In reflecting on this course, I reviewed my last blog post from MSLD 511 Organizational Leadership. In that post, I outlined my own approach to leadership as:
Leadership is a process by which one, the leader, supports the work of the many, the followers, toward the achievement of shared goals. In this pursuit, the responsibilities and focus of the leader and the followers are different, but complementary. Where the leader clarifies the vision, clears the path, and validate success, the followers complete the necessary work.
At the conclusion of this course, I find that I have learned several real tools for bringing my vision of leadership to life...
Leadership is a process by which one, the leader, supports the work of the many, the followers, toward the achievement of shared goals. In order to support followers, the leader must have personal skills. During this course, we first focused on developing self-awareness and managing stress and well-being. A leader that understands her own strengths and weaknesses and works to make improvements when necessary is a leader that is prepared to provide the necessary foundation for her followers. Additionally, when times get tough, a leader must first be able to manage her own stress before providing emotional support to her followers.
In this pursuit, the responsibilities and focus of the leader and the followers are different, but complementary. A leader has many responsibilities that are different from her followers; we explored one of them: managing conflict. While as adults, we generally expect each of us to manage our own conflicts, a leader is expected to step in if issues cannot be resolved.
Where the leader clarifies the vision, clears the path, and validate success, the followers complete the necessary work. Much of this course covered ways to help clarify the vision and create the framework for followers to complete required tasks. From communicating supportively to motivating, empowering, and engaging others, this course had a toolbox full of ways to ensure a leader is prepared to do just that.
While I do not think my vision of leadership was changed by this course, I can certainly say it was enhanced. The most valuable learnings took the form of helping me find ways to make my vision a reality.
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Friday, March 3, 2017
Team Roles
As a team member, I'm a chameleon that is very influenced by the makeup of the team. In fact, nearly all of my personality evaluations (including those facilitated by professionals) land me smack-dab in the middle. Because of this, I can float between styles and team member roles to fill holes. (As an aside, I'm a Libra. Perhaps my need for balance explains why I'm always adjusting to fill the gaps.)
Generally speaking, though, my most comfortable role is task-facilitating. Again, based on the other folks on the team, I can easily take the role of direction giver, information giver or seeker, elaborator, urger, monitor, process analyst, summarizer, or any combination of these (Whetten & Cameron, 2016). I do tend to shy away from being an enforcer. This is likely because I have an internal locus of control and generally assume others will do assigned tasks because they feel compelled. This hasn't impacted me too much, but I am aware that it is a risk from a leadership standpoint. I'm also not the one that will remind the team about practicality. Again, from an internal locus of control standpoint, I'm usually of the opinion if you can think it, you can do it.
When considering relationship-building roles, I am almost always the tension reliever. Growing up with four uncles and teaching sixth grade have really given me quite the sense of humor. I also have matured into confronting role out of necessity with my role as a leader of cultural transformation. Regarding the remainder of the relationship-building roles: supporting, harmonizing, energizing, developing, consensus building, and empathizing (Whetten & Cameron, 2016), I access these when there is a need to be filled.
I think I am very good at actively engaging my team; I definitely prefer to have consensus from a team before moving forward with a decision (recognizing this is not one of my most comfortable team member roles). In fact, last week, I insisted that we leave out significant portions of a presentation to our executive team because our own team was not in agreement on the content. The presentation was produced by one member without feedback until the final review prior to presenting. I used my confronting skills to push back. Now, when we have more time we can come to consensus on the portion that we are in disagreement about, we can focus on collaborating on the message. It may require some discussion, but ultimately presenting a unified message is important for this project.
I spend a majority of my time working with teams, and I have honed my skills. I always try to act with thoughtfulness in my team member exchanges. This enables me to move between roles and fill valuable needs for teams.
References
Whetten, D. A. & Cameron, K. S. (2016). Developing management skills, 9th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Generally speaking, though, my most comfortable role is task-facilitating. Again, based on the other folks on the team, I can easily take the role of direction giver, information giver or seeker, elaborator, urger, monitor, process analyst, summarizer, or any combination of these (Whetten & Cameron, 2016). I do tend to shy away from being an enforcer. This is likely because I have an internal locus of control and generally assume others will do assigned tasks because they feel compelled. This hasn't impacted me too much, but I am aware that it is a risk from a leadership standpoint. I'm also not the one that will remind the team about practicality. Again, from an internal locus of control standpoint, I'm usually of the opinion if you can think it, you can do it.
When considering relationship-building roles, I am almost always the tension reliever. Growing up with four uncles and teaching sixth grade have really given me quite the sense of humor. I also have matured into confronting role out of necessity with my role as a leader of cultural transformation. Regarding the remainder of the relationship-building roles: supporting, harmonizing, energizing, developing, consensus building, and empathizing (Whetten & Cameron, 2016), I access these when there is a need to be filled.
I think I am very good at actively engaging my team; I definitely prefer to have consensus from a team before moving forward with a decision (recognizing this is not one of my most comfortable team member roles). In fact, last week, I insisted that we leave out significant portions of a presentation to our executive team because our own team was not in agreement on the content. The presentation was produced by one member without feedback until the final review prior to presenting. I used my confronting skills to push back. Now, when we have more time we can come to consensus on the portion that we are in disagreement about, we can focus on collaborating on the message. It may require some discussion, but ultimately presenting a unified message is important for this project.
I spend a majority of my time working with teams, and I have honed my skills. I always try to act with thoughtfulness in my team member exchanges. This enables me to move between roles and fill valuable needs for teams.
References
Whetten, D. A. & Cameron, K. S. (2016). Developing management skills, 9th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson.