In this activity we are reflecting on our learning throughout this course. My perspective on leadership at the beginning of the course was that I was most-aligned with values-based leadership (O’Toole, 2008). This was the leadership theory that I was most aligned with of the theories we covered, and there are, of course, many other leadership theories. I have since come across servant-based leadership, and would describe my leadership perspective as leaning in this direction also (van Dierendonck, & Patterson, 2010). I have yet to come across a single leadership theory that defines my leadership philosophy.
I do not think that my perspective on leadership has changed, but I have an improved ability to describe my leadership philosophy and compare and contrast it with theories in the literature.
In my current role, I have led multiple, major learning technology implementations, and frequently lead smaller changes, all of which affect, and hopefully benefit, a large number of stakeholders. In the future I envision leading more learning technology implementations, and bringing my knowledge from past experience to continuously help improve outcomes. I believe leadership, project management, and change management all benefit greatly from experience, and that reading about theory by itself is only the first step. Also, theories are often idealistic and can clash with real-world realities such as limited time, limited resources, and concern for efficiency. For example, it may be nice to communicate regularly with all stakeholders, but in many projects this isn’t realistic.
References
O’Toole, J. (2008). Notes toward a definition of values-based leadership. The Journal of Values-based leadership, 1(1), 10.
van Dierendonck, D., & Patterson, K. (2010). Servant leadership. In Servant Leadership (pp. 3-10). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Hi Jason, I find it interesting that focussed your reflection on theory. We certainly did introduce some leadership and change theories but had endeavoured to have you apply or link them to managing digital learning projects. As you note, theory is a first step and actual experience of technological change within an organization provides you with a full understanding of the challenges and the need for effective leadership. The session with Darcy Norman and Brian Lamb brought some of that experience to light. I hope your final assignment will elaborate on how you consider regular communication with stakeholders to be unrealistic in some project situations and how you mitigate that problem?
Hi Carrie,
It sounds like you’re wanting to hear more of my thoughts based on my experience in assignment 4, but the rubric for assignment 4 states that “statements are backed by evidence from the literature”. I’m unclear about what you want now. My assignment 4 is mostly done, but I was actually concerned that it had too many statements in it based on my experience and was going to try to remove them and just focus on statements that could be clearly supported by the literature.
Hi Jason,
The same happens to me often when I get rolling writing about a topic that I relate with my experiences, and it is kind of frustrating when I try to support it with literature that I cannot find… because the experiences were so “original” that it is hard to find some written material that mirrors them…
Carrie’s suggestion is very helpful and interesting… I might try that in the future.
Cheers!
Hi Alfonso,
That’s exactly the issue I have, having an idea based on my experience but not being able to find anything in the literature to support it, even if it seems like it is almost certainly true. I left a couple of statements in my assignment 4 that I wrote as “in my experience…”. However, in past post-secondary courses I’ve completed (LRNT525 is number 68), I have found that instructors don’t usually value hearing about personal experiences unless the assignment specifically asks for it, so I tend to omit them.
Sorry Jason, no worries – I should not have implied that you needed to include anything more in an assignment due tomorrow! I was just curious to know more about that statement and it would have made for an interesting discusssion. The limitation of asynchronous – we may have had time to have this discussion in a hallway or after class or something!
Your statements in the assignment should be backed by the literature of course, but they can still be your ideas. If they are truly original ideas then you can only obliquely back them up by saying stuff like “Burton (2007) says………but I have found that …… and then you would need to say if this is anecdotal observation or actual research. Email me if this doesn’t make sense.
That makes complete sense, and I’ll likely use your suggestion in my assignment. Thanks, Carrie!