Scientific Thinking: Radiolab Podcast: Patient Zero
isten to the podcast: Radiolab: Patient Zero (Links to an external site.
Please, start to listen or read the transcript starting at the #00:16:00.23# mark where the program starts with a history of different hypotheses about the AIDS epidemics and the origin of the HIV virus. Your post need to be at least a paragraph long (at least 6 sentences) and you need to write 2 thoughful responses to 2 other students' post.
Listen or read the transcript of the entire podcast starting about 16 minutes of the podcast and answer the following questions:
1. How did your thinking about the origin of HIV change and why?
2. Do we know who patient zero is? Why or why not?
3. What differences and similarities do you see with how we deal with the current SarsCov 19 pandemic which is also caused by a spillover?
Sample Solution
in leadership traits between men and women is given by Badura et all (2018). With an increase of women in leadership roles in modern organisations we can observe a diminishing gap between female and male traits, where communal (such as kindness) and agentic (such as assertive or dominant) traits merge.
Various literature sources outline transactional and transformational approaches to leadership. Both of those leadership styles differ from each other significantly. According to Bertocci (2009) a leader operating transactional style identifies what needs to be taken into consideration, such as needs of the individuals, their perception and self-esteem requirements in order to enable them to work towards achieving set goal. The leader then establishes the reward for achieving a goal and demonstrates how to do it. The individual is then left on its own and there is no intervention unless there are issues in achieving the goal. This concept is often called ‘management by exception’. George J. & Jones G. (2014) agree with the above stating that this specific type of leadership focuses on rewarding in exchange for high performance levels with the use of performance management systems. The goals can be adjusted as flexibility is very important and a good leader is aware of the need for this. Kwasi D. (2015) notes that transactional approach is mostly focused on the actual task rather than people involved within the process. Michael Armstrong and Stephen Taylor (2017) make it clear that transactional leaders expose skills associated mostly with controlling processes, planning, organising and achieving results. The factors taking part in transactional approach were distinguished as ‘contingent reward and management by exception’ (Bass, 2009). Management by exception was later divided into active and passive. Within the active factor an action would be taken when performance standards are not met whereas the passive one focuses on taking an action not sooner than problems itself arise. Bass continues to add that transactional leader’s definition is very similar to definition of a manager. Rosenbach (2018) agrees that if used correctly, transactional approach can be an effective tool in achieving high performance and therefore constitute a part of managerial leadership.
Tim Richardson (2015) advises that transactional approach to leadership requires adjustments if the organisations are no longer able to offer enough flexibility; it is also mentioned that ‘command and control, egocentric and autocratic’ style is referred to as not durable, forceful and not providing enough motivation. Richardson adds that it can often be damaging to reputation of organisations. The fact was also noted by Bass (2009) who states that if within organisations were only transactional leaders then their approach, and therefore success of that organisation would be impacted as corrective action needs to be taken much earlier than when the issue becomes noticeable.