Skills And Competencies To Be A Change Leader Management Essay

Skills And Competencies To Be A Change Leader Management Essay For the past two decades, the amount of significant change that the organizations faced in order to survive has tremendously increased, and many of the researchers argued that this situation will continue and demand more of future leaders (Wren Dulewicz, 2005; Senge et al., 2002). Leadership is such a crucial component for undergoing these changes, and identifying the key components of leadership is important for the success of these transformation efforts (Beer Nohria, 2000). Kotter (1996) considered that, leadership is the key to creating and sustaining the successful organization, because it helps the organization to shape its future and sustain its growth. To succeed consistently, good leaders need to be skilled not just in evaluating people but also in evaluating the abilities and disabilities of their firm as a whole. In addition, leadership competencies are also essential to lead the change processes in an effective way (Christensen Overdorf, 2000). According to Sanchez et al., (1996), leadership competencies have a cognitive aspect, with regard to knowledge and skills the leader possesses, and an action aspect that enables a leader to deploy their competencies in a coordinated manner. Leaders competencies and skills will influence the actions, structures and processes that enhance the change and it further strengthen the effectiveness in implementing change (Gilley et al., 2009). This essay will critically analyse whether anyone can adapt these leadership skills and competencies which is necessary to be a successful change leader. The analysis will be done based on the references of academic research that has been already conducted in this field. Necessary Skills and Competencies to be a change leader Leadership is different from management; leadership complements management but it does not replace it. Because management is about coping with complexity but the leadership is about coping with change (Kotter, 1990). The leadership-skill requirements will vary based on the leaders positions and their levels. The most important skills where the leaders need to be possessed are cognitive skills, business skills, strategic skills and interpersonal skills. Across all the leadership levels cognitive skills are founded to be more important. In addition, interpersonal skills are required for a leader in greater degree than business or strategic skills (Sparks Gentry, 2008). For example) during the group work on simulation game, the leaders of the successful teams had contributed a great part by understanding the views of the team members and through the organization of team meeting. This helped the team to bring out fruitful ideas and plans uniquely and also it helped the group leaders to emphasize their cognitive and interpersonal skills effectively. Compared to other skills, the significance of business and strategic skills is more required for the leaders in managerial level (Sparks Gentry, 2008). Possessing these leadership skills in change management has been linked to bringing about effective and successful organization change. Although, some of the factors are considered as the barriers for the success of the change, they are lack of understanding of change implementation techniques and the inability to alter ones leadership style or organization functions (Bossidy Charan, 2002; Gilley, 2005). The other barriers identified by the analysis include the inability of the leaders to motivate others to change, poor communication skills, and failure to reward or recognize the individuals who make the effort to change (Kotter, 1996). Hence the ability to understand and manage the change processes is valued as a necessary capability of change leaders. Many of the scholars defined this ability as a social intelligence skill, which is the ability to understand ones own and others feelings, behaviours and thoughts in interpersonal situations and to respond appropriately, which includ es emotional ability (Burke, 2002). Finally, leaders thoughts and skills are manifested through the actions of implementing change across the organization. In this stage, the leaders need to be aware about avoiding coordination issues when the different functional groups in an organization work on a common task. Because lack of coordination will raise conflicts in implementing change and it reduce its success (Kuhl et al., 2005). For example, while working for the multi-product task, the lack of coordination across the leaders from different departments affected the implementation of change. There were lot of conflicts aroused in allocating the budget across each department of the organization and hence it led to the ineffective change implementation. As per Zaccaro (2002), effective leadership requires social reasoning skills to understand, judge and diagnose social situations accurately, and relational competencies to respond to the change and manage them successfully. Since change implementation involves the understanding of multiple level of people (i.e., individual, group and organizational), social-emotional competency is regarded to have a direct impact on the capacity to lead change. It acts as a greater predictor of leading change than managing complexity. Social-emotional competency includes observing the employees views, providing constructive feedback, encouraging the cooperation among team members, maintaining effective interpersonal relationships with others and treating others with respect regardless of their position or rank (Mathew, 2009). For example) while working for the simulation game, in some of the groups, there was a long debate happened among the team members about the implementation of change strategies with different views and hence conflicts aroused. The leaders of those teams were also failed to maintain cooperation within the team. This led them to choose inappropriate change strategies and directed towards failure to reach their target. But while enquiring the teams who reached the target, I came to knew that the team leader had delegated the roles to each team members based on their knowledge about the game and by providing constructive feedback on their views. This helped them to maintain a good cooperation within the team without giving the ways for any conflicts and also it provided a way to reach their target within the time limit and budget. Within a change specific context Higgs and Rowland (2000, 2001) indicated a cluster of change leadership competencies associated with coaching and developing others. In addition Giglio et al. (1998) also emphasized the importance of leaders coaching role in the change process. Because a good leader should motivate their employees in order to make them aware of the change process. This will be done by providing appropriate coaching to them. According to Hudson (1999), coaching skills enable leaders to approach situations from new perspectives and to question the status quo. Moreover, the leaders who coach their employees can enhance their renewal capacity and resilience, which has significant influence on organizational success. Finally and more importantly it allows others to make and learn from mistakes. Huq (2006) argued that the leadership competencies can help to create the six sigma cadre in an organization. He argued that the personal and corporate competencies play a vital role in creating this six sigma cadre. Personal competencies include the technical knowledge and charisma of the leader. Whilst the corporate competencies include the combinations of skills and knowledge or experience that enable a leader to implement the change program successfully. But the available evidence shows that, even the experienced leaders were deviated from these competencies in some circumstances. The most recent examples of sudden corporate implosions (Enron, Lehman Brothers) have apparently raised concerns about the nature and influence of bad leadership. Higgs (2009) have identified that the causes of this leadership failure were due to combination of personal flaws and performance shortfalls. While exploring this concept, he also identified a range of causal factors for these implosions which are skill deficiencies, being insensitive to others, betraying trust, arrogance and being overly ambitious. He argued that the personal flaws were more vital than skill deficiencies as drivers of derailment.

Cuisine Essay -- Health, Food

A cuisine cannot simply be defined as a particular group of food associated with a geographic location. To understand a cuisine equal understanding of the culture to which it belongs must exist. A culture, such as the population of Italy, manipulates the presentation and substances of a cuisine to something representative of that culture. This makes a cuisine much more than food on a plate; a cuisine includes history, both of those making the dish and the ingredients and cooking styles that form the final product. A cuisine includes pride of nationality and personality. Similarly culture is more than a geographic location; it is a way of living and a respect for a group of beliefs and traditions. To understand this relationship between culture and cuisine certain information must be addressed; information such as the demographic figures surrounding a culture, the specific effect Italian culture has on Italian food, as well as the ingredients and cooking skills applied in the Italian cuisine. Consequences of the Italian cuisine will also be identified, both nutritional value and health detriments and how these effects may continue into the future. Cuisine can be split into two stages: pre-swallow and post-swallow (Crotty 1995). Pre-swallow is based around social aspects of cuisine (Gallegos 2011) such as who does the cooking and why people eat the food that they eat. Post-swallow is concerned with the effects food has once eaten; post-swallow also deals with the nutritional and health impacts that food has on consumers. When deconstructing a cuisine it becomes clear that demographic information plays an important role in the pre-swallow stage. Gender, age, location, religion and government influence all have a contribution to s... ... continue to rise. A symptom of obesity, cardiovascular disease, remains the highest cause of death in Italy at 16% (World Health Organisation 2006) followed by cerebrovascular disease, better known as a stroke, at 14%. Both of these diseases are caused by diet, particularly a high cholesterol diet and with western food chains such as McDonalds becoming more entrenched in Italian culture it is reasonable to believe these causes of death will remain the same into the future unless a regression into healthy local Italian cuisine is taken. To conclude, Italy is a diverse location both in terms of geographic regions and cultural traditions, it is only fitting that it has a diverse cuisine, full of history, religion and most important of all the soul of the Italian people. Its mark on world cuisine through innovation and passion last a long time.

Altruism: Our Desire to Help Others Essay -- Psychology

Over the endless cycles of generations, human life has lived up to its fundamental purpose of survival. Not only have we survived as a species, but we have evolved into the most complicated species on earth. Creatures riddled with mystery, emotion, morality; we have outdone ourselves in overcoming our basic reset function of survival. We originated in the mindset of survive and reproduce only to morph into a race rooted in emotion and intricate thought. Darwin’s theory, survival of the fittest, calculates that humans basic goal and reason of life is to survive, and reproduce; to have only ones self in mind. But why then, if natural selection filters us down to survival of the fittest, might one creature stick its neck out for another? Regardless of Darwin’s theory, we have evolved into a species in which our fundamentals are ‘good’ in nature; significantly outweighing our instinct of selfish survival. Over the years, science has been able to put the human selfish instinct to the test, and divulge the truth on why we help others. A method of selflessness called altruism is the belief in complete lack of selfishness in exchange for genuine concern for the well being of others. One of the most famous and haunting stories of a person engulfing themselves in this way of life is George Price. Throughout his life, George Price was a fluctuating and ever changing scientist. Accepted to Harvard and the University of Chicago, he eventually obtained a doctorate degree in chemistry. Price worked on the Manhattan project, a program during World War I focusing on building an atomic bomb. He later went on to work in various fields such as computer science, psychology, politics, and eventually moved to London where he discovered his love for e... ... Web. 22 May 2012. James Marshall attended Bristol College and is currently teaching at Sheffield College. He earned a Doctorate in Evolutionary studies, as well as has substantial experience with computer related studies. His quote further describes the Price Equation and its affiliation with genes themselves. Weintraub, Stanley. Silent Night: The Story of the WWI Christmas Truce. New York: The Free Press, 2001. Print. Stanley Weintraub is a professor, historian, and biographer. He spent many months in Korea, during the Korean War with first hand experience on the hardships of war. He began writing after the bombing of Pear Harbor. His telling of the events of the Christmas Truce on the western front is both enlightening and accurate. The way he phrases things causes a realization that this moment was fleeting. After all, it was in the middle of a war.

Unpacking the ‘Education’ in Civic Education :: Education Learning essays

Unpacking the ‘Education’ in Civic Education Abstract Unpacking the ‘Education’ in Civic Education In this paper, we explore civic education through an examination of two approaches to the introductory course in American government. Our goal is to identify how differences in pedagogical method affect student learning and attitude formation. We do this through a comparison of two equivalent groups of students; one group experiencing a standard text-lecture-test approach and the other having the additional experience of a three-week character-playing simulation of the congressional policy process. While we find that both groups of students make short-term gains on factual knowledge and both experience attitude shifts in our hoped for directions, the effects are greater in the standard lecture course. Our overall findings help clarify directions for further revision in both formats of the course. The importance of civic education has been well-established. From the earliest political theorists, we see discussion of the importance of a well-informed citizenry for the health of a polity. While skeptical of the power of the people to self-govern, the framers of American democracy still argued that the ultimate power rested in the people, who would even have the right to overthrow government should it violate the â€Å"social contract† with those over whom it governed (as in the Declaration of Independence, where we see Jefferson’s thoughts so clearly influenced by Locke). Closer to modern times, much public opinion literature has engaged in discussions about Americans’ levels of political knowledge, and the consequences that flow from this (see, for just a very few prominent examples, Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes 1960; Converse 1964; Delli Carpini and Keeter 1991, 1996; Graber 1994; Jennings 1996; Nie, Verba and Petrocik 1979). To our minds, civic education is about preparing our students to be citizens in the American democracy. This involves teaching them the rudiments of knowledge required for reading a newspaper (or political web site), watching the news on television, and understanding what is going on in the world. Civic education also concerns itself with attitudes; for example, teaching students to have a healthy skepticism for what goes on in government, but grounding this skepticism in a reality that does not hold unrealistic expectations for government or its officials (see Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 1995, 2002 for a useful discussion of unrealistic expectations). Finally, civic education also concerns behaviors, as we encourage students to make intelligent, informed decisions about the extent to which they will participate in the political system. Unpacking the ‘Education’ in Civic Education :: Education Learning essays Unpacking the ‘Education’ in Civic Education Abstract Unpacking the ‘Education’ in Civic Education In this paper, we explore civic education through an examination of two approaches to the introductory course in American government. Our goal is to identify how differences in pedagogical method affect student learning and attitude formation. We do this through a comparison of two equivalent groups of students; one group experiencing a standard text-lecture-test approach and the other having the additional experience of a three-week character-playing simulation of the congressional policy process. While we find that both groups of students make short-term gains on factual knowledge and both experience attitude shifts in our hoped for directions, the effects are greater in the standard lecture course. Our overall findings help clarify directions for further revision in both formats of the course. The importance of civic education has been well-established. From the earliest political theorists, we see discussion of the importance of a well-informed citizenry for the health of a polity. While skeptical of the power of the people to self-govern, the framers of American democracy still argued that the ultimate power rested in the people, who would even have the right to overthrow government should it violate the â€Å"social contract† with those over whom it governed (as in the Declaration of Independence, where we see Jefferson’s thoughts so clearly influenced by Locke). Closer to modern times, much public opinion literature has engaged in discussions about Americans’ levels of political knowledge, and the consequences that flow from this (see, for just a very few prominent examples, Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes 1960; Converse 1964; Delli Carpini and Keeter 1991, 1996; Graber 1994; Jennings 1996; Nie, Verba and Petrocik 1979). To our minds, civic education is about preparing our students to be citizens in the American democracy. This involves teaching them the rudiments of knowledge required for reading a newspaper (or political web site), watching the news on television, and understanding what is going on in the world. Civic education also concerns itself with attitudes; for example, teaching students to have a healthy skepticism for what goes on in government, but grounding this skepticism in a reality that does not hold unrealistic expectations for government or its officials (see Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 1995, 2002 for a useful discussion of unrealistic expectations). Finally, civic education also concerns behaviors, as we encourage students to make intelligent, informed decisions about the extent to which they will participate in the political system.

Religion and Reference: Reference Service Problems Essay example -- E

Religion and Reference: Reference Service Problems Abstract The topic of religion can lead to librarian/patron confrontation at the reference desk. This problem can result equally from the over-zealousness of the religious librarian or the disdain of the anti-religious librarian. Most of the discussion on this topic revolves, either explicitly or implicitly, around the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights and Code of Ethics. This article looks at these documents as they pertain to reference service. Then it surveys the discussion about this issue from both secular and religious sources, dividing those sources into categories of those that agree in principle with the ALA and those that disagree with the ALA in principle. Introduction If you want to be popular at dinner parties never discuss politics or religion. The problem with the theory is that politics and religion are the two major methods of socialization. Therefore, people can be expected to have strong opinions on these topics. Since society is not heterogeneous with respect to either of the two, interaction problems can occur. In the library one major area of conflict that can occur is at the reference desk. In this case the problem can result from the feelings of the librarian, the patron, or both. This paper will concentrate on the problems that arise from religious opinions. American Library Association The American Library Association has shown a deep concern for the rights of patrons and the relationship between patrons and librarians in the creation of its Library Bill of Rights and Code of Ethics. This paper will review both documents with respect to their impact on reference librarian professional ethics. All materials discussed in ... ...c library practice (pp. 185-191). Portland, OR: Portland University Press. Smith, G. A. (2000). A philosophy of Christian librarianship. The Christian Librarian, 43 (2), 46-51, 58-59. Smith, G. A. (2002a). Afterword: The future of Christian librarianship. In G. A. Smith (Ed.), Christian librarianship: Essays on the integration of faith and profession (pp. 201-204). Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Smith, G. A. (2002b). The core virtue of Christian librarianship. The Christian Librarian, 45 (2), 46-51. United Nations General Assembly. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved May 16, 2004, from http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html. Wengert, R. G. (2001). Some ethical aspects of being an informational professional. Library Trends, 49, 486-509. Retrieved May 2, 2004, from the Library Literature (via Wilson Web) database.

International Human Resource Managementp20-3, 4, 5

Title: Homework P20-3, 4, 5 for International human resource management Page number: 3 1, Discuss two HR activities in which a multinational firm must engage that would not be required in a domestic environment. (1) More HR activities To operate in an international environment, a human resource department must engage in a number of activities that would not be necessary in a domestic environment: international taxation; international relocation and orientation; administrative services for expatriates; host government relations; and language translation services. 2) Risk exposure The direct costs (salary, training costs and travel and relocation expenses) of failure to the parent firm may be as high as three times the domestic salary plus relocation expenses, depending on currency exchange rates and location assignments. Another aspect of rick exposure that is relevant to IHRM is terrorism. 2, why is a greater degree of involvement in employee’s personal lives inevitable in man y international HRM activities?A greater degree of involvement in employees’ personal lives is necessary for the selection, training and effective management of both PCN and TCN employees. In the international HR department must be much more involved in order to provide the level of support required and will need to know more about the employee’s personal life. The HR department or HR professional needs to ensure that the expatriate employee understands housing arrangements, health care, and all aspects of the compensation package provided for the assignment(cost-of- living allowances, premiums, taxes and so on). , Discuss at least two of the variables that moderate differences between domestic and international HR practices. (1) Attitudes of senior management to international operations. It is likely that if senior management does not have a strong international orientation, the importance of international operations may be underemphasized in terms of corporate goals and objectives. In such situations, managers may tend to focus on domestic issues and minimize differences between international and domestic environments. 2)The cultural environment The cultural environment is an important variable that moderates differences between domestic and international HRM. The new environment requires many adjustments in a relatively short period of time, challenging people’s frames of reference to such an extent that sense of self, especially in terms of nationality, comes into question. People , in effect, experience a shock reaction to new cultural experiences that cause psychological disorientation because they misunderstand or do not recognize important cues.

Poetry is a vast genre of literature that is used to express emotions, feelings and ideas

With reference to the poems of Antonio Machado, Juan Ramin Jiminez, and Federico Garcia Lorca studied in the course, discuss the uses of poetry and the ways in which the three writers exploit this medium Poetry is a vast genre of literature that is used to express emotions, feelings and ideas. Every writer has different reasons for expressing their ideas through this medium. Antonio Machado, Juan Ramin Jiminez and Federico Garcia Lorca were all Spanish poets who lived around the same era. Does this mean their uses of poetry were the same? Did they write poems for the same reasons? In order to discuss how they have used poetry it is necessary to understand their poems in more detail. At first glance it seems that Antonio Machado explores nature and the beauty of it in his poetry. In his poem Crepisculo Machado describes a nature scene. Although he doesn't use the first person, it is clear from the content that the poem is implicitly about him. He has therefore, used nature to mirror himself. The cold images of stone and marble in the poem, like the statue of Cupid, communicate a lack of expression on the poet's part. With Cupid having connotations of love and with the statue being constructed from stone it is possible to say that Machado finds it difficult to express love. Antonio Machado, in this respect, has exploited the medium, with nature as a main theme, to reflect himself to the reader. In displaying his lack of love through poetry, he is able to get across exactly what he wants to say by emphasising aspects with repetition, rhyme and other stylistic features. Writing his feelings in prose, for Machado, would not have had the same effect. Another example of Machado using nature to describe himself is in his poem A Un Olmo Seco. He fears that his life is near to its end like that of the tree and he only has hope left. Here, Machado is using poetry to express anxiety and concern about the ending of his life. The descriptions which he writes about the tree are descriptions of how he sees himself in relation to life in general. In this way, he is using poetry to put across his worries and to tell people about how he sees himself in comparison to nature. Machado's poem El Limonero, however, is not, on the surface, a description about nature but a search for something. The poet tries to recall an innocent childhood illusion in which he attempted to pick up some fruit out of some water and then discovered that it was merely a reflection. Machado communicates the difficulty in finding the illusion he remembers from childhood, with a contrast between heart and mind -he knows he won't find it again but he still has hopes. This can be related to A Un Olmo Seco when he hopes for another ‘milagro de primavera'1 (miracle of spring). Poetry has been employed by Antonio Machado to illustrate his despondency on aging and on realising that things aren't what they used to be. El Limonero describes how the happiness and simplicity of being a child can never be regained. Poetry is a good way of expressing deep feelings and emotions because it can be adapted in ways that prose cannot. The letter form and use of the informal second person of the poem A Josi Mario Palacio tells the reader that this is a poem written to a friend. Machado is asking his friend whether spring has arrived and mentions typical spring-time occurrences. He introduces a third party with the use of â€Å"su† and it is later revealed that the poet is talking about the death of his wife. After reading A Josi Mario Palacio it could be said that the hopelessness he feels in A Un Olmo Seco is because of the death of his wife and the anxieties about his own life. Machado has used poetry to project grief out of himself onto nature without showing self pity. In writing this, he may have been able to come to terms with his emotions. For Machado, poetry is used to say things that he feels cannot be expressed in another way. Poetry and can be used when prose and normal word patterns are unable to put across the idea or feeling in the desired way. Unlike Machado, however, Jiminez uses poetry to illustrate his outlook on the mysteries of life. His poem El Nombre is directed to the intelligence and the brain. Jiminez feels the necessity to write something and asks his intelligence for the name of things. Poetry is being used by Jiminez to communicate the difficulties in language and expression. He describes the complexity in communicating a feeling to a reader. Like the poems of Machado, Jiminez has used poetry to overcome the difficulties of conveying an idea. irboles Hombres, nevertheless, is written in the form of a traditional ballad. The subject of this poem is the impermanence of human life. It is a story about a man who goes into a wood and hears the trees talking. They talk about him and think he's a tree too. Jiminez is describing the brevity of human life in comparison to the seemed permanence of nature; he is saying how human life is temporary. The trees existed before, and will exist after his life. Jiminez has, in this sense, used poetry to communicate his views about human existence in comparison to nature, which has existed since the beginning of time. Jiminez can be described as a mystic poet despite him being agnostic. In some ways he uses language poetically to develop the idea of a mystic God. This can be seen in the poem Soy Animal de Fondo. Jiminez explores the connection between material and immaterial. For example, feelings of warmth from the sun are not material even though the sun itself is. The poem, like El Nombre, recalls a search but this time it is for God. There is a progression throughout the poem to the realisation that God was there all along. Poetry, here, is used to explain that life is beyond material even though people only realise it when they are taken away from the material world. Jiminez has made use of poetry to recall the search about the unknown consciousness that the material world hides. The poetry of Jiminez is about subjects related to his life and it has been said that ‘vida y poesia son una y la misma cosa'2 (life and poetry are one and the same thing) for Jiminez. This indicates that he uses poetry, like Machado, to reflect himself and his personality. In the case of Federico Garcia Lorca, poetry is often applied to express feelings of marginalisation within society. Being homosexual Lorca was subject to persecution for not conforming to the expectations of the society in which he lived. In his ballads Lorca uses gypsies to express the exclusion he felt during his life. Gypsies were, like Lorca, considered to be outsiders and they too were not respected. In his ballad Romance de la Luna, Luna Lorca explores a scene about a gypsy boy who is ill and feels persecuted by the moon. He explains the interpretation of the death of a child from an uncivilised and unscientific mind. The gypsies can accept that the moon was the cause of death, because to their minds it is plausible. Civilised society cannot accept this idea and so gypsies, like Lorca were labelled as outsiders. With poetry Lorca can express the ostracism he felt without making a direct statement. Poetry works better than prose in this respect because Lorca can make use of imagery and symbolism to convey his idea. Another gypsy ballad written by Lorca is Preciosa y el Aire. The wind tries to abduct a gypsy girl, who is playing a tambourine. The wind represents the sexual impulse of nature and Preciosa sees it as a threat. Her primitive impulse tells her she is in danger but when she goes into the civilised world, i. e. the English consul's house, her experience is oppressed. Poetry has been used here to show the sense of exclusion that Lorca feels exists in society for those who step out of the norm. He is telling his readers about the feelings of persecution that existed in his life through the form of another equally mistreated figure in society. Romance Sonimbulo is again from Lorca's book Romancero Gitano (Gypsy Ballads) and is about an injured man seeking refuge at a gypsy dwelling. A gypsy girl has been waiting for him for so long that she's given up and killed herself. Lorca has used surrealism within his poetry by placing words in a non realist order. This form is used to describe the difference between the civilised, realist life and the somewhat surreal, gypsy life. There is also a reoccurrence of the colour green. Green has positive and, especially in Spain, negative connotations. For example green can signify nature and life but also rotten fruit. In Spain it can also indicate sexual perversion, in the case of ‘un hombre verde' meaning ‘a dirty old man'. The repetition of green could be said to be telling the reader about Lorca's ‘own libidinal tendency towards the forbidden fruit'3; this meaning his homosexuality. From all 3 poems it can be said that: Sexuality (†¦ is the subjective nub (†¦ ) where the violent context of ostracism and persecution (†¦ ) may be seen as a projection of the poet's inner anxiety. 4 Lorca has used language and poetry in his work, not only to express marginalisation, but also to show how his sexuality is perceived by society. From his judgment homosexuality is perceived as verde. All three poets and their work can be related and linked to each other. They all use poetry for personal reasons and convey their individual ideas through it. They use many devices within their poems to help put across meaning, for example, with the use of nature and gypsies. For writers, poetry is a tool to be exploited because there are no rules. Poets can make up the rules of what they write and in this can add to the affect that the poems have on a reader. Machado, Jiminez and Lorca have exploited poetry to their own means and used it for individual reasons. They have all used nature, in some way, to help their poetry have the desired effect or meaning. Lorca uses a more traditional form of poetry, the ballad, as it would have been very familiar to readers and so would be able to convey the exact idea that he wanted. The main and most common use of poetry between all three poets is the need to express a feeling, whether it is anxiety, absence or an opinion. In writing their poems, the poets have reflected themselves and revealed their outlooks on life. They have used this medium as a language tool to convey exactly their feelings, opinions and beliefs; the sort of ideas where prose will not suffice. Poetry is used by writers like Machado, Jiminez and Lorca because it can get across a meaning and can appeal to emotions in ways that other literature forms cannot. Imagery and symbolism are a big part of poetry and help writers put across detailed ideas. It is difficult to get across a subtle and implicit meaning with the use of prose and this is a reason why some of the poets have used this medium. Furthermore, poetry is an art that can communicate the beauty of ideas, scenes and thoughts and it has the power to describe a subject or tell a story effectively. For Machado, Jiminez and Lorca poetry is simply a way of escaping the normality and mundane routine of everyday life as they express their ideas through this medium.