Reflecting on previous readings and blog posts, my perspective on leadership has definitely shifted. I still agree with my previously identified “good leaders” from my experiences, but now I more purposefully identify some of the strategies they implemented that made them good leaders.
Two highlighted leadership attributes from initial conversations that have I’ve increasingly appreciated and recognized is that of communication and supportive. Leaders that can clearly describe expectations and provide the resources you need to complete those tasks are setting you up for success. As Workman described, leaders that are supportive will share values and advocate for the success of the group (2012). Previously I had thought of leadership mostly in terms of a transactional perspective, even if most of the leaders I admired most were participating in much more in adaptive leadership (Khan, 2017). Flexibility to support individuals can curate a stronger group/community that will get better results and be more enjoyable along the way.
In my current role, I do have decent amount of opportunities for helping lead change, but as a university and well run team, I do think a lot of processes are quite mature in their implementation. We do have a culture of continuous change which helps normalize consistent checking and updating, but many of our systems and processes are quite well defined, documented, supported making it a challenge to try to continually improve (Al-Haddad,& Kotnour, 2015). There are systems and processes I identify as weaker compared to others in my context, but accounting for the complexity of systems, sometimes we are locked into a contract or there simply isn’t a better solution out there yet. I enjoy and continue to try creating and finding new solutions that will improve a process or experience even in the smallest way.
Thinking of change in the future, I can definitely foresee joining a “younger” organization looking to build up capacity and processes around learning technologies. With change being such a challenge with low success rates, I think I’d really enjoy bringing my perspectives to provide vision to potential objectives and the ability to help guide them (Al-Haddad,& Kotnour, 2015). There is definitely comfort in knowing your current context is well established and still being challenged, but building from the ground up has a certain excitement about it. Whatever the future does hold, I know complexity isn’t going away and change is inevitable. I hope to take on lots of change challenges and beat the odds.
References
Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of organizational change management, 28(2), 234-262.
Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or Transactional Leadership in Current Higher Education: A Brief Comparison. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3), 178-183.
Workman, T., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2012). Leadership, personal transformation, and management. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 13(4), 313-323. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v13i4.1383
Recent Comments