing from outside sources may continue such operations associated with high levels of risk, if and only if the returns from the project offset the cost of financing loans from outside. But if this is not the case then the group runs the risk of going bankrupt. Therefore initiative on the part of the management should be taken to look into the current situation and lower the rate of financial leverage of the entity (Weygandt, Kimmel Kieso, 2015). Net Profit Ratio Net Revenue ($M) Net Profit ($M) Ratio FY 2012 715 71 10.0704 FY 2013 898 182 4.9341 FY 2014 1013 262 3.8664 FY 2015 1161 327 3.5505 FY 2016 1542 463 3.3305 Net Profit ratio = Net Revenue / Net Profit The net profit ratio is calculated by dividing the net revenue that is incurred by the entity and is arrived at by deducting the operating expenses from the gross revenue, by the net profit that is incurred by the firm. The net profit ratio indicates the profitability of the entity and is always prepared for a row of past years in order to measure the performance of the entity on a continuous basis (Needles, Powers Crosson, 2013). In the above table as it can be observed the net profit ratio of the entity in the financial year of 2012 reaches great heights and obtains a value of 10.074, thus signifying a strong profitability position of the entity. But after 2013 the profitability falls steeply and becomes stable from the financial year of 2014. Therefore there should be much investigation into the fact that as to why the entity had incurred such high levels of profit in the financial year of 2013 and why the profitability abnormally did decrease after 2013. A major issue that should be noted while analysing the net profit ratio is that this ratio estimates or measures the performance of the firm on a short term basis and does not provide insight into the long term possibilities of the entity (Weil, Schipper Francis, 2013). Non-financial analysis (Attrition rate) Employees on (2016) No of employees left No of employees joined Current employees 9897 270 900 10527 Attrition rate =(270/100)/((9897+900))/100=2.45 From the above table, it can be inferred that the attrition rate of the organization is on the lower side, which is a positive sign for the organization. Conclusion Air New Zealand as a group has reached a stabilized position in the past three financial years. The liquidity position of the group is strong. But there are concerns regarding financing resources from outside. The over indulgence of the entity in financial leveraging activity should be looked into. The entity should try to finance its projects out of its retained earnings. The management of the firm should look into the operating activities of the firm and if required chalk out a turnaround plan to increase the profitability of the entity. References Bodie, Z. (2013). Investments. McGraw-Hill. de Andrs, J., Landajo, M., Lorca, P. (2012). Bankruptcy prediction models based on multinorm analysis: An alternative to accounting ratios. Knowledge-Based Systems, 30, 67-77. Healy, P. M., Palepu, K. G. (2012). Business analysis valuation: Using financial statements. Cengage Learning. Li, X. (2015). Accounting conservatism and the cost of capital: An international analysis. Journal of Business Finance Accounting, 42(5-6), 555-582. Needles, B. E., Powers, M., Crosson, S. V. (2013). Principles of accounting. Cengage Learning. Weil, R. L., Schipper, K., Francis, J. (2013). Financial accounting: an introduction to concepts, methods and uses. Cengage Learning. Weygandt, J. J., Kimmel, P. D., Kieso, D. E. (2015). Financial Managerial Accounting. John Wiley Sons.