Memo

Cliffside Holding Company Memo

What Are the Issues and Conclusions?

As noted by Browne, & Keeley, p.23-32 (2015) the author of the memo wants us to believe that his argument is strong enough to persuade us to accept his perception of leadership development programs being a waste since real leaders are born that way and programs to develop people who are not naturally born this way is a waste of the company’s time and resources. Applying the critical thinking model, the issue of the memo that the author, Mr. Anil Ravaswami, (the Vice President of Human Resources) is trying to convey is: Should Cliffside Holding Company of Massapeequa (CHCM) invest in the proposed leadership-development program to more junior financial executives prepared to assume more senior executive positions in the future? The conclusion of Mr. Ravaswami is no, because leadership development programs do not help to develop people into leaders since leaders are naturally born. Therefore, no money should be used to support this program.

What are the Reasons?

The author of the memo stated a number of the following reasons to support his argument. The first reason stated by the author was the fact that none of the previous twelve senior executives for CHCM attended any type of leadership development programs to help them get to their position. The author then surveyed all the senior staff of CHCM and everyone agreed (with the exception of one person) with his argument that leaders are either naturally born that way or they are not ever capable of being developed or trained into becoming a leader. The next reason states there is a large amount of data on leadership theory that shows the traits that all leaders have in common. Two well respected research studies show that personality traits can help to determine if someone will be capable of being leader were published in the Journal of Applied Psychology and in the Leadership Quarterly supporting his argument (reason). The next...