The Elements of Leadership and Their Relationship

Running head: ELEMENTS OF LEADERSHIP

The Elements of leadership and Their Relationship

To Creating an Effective Work Environment

Seth K. Smith

Webster University

Abstract

While most businesses that operate in the United States are focused on creating an empire that will be successful for many years to come, they often overlook the simple things that are the foundation of their business, their employees. Businesses employees are the foundation for the operations that are performed on a daily basis. Without these employees, the business would eventually fail and be unable to achieve their goals. The needs and wants of an organization employee in relation to the elements of fundamental leadership need to be identified to create a harmonious work environment that fosters motivation. By creating a work environment that fosters motivation, employees will be given the catalyst that they need to be efficient, focused, and motivated to uphold the mission statement of their respectable organizations.

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin has grown to become one of the largest defense contractors in the world. With over 140,000 employees, one of their largest hurdles other than production is to create an environment that fosters motivation and keeps their employees energized to come to work on a daily basis. To create an environment that is safe and that sets the stage for motivation, Lockheed Martin maintains high environmental, safety, and health standards and strives to continually improve performance by ensuring that its employees are safe and taken cared for from a personal and business perspective. The company has built a layered approach to the way that they do business; they have realized that to effectively run a business, they have to have a motivated workforce. The company supports this layered approach to management by employing an industry-leading organizational management system that focuses on promoting consistency throughout the business environment.

By maintaining these policies and strategies, they can ensure that all employees are given an equal opportunity to be a successful part of the business organization. The company fosters motivation by rewarding employees on the basis of performance and strict compliance to company standards. By rewarding those employees and organizations that exemplify the ethical and moral standards that have been set by the company, the perception that exceeding standards on a daily basis is driven into the work practices of all company members.

Within every LM work environment, they ensure that all the elements that are needed for employee motivation exist. Employee appreciation programs identify those that exceed the expectations of their duty position. LM also ensures that the families of those that work for the company are well taken care of when employees are at home or on the road. Each and every employee is given an equal shot at advancing within the company through their promotional program. LM realizes that they will have a more productive work force if they can provide an environment that fosters motivation; through these programs, LM employees are supplied with what is needed to foster motivation within the company.

Lockheed Martin uses their high standards of quality and excellence to play an important political role in the business sector of the United States. For the last few decades, LM has been one of the highest contributors to the defense of the United States by revolutionizing the way that we fight and defend our country. Their research and development department is always looking to create ways to make the defense of this country easier and more efficient. This large role that LM plays in the defense of the United States gives them a large portion of the political power that is earned by our country.

Lockheed Martin values open and fair competition when it comes to their defense acquisition process. Although they hold one of the largest stakes in the creation of defense equipment, they are still determined to keep all acquisitions as fair and open to competition as possible. To keep the acquisition and negotiation process as fair as possible, LM doesn't knowingly enter into business arrangements that eliminate or discourage competition or that provides the company with an improper competitive advantage, because such arrangements would remove the integrity from the free marketplace on which the business depends.

The power that is gained though this service to the United States is used to help stabilize the country's economy by keeping thousands of American workers employed in their facilities. In the past, companies that have this level of powers in the political field have tried to create a monopoly with their business efficiencies. Although creating a monopoly is good for the business itself, it doesn't help other qualified businesses that want to enter into the competitive market of government acquisitions. Lockheed Martin has used their political position to strengthen the economy of the United States and helped to create more allied relationships with foreign countries. Lockheed Martin's effective use of their power and politics has and will continue to improve the economy of the United States.

Through the use of high-performance groups and teams, Lockheed Martin has engineered and created some of the most sophisticated and advanced systems in today's competitive business environment. The company uses the formulation of teams to meet the demands that are set upon them by their customers. These teams are usually comprised of individuals from a variety of career fields that will gather the required information needed to complete the job. One of their philosophies is to create teams that are formed by diversity and a variety of backgrounds and knowledge bases. Together as a team, the wide variety of knowledge bases come together to form a team that can pinpoint and identify what will be needed to make the team reach their goals. The company uses homogeneous teams to ensure that every piece of possible information that is relevant to the process can be identified and used toward meeting goals.

To keep their teams competitive like their research and development department Skunk Works Program, they continually look to find new employees that are interested in making a difference with the tools of the future. The Skunk Works Program is what got