ESSAY: THREE PILLARS OF THE KEN BLANCHARD COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
Jakes Chege
Grand Canyon University: UNV 504
June 10, 2014
Three Pillars of the Ken Blanchard College of Business
Ken Blanchard College of Business consists of three pillars which act as a guide to anyone that pursues academic excellence through this faculty. They are found via video and there are a few articles that touch on their content and they are available in the Grand Canyon University school library. Ken Blanchard is a renowned writer and one of the founder members of Ken Blanchard Group of companies who has sold over 80 million hard copies of his books detailing on global leadership, entrepreneurship, ...view middle of the document...
In the servant part of servant leadership, this is now where one demonstrates how to live according to vision. The leader channels all the energy towards the customers they serve. They encourage the employee’s innovation and ask them to bring their brains to work. They feel important and they feel like they own the organization and here it’s where entrepreneurial spirit sprouts. According to Doraiswamy (2013) article on servant leadership in teaching, he stated that a great leader should be seen as a servant first, and with this simple fact holds his key to greatness. Servant leader is a servant first and it begins with a natural feeling that one wants to serve. Doraiswamy (2013) goes on saying that leading or occupying a pivotal position of leadership is never in the mind of a servant leader.
In this article, Spears (2002) suggested that servant leadership could be characterized by the following: active listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to growth, and community building.
Innovation
According to Blanchard (2011), innovation comes as a result of a positive servant leadership. A good servant leader will invite all employees to partake the journey together whereby he lays down a clear path to reach the company goals. A leader should ask all the employees to bring their brains to work and tell them that their idea will be highly valued. When customers and employees feels valued, they will contribute immensely to the development of the company and in return their efforts and energies will yield some profits to the whole company. According to Morris (2010), innovation is so vital to survive and stay relevant in today’s business world. A business or company should evolve as the world changes in order to stand out from the competitors. For leaders to be able to steer their companies and organizations in the right direction, they must consider the location, size, distribution network and technology. These are the four factors that’s defines a business entity and they will influence the type and the complexity of the innovation on the table. Businesses need to reinvent and redesign their business models too. Business models are the holistic description of a business and their relationships with a broader market base. Over the years, there have been great innovations from companies like Japanese Auto, Nike, Visa, Dell and Southwest Airlines. All these companies re-invented their business models and this catapulted them to the top of the charts in their respective fields of operation. Japanese made not much stylish cars but they observed the market and the frustrations of their customers out there and made an observation that people were hurting on fuel costs. This made them to redesign and improve their cars to be more fuel efficient and affordable. This type of innovation disrupted the market and endeared Japanese vehicles to the people which prompted other motor companies...