Term Paper on Leadership
Allen Mooneyhan
Doctoral
Seminar: Educational Leadership
Practices I
My
Leadership Philosophy as of November 2000
Dr.
David W. Cox
Arkansas
State University
November
30, 2000
My
previous leadership philosophy was rooted in what had been my overall
educational philosophy. Over the
past few years, I have developed a philosophy of teaching that carries over into
my philosophy with regard to leadership. I
believed that we should be teaching our students the basics or essentials
necessary in order to maintain a job in today's workforce.
I also believed that we should take advantage of technology available
today; this technology could be used to facilitate the teaching of essential
skills through structured programs.
My
philosophy has changed over the past several months as a result of the
information I have been exposed to thus far in the doctorate program at Arkansas
State University. While I believe
there are essential skills that are important for students to learn, I think
students can benefit greatly from participative learning in which partnership
and collaboration are stressed over individuality and competition.
For example, when a student is involved in making decisions about how
learning will take place, that student will be more likely to take ownership in
the learning. I am not advocating
that schools let students determine exactly what they are to learn or when they
will learn it. I believe that
students need to be introduced to specific materials, but letting the student
have a voice in how the learning is to take place may make both the teacher and
the learner more successful.
I believe technology is a tool that can be used to enhance student learning, and
I believe this learning can take place in the absence of competition and
isolation. For example, there are
now ways to communicate extensively with fellow students while taking an online
course. For some, the online course
setting encourages participation to a much larger degree than does the
traditional classroom. For
instance, a student may be uneasy about asking a question in front of a class
while asking it online is not a problem. Furthermore,
some who would not be able to travel to the traditional classroom may now have
the opportunity to learn. Therefore, I believe that technology can enhance instruction
and should be seen as a helpful tool rather than a necessary evil in education.
In this paper, I will attempt to speak to the following issues as well as
include my philosophies regarding them. These
issues are the impact of the industrial revolution and the effect Deming had on
organizational leadership, the idea of stewardship and partnership, the concept
of emotional leadership, how leaders deal with change, and how technology
affects diffusion of information throughout systems.
The Industrial Revolution and Deming
Today's view of effective leadership has changed significantly since the
Industrial Revolution. This is
true, in part, because of the thoughts made popular by Deming and the effects he
had on modern leadership ideologies.
The Industrial Revolution echoed the objective of obtaining a greater
profit. The set up of mass
production was seen as the solution that would allow companies to earn a greater
profit. The assembly line was an
example of efficiency advocated by Fredric Taylor.
Fredric Taylor was the top-level consultant in the U.S. with regard to
mass production who developed four principles of scientific management (Owens,
1998). These principles were to
eliminate guesswork through scientific measurements, to make worker selection
and training scientific, to utilize the concept of division of responsibility
and to use management to set objectives. While
scientific management may have worked for our society in the past, I believe
that in today's society it is ultimately less effective than management through
stewardship and partnership.
One of the leaders to facilitate the adoption and facilitation of
stewardship through participative management was W. Edwards Deming (Owens,
1998). Deming worked with Japanese
management introducing ideas such as power-sharing, a shared mission, conflict
management, and growth-enhancing management.
Through these innovations he supported the idea of participative
management and empowerment.
After seeing how Deming had turned Japanese industry around, leaders from
the Ford Company asked Deming to work with them (Owens, 1998). Ford's leaders were surprised when Deming noted the
importance of the culture and vision of the organization and that the production
of low-quality products was not the fault of the workers but the responsibility
of the managers. Deming's ideas
came to be known as Top Quality Management (TQM) and were adopted by several
American companies (Owens, 1998). These
adoptions of TQM led to wide acceptance of Deming's ideas.
I believe Deming's ideas are very important to organizations as is the
fact that Deming showed that they could be successfully implemented to
facilitate effective participative management.
Finally, I believe that participative management and the empowerment of
the worker bears important implications to the educational organization.
Through implementation and participation of those ideas it is possible to
get everyone in the organization involved to the point that they will take
ownership in the institution.
Stewardship and Partnership
The ideas of stewardship and partnership have become widely accepted as
effective means of leading in today's organizations.
These ideas support the premise that everyone in the organization should
have a voice in the running of that organization. According to Block (1993), we can either choose partnership
or patriarchy. It has been
traditional in our organizations to operate on the basis of patriarchy.
This means that employees operate under the guidance of managers who make
the decisions and impose them on the workers.
While this may seem to be a situation that workers would reject because
of a lack of opportunity, many are hesitant to give up what they perceive as
safety. This perception of safety originates in our long history of
having someone to "take care of us".
In other words, when there is a manager telling us what to do and when to
do it we become accustomed to being guided in every aspect of our function
within the organization. We are able to release some of the responsibility that
is involved in the decisions related to the task. For example, when one is told to do something he or she
believes will not work, the task may be completed anyway with the intention of
letting the blame fall onto the manager. I
believe it is this lack of ownership manifested through a sense of detachment
that has led to the demise of many organizations. If our organizations operate
based on the idea of partnership, decisions are based on what is good for the
company and everyone involved is given a voice in those decisions.
When we choose partnership we are given power in return for a promise
(Block, 1993). We promise to
operate for the good of the institution and, in return, we are given equal power
with others in the organization to make decisions to promote the institution.
Furthermore, I believe that through the ideas of partnership, managers
and workers can gain a true sense of ownership which may lead to the willingness
of all parties to accept greater responsibility for the actions of the
organizations. Finally, when
operating under the philosophy of partnership, the voice that everyone in the
organization is given promotes ownership in that organization.
This ownership not only gives people the authority to do what they
believe is right for the organization but may foster greater creativity
eventually yielding higher productivity.
Emotional Leadership
The concept of emotional leadership is one that is often ignored when
contemplating the important aspects of leadership.
I believe that leadership of an organization is leadership of emotions.
According to Friedman (1999), there are several major components of
leadership including self-differentiation, staying connected while remaining
non-reactive, having a non-anxious presence, managing triangles, and persistence
in the face of sabotage. Self-differentiation involves knowing what you believe and
pursuing those beliefs despite what others think. It also involves the maintenance of one's own function in the
organization. This means that one
should evaluate whether he or she is overfunctioning because when one is
overfunctioning in any relationship another is probably underfunctioning.
Staying connected while remaining non-reactive means that one understands
the vision of the organization and maintains a focus on its vision while, at the
same time, remaining detached enough that he or she is not overly anxious about
the processes of the institution. Having
a non-anxious presence involves having a calming effect on the organization by
remaining calm despite the situation present.
A leader who remains non-anxious can affect those following simply by
retaining a calming air about him or her. Managing
triangles includes being a part of a relationship without attempting to change
the relationship of others in the triangle.
The objective is maintaining one's positions without getting involved in
the disputes of others. Finally,
the persistence in the face of sabotage deals with the leader's ability to
realize that resistance will come when any leader takes the initiative in an
organization. The leader should
hold fast to his or her plans despite attempted sabotage by others and may even
realize that the existence of conflict indicates that he or she is probably
acting appropriately.
While I believe all these ideas Friedman (1999) spoke of are important in
being an effective leader, it is often very difficult to remain
self-differentiated with regard to all these beliefs.
However, I believe a leader can begin working on himself or herself in
these areas while learning to incorporate them all into a leadership style.
The knowledge of what self-differentiation involves can also be used to
better understand the processes and the actions of others within the
organization.
How Leaders Deal with Change
I believe it is important how leaders deal with change in organizations
and that they understand the processes of planned change so that they can have a
greater impact on change in the organization.
Different individuals define change in a variety of different ways (Jurrow,
1999). First, developmental change
is doing something the same way but doing it better.
Second, transitional change is finding a new way to do the same thing.
Third, transformational change is creating a new process to do something
different. Because organizations
have seen both developmental and transitional change function ineffectively, I
believe transformational change is the best way to facilitate lasting change in
an organization.
I believe it is important that a leader understands the processes of
planned change. According to Owens
(1998), there are three orientations helpful in planning and managing change.
They are empirical-rational strategies, power-coercive strategies, and
normative-reeducative strategies. Empirical-rational
changes involve linking findings of research to practices in education by
improving communication between researchers and practitioners.
Power-coercive strategies include the use of sanctions to obtain
compliance. Normative-reeducative
change focuses on deliberately shifting the culture of the organization toward
desired change by encouraging those working in the organization to participate
in the change process. I believe
that both empirical-rational and normative reeducative strategies are better
alternatives to power-coercive strategies because of the ownership facilitated
by involving workers in the change process.
Finally, I believe that when coercion is used to promote change, conflict
will arise because of the lack of participation in the decisions that are made
when initiating change.
Technology and Diffusion
I
believe that technology is not only a tool that can enhance instruction but
that, with it, we may have the capacity to affect the rate at which diffusion of
information occurs throughout systems and to other systems.
For example, Ward (2000) stated that technology will affect the process
of change as we know it. This
indicates that leaders should understand that technology can be used as a tool
to enhance both the educational process and the process of leadership.
This can be seen in such innovations as the use of the Internet to
facilitate instruction, the use of communication tools to enhance more efficient
transfer of information, and the use of multimedia to improve the presentation
of ideas.
Technology
may also expedite the diffusion of new innovations throughout the school system.
The traditional means of diffusing new ideas in education is neither
planned nor structured. According to Owens (1998) it typically takes about fifteen
years for innovation to spread to about three percent of school systems and
another twenty years for the change to be diffused into an area the size of the
average state. I believe this
slow-paced change has contributed to the attitude that nothing ever gets done
with regard to education. I also
believe that technology can be used to make the diffusion of innovation much
more expedient. For example, an
institution could use the Internet to make innovative ideas available to an
almost unlimited number of individuals and organizations virtually immediately. However, with the use of this tool, leaders must take greater
responsibility in being certain that planned change is appropriate before
allowing it to be diffused throughout the system.
Conclusion
Different
types of people may react differently to different types of leadership styles.
A leader can probably never make everyone in the institution happy at the
same time. However, I believe that
it is important that leaders realize and anticipate the differences in people.
It can be helpful to understand that there are different types of people
who each come from different perspectives on how things should be at work and in
life in general. According to Beck
and Cowan (1996), Graves said that
people progress through a series of levels as they grow throughout life.
Each level includes new insights above those of the levels already
progressed through which remain a part of the person. I
believe that Grave's theory may be used to promote a greater understanding of
philosophical differences and where these differences stem from.
While I do not advocate labeling individuals within an organization, I
may find it useful to use this theory as a framework to understand the
differences in people I encounter.
While scientific management may have worked for our society in the past,
I believe that in today's society it is ultimately less effective than
management through partnership and stewardship.
One of the leaders to facilitate the adoption and facilitation of
stewardship through participative management was W. Edwards Deming (Owens, 1998)
who introduced ideas such as power-sharing, a shared mission, conflict
management, and growth-enhancing management.
Through these innovations he supported the idea of participative
management and empowerment.
The
ideas of partnership and stewardship, empowering everyone in the organization
with a voice in the running of that organization, have become widely accepted as
effective means of leading in today's organizations.
The voice that everyone in the organization is given promotes ownership
in that organization giving people the authority to do what they believe is
right for the organization while fostering greater creativity that may
eventually yield higher productivity.
I
believe that leadership of an organization is leadership of emotions.
Friedman (1999) cited several major components of leadership including
self-differentiation, staying connected while remaining non-reactive, having a
non-anxious presence, managing triangles, and persistence in the face of
sabotage. I believe these ideas are
important in being an effective leader, though it is often very difficult to
remain self-differentiated. However,
I believe a leader can begin working on himself or herself in these areas while
learning to incorporate them all into a leadership style.
I
believe it is important how leaders deal with change in organizations and that
they understand the processes of planned change so that they can have a greater
impact on change in the organization. I
believe transformational change is the best way to facilitate lasting change in
an organization because organizations have so often seen both developmental and
transitional change function ineffectively.
Strategies of planned change include empirical-rational strategies,
power-coercive strategies, and normative-reeducative strategies.
I believe that both empirical-rational and normative reeducative
strategies are better alternatives to power-coercive strategies because of the
ownership facilitated by allowing workers to participate in the change process
involved in those strategies.
I
believe that technology is not only a tool that can enhance instruction but that
we may be able to affect the rate at which diffusion of information occurs
through its use. Furthermore,
leaders should understand that technology can be used as a tool to enhance both
the educational process and the process of leadership
As
a final note, I believe with the use of technology as a tool to facilitate
diffusion leaders must take greater responsibility in being certain that planned
change is appropriate before allowing its diffusion throughout the system.
References
Beck,
D. E. & Cowan, C. C. Spiral Dynamics:
Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Inc.