{"id":446,"date":"2023-02-04T16:01:46","date_gmt":"2023-02-05T00:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/?p=446"},"modified":"2023-02-04T16:01:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-05T00:01:47","slug":"reflections-on-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/reflections-on-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Our first assignment for our most recent course asks us to reflect on our thoughts about leadership. At first, this was a fairly straightforward assignment, but after reflecting on our readings, I thought this was a more complex task than I initially thought.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Leadership by\u00a0Nick Youngson<\/a>\u00a0CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>\u00a0Pix4free<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An excellent place to start this conversation is with a definition. To prove my point earlier, defining leadership is complicated. Workman and Cleveland-Innes (2012) allude to the plethora of definitions available. Fitzgerald (2003) discusses the problematic definition of educational leadership in neglecting gender, race, and socioeconomic status, and O\u2019Toole (2008) bluntly states that values-based leadership is nearly impossible to define. The question remains, what is leadership?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, leadership is about leading people cumulatively towards a goal and achieving their personal best. Referring back to Workman and Cleveleand-Innes\u2019 (2012) definition, leadership is inspiring, supporting, and guiding others to attain personal growth. To add to this definition, O\u2019Toole (2008) also mentions that leaders unite people with differing agendas toward a common purpose; therefore, leaders foster personal growth and connect people towards a common goal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the challenges of defining leadership, I found it much easier to list the qualities of a good leader. One of our initial tasks for this course was to rank a list of twenty leadership characteristics; my top five were supportive, competent, dependable, cooperative, and caring. However, after discussing our rankings as a team and engaging in our required readings, my characteristics regarding leaders changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working as a group was enlightening as I could listen and discuss different perspectives on what these characteristics mean to each group member. Three of us work in the education field, and two of our members are in corporate settings. Our varied workplaces illustrated how leadership could be viewed and valued differently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite our varied backgrounds, we all found our leadership qualities challenged after the readings. Gill mentioned that she initially ranked the characteristics from more of a managerial perspective, then realized that leading is different than managing. As Sarder (2015) states, managing is more of an operations role, whereas leadership is about \u201cspirit\u201d and passion for change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this new perspective on leadership, characteristics I had initially ranked in the top five (supportive, competent, dependable, and cooperative) seemed less about leading and more about managing. After careful reflection during our group discussions and readings, I rearranged leadership values to reflect my new understanding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, I realized that there is a certain amount of courage that is needed to be an effective leader, digital or otherwise. O\u2019Toole (2008) alludes to this in his discussion about uniting people with different values; this can often lead to conflict and would take a certain amount of courage to address. In Huggins et al.\u2019s (2017) article, the courage lies within leaders relinquishing control to support and promote others\u2019 personal growth. It also takes courage to question traditional leadership definitions and practices to reflect a more diverse population, as Fitzgerald (2003) discusses in her article regarding indigenous women\u2019s voices in educational leadership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More specifically, digital leadership requires a certain amount of courage. As Sheninger (2019) states that to promote a digital culture, schools must \u201cBoldly move\u2026forward\u2026\u201d (para. 6); to do this, leaders must relinquish control. Certainly, this will take courage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of my initial leadership characteristics remain the same. Competency is significant in digital leadership; leaders should be aware of how to leverage technology to create a supportive digital learning culture (Sheninger, 2019). Caring is also a key component. Sarder (2015) discusses that leaders should be passionate and caring about their causes. Digital leaders are no different; they should be passionate about technology and change to promote this mindset in their employees and workplaces (Sheninger, 2019). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my own experiences as a K-12 teacher, I also see much value in leaders being broad-minded.\u00a0Being open to new and different ideas allows for creativity and innovation (Buchanan, 2018). It would seem that digital leaders would need to have a broad mindset in order to foster innovative ideas. Being broad-minded can also build trust and allow for open and honest communication, traits that Kouzes & Posner (2011) suggest build credibility and good leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The readings I have pursued regarding leadership have allowed me to reflect on what I truly value in a digital leader. If we use Sheninger\u2019s (2019) definition of digital leadership as using technology to encourage and foster a digital culture within our learning and work environments, leaders should be courageous, competent, caring, and broad-minded.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buchanan, C. (2018, August 20). Leadership tip of the week: Being open-minded. The Ohio State University<\/em>.\u00a0https:\/\/fisher.osu.edu\/blogs\/leadreadtoday\/blog\/leadership-tip-of-the-week-being-open-minded<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fitzgerald, T. (2003).  Changing the deafening silence of indigenous women\u2019s voices in educational leadership. Journal of Educational Administration<\/em>, 41<\/em>(1), 9-23. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1108\/09578230310457402<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huggins, K.S. (2017). Developing leadership capacity in others: An Examination of high school principals\u2019 personal capacities for fostering leadership. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership<\/em>, 12<\/em>(1). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.22230\/ijepl.2017v12n1a670<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2011). Credibility : How leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it<\/em> (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Toole, J. (2008). Notes toward a definition of values-based leadership<\/a>. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership<\/em>, 1<\/em>(1). https:\/\/scholar.valpo.edu\/jvbl\/vol1\/iss1\/10<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarder, R. (Producer). (2015, June 4). What makes a great leader?  by Peter Senge, author of the Fifth Discipline<\/em> <\/em><\/strong>[Video]. Youtube. <\/em><\/strong>https:\/\/youtu.be\/1aYaj2-GZqk<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheninger, E. (2019, December 19). Pillars of digital leadership. International Centre for Leadership in Education. <\/em>http:\/\/www.leadered.com\/pdf\/LeadingintheDigitalAge_11.14.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workman, T., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2012). Leadership, personal transformation, and management.<\/a> The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 13<\/em>(4), 313-323. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.19173\/irrodl.v13i4.1383<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our first assignment for our most recent course asks us to reflect on our thoughts about leadership. At first, this was a fairly straightforward assignment, but after reflecting on our readings, I thought this was a more complex task than I initially thought.\u00a0 Leadership by\u00a0Nick Youngson\u00a0CC BY-SA 3.0\u00a0Pix4free An excellent place to start this conversation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}