The readings and the class discussion left me with many questions to ponder regarding leadership. The three chapters and the article on Developing a Leadership Identity gave me a few ideas to base on research if I were to study leadership behavior. From Jim Collins standpoint on researching good to great leaders, he focused on the traits that made individuals level 5 leaders (or as nicely put with the equation on page 32, Humility + Will = Level 5). In Collins' study, good to great leaders are humble, willful, and are willing to do what needs to be done for the good of the company and not themselves. This was echoed in some of our class discussions this evening. Murphy's article talked about asking good questions for others to build a knowledge base, coping with weaknesses, and learning to depend on others. One of the comments I liked in Murphy's article concerning leadership was "knowing when to let go" of a problem and decide on who the best person is to handle it. Kouzes and Posner also talked about role modeling and inspiring a shared vision. The question then becomes, how do you define humble, what would this look like in practice? How can we observe this and record it for measurement? I also look at the ways of trying to study this if you were a social science researcher or ethnographer - going into organizations and see how it is described not only by the leader themselves, but also by others in the organizations. I also wonder who other individuals would describe as leaders. Most of the time we look at leaders as positional leaders, those who hold the title in organizations, but there are others within the organization who can be looked to for leadership as well. Those are all things and aspects of leadership I ponder and think about.
Leaders initiate change by building their knowledge base, knowing what needs to be done, but also involving others in the process of change and getting others to buy into what the needed change is and what the organization is striving to reach.
For the current problems in practice with leadership, I always try to ask the question, if this is what's desired, how do you know it when you see it? Also, what other elements are at work in leadership. Leaders have to contend with forces, economic or political that can sway decisions or items one way or another.
There are other thoughts that I have, which I will post as we go along with class, but that's what I have for now.
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Dena - extra credit for picking my favorite quote from chapter 3! I think that the way that a leader can initiate change is probably one of the most important questions that we can ask as students of educational leadership. Pretty obviously, many styles of leadership and many different types of leaders have been effective in any given situation. The trend in the literature seems to be to the leader that can be a facilitator - or steward as in today's reading. I wonder what else you'll be able to find about change leadership and look forward to your thoughts on this issue.
ReplyDeleteDena--I appreciate the questions you are asking particularly from the ethnographer perspective in terms of what does humility look like with the organization beyond the positional titles and hierarchy. Along these lines, I wonder how social capital theory, critical race theory, and organizational politics might be observed by the ethnographer observing these dynamics of the organization.
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