Dow Chemical’s Leadership in Action Program

The case revolves around the company Dow Chemical and the way it develops its leaders by educating them to work even at strange places. It helps them to develop such a personality that could reconcile at new places. This aims more on to allowing the employees to accommodate the different culture, traditions, and people. On this note, the company is going to successfully start up its business even at different regions that are totally different from its home place (Shani, Docherty & Ebrary 2003).

The company’s Leadership in Action Program is said to be the most unique way to make employees aware of the ups and downs that come in professional lives. In order to have a geographical presence, it is important to develop expertise regarding different cultures, traditions, and customs. With the help of this program, the company allows the employees to contribute towards social work and to become an integral part of the society. From this, the training gets started and it ends with making an individual a perfect person prepared to deal with all kind of situations (Everson 2015, p. 121).

The program got initiated with the purpose to make members work hard meeting the basic needs at the global level and also matching employees with the organizations that look forward to sustainable development. It supports a lot in forming a better image and name amid different companies in different regions all around the globe. The strong points related to the Leadership in Action program are that it allows the members to form a close-knitted relationship with the local communities, encourages team members to think broadly for the betterment of the society, and develop the potential to plan and devise such strategic moves that are going to benefit the company at its best. Not only this, the diversity concept can be well understood by means of this particular program only.

Weaknesses associated with the program are that it does not support team members to become accustomed to corporate world requirements. Leadership in action program is a great initiative to form a connection with the society but does not fully educate to survive well in the corporate world. Both of these differ from each other and have dissimilar requirements to move with the same. In a corporate world setting, team members are to work on plans and devise such strategies that could render fruitful outcomes to the company. Formal communication and time management is the must to make the company grow and excel by means of this particular program. Leadership in action program is a good way to create a human being that has the competence to work for the society and to show belongingness, but in a real sense, things vary a lot.

Comparison with Traditional MBA Programs

In this respective program, the company is found utilizing the concept of Transformational Leadership. The key concept of Transformational leadership aims more on engendering change in individuals as well as social systems. Conceptually, it has to focus more on producing a precious and constructive change in the followers with the end object of building up followers into effective leaders. This theory applies in a way that it exposes its workers to such conditions and cultures that are totally new to them. It brings a sense of understanding and development to them by following their own thoughts and processes to deal with the situations (Pless & Maak 2009).

In the next point, the program’s approach is to be compared with more traditional ways of training leaders such as University MBA programs. There is no doubt that the program is meant for training and educating individuals to become effective and efficient leaders. They possess a totally different approach and want their members to work with different people by participating in society’s good and that is going to make them a better person as well as a great leader.

The University MBA programs designed with the intention to make one a brilliant and successful professional. Along with this, developing the objective to turn out to be an even more gifted and helpful professional. This seems to be very much beneficial as such a person is going to support the business grow more and more avenues. Dow’s Program approach is formulated to make its members become better leaders and to form a connection with the real setting. By contributing to society’s betterment, they could evolve as a person that can tackle much more complicated things (Pless & Borecká 2014).

Traditional MBA programs develop the person with the mindset to quantify success on the basis of numbers. It makes use of strategy formulation and ends with its implementation. MBA teaches one to see success in discrete ways and then only to make the business create more of triumph and achievements. There stay huge difference between these two programs and the way it is going to make one influenced as well. Dow’s Program is going to give a unique approach to its members by thinking broadly and also to adjust even in the most difficult times. MBA programs make one professionally competent by understanding the number game and developing the talent to stand still even at competitive conditions.

Effectiveness of Dow’s Leadership in Action Program

The two of these programs are totally different from each other. Both embrace different perspectives and the grounds for making it carried out at its best. Dow Chemicals believed that the person is able to cope up with different settings can come up as the best gift and ensures that the company has a strong foundation. The traditional programs such as MBA have the different mindset and educate the people with the aim to make them capable enough to have a long-lasting endurance even after facing cut-throat competition and significant pressures at the business level. Leadership in action program has the positive side as it makes the members struggle hard at realistic situations by having a self-reflect in order to best deal with the change and improbability (Noe 2017).

At last, it is important to delineate the way Leadership in Action Program delivered effective outcomes for participants and Dow Chemicals. With the advent of the program, the company experiences progress and evolution within its team members. It develops inner talent and potential in them and that builds them into a unique and different person. With the positive change in their personality and having self-control over difficult situations they could excel at professional lives also. In addition, by forming a connection with the local communities, they can also form closeness with the society and work for its betterment and effectiveness (Marquez 2005).

Four measures to be used for the sake of determining effectiveness for Dow Leadership in Action Program needs to be brought forth. Most prominently, the company believes that the use of the leadership program is going to permit the company to attains operational excellence, building focused customer relationships, carrying out innovation, and maintaining sustainability. These four are the essence of an organization’s incessant growth and progress. At first, there should be specificity, it implies that the leadership program being executed should be clear in its terms and conditions in order to derive the most fruitful resultants (CCH 2009).

Secondly, forming a balance between the measurement process with regards to cost, constraints, culture, and handiness. It seems to be very much necessary from the perspective of supporting the business forming standards as per it. Thirdly, there should be a clear-cut approach that all roads lead to Return on Investment. Preciseness in the investment returns would pay a great result and help in estimating the success of the leadership action program (Phillips 2015). At last, there should be proper control, if things go up and down, it should be there and then monitored and fixed. This effectively states the way four of these metrics going to support the company review the success of the program. Dow’s Leadership in Action Program hold vital importance in ensuring that the company would possess such a good number of people that are versatile enough to surpass at professional and societal fronts (Velazquez, Esquer, Munguía & Moure-Eraso 2011).

The Leadership in Action Program is such a program that set trends for other companies and help them develop better personalities. With the help of the above-stated metrics, the program’s effectiveness can be successfully assessed and monitored. It serves to be an exceptional way to make workers perform well even at unfamiliar surroundings. In this manner, the team members would make the company have an impressive presence on the global sphere. Innovative moves can be well executed in order to reach the so-called goals and objectives (Caligiuri & Thoroughgood 2015).

Conclusion

Hence, it can be summed up that the Dow’s Leadership in Action program is suitable for its future needs and requirements. It is definitely going to lend a hand by supporting and strengthening its programs and practices. With this unique program, it brings forth people with talent, competence, and adjustment ability. Team members would become expert enough in handling the challenges and also to accommodate with full potential. This program assist team members develop a new view toward their surroundings and make them feel good about their contribution.

References

Caligiuri, P & Thoroughgood, C 2015, ‘Developing responsible global leaders through corporate-sponsored international volunteerism programs’, Organizational Dynamics, vol. 44, pp. 138—145.

CCH, 2009, Managing Training and Development, CCH Australia: NSW.

Everson, K 2015, ‘Leadership in Action: Ethiopia’, viewed on 14 April 2015 <www.dow.com/en-us/careers/working-at-dow>.

Marquez, J 2005, ‘Companies send employees on volunteer projects abroad to cultivate leadership skills’, Workforce Management, vol. 84, no. 13, pp. 50-51.

Noe, RA 2017, Employee training & development, 7th edn, Irwin McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.

Phillips, P 2015, ‘Measuring the Success of Leadership Development’, viewed 22 July 2015 < https://www.td.org/insights/measuring-the-success-of-leadership-development>.

Pless, NM & Borecká, M 2014, ‘Comparative analysis of International Service Learning Programs’, Journal of Management Development, vol. 33, no. 6, pp. 526-550.

Pless, N & Maak, T 2009, ‘Responsible Leaders as Agents of World Benefit: Learnings from “Project Ulysses”’,  Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 85, pp. 59-71.

Shani, AB, Docherty, P & Ebrary, I 2003, Learning by design: building sustainable organizations, Blackwell Pub, Malden, MA.

Velazquez, LE, Esquer, J, Munguía, NE & Moure-Eraso, R 2011, ‘Sustainable learning organizations’, The Learning Organization, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 36-44.