{"id":185,"date":"2018-02-11T18:10:22","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T02:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/?p=185"},"modified":"2018-02-11T18:18:46","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T02:18:46","slug":"personal-leadership-assignment-1-lrnt525","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/personal-leadership-assignment-1-lrnt525\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal Leadership – Assignment 1 LRNT525"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my leadership experience, digital technologies have been an enabler.\u00a0 It is important not simply to use technology, but to leverage it for a purpose: \u00a0to improve efficiency or effectiveness or provide new capability or capacity (Bates, 2015; Hartsell & Wang, 2013).\u00a0 Leaders are responsible for ensuring success when implementing new technology, but they also play a large role in determining to \u201cwhat extent technology is integrated\u201d into the workplace or classroom (Mahoney & Khwaja, 2016).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since joining the military almost 19 years ago, I have taken on a variety of leadership roles, each requiring a different approach.\u00a0 The leadership style that I have used has changed as I gained more experience, became more comfortable as a leader (Spencer, 2018) and reflected on how I could improve my leadership (Castelli, 2016).\u00a0 Despite these changes, I have consistently relied on the twelve principles of leadership (CFLI, 2007) taught in Basic Training and continually reinforced throughout my career.\u00a0 Regardless of the leadership approach taken, principles of leadership remain the constant foundation.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My leadership approach<\/span><\/h5>\n

Relatively early in my career, I lead an organization of 120 people as an Aircraft Maintenance Officer.\u00a0 Leading in this role was relatively simple as the mission (ensure aircraft were available to meet the flying schedule) and my position and role in the organization were all very clear.\u00a0 My leadership at that time was supported by my position and rank, what O\u2019Toole (2008) calls power, as despite my technical knowledge, I had very little experience leading people.\u00a0 Luckily, this was a developmental position and I had several very knowledgeable senior non-commissioned officers to support me. \u00a0So although I was technically their boss, we approached leadership challenges as a team, what O\u2019Toole (2008) denotes as shared leadership.\u00a0 This command team approach which encourages a form of shared leadership is present throughout the military (Guy, 2010).\u00a0 In addition to a shared leadership approach reinforced by position and rank, I conveyed my support for suggestions from technicians relating to more efficient or effective ways to achieve the mission.\u00a0 I then ensured that good suggestions were embodied.\u00a0 \u00a0My support and actions were the beginnings of a transformational approach to leadership (Vermeulen, Kreijns, Van Buuren & Van Acker, 2017).\u00a0 This approached encouraged one of the maintenance technicians to bring forward the idea to purchase large SMART boards that could be used to display detailed schematics for trouble-shooting faults and teaching more junior technicians about the systems.\u00a0 I coordinated the purchase and associated training and the organization immediately saw success as groups congregated around the boards troubleshooting, teaching and learning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost 15 years later, I now lead a smaller team of just four full-time employees and three part-time students as the Airworthiness Training Team Lead.\u00a0 However, my current role requires far more leadership ability as most of my work requires influencing people outside of my team including contracted resources, personnel within other organizations, course instructors, other team leads and section heads.\u00a0 I approach each situation slightly differently, modifying my approach based on the individuals involved, the goal or objective and other situational factors which denotes a situational style (O\u2019Toole, 2008). \u00a0However, to the greatest extent possible, I leverage a combination of distributed leadership (Huggins, 2017) and transformational leadership (Vermeulen et al., 2017) both within my team and outside of my team.\u00a0 By ensuring that I share with others a clear vision and support innovative execution including risk taking, I am able to leverage resources outside of my team to participate in and lead projects (Hartsell & Wang, 2013).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have leveraged technology in this role to enable communication between team members spread out across the country, meaning we can hire very specific resources with particular specialty knowledge.\u00a0 Without leveraging digital communication methods, completing course design using these specialists would not be possible.\u00a0 Additionally, I have leveraged available online courses to provide specific training to my part-time students.\u00a0 Using these in combination with mentorship and a training package that I developed has allowed them to become effective very quickly.\u00a0 We have also used sharepoint surveys to implement Kohn\u2019s 2+2+2 booster method (2014), combining the use of technology with the test effect (Larsson Sundqvist, 2017) to ensure our students retain course material long after the course is completed.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Leading change in a digital learning environment<\/span><\/h5>\n

The literature identifies empowerment of others and support of risk taking as key leadership characteristics in leading change in digital learning (Huggins, 2017; Hartsell & Wang, 2013).\u00a0 Despite this, I trial or pilot new technology in a specific context first before applying it to every course.\u00a0 This allows us to focus on ensuring that the pilot is successful and allows the opportunity to capture lessons learned before a wider role-out.\u00a0 Supporting risk, but also managing and mitigating risk is important to successfully leading change and is supported by the leadership principles, \u201cmotivate by\u2026sharing risks and\u2026learn from experience\u201d (CFLI, 2007, p. 10).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is also important for leaders in a digital learning environment to model the use of technology (Creighton, 2003; Hartsell & Wang, 2013; Mahoney & Khwaja, 2016).\u00a0 Although I don\u2019t have all the new gadgets, I never pass up the opportunity to try out a new learning application or tool and I enjoy reading new research.\u00a0 The leadership principles \u201cachieve professional competence and pursue self-improvement\u2026and\u2026lead by example\u201d (CFLI, 2007, p. 10) support the practice of modeling the use of technology.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Based on my experience, it is also very important to ensure that technology is leveraged to create an advantage that maintains or improves communication (Sheninger, 2014). \u00a0A leader can not be effective without a good understanding of the requirements of their follower and a way to communicate their vision (CFLI, 2007).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/span><\/h5>\n

The technology leader should \u201cmanage, plan, implement, and evaluate the technology\u2019s effectiveness in serving various purposes\u201d (Hartsell & Wang, 2013, p. 1).\u00a0 A leader working in a digital learning environment must empower others, support risk taking, model the use of technology and ensure communication is maintained or improved.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

References:<\/span><\/h5>\n

Bates, A. W. (2015). Teaching in a digital age<\/a>. BC Campus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Canadian Forces Leadership Institute (CFLI).\u00a0 (2007).\u00a0 Leadership in the Canadian Forces.\u00a0 Retrieved from http:\/\/publications.gc.ca\/collections\/collection_2013\/dn-nd\/D2-313-3-2007-eng.pdf<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Castelli, P. (2016). Reflective leadership review: a framework for improving organisational performance<\/a>. Journal of Management Development, 35(2), 217-236.<\/span><\/p>\n

Creighton, T. (2003). The principal as technology leader. Corwin Press.<\/span><\/p>\n

Guy, S.\u00a0 (2010, November 3).\u00a0 The command team:\u00a0 a key enabler.\u00a0 Canadian Military Journal.\u00a0 Retrieved from http:\/\/www.journal.forces.gc.ca\/vo11\/no1\/12-guy-eng.asp<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Hartsell, T., & Wang, S. (2013). Introduction to Technology Integration and Leadership. In S. Wang, & T. Hartsell (Eds.), Technology Integration and Foundations for Effective Leadership (pp. 1-17). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. doi:10.4018\/978-1-4666-2656-0.ch001<\/span><\/p>\n

Huggins, K. S. (2017). Developing Leadership Capacity in Others: An Examination of High School Principals’ Personal Capacities for Fostering Leadership. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 12(1).<\/span><\/p>\n

Kohn, A.\u00a0 (2014, May 15).\u00a0 Brain Science: Enable Your Brain to Remember Almost Everything.\u00a0 Retrieved from https:\/\/www.learningsolutionsmag.com\/articles\/1423\/brain-science-enable-your-brain-to-remember-almost-everything<\/span><\/p>\n

Larsson Sundqvist, M. (2017).\u00a0Effects of retrieval and articulation on memory (Doctoral dissertation, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University).<\/span><\/p>\n

Mahoney, K. R., & Khwaja, T. (2016). Living and Leading in a Digital Age: A Narrative Study of the Attitudes and Perceptions of School Leaders about Media Literacy. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 8(2), 77-98.<\/span><\/p>\n

O’Toole, J. (2008). Notes toward a definition of values-based leadership. The Journal of Values-based leadership, 1(1), 10.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sheninger, E. (2014). Pillars of digital leadership<\/a>. International Centre for Leadership in Education.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spencer, C.\u00a0 (2018, February 5).\u00a0 Activity 1 FlipGrid Summary. \u00a0[Blog post].\u00a0 Retrieved from https:\/\/moodle.royalroads.ca\/moodle\/mod\/forum\/discuss.php?d=454125<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Vermeulen, M., Kreijns, K., Van Buuren, H., & Van Acker, F. (2017). The role of transformative leadership, ICT\u2010infrastructure and learning climate in teachers’ use of digital learning materials during their classes. British Journal of Educational Technology, 48(6), 1427-1440.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my leadership experience, digital technologies have been an enabler.\u00a0 It is important not simply to use technology, but to leverage it for a purpose: \u00a0to improve efficiency or effectiveness or provide new capability or capacity (Bates, 2015; Hartsell & Wang, 2013).\u00a0 Leaders are responsible for ensuring success when implementing new technology, but they also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[57,55,56,58],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525","tag-digital-leadership","tag-leadership","tag-leading-change","tag-leading-with-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0037\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}