One of my favourite MALAT readings thus far was Weller’s (2020) 25 Years of Edtech. Time and time again, I have returned to Weller’s book, and for good reason. While this book examined the historical evolution of educational technology from 1994 to 2018, I am drawn to Weller’s consistent reminder that education is an inherently human experience. True folly would be failing to acknowledge the human complexities of learning, even as society operates increasingly in digital spaces.
As we have started to explore leadership in the first weeks of LRNT 525, I have also reflected on the challenges of leading people and organizations, in both formal and informal roles, through two years of a global pandemic. With my middle school context in mind, I pondered the multifaceted nature of leadership in K-12 public education. Students lead other students, teachers lead students, teachers lead teachers, administration leads schools, trustees and superintendents lead systems, and so on. Regardless of the various configurations of leaders and followers, the constant in every situation is people. It can be argued that leadership, like learning, is also a foundationally human activity. With this in mind, it would be wise for leaders operating in both analog and digital spaces to adopt a people-first philosophy of leadership.
One of the readings I was particularly enthralled by was Julien, Wright, and Zinni’s (2010) exploration of Indigenous cultural views of leadership and their focus on the necessity of understanding leadership through various cultural lenses. The finding that Indigenous leadership takes a holistic perspective and is mindful of the “physical, mental, spiritual and emotional well-being of their employees and the community they serve” (p. 121) is refreshing. As I have gotten older, become a spouse, a mother, watched relationships within my family dynamics change from cared-for to care-giver, the fatigue that has resulted from constantly sprinting from role to role has at times been overwhelming. Leaders would be wise to adopt an open-minded, holistic leadership approach based on Indigenous perspectives that considers the overall well-being and the personal and professional lives of followers. This sense of responsibility and connectedness to others (Julien et al., 2010) would undoubtedly inspire followers to trust in their leaders and have the confidence that they will be valued, supported, and cared for by those in leadership positions.
Our cohort was challenged to individually rank the characteristics of admired leaders and then work with our teams to come to a group consensus on the ranking of each characteristic. My team’s ranking placed human-centered characteristics at the top of our list. To us, admired leaders are competent, honest, broad-minded, dependable, courageous, inspiring, supportive, and caring (Messier, 2022). Interestingly, Kouzes and Posner’s (2011) research supports the notion that people “willingly follow the direction of someone who is attuned to their aims and aspirations, worries and fears, ideals and images” (para. 7). Although their research resulted in rankings that were somewhat different that our team’s, they concluded that admired leaders are consistently perceived to be honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and competent. I was glad to observe the high value of honesty, both in my team’s ranking and in the research. As Kouzes and Posner (2011) argued, “employees must know they can trust their leader – as they can only do when someone is honest with them” (para. 23). The reciprocal dynamic of trust and honesty can in turn foster a relationship of respect between leaders and followers.
As I continue to study leadership and change in digital environments over the coming weeks, I will be curious to see how my thinking evolves. If I had the ability to see into the future, I predict (and hope) that a human-centered holistic approach to leadership is widely adopted in K-12 education systems and other industries. As Castelli (2016) argued, admired leaders have the potential to change the lives of their followers and “the legacy of the leaders’ influence is perpetuated through the followers’ incorporation of legacy principles into their lives as they become leaders” (p. 220). Separated physically by time and space, humans will increasingly meet, interact, and work behind screens in digital spaces. To successfully navigate this complex environment, it is critically important to remember the human nature of learning and leading, and ensure that leadership decisions are driven by a people-first mentality.
References
Castelli, P. A. (2016). Reflective leadership review: A framework for improving organisational performance. The Journal of Management Development, 35(2), 217–236. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-08-2015-0112
Julien, M., Wright, B., & Zinni, D. M. (2010). Stories from the circle: leadership lessons learned from aboriginal leaders. Leadership Quarterly, 21(1), 114–114.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2011). The characteristics of admired leaders. In Credibility: How leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass. https://royalroads.skillport.com/skillportfe/main.action?path=summary/BOOKS/43184#summary/BOOKS/RW$564:_ss_book:43184
Messier, S. (2022, January 5). Team C leadership attributes ranking result. Stephanie’s Blog: A MALAT Student Blog. https://malat-webspace.royalroads.ca/rru0225/team-c-leadership-attributes-ranking-result/
Weller, M. (2020). 25 Years of Ed Tech. Athabasca University Press. https://read.aupress.ca/projects/25-years-of-ed-tech
Hi Amber,
Thank you for your thoughtful post and reflection. I appreciated your point about how multi-faceted and complex leadership is within your context “Students lead other students, teachers lead students, teachers lead teachers, administration leads schools, trustees and superintendents lead systems, and so on.” It also reminded me of the points Myrna made in our synchronous session about the importance of developing leadership in our youth, and how some of this is being lost during the pandemic. So how do we foster this distributed leadership (and recognize it more explicitly) within our organizational systems and provide the needed mentorship for more members of the community to take on leadership roles? Your focus on the holistic indigenous perspective that has a sense of “responsibility and connectedness” and that “considers the overall well-being and the personal and professional lives” of those in the community might be an approach that could help provide this recognition. In your own context…what might a more holistic approach to leadership look like?
Hello Michelle,
Thank you so much for your comments. I worry that education, and society in general, is being eroded by a toxic individualism that blinds the average person to differing and varied perspectives. Today in math we had the students build cube-based shapes and then sketch 3D models of their shapes on isometric dot paper. As we encouraged the students to draw their shapes from different angles and perspectives, it dawned on me that this math class activity could be a metaphor for so much of what is happening in the world. Is society (and consequently public institutions) focused on one perspective? What is being lost or ignored by not examining shapes from multiple perspectives and angles? Would a holistic worldview that considers all faces and angles of each shape better inform understanding? There is so much data that is collected and communicated to the various levels of educational hierarchies, whether it be standardized provincial testing, report card data, high school graduation rates, and so on. I wonder if the data, although valuable, is only telling one part of the story. Public education could be radically changed by moving to a holistic Indigenous perspective based on community and connectedness in a circle, in which all participants are directly connected and leadership is distributed (Julien et al., 2010). By doing so, all community members would gain a more complete understanding of the various spokes of the wheel and best support the necessary change and resulting transformation.
References
Julien, M., Wright, B., & Zinni, D. M. (2010). Stories from the circle: leadership lessons learned from aboriginal leaders. Leadership Quarterly, 21(1), 114–114.
Hi Amber,
As I was reading your second paragraph, I recalled being a teenager myself, and listening to a speaker propose that we are all leaders in some capacity, at some times in our lives. Whether it’s a younger child, a sibling, a student, a member of our team; someone will look up to you and follow – a wonderful but also daunting concept!
Like you, I was really struck by Julien, Wright, and Zinni’s (2010) research. I see a lot of connections to servant, reflective, and distributed leadership, and while I acknowledge that we are a long way off the idealistic characteristics of these models, I am encouraged to be discussing them and hopeful that they will continue to rise in profile and implementation.
References
Julien, M., Wright, B., & Zinni, D. M. (2010). Stories from the circle: leadership lessons learned from aboriginal leaders. Leadership Quarterly, 21(1), 114–114.