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What is the job of the senior executive? As organizations increase in size and complexity, today's executives find they spend more time in “symbol” management: formulating values, ideas, and ideals through continuous dialogue with others. In this article, based on a study of Cleveland CEOs, the authors explore how executives use language to describe their roles and in the process create meaning for themselves and others. These executives conceived of their roles in terms of three principal agendas: (1) creating a context for change: (2) building commitment and ownership: and (3) balancing stability and innovation. The authors also present a theoretical rationale for conceiving of the executive role in this way by focusing on three “cornerstones” of the executive task: continuity, transition, and novelty. The central argument—that executive work is mostly talk—suggests that today's executives pay as much attention to their words as their actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the role of the CEO in a corporation? Some experts believe that it is to create a vision of the future; others believe it is to shape the organization's culture; and still others hold that the executive must be a "maker of meanings." In their two-year study of CEOs in the Cleveland area, Jonas, Fry, and Srivastva found that chief executives create meaning in three different ways: through their lessons about early life experience, their beliefs about leadership, and their relationship to the organization. And the common underlying theme - and one that is basic to the CEO's efforts to create meaning - is that of exceptionality. CEOs strive to present their life stories in unique ways, formulate a view of leadership grounded in their unique experience, and portray their relationship to the organization in ways that differentiate themselves from their peers. Thus, executive work is mostly talk - and it is through language that executives convey the uniqueness of their role in the organization. INSET: Study Methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Feb 2013 issue of AI Practitioner seeks to honour and strengthen AI's generative connection with India by uncovering AI as it is emerging in India, along with some powerful Indian stories that have the potential to inspire strengths-based developmental work on a world-wide basis. 'Namaste', the traditional Indian greeting, implies 'bowing to the divine in you'. This is 'appreciation' at work ... simple yet profound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]