Harpo

Harpo’s chances of successful continuum after Oprah Winfrey Oprah Winfrey is one of the few women leaders in the society that has nourished the public with a great influence of living a better life. Exemplified in her success through her career in the Oprah Winfrey Show, the public in both America and globally is well aware of her remarkable journey and her generosity to the society. Oprah has made one of the most standing innovative social challenges of moving out of the comfort zone of securing wealth for oneself and thus uses her wealth to help others in society to merge from the very peak of poverty. The Oprah Winfrey show where she showed her social support to the population both local and international has revolutionized the society to become more open minded towards discussing social issues openly. More importantly, is her role in promoting the social activity of finding a solution to these social issues and implementing these solutions. This has influenced many communities to outgrow certain levels of criticism and denial well enough to address social issues faced daily.
13.1. Potential dangers of having a super-powerful leader
There are some few potential dangers in having a super powerful leader such as Oprah Winfrey being the head of your company (“Case: Harpo,” n.d). One of the dangers is when the leader has so much power and decides to abuse and misuse this power. This action is very dangerous especially if the investors are engaged in false investment schemes promoted by the leader that will only have them losing their finances. The company will gain a bad reputation, and recovery is very hefty.
Another potential danger is in the leader instilling too much fear towards the employees in the company. There is a certain model of treatment that every leader will want to articulate in their company toward themselves and even towards the employees. If the leaders start to be harsh and have the management do the same, the employees’ performance will be negatively affected, thus, making the company employees fearful of the leader and unable to achieve the company goals every year.
13.2. Survival of Harpo in case of departure
As already witnessed in history, when a super powerful leader of a company or nation departs from it either through retirement or because of an ailment or death, the chances of creating a continuum of success is very slim. The best ways in which Oprah Winfrey can ensure that Harpo will survive after her departure, whether due to death, ailment or even due to a tarnished public appeal is by creating and implementing a leadership succession plan. In this situation, she should have an active plan of having every individual undertaking a cognitive performance test to prove their potential capabilities in the industry. She also needs to have the employees undertake challenging tasks that strengthen their independent skills, qualifications and reasoning capabilities well enough to establish a leadership stand in each of their job duties.
The next step is to ensure that there is a continuum of promotion in the company where the juniors get direct training of a new job position they acquire in the company. The true leadership succession plan will have Winfrey selecting a number of senior leaders that she will train in her position and have them undertake several projects in the company to exercise their skills. She should promote them in their good performances and have the public eye promoting these new leaders and recognizing the leadership skills of these potential future leaders. This plan is very proficient as Oprah’s departure of any cause will not leave this seat void, but can be easily filled by any one of the trained leaders. The company will keep moving forward without any wastage of time and funds.
13.3. Types of concerns as a holder of referent power
Referent power is the level of power an individual has over a team or a group of followers. Oprah Winfrey has managed to incur referent power in her previous career in the Oprah Winfrey Show. In the Harpo Company, she will also need to create referent power by instilling the model of making the employees comfortable while they are around her. She can do this by opting to conduct a weekly one on one discussion with the employees where she can advice them on how to tackle their current work issues. This will help the employees to feel freer around her and even motivated to create greater success daily. She can also create projects that will enhance the employees’ skills while confidently merging them into the challenge. This will nurture their leadership skills and as well enhance the success of the company every day.
Works Cited
“Case: Harpo”. What are the potential dangers of having one super-powerful leader of an organization?. Case study questions. 13.1.