Gay Community Essay Example for Free

Gay Community Essay The gay community or LGBT community is a loosely defined grouping of LGBT and LGBT supportive people, organizations and subcultures united by common culture and civil rights movements. Furthermore, the remarkable growth of the gay community in recent history has revolutionized our culture and consciousness, creating radically new possibilities for people to â€Å"come out†, and live more openly as homosexuals. Before the early years, homosexuality was a taboo subject. Since then, times have changed and this community is somewhat being accepted. Moreover, this diverse community is constantly expanding, and consists of many types of people. The gay community has gained great attention in arts, entertainment, media, and politics. Most of the people that make up this community each have their own unique style in all different aspects. Consisting of races throughout all aspects of life, the gay community is worldwide. That being said, what makes up the gay community? Within the LGBT communities, there exist identifiable sub-communities, such as the leather community, bear community, chubby community, lesbian community, bisexual community, transgender community, and the drag community. Nevertheless, each one of the sub-communities have there own particular ways and views of there sexuality. In other words, they all stick together. The gay community generally celebrates pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality. The term gay pride is used to express the LGBT community’s identity and collective strengths; gay pride parades provide both a prime example of the use and a demonstration of the general meaning of the term. Also, within the gay community some people create there own particular family. These families consist of the mom, dad, children, and so on. They create a bond and they indeed stick together. Other interests within the gay communities include gay nightclubs, pageants, balls, and also lip singing shows. The gay community is frequently associated with certain symbols; especially rainbow or the rainbow flag. The Greek lambda symbols (â€Å"L† for liberation), triangles, ribbons, and gender symbols are also used as gay acceptance symbol. There a many types of flags to represent subdivisions in the gay community but the most commonly recognized one is the rainbow flag. Nevertheless, each color represents a value in the community. Pink represents sexuality, red represents life, orange represents healing, yellow represent the sun, green represents nature, blue represents art, indigo represents harmony, and last but not least, violent represents spirit. As far as language, the gay community have there own slang, just as other slangs like African Americans, Jewish slang, Hispanic slang, or any other slang. Usually one must be in the group to know its slang, but there are many words in gay slang that are known to all of us, such as drag queen, butch, or bull dyke. Other newer gay slan g words used today are fag-hag, which is a straight female who prefers the company of a gay male and dish which means gossip. Communication between gays, what they say opposed to how they say it, is quite unique. For instance, many gay males use alternate â€Å"lady-names†, and masculine female use alternate â€Å"male-names†, both used as a form of address within gay circles. The gay community is continuously growing and has been acknowledged in so many ways. Homosexuality is seemingly more accepted and tolerated in the United States today than decades ago. There are laws in many states that make it a crime to discriminate based on sexual orientation and many communities across the country have gays and lesbians openly serving in important roles. Yet there are many who still oppose homosexuality and many object to it on religious grounds. I do pride this community because I am apart of it. But like the old saying says â€Å"To each is his own†. Everyone has there own opinion.

Harold Lasswells Narrative Model

Harold Lasswells Narrative Model What is communication? According to G.G.Brown, it means the transfer of information to one person to another, whether or not it elicits confidence. But the information transferred must be understandable to the receiver. Therefore, in order to communicate, one can use the medium as a channel to pass over a piece of information to another person but whether or not the message gets through perfectly, it will be entirely up to the individuals interpretation. However, Lasswells model does not take the audiences opinion into account. This is one of the many weaknesses of the 64-year-old model. Communication is basically to provide and find information, persuade the readers and express our emotions. A model can help create theories and indicate the relationships between the elements. Lasswell came up with the model initially to answer five very important questions to ensure a smooth communication process which consists of who(Communicator), what(Message), which(Medium), whom(Receiver), and what effect(Effect). Lasswell was inspired by the earliest mass communication model that the famous philosopher, Aristotle initiated and tried to improve the model by adding the channel as a medium to replace occasion which was previously proposed by Aristotle. Aristotle mainly emphasized on the role of the audience in his model and public speaking rather than interpersonal communication. As for the occasion model, Aristotle suggested constructing speech for the different types of audiences at different occasion to obtain the response that are desired. The act of constructing the speech is done by the speaker. For every public speaking session, the speaker must be fully prepared by making sure he understands what the audiences interests are before speaking. What the speaker says should have some sort of an influence to the audience and try to convince the audience with his brilliant ideas. Thus, Lasswells model concentrates more on verbal communication just like Aristotles model. The model involves a speaker who passes on information to an audience through the media such as radio, television, newspaper, magazines, music and many more to successfully deliver the message. A model is usually used to explain the process of mass communication. As for Lasswells model, it is explained in words and not in diagrams. Who: Communicator(Control analysis) The first element of the model is control analysis which involves the communicator to control the messages that are being passed. This is usually the gatekeepers responsibility. In a way, a gatekeeper could be holding too much power as they can choose to hide information that could be important for the public to know but might not be helpful to their personal cause. Only what the media choose to publish is known to the public, thus making it unfair for the other party especially during elections where only those who possess greater political influence can benefit from. This principle is quite similar to the agenda setting theory. No matter how bias the situation may seem, gatekeeping is actually a very necessary tool to both the public and media. With crucial information that the media has, they would be able to educate the public so they would not be ignorant towards their surroundings and starts to be more aware about the current worldwide issues. The media would only broadcast what they think is newsworthy and interesting to attract more readers. Therefore, they tend to neglect the audiences safety and rights to all information. Even so, there are still many factors to be put into consideration before making a decision about what to publish, the gatekeepers actually go through a lot of trouble researching about the owner of the newspaper company, their goals, the effect they would have to face for posting about certain issues, their political commitments and many more. The communicators might seem irresponsible and selfish with their business decisions but that is just the way certain gatekeepers work. Says what: Message(Content analysis) The message is the subject of the content analysis. It could be a piece of news about the recent natural disaster in Japan or even gossips about whether or not Britney Spears is pregnant. Lasswell was particularly worried about what the mass medias response towards the message that was portrayed by the media. This led to the introduction to a new study called content research. Questions of representation were usually asked, it is especially to make sure the women, and the blacks were properly represented on television or tabloids. Other than that, Lasswell studied the role of society in the movies closely for collecting statistics purposes. In Lasswells research would involve calculating the number of occasions of a specific representation and evaluate the results with an objective measure like an official statistics to obtain accurate results. The formula can also be applied to our everyday life and improve our interpersonal skills without having to consciously think too much about our messages. From the clothes you wear to how you smell, your appearance can tell people a lot about your personality, taste in music and messages about you. All these analysis would be useful to the media to construct a message accordingly. The media must also be very careful with the content of the message so that the public would not be offended or angry. In which channel: Medium(Media analysis) The third element would be the medium that is also known as the media analysis. In media analysis, there can be more than one channel to pass on a message. These channels are researched in media analysis. Lasswell introduced an efficient way to study the mass media known as media content analysis(1927). It was previously introduced to study propaganda but it started being used to study the roles of communication that was becoming more and more prominent in movies during the 1920s and 1930s. Media content analysis then grew to be the main research method in social sciences and mass communication studies with the appearance of television in the 1950s(Barton 2012). It is also used to research about representations of racism, women and violence in movies, television programmes, newspapers and magazines. To whom: Receiver(Audience analysis) As the medias responsibility is to construct and influence the audiences, the receiver plays a very important role in Lasswells model. The first theory about the media and audiences is called the stimulus-response(SR) that was originated from behaviourism. The audience are perceived to be fickle-minded, easily influenced and needs to be protected. The vulnerability image of the audience that was created limits their use of media and content. This is a result of the communicator and mediums doing and not the other way around. Lasswell often pay attention to the media, their content and audience and the effects of the media on the audience(Nielson, 2004 ) Lasswell considered his audience to be the passive type that does not like to interact with others, and not likely to give in to the pressure just to fit into society. The second theory is functionalism that was originated from media sociology. Functionalism is the opposite of the stimulus-response theory as the audience are believed to be independent and capable of making their own decisions. The audiences here are of mixed culture and democratic so they are more laid-back about media content and use. In functionalism, in order to fulfil their sociological and psychological needs, they use media content. The relationship between the media and the audience are closely related as the media affects the audiences behaviour. This theory explains how important the mass media is to the society. It brings order, stability, change, culture and values and many more. Without functionalism, the society would not know how to behave or speak appropriately. With what effect(Effect analysis) According to Lasswell, there must be an effect at the end of every communication process. This is because then this will determine on whether or not the communicator was able to change or motivate the audiences attitude. The audiences reaction to the news would determine how successful the communication process was. The more believable the source is, the more likely it will influence the audience. The way the model works In 1948, Lasswell introduced an interpretation of the media on a macro-sociological level. Functionalism in media sociology explains social practices and institutions in terms of the needs of society and individuals. Specializations that carry on certain functions are : 1) The surveillance of the environment; 2) the correlation of the parts of society in responding to the environment; 3) the transmission of the social heritage from one generation to the next. The mass media do not just supply facts and data, they provide information on the ultimate meaning and significance of events. They act to confer legitimacy to advocacy groups and leaders of social movements, whose success is dependant on attaining wide mainstream attention. The media serves as a catalyst to accelerate issues onto public agenda. Lasswell theorized that society and the media were dependant on each other. He said that society used media as a surveillance tool to monitor salient information around their environment. Surveillance of the environment is the collection and distribution of information by the media. This function is easily seen on news programs and newspapers. For example, As mass media report illegal actions going in the society, it awakes the awareness of people. Also, the information is distributed to everyone in the society, stimulating equalitarianism. However, it has side effects. Reporting the international events of certain countries may endanger the political stability of these countries and may even stimulate over-tension among society. Lasswell states that When the stimuli receiving and disseminating patterns operate smoothly, the several parts of the animal act in concert in reference to the enviroment (feeding, fleeing, attacking). Correlation of parts of society refers to the interpretive or analytical activities of the media. It functions to interpret issues and give solutions to the public, which solutions eventually affects the formation of the publics attitudes. Columns, editorial articles, criticisms and explanations are examples. The correlation function differentiates itself from surveillance function by presenting subjectivity while the Surveillance Function supposedly maintains objectivity. Correlation function acts during editing process, deciding what kind of news to choose, which news to grant more importance, and where to emphasize. The side effects of this function is that it can announce news without fairness. The newspapers may exclude important social problems. This brings limited interpretation of information and blocks the development of social revolution. This also drops the individuals ability of self-interpreting and self-criticizing. Transmission of the social heritage refers to the ability of the media to communicate values, norms, and styles across time and between groups. It is the function that spreads the common norms and values among the public. This action is called socialization, which is helpful for the unification of a country. As citizens are being touched with common norms and new cultural traditions of others, they can grow social adaptation abilities. The function is also effective as an educational tool by providing valuable information to the mass, or as a regulation tool by preventing the exposure of information on crime suspects. People who arrive in foreign countries can get familiar with the new culture by this function. However, getting only the structured forms of information and the uniformed cultures may lowered cultural variability and human creativity. Pros and cons Pros: As for the benefits of the narrative model, it is said to be a very straightforward and simple model to understand that can be applied to many communication theories. Lasswell was one of the first few who came up with the concept and it is still being used up till today. Cons: The model only assumes that there would be an effect at the end but does not worry about whether the effect is good or bad. What the audience think about the message was not taken into account so the improvement of the communication process can be non-existent. Its strengths and weaknesses are also due to it being a linear model. As easy as it looks, it does not allow for a two-way communication where the speaker can get an immediate feedback. The audience can lose interest pretty quickly if they have to pay attention to the speaker for a very long time especially if the speaker has a monotone voice and is talking about a boring topic. Those who has a very short attention span and is not a good listener would face that kind of problem. Other than that, Lasswell did not think about the surroundings where the audience might be facing. For instance, audience that listens to the radio for daily news can face external distractions in the car such as thunder, sound of the car horn, or the sound from the car engine. These are noises that need to be addressed in order to obtain the accurate statistics of people who gave a desired response. There are also cases of those who might have a neutral stand on current issues, thus not producing an effect. A lot of assumptions are made without verifying the results first that the results obtained might not be very reliable. Therefore the model is not very realistic as it does not fully represent the physical reality. Application in real life According to Lasswell, there are usually three types of communicators in each society, the first type are those who are involved in politics such as the foreign media and diplomats while those who compare the states reactions to the society are called journalists. The last type of communicator are called the educators, these are the people that pass on information from the older generation to the younger generation(Lasswell 1948). Targeting a group makes it easier for the media to specialize through advertising. It saves them money and time to figure what the latest trend is through surveys in order to maximise their profits. With the advancement of technology nowadays, there are more satellite broadcast and Internet channels available unlike during Lasswells time where there were only a few types of media channels like television and radio. The public can easily obtain information that may seem limited on television from the Internet so it is now harder for the gatekeeper to enforce the agenda setting theory on the public and manipulate the audiences mind. This is because the group of audiences have become more separated due to their personal preference to the type of media they choose to pay attention to. The killings at the Batman premier in Colorado can be used as an example for the narrative model. The communicator would be the media, the message would be the information about the number of people who die d during the shooting, the medium would be Huffington Post(online newspaper), the receiver would be the public and lastly the effect would be feelings of shock by the people about the incident. Lasswells narrative model is one of the earliest forms of communication models and also the simplest. Lasswells model could also be applied to all manner of other forms of communication, from telephone calls to web conversations, etc. It serves as the basis of the development of future communication models. A lot of improvements can be made to this model. Firstly, it should take into account the way audiences may perceive and interpret the message that is being relayed to them, it should also take into account the difference in circumstances that the communication is taking place, and whether or not the message reaches the receiver at all, why would the audience want to seek out that particular information? It should also make references to concepts like context, noise (whether the message is received accurately and clearly and can be fully interpreted by the receiver), purpose and feedback.

Armys Approach To Situational Leadership Management Essay

Armys Approach To Situational Leadership Management Essay The Armys approach to situational leadership is based on the fact that leaders must lead in all situations and ajust to environments that are always changing. In order to prepare leaders for these challenges, the Army uses the concept of situational leadership as a platform. It teaches leaders the impotance of situational leadership, team dynamics and peer leadership (Applied Team Leadership, 2009). The Army stresses that leadership is not about setting rigid, unbending expectations and dictating orders. Good leaders match a style of leadership that matches the current situation, and those that they lead. This paper examines the Armys appoaches situational leadership. It reviews the basic concept of situational leadership, looks at how the Army defines leadership and examines the different perspectives and theories the Army believes to be critical to success. The paper discusses leadership traits and behaviors, and how they are the building blocks for the Armys Leadership Requirement Model. It examines how the Army applies its leadership model using the elements of leadership, both transactional and transformational. And finally, it discusses adaptive leadership, its characteristics, and how the Army builds adaptive leaders. . Table of Contents Introductionà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦..1 The Basic Concept of Situational Leadership à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.2 The Army and Leadershipà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦3 The Army Relationship Requirement Modelà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦4 Transactional Leadershipà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦..5 Transformational Leadershipà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦6 Which Style is Best?à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦6 Applied Adaptive Leadershipà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦..7 Conclusionà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦8 Leadership remains the most baffling of the artsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦as long as we do not know exactly what makes men get up out of a hole in the ground and go forward in the face of death at a word from another man, then leadership will remain one of the highest and most elusive of qualities. It will remain an art. James L Stokesbury The art of leadership the Stokesbury alludes to is a subject studied more seriously in military schools than in civilian institutions. Given the life-and-death nature of our business and the importance of the military to a nations survival, this should surprise no one. What is surprising, however, is that most professional military education schools rely almost exclusively on the civilian-orientated Hersey and Blanchard Situational Leadership model to help teach military leadership and management. (Waddell, 1994) The Army believes that leadership is a complex human behavior, and there is no one single way to view it. In order to be an effective leader, one must study more than one model or theory of leadership. This is why the military leader must make use of the studies and histories of military units and figures, and not repeat the mistakes of the past. (Yukl, 1986) While many scholars, sociologist, and historians have analyzed the methods of leadership, there remains no single way to create a great leader. Young Army leaders attending professional development programs need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different styles and theories. Military leaders are different than leaders in other types of organizations because they are appointed and not emergent. (Yeakey, 2002,) To become truly effective leaders, the Army officer must be more than a one trick pony who can apply only one leadership model. Army leaders lead more intensively than most of their counterparts in civilian life do, in situations where the lack of effective leadership will have catastrophic results (Foundations of Leadership, 2008) The Army Leadership Requirement Model centers on what a leader is and what a leader must do. Because of the stress of combat, the military leader must build trust and confidence with subordinates. To do this, the Army has developed a standard set of attributes and core leader competencies designed to aid in development of leaders who can succeed in a wide variety of difficult situations. US Army Field Manual (FM) 22-100, Army Leadership, also added transactional and transformational leadership styles in the 1980s. Today, the manual has been updated and these two proven styles continue to assist Army leaders in shaping behavior, emotions, and the organizational climate. (Yeakey, 2002) Transformational leadership is at the core of what constitutes adaptive leadership, according to U.S. Army doctrine Field Manual (Bass, Jung, Avolio, Berson, 2003). This leadership approach allows the modern Army leader the ability to adapt to an ever changing environment. Adaptive leadership is an approach by the Army, designed to give the leader an edge in the Contemporary Operating Environment (COE). However being adaptive is more than reacting to a situation. Army leaders anticipate and employ their style of leadership based on that situation. They are able to assume risk, make well informed decisions, and adjust accordingly. The Basic Concept of Situation Leadership According to modern theories of situational leadership developed by P. Hersey, K.H. Blanchard, and D.E. Johnson in their siminal work, Management of Organizational Behavior: Leading Human Resources, there is no one best way to influence people. In Army terms, their theory holds that the leadership style you select and use will depend in the environment and the readiness or ability of the individual soldier (Applied Team Leadership, 2009). Situational leadership is based on an interplay among (1) the amount of guidance and direction (task behavior) a leader gives, (2) the amount of sociomotional support (relationship behavior) a leader provides, and (3) the performance readiness level that the followers exibit in performing a specific task, function or objective (Hersey et al., 2008) Task Behavior Is defined as the extent to which the leader engages in spelling out the duties and responsibilites of an individual or group (Hersey et al., 2008). Examples of task behavior may include developing a list of things to accomplish, establishment of priorities. It might even include following up and assessing the progress made by individuals or teams. Relationship Behavior Is defined as the extent to which the leader engages in two-way or multiway communication (Hersey et al., 2008). Relaionship behavior includes listening, teaching, or counseling. The more you adapt your behavior to the situation, the more effective your attempts to influence will be. No one style is effective in all situations. Each style is appropriate and effective depending on the situation (Hersey et al., 2008). Peoples level of readiness tends to be different, depending on their task. Readiness has nothing to do with values, life experience, or traits; it has everything to do about ones willingness and ability. Willingness is the combination of confidence, commitment, and motivation. Ability is the knowledge, experience, and demonstrated skill that the follower brings to the task and is based on an actual display of abilities. Leaders should not select a leadership style by assuming that the follower should know (Yeakey, 2002). The Army and Leadership An Army leader is anyone who by virtue of assumed role or assigned responsibility inspires and influences people to accomplish organizational goals. Army leaders motivate people both inside andoutside the chain of command to pursue actions, focus thinking, and shape decisions for the greater good of the organization. (FM 6-22, Army Leadership, 2006) For decades, scholars, business leaders, and organizational researchers have continually refined the definition of leadership-based on their findings and expereince, and the latest real-world models and situations. The variety of their theories about leadership stems from leaderships multidimesional nature (Foundations of Leadership, 2008). The Army is always looking for ways to improve itself. Weather developing new tactics for fighting the war on terrorism, or improving its ability to provide care for wounded warriors, improving the force is always at the forfront of the Army. This goal to improve can also be seen in Army leadership. Greater efficiency and effectivness in its leaders led the Army to reevaluate its application of leadership principles. The Army drew on several leadership theories from business and academia to develop its own leadership frame work and definition of of what leadership entails (Foundations of Leadership, 2008). By examining different perspectives and theories, Army leaders are better equiped to deal with the complex nature of leadership in the contemporary operating environment. The Army Leadership Requirement Model The Army devotes significant resources to studying and promoting in-depth discussionof many leadership theories. Its aim is to help develop leaders who can succeed in a wide variety of challenging situations (Foundations of Leadership, 2008). The requirement models basic componets center on what a leader is (attributes BE and KNOW) and what a leader does (competencies DO). An Army leaders character, presence, and intellect enable them to master the core competencies through didicated lifelong learning. The balanced application of the critical leadership requirement model empowers the leader to build high performing and cohesive organizations. It also creates positive organizational climates, allowing for individuals and team learning, and empathy for all. Three major factors determine character: values, empathy, and Warrior Ethos. Some charactoristics are present at the beginning of a leaders career, while others are developed over time. Physical presence determines how others others perceive you. The factors of physcial presence are bearing, phyical fitness, and resilience. Intellectual capacity helps to conceptualize solutions and aquire knowledge to do the job. A leaders conceptual abilities apply agility, judgment, innovation, interpersonal tact, and domain knowledge. Domain knowledge encompasses tactical and technical knowledge as well as cultural awareness. Leader competencies develop from baleanced combination on institutional schooling, self development, realistic training, and professional experience. Building competence follows a systematic and gradual approach, from mastering individual competencies, to applying them in concert and tailoring them to the situation at hand. Leading people by giving them a complex task helps develop the confidence and will take on progressively more difficult challenges. Competencies provide a clear and concise way of conveying expectations for Army leaders. Current and future leaders want to know what to do to succeed in their leadership responsibilities. The core leader competencies apply across all levels of the organization, across leader positions, and throughout careers. Competencies are demonstrated through behaviors that can be readily observed and assessed by a spectrum of leaders and followers: superiors, subordinates, peers and mentors. This makes for a good basis for leader development and focused multi-source assessment and feedback. Transactual Leadership Transactual leadership is based on a transaction or exchange of something of value the leader possess or controls that the follower wants in return for his/her services (Homrig, 2001). The transactual relationship between leader and follower follows an approach where there is either a reward or incentive for achievement; the leader uses punishment or corrective action as a response to unacceptable performance; or the leader actively monitors the progress of work, and uses corrective action to ensure the desired standard is met. While the transactual style of leadership may not be the most popular, or prefered method, it cannot be denied that it produces results. Young recruits who entry the Army live under the transactual style of leadership. These young men and women are placed in a environment designed to break undesirable habits, and build new ones. In order to motivate, and build cohesive teams out of individuals, Drill sergeants who have very limited time, follow the transactual style of leadership using rewards, or punishment to meet acceptable standards. Army leaders often times, because of their situation use the tranactional style of leadership. This is usually only for short periods of time where there is no time to react to other than a direct approach. Examples of these types of situations may include safety situations, or when a unit comes under direct fire from the enemy. Choosing to use transactual leadership involves more than the readiness level of subordinates. The style will change as the situation changes. The goal of the Army leadership today is to create bonds between soldiers with stregnth to motivate even when the leader is not present. To build the kind of lasting bonds that enhance unit cohesion, moral, and performance, Army leaders must look to a higher order of leadership: transformational leadership (Foundations of Leadership, 2008) Transformational Leadership With the introduction of transformational leadership theory into the literature, greater attention has now been paid to understanding how certain leaders are better equipped to elevate a followers motivation and performance to the high levels of accomplishment (Bass, 1985). Tranformational leadership is based on the assumption that people will follow a leader who inspires or motivates them. This method to motivate and inspire is often used to develop a compelling vision by selling it and focusing on developing relationships with followers as a teacher, mentor, and coach might. The transformatioanl leader thus spends a great deal of time building trust and demonstrates a high level of personal integrety to engage his/her followers. His or her ultimate goal is to transform followers while achieving results. In military engagements, leadership, moral, cohesion, and commitment have long been identified as critical ingredients to unit performance (Bass, 1998) Military units demonstrating a high level of esprit de corps and moral have frequently produced the best results (Shamir, Zakay, Breinen, Popper, 1998). Transformational leaders have developed a set of internal values. They have gained a high level of commitment that transends down to their followers. Transformational leaders have the ability to to operate in a manner that best fits the situation. The military professional must weigh the pros an cons of these leader/follower relionships to judge which is best when. This is by no means an easy task and usually results in a great deal of thought, for being a leader is work (Homrig, 2001). Which Style is Best? Each style has its advantages and its limitations. The Army teaches that when choosing an appropraite style, one must consider the amount of time available to accomplish the objective, your abilities and those of the subordinates, and the current situation. Bernard Bass, co-author of Adding to contingent-reward behavior: The augmenting effect of charismatic leadership says The best leadership is both transformational and transactional. Transformational leadership augments the effectiveness of transactional leadership; it does not replace transactional leadership (Waltman, Bass, Yammarino, 1990). People in general look to leaders for guidance and direction; however they want to be encouraged to to negotiate challenges. The successful leader will inspire and motivate groups or teams in the organization to create synergy among them to tackle that challenging situation or obstacle. Transformational leaders will ultimatly build long term pride, competence, and commitment within the organization that goes beyond what can be achieved by using transactual leadership. Transformational leadership is at the core of what constitutes adaptive leadership, according to U.S. Army doctrine Field Manual 22-100 (Bass et al., 2003). Applied Adaptive Leadership Dr. Leonard Wong, a twenty year Army veteran, and author of Developing Adaptive Leaders: The Crucible Experience of Operation Iraqi Freedom, cites leadership researcher Warren Bennis, who defines adaptive leadership: The critical quality of a leader that determines how a leader will fare in a crucible experience is adaptive capacity. Adaptive capacity allows leaders to respond quickly and intelligently to constant change. It is the ability to identify and sieze opportunities. It allows leaders to act and then evaluate results instead of attempting to collect and analyze all the data before acting (Wong, 2004) According to Wong, adaptive leaders need to be mentally flexable and agile. They must possess strong conceptual and technical skills. Adaptive leaders are strong under pressure, and can operate will little or no supervision. Flexible, adaptive leadership is important for leaders to adapt to different situations. Hersey Blanchard point out that more delegation and less monitoring is needed for subordinates who are confident and competent than ones who are not. Change is the only constant. Adaptive leaders know the strengths of self and subordinates, understand the mission, and can quickly diagnose the situation. They manage and adapt while leading and motivating the team. There are no leader institutions within the Army that guarantee leaders become adaptive. The charactoristics of adaptive leadership indicate that training and eduacation are the foundation. The ability to critically think, recognize situations, adapt, and act, requires time and effort. The Army believes that you can learn to be an adaptive leader. As leaders experience different challenging situations, they develop new skills needed to move on to new levels of achievment. According to Wong, adaptive Army leaders competently deal with three aspects of the contemporary operational environement: ambiguity, complexity, and change (Wong, 2004). Ambiguity Army leaders are taught the importance to completely understanding the senior officiers intent. Leaders deal with unpredictabiltiy on a day to day basis, and while the planning is critical to mission accomplisment, do not become consumed with the plan. Leaders need consider the overall intent, and build plan that work for the team. Complexity Adaptive leaders must learn to deal with complexity. Wong interviewed one yooung officer in Iraq, I cant tell you what Im doing tomorrow. I can tell you what Im suppose to be doing tomorrow. Things change so frequently, and you just expect that. You know that every day you live a day at a time. Things you plan change, based on intel reports, based on different changes in the mission. Change This is the only constant. The adaptive leader must anticipate and master transitions. Changing conditions can change the priorities of the mision, and provide new challenges. Leaders need to find a balance, adapt to the situation, and execute while motivating and inspriring the team. Conclusion James Stokes describes leadership as an art. The United States Army agrees, and therfore embrased the widely popular situational leadership as the foundation for its leadership training model. It shows Army leaders that theres no one best way to influence people, and that only through the study of different theories, styles and behaviors, will you master that art. The Army, through its leadership requirement model, has developed a framework that I believe is useful in assisting young leaders with their leadership. Adaptive leadership is critical for Army leaders as they operate on todays modern technically advanced battlefield. Because of the complexity of and ambiguity of the environement that they face, flexible leadership is required more than ever.

B/M Ratio Essay -- Research Analysis

We can see from regression I of Panel A and B that B/M is highly significant relative to the future returns, which are consistent with the B/M effect theory. The B/M effect for NOA/P^NOAï ¹ ¤1 data also cannot be rejected for the ambiguous t-statistic. Similarly, the enterprise B/M ratio is confirmed by regression II. The testing results for one factor model of financial leverage (ND/M) presents that the financial leverage is not significantly relative to future returns, or even negatively relative to future returns. It is an anomalous phenomenon that the leverage (financial risk) reduces the expected returns, but it may be explained by the negative association between leverage and operating risk. Actually, these results are also consistent with also correlation analysis in Table 2. When NOA/P^NOA≠§1, leverage is positively and insignificantly relative to the NOA/P^NOA. However, when NOA/P^NOAï ¹ ¤1, leverage is negatively relative to NOA/P^NOA. Regression V shows the leverage coefficient under controlling for operating risk (enterprise B/M ratio). For full sample tests, the coefficient is insignificant which means we cannot get any reliable conclusions from this result. And for NOA/P^NOA ≠§1, the coefficient is insignificantly positive, for NOA/P^NOAï ¹ ¤1, the coefficient is significantly negative. If we split the ND/M ratio into financial liabilities/market value and financial assets/ market value like in regression VII, FA/P coefficients are significantly positive in all of three panels, but the FL/P negatively or insignificantly relative to future returns. It indicates that the high future return premium is awarded for the high operating risk rather than financial risk. As the financial leverage is insignificant in some regressions, we u... ...returns, and this association is even insignificant for most NOA/P^NOA portfolios. The only exception is in the highest two NOA/P^NOA portfolios, highest ND/M portfolios give higher returns than lowest ND/M portfolios. Similarly with US evidence, the findings in UK evidence suggest that the UK FTSE 350 stock returns are inconsistent with PRT’s equation 2. In Panel B of table 4, we use similar methods with Panel A to spilt the year-firm observations into 10 portfolios, and sort these observations into five groups by B/M ratio rather than leverage ratio. According to PRT equation 1, if NOA/P^NOA >1, a higher leverage ratio will lead to a higher B/M ratio; if (NOA )/P^NOA 1, a higher return the higher B/M ratio.

The Deadly Ebola Virus :: Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever (Ebola HF)

The Ebola Virus is the common name for several strains of virus, three of which are known to cause hemorrhagic fever in humans, which is characterized by massive bleeding and destruction of internal tissues. Named for the Ebola River in Zaire, Africa, where the virus was first identified, the Ebola virus belongs to the family Filoviridae. Three strains of Ebola virus that are often fatal to humans have been identified. Named for the areas in which the first recognized outbreaks took place, these strains are referred to as Ebola/Zaire (EBOZ), Ebola/Sudan (EBOS), and Ebola/Tai Forest (EBOT). A fourth Ebola strain, called Ebola/Reston(EBOR), has not been found to cause disease in humans. As outbreaks of Ebola hemorrhagic fever continue to occur, other strains may be identified. The viruses are long rods, 800 to 1000 nanometers (nm) long (1 nm equals one-billionth of a meter, or 4 x 10-8 in), but particles as long as 14,000 nm have been seen. Each virus consists of a coiled strand of ribonucleic acid (RNA) contained in an envelope derived from the host cell membrane that is covered with 7 nm spikes placed 10 nm apart visible on the surface of the virion (Figure 1). When magnified several thousand times by an electron microscope, these viruses have the appearance of long filaments or threads but the particles are pleomorphic, meaning they can exist in many shapes. Their basic structure is long and filamentious, essentially bacilliform, but the viruses often takes on a "U" shape (Figure 2). They contain a unique single-stranded molecule of noninfectious (negative sense ) RNA. The virus is composed of 7 polypeptides, a nucleoprotein, a glycoprotein, a polymerase and 4 other undesignated proteins. Proteins are produced from polyadenylated monocistronic mRNA a species transcribed from vi genomes. As the infection progresses the cytoplasm of the infected cell develops "prominent inclusion bodies" which contains the viral nucelocapsid, which will become highly structured. The virus then assembles, and buds off the host cell, attaining its lipoprotein coat from the infected cell's outer membrane. The replication in and destruction of the host cell is rapid and produces a large number of viruses budding from the cell membrane. Symptoms Cases of Ebola have occurred in isolated instances and in outbreaks in sub-Saharan Africa. A significant problem in diagnosing the disease is that the viruses often strike in remote areas of developing countries, where access to laboratories for specimen analysis is limited. Of all the Ebola strains, Ebola/Zaire is the most dramatic and deadly. The Ebola virus causes hemorrhagic fever, which is characterized by such symptoms as severe headache, weakness, and muscle aches, followed by vomiting,

The Evolution of Communication Essay -- Internet Net World Wide Web Me

The Evolution of Communication Since the earliest of years, communication has been an important part of life. The term communication is defined as a means to give or interchange thoughts, feelings, information, or the like, by writing, speaking, gesturing, etcetera ( Stein, 298). Communication allows humans and other life-forms to interact with each other and transfer important information. The information transferred could be comprised of anything from a nearby food source to the discovery of fire. Over the years, communication has taken many forms. In 1962, a singer and songwriter named Bob Dylan (b. Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941, Duluth, Minnesota) released his first album titled Bob Dylan. After listening to this album and noticing his talent for intertwining melodic songs and lyrics that spread social consciousness to the masses, it is hard to believe the simple grunt had come this far. Through the advances of science, scientist have concluded that the evolution of life probably took place over the past tens of millions of years. During these years life has evolved from tiny microscopic organisms into modern man. The genus Homo, which houses mankind, only appeared some two million years ago. Through much research, it has been concluded that speech probably arrived in its simplest form some 250,000 to 300,000 years ago. This early stage of speech, or communication, consisted of Neanderthals using their mouths to formulate sounds. This attempt to communicate by sound, which may have been discovered by listening to animals such as birds or other creatures and attempting to recreate them, is commonly known as grunting (Lacy, 2). The transformation from grunting, to the actual formulation of words, probably took pl... ...y. Many people took advantage of the radio and attempted to raise social consciousness through the broadcasting of songs and lyrics (information). Radio allowed information to be distributed in a wide range. Song's were played to whomever would listen, and not just in certain areas and ethnic boundaries. One such educator was Bob Dylan. Over three decades Bob Dylan released 46 albums. Dylan's combination of folk music, social consciousness, and the radio allowed him to speak to a nation. The information he was sending was heard by millions upon millions and could be traced all the way back to the simple grunt some 250,000 to 300,000 years ago. Works Cited Ed., Jess Stein. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language. Random House Publishing: New York, 1967 Lacy, Dan. From Grunts To Gigabytes. Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois: Urbana,1996

Niche Marketing

1) What is niche marketing? The word ‘niche’ is defined as: A special area of demand for a products or service. The word ‘marketing’ is defined as: The opportunity to buy or sell. Niche Marketing means buying or selling a product or service in a special area of demand. All that really means product or service is being sold to the people who are most interested in that particular product or service and not to the world in general. Often time big businesses use niche marketing. For example, a company that makes computers and computers accessories might advertise all-in-one such as copy, printer and scanner to the home computer user while at the same time advertising single function machines to large businesses. One of the things that make niche marketing so attractive to sellers is that their advertising budgets go further. It costs less to advertise to a specialized market that it does to advertise to a broader market. Niche marketing must be designed to meet the unique needs of the targeted audience. Niche marketers must tailor their product to meet those unique needs. Example, I have design a product to make poodle grooming easy enough for the untrained professional to do it, those who own poodles will be most interested in the products. Those who own Blood Hounds or cats will not care so much. 2) As an automobile retailer, what would you propose to increase sales volumes through niche marketing? Toyota is a huge multinational company. At first glance, it appears that Toyota focuses on the auto business as a whole both from a marketing and production standpoint. Notwithstanding this fact, Toyota is excellent when it comes to niche marketing. Toyota will search for niches for which it can supply a product in need. Toyota was one of the first companies to realize there was a group of car buyers who would be very interested in environmentally friendly cars. To answer this need, it came up with the legendary Prius. The Prius is the first mass production hybrid car. Where other car manufacturers saw Toyota taking a huge risk, Toyota saw it as an opportunity to identify a new niche and establish its brand in that niche. In marketing, it is often the first brand on the scene that takes the day. Once Toyota took the plunge, it pursued an effective niche marketing plan. It didn’t promote the Prius in just any media. It focused on media outlets that were watched, read or listened to by people concerned about the environment. For example, it heavily promoted the car through environmental groups and their publications. As the only game in town at that time, Toyota not only dominated the niche. 3) Explain the role of RMI. RMI create brand awareness and communication tools which have been use from any company’s. They publish their own magazine naming Automobil. RMI also responsible for assisting its members with all matters surrounding the motor industry while ensure that members do comply with high level of business and offers a revenue generating device through its unique niche status.