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My approach to leadership is grounded in my experiences as a military member. Leading a section during Peacekeeper Operations had the most profound impact on my understanding of the term leadership. I took these lessons learned as a Section Commander with me to my subsequent careers to model the leadership attributes of care, personal integrity, fairness, and courage.\u00a0 Rarely have I seen a change in a work context significantly alter my perception of an effective leadership approach. \u00a0I have seen leadership strategies in many contexts, (military, business, education, and the trades). I \u00a0cannot prescribe to a specific theory that would determine success across disciplines as every leader I thought exemplary has had a different style. My leadership philosophy is derived from my military culture where personal integrity, competence, and care and consideration for others outperforms any other attribute or expressed theory. \u00a0 The one thing good leaders seem to share is the ability to build capacity in others.\u00a0\u00a0 As articulated by Peter Senge, \u201cthe people in our lives that influenced us are in all kinds of roles\u201d (Sarder, 2015).\u00a0\u00a0 Leaders enable coach, mentor, and discipline to develop a trust relationship. Military leadership doctrine defines trust as an important part of a leader\u2019s job and it is developed through one’s decisions, actions, and interactions. (Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, 2005). It took considerable time for me to fully appreciate the importance of developing trust as a defining characteristic of my ability to lead. How does this impact my current work?<\/p>\n
Digital technologies haven\u2019t significantly changed how I lead in a classroom. They have however changed the nature of communications as my current students demand less formal multiple channels which have both aided and detracted my ability to disseminate information. Information is readily shared but requires continual scanning by the user and repetition from the sender.\u00a0 Sheninger (2014) explains \u201cDigital leadership is about engaging all stakeholders in two-way communication.\u201d\u00a0 Asynchronous digital communications have changed the game and one solution is an adaptive leadership style to respond to the pace of change afforded by the technology. Leaders need to \u201cdelegating responsibilities, and including followers in the analysis and decision-making process\u201d (Khan, 2017).\u00a0 Flexibility is required to make use of a multitude of the plethora of technology choices to employ and support in the classroom. While somewhat inclusive adaptive leadership doesn\u2019t quite go far enough in responding to the complexities of digital environments as it still maintains a clear separation between leader and followers.<\/p>\n
Distributed leadership, however, is well suited to leading in a digital learning environment.\u00a0 The nature of the digital environment necessitates an alternative approach to leading it.\u00a0 The growth of digital learning networks and collaborative partnerships naturally mandate a distributed approach. Harris & Spillane (2008) point out \u201cIn the increasingly complex world of education the work of leadership will require diverse types of expertise and forms of leadership flexible enough to meet changing challenges and new demands. (p. 31).\u00a0 It makes good sense to distribute the leadership function across multiple stakeholders. In my context, the stakeholders are students, instructors, designers, and a traditional hierarchal educational staff structure. A distributed structure closely mimics social media elements in the way it behaves and governs, so I think it\u2019s a natural fit.\u00a0 \u201cDistributed leadership \u2026 is a way of getting under the skin of leadership practice, of seeing leadership practice differently and illuminating the possibilities for organizational transformation.\u201d(Harris & Spillane 2008)<\/p>\n
No one person can effectively lead a complex institution, and shared leadership responsibilities among the stakeholders is an effective, scalable strategy to meet the present and future challenges.\u00a0 Shared leadership allows for effective succession planning by developing leadership capacity at all levels.\u00a0 My appreciation for a Distributed leadership model is derived from my military experience and despite being an intensely hierarchal institution; it relies heavily on delegating authority. \u00a0Like a digital learning environment, its complexity and disseminated nature required a flexible leadership tactic afforded by distributed leadership.<\/p>\n
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References<\/p>\n
Harris, A., Spillane, J. (2008). Distributed leadership through the looking glass. Management in Education 22(1<\/em>), 31\u201334. doi 10.1177\/0892020607085623<\/p>\n Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada. (2005). Leadership in the Canadian Forces. Ottawa. Retrieved from http:\/\/publications.gc.ca\/collections\/collection_2013\/dn-nd\/D2-313-1-2005-eng.pdf<\/p>\n Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or Transactional Leadership in Current Higher Education: A Brief Comparison. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning review of Research in Open and distributed Learning<\/em>, 18<\/em>(3), 178\u2013182. Retrieved from http:\/\/www.irrodl.org\/index.php\/irrodl\/article\/view\/3294\/4150<\/p>\n Sarder, R. (Producer). (2015). What makes a great leader?\u00a0 [Video file] Retrieved from YouTube https:\/\/youtu.be\/1aYaj2-GZqk<\/p>\n Sheninger, E. (2014). Pillars of digital leadership. International Centre for Leadership in Education.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My approach to leadership is grounded in my experiences as a military member. Leading a section during Peacekeeper Operations had the most profound impact on my understanding of the term leadership. I took these lessons learned as a Section Commander… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0068\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0068\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0068\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0068\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0068\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0068\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0068\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0068\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0068\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0068\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}