The last two chapters on lasting leadership and creating a culture of sustainability in leadership prompted some reflection on my part. The last chapter in the text resonated with me, especially concerning how many organizations now are doing either the same amount of activities or more activities with less financial and human resources. Hargreaves (2006) stated that "Renewal and restraint are not either-or choices in our challenge to develop resourceful, sustainable leadership" (p.461). The question becomes how do organizations balance renewal and restraint? What are the priorities based on the mission and vision of the organization and how does the leadership of the organization define priorities?
When the economic crisis first occured last year, many organizations were figuring out how to go forward and what to put on hold to make sure their organizations survived. Some organizations scaled back production, permanently cut their staffs, or implemented furlough programs to reduce their operating deficits. At this point, organizations displayed how they embodied concepts of trust, ethics, collaboration, and the other characteristics we discussed in class. It is an interesting process to watch. Some of my questions and thoughts are - how do organizations, higher education and K-12 schools, create a culture of sustainable leadership? What programs or other processes are in place that encourage this? What characteristics influence employee retention? Although this isn't my primary research interest, I know these would definitely be good topics of study.
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Dena,
ReplyDeleteInsightful questions. These are along some of the lines that I am exploring as I consider research interests. Similar to what you are asking about employee retention, I wonder if there is research that supports how employee retention impacts students in both P-12 and higher education settings? Dr. Lindle recently helpfully challenged me in this direction and I think these are good questions.
I agree with Daniel about these being insightful questions. I too wonder about creating lasting change. My last literature review paper was on charismatic leadership; one of the differences between this type of leadership and the more successful, in my mind at least, transformational leadership paradigm is that charismatic leaders may create highly successful organizations but don't necessarily plan for this success to be maintained after they have moved on. A question that occurs to me is how do retention and sustainable leadership figure in with charismatic leaders? Are these the differences between charismatic and transformational leaders?
ReplyDeleteDena –
ReplyDeleteYou bring up some interesting thoughts regarding the economic crisis and how they applied to many organizations. I believe that many companies are now facing what government and many of not most school districts have been facing for years – “Doing more with less.” The government probably had excess capacity that wasn’t being used. However, after continually doing more with less without degrading the mission more cuts were put into effect. At some point mission accomplishment doesn’t happen. The key is knowing when to acknowledge the cuts are enough without degrading the mission. This is a hard question. The government does not do this well.
Ed