Noah's Blog

Throughout the term I have learned various things about what it means to be a good leader. Of all the topics covered my biggest take-away is the success of narcissistic leaders and what makes them successful. Looking at myself, and being self-aware, I do have a very high capacity for narcissistic people. This is due to the certain level of narcissism I contain myself. This narcissism stems from growing up in an area with lots of wealth and being surrounded by affluent people. As a child I met adults who seemed to have everything they could ever want. It has driven the idea that I can also, someday, have anything I want. If I work hard enough for it. Not only that, but I also feel entitled to greatness. This sense of entitlement does not come from the fact that my parents were able to give me most things that I wanted as a child. It comes from the feeling that I am destined to do something great with my life. I preface with that because narcissistic leaders tend to have great visions and are highly competitive. They tend to care more about what they are doing than the people that they are doing it with. This resonates with me because when I know I am in a position to succeed I often lose sight of my better half and my narcissism gets the best of me. Learning about this throughout the term has given me an opportunity to not only control my narcissism, but also to use it to my advantage in life. Understanding that being narcissistic is not always a great path to making friends and lasting relationships I can reserve those traits when I am called upon to lead. This is especially relevant, when in today’s world, everywhere you look there is a narcissistic leader in some way or another.  

1. What am I good at?
   1. I am good at all things social. I love talking with people and I am good at getting things done in group settings. I believe that I mainly excel in negotiations and interpersonal relationships. I say this not only because I receive feedback on this constantly from friends, family, and people I work with but because it truly makes me happy to learn things about people and then either help them excel of use that to put myself in a better position to succeed.
2. What do I value?
   1. I value loyalty and the ability to make enough money to have the freedom to do what I want when I want with the people I love and care about.
3. How did I get here?
   1. I will get there by constantly pursuing greatness in all aspects of my life. With a positive view on failure and a willingness to learn from them I believe I can achieve this greatness.
4. Where am I going?
   1. I am going to be physically in Southern California. This question rubs me the wrong way because I believe life is best lived in the moment and making distinct plans for your future is a perfect way to end up unhappy. That being sad all I do know about where I will be going is to a positive lifestyle.

My test results mostly align with how I see myself, so I believe the test is pretty accurate although some areas I believe the questions do not fully represent what they are saying about my character. The first category, extraversion, I test over 80% in all categories which is very accurate. The two highest scores being Cheerfulness (95) and Gregariousness (89), these are traits I see myself having and using in my daily life when I interact with people so seeing those results were very positive. The next section, Agreeableness, did not show score that I was expecting but I do not totally disagree with the results completely. The trust and cooperation scores are both at 50% which is fair but this where I believe the questions regarding them do not tell the entire story about me. These are two things that are very dependent on the person I am dealing with and the activity I am supposed to cooperate with which is why I answered both not accurate or inaccurate for those questions. These things are never set in stone because trust and cooperation are solely dependent on what that thing is.

            A potential employer will see that I have strengths in social categories and weaknesses in non-social ones. I will like employers to notice this because the last thing I want to do for work is to be working alone without a lot of human interaction. I thrive off others and being around groups so my goals will always be to work in an industry where this is very apparent.

If it were up to me to decide between a worker like Jamie and a worker like Avery without knowing the type work, I will choose Avery. I believe that going with the higher ceiling gives my company a better chance of higher performance. I believe it is worth the risk to try and change behavior of the higher performer than settle with someone who is consistent but not a high performer. Again, without knowing the job I’d rather try and teach consistency than how to be good at something.

            A job where you would want to take someone like Avery would be a sales position or one that has a competitive background. Work like that can inspire those that aren’t always pushing themselves like Avery. Sports is also another area of expertise that I believe it worth taking the higher ceiling than the consistent pick. As a manager ideally you can train athletes or employees to be in a position to perform.

            Jobs where consistency would be valued and one where I would select Jamie for would be retail clerks, fast food jobs, and other low performing jobs. When the job is simple and does not have much room for varying performance than it is definitely more valuable to have a consistent worker than one that only performs well some of the time. These jobs can also be more technically important such as flying airplanes where both constancy and performance is valued. This is why it is important to know the job that is being applied for.

            I consider the brand I represent as an employee would be one that embodies loyalty and high energy. I try give a first impression that shows I will put forth all I have to the things I believe in and trust. I let potential employers know that I am willing to learn and adapt in order to master my craft. I am strong in communication and persuasion. I have never met a stranger and by that, I mean I have a way of connection with people very quickly and find common ground with anyone I meet. I am great in group situation and love to be in a spotlight because I perform and my apex when under pressure. I look for situations that will push me and make me uncomfortable as in fact it is a goal of mine to learn how to be comfortable with being comfortability.

            If I was going to present myself in a creative ad, I need to consider the jobs and organizations I want to be seeing this ad. For me personally, that would be musical artists that need a new manager or promoting companies looking for new promoters. To get an ad into this industry I would have to go through streaming services and social media to get the ad to the artists’ eyes. The ad would be simple and have a picture of a really big crowd at some very iconic venue with bold letters saying one question, “Is Your Career Being Pushed?”, with my contact info on the bottom. I would drop the ad with cool music going to it and it would play between songs or pop up on feeds so that my target industry is hit. I believe that this would give me a great start with artists that are starting out looking for someone to help them on their journey to becoming a top artist. That would be a great opportunity and challenge for me, something that is perfect for my skill set.

I worked at Sky High Brewing and Pub as a Rooftop Bartender and a Food Runner for my most recent job. When I was getting hired the job descriptions was not very important because having worked in service before I already knew what most of my job would entail outside of menu items and specific things like that. I was hired as a host and runner so before being trained, I had a very good idea about what that entails and had no questions about it when applying. I also really needed a job so at the end of the day it did not matter what the description was.

            After beginning work there was not much that I did not expect out of the job in any way. The restaurant ran like any other I had previously worked for. The only differences I noticed were in the style of service from California to Oregon. They pace of service and frequency of service was slower in Oregon and it seemed to be a small difference in preference for customers not because of lack of efficiency.

If claims came out about a company, I was interested in that put a huge dent on its reputation socially then ultimately my feelings about that company would probably change. Depending on the severity and validity of the claims would determine how much my feelings change. In today’s world there are often crazy allegations being thrown around, but I am assuming in this scenario that these claims are true. I believe that a company is more than one person’s mistakes so if it were something where the company was getting a bad rap because one person did something wrong then I would be less afflicted by the situation because it is another thing for the company culture to be the same as one bad apples morals. If it were something where the company as a whole was running some sort of lie or cover for something highly dangerous and illegal, I would definitely reconsider my view of that company. Those situations are the ones where I would reconsider applying to a company like that.

I would never want to be a part of any company that openly discriminates against any group of people. So, in any scenario where a company I was previously looking to work for is receiving bad publicity for discriminatory practices then I would have to reconsider. I do believe that we are in such a weird time regarding this topic because of the internet and social media. The fact everyone knows about everything causes so much pressure for high profile companies to maintain a spotless reputation. When one does make a mistake it is very hard to recover from.

MGMT448 Blog 2

            When it comes to making the most important decisions in regard to resource allocation within a company, I believe it depends on the type of company and the type of product you are selling. The claim that staffing is the most important of any company is one that is very tough for me to support simply because the staffing costs of companies have a vast range. To be more specific, even companies with high staffing costs can have costs that outweigh those costs. An example that comes to mind is the hiring manager for a sports stadium. I have no real knowledge of the job, but I imagine employees for concessions and other various low-level jobs that are required to host events are easier to find and have a much lower cap for the cost to the company if they fail.

            So, when companies choose to spend more money and resources to areas like marketing or product design, I believe it is because that company either sees a reward worth the risk of those plans or they believe that their product is good enough to be sold by anyone. This can be a very bad way to see things because having the correct people can make a product better, but I can imagine that there are CEOs and entrepreneurs that see their product as the reason for their success and not the other around them. This is probably the biggest weakness of choosing to not spend enough on the staffing process, bad hires can lead to a cycle of never being tested on the idea of the company, and a failing company that will not change will never succeed.

MGMT448 Blog 1