The Wawa story began in a small rural town of Pennsylvania called Wawa. There the owner George Wood started a small dairy farming and processing plant in 1902, after relocating the family iron foundry business from New Jersey. As home delivery of milk declined in the early 1960s, Grahame Wood, George Wood grandson opened the first Wawa Food market in 1964 as an outlet for dairy products. Today, Wawa is a paradigm of success with 645 conveniences store located in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and Central Florida. Wawa has succeeded where others have failed due to exceptional leadership. One of such leaders is Howard Stoeckel former President and Chief Operating Officer of Wawa. (Stoeckel & Adelman, 2014).
Background
Mr. Howard
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He embraces Wawa core values which are as follows: value people, delight customers, embraces change, do things right, do the right things and has a passion for winning (Stoeckel & Adelman, 2014). Throughout his career, he successfully used these core values as a guiding principle of his career. In fact, Stoeckel refers to these values as the glue that keeps the company together (Stoeckel & Adelman, 2014). Howard Stoeckel leads with optimism. He is never afraid of failures, and as he puts it, people learned from their failures and individuals should be opened to talk about it. He believes that success is not being on the bleeding edge; it is mainstreaming modern concepts (Stoeckel & Adelman, …show more content…
His leadership style like his predecessor is that of a servant leadership. Stoeckel enjoyed watching employees of Wawa grow and achieve their dreams. He wants other people’s dreams to come true, and his mission is to empower other people to achieve their objectives. Over the years, he has supported and has the courage to do the right thing by challenging, developing and acting as a mentor to others. As a servant leader, he looks for good work, and he gives appropriate commendation and follows through on commitments. He trusts other people regardless of their background, makes time for people and shares their visions. Wawa has a servant leadership program that all leaders of the business must go through if they are going to run a store (Stoeckel & Adelman,
In this life it is essential to base your work around your beliefs and to feel passionate about what you do. Then spreading your passion for your work onto others is how you grow as an individual and as a company. Which is what I felt after reading the #1 core value.
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There are many definitions of what makes a great leader. When US News chooses America’s Best Leaders each year, they judge based on the following criteria: Setting direction, cultivating a culture of growth, and achieving results. Sustainable leadership focuses on leaders who have helped create products and services with positive environmental or social impact; in others they have helped build a corporate culture that rewards and nourishes employees and stakeholders in new ways. According to Maxwell (2002), successful leadership is determined by a leader’s effectiveness and impact on their organization. However, to gain t...
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I have been fortunate to work with several heads of departments within a couple years of graduating college. During this time, I have worked with quality leaders and not so great ones. The quality leaders were competent, skillful and endowed with people skills. These leaders gave me the opportunity to grow and a sense of purpose. After reading The Leadership Advantage by Warren Bennis, I was quickly reminded about a former superior of mine that lacked the understanding and knowledge of what qualities a leader should have. The company also did not entertain a culture that promotes employee satisfaction.
If anyone were to look at Justin all they would see is production which is the third level of leadership. This man gets up around noon everyday to go out and work on his odd jobs which he stops doing around 6:30 P.M and then goes straight to his full time job working at Hiland Dairy until five in the morning and goes home to get around five to six hours of sleep only to wake up and repeat this process over again. Justin is the man that taught me the work ethic that I have today and is still teaching me many valuable lessons about how to
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As a result of this course, I have a better understanding of what it means to lead others. In this essay I will overview topics including leadership competencies, ethical environments, and organizational communication, to demonstrate the knowledge I have compounded. These topics will be discussed in the context of my previous job with Walmart in order to apply concepts to real world experiences. During the relatively short time I worked for Walmart, I experienced my instances of poor leadership. This essay will examine these experiences and offer potential solutions to leadership inadequacies.
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Strickler and the managers learning about their leadership style was an extremely important part of my internship. I learned that leadership is less about the leader 's needs, but more about the needs of the people in the organization they are leading. A few of the managers are new to their leadership roles and are developing their leadership styles by learning to adapt to the particular demands and challenges facing the organization. All the managers agree that no matter what style of leadership one chooses, a good leader communicate, influence, and engage their staff. I will use this experience as a guide to help me develop the leadership style that will best fit the organization where I will have the privilege to be a