Leadership Reflections

Leadership is known as one of the top organizational values throughout my career experience in the corporate realm. During my first job in Japan, the leadership I experienced was traditional where a top-down style of leadership was preferred in a highly centralized and hierarchical context (Yokota, 2019). To fit in their transactional leadership culture, I recognized leaders as bosses who I had to respect and obey their instructions at the workplace because they possessed the authority to lead and instruct directions to their employees (Workman & Cleveland-Innes, 2012). Overtime, my perspective of leadership has changed through work and life experiences, and people who have influenced me as leaders such as managers, coaches, colleagues, and family members. I learned that leaders can be in different kinds of roles and managers are “paid to be accountable for results produced by others” as defined by Peter Senge (Sarder, 2015, 1:03). Considering this, my perspective of leadership in an organization today plays a critical role in providing strategic direction, guidance, support development, and empowerment for organizational success in both operations and people (BC Hydro, personal communication, February 3, 2023). This also affected my individual ranking of leadership attributes in activity two where “inspiring” came first then followed by “honest” and “forward-looking”. The ranking of these three leadership attributes was aligned with the research informed ones (Kouzes & Posner, 2011).

There are many meanings and implications of leadership as I acquired from the readings in unit one. Each definition has its own originality and distinctiveness which can be applied to different contexts. While technology is substantially related to our daily work and activities, I did not pay attention to the term “digital leader” or leadership attributes that are important in digital learning environments before this course. Wearing the lens of a digital leader who is defined as “proactive about exploring how information technology can help their organization become more responsive to their customers’ needs” (Readytech, n.d.) and understanding digital leadership that establishes direction, influences others, and initiates changes through access of technology (Sheninger, 2022), I agreed with Sheninger that the basic principles of leadership are still valuable and essential for leaders to succeed. Thus, inspiring, honest, and forward-looking are still my top choices of leadership attributes despite the emergent of technology in the corporate environment.

Inspiring

A few years ago, a colleague of mine (now a retiree) who was a subject matter expert in the finance field told me that she loved her job. How often do you hear people say they love their job? She was always dedicated to learning new technology (e.g., financial tools) and passionate about sharing her knowledge and skills with others in the company beyond the last day of her employment. I think she was an inspiring leader at the workplace because she had a sense of purpose and really cared about her colleagues, especially the ones who wanted to learn. Her leadership quality of inspiration resonates Senge’s definition of leadership, “the human contributions to shaping the spirit of enterprise” and “the capacity of a human community to shape its future” (Sarder, 2015, 2:26)

Honest

In my culture, I was taught and raised by the value of “treat others like how you wanted to be treated”. At my workplace, there is a motto in project management, “don’t promise what you can’t deliver”. Both examples convey the message that honesty earns respect and trust of followers, and cultivates their confidence in leaders’ commitments that will be followed through (Kouzes & Posner, 2011).

Forward-looking

Working at a provincial Crown corporation, owned by the government and people of British Columbia, I admire its executive leaders who are forward thinking and open to change. Customers use electricity in new ways as technologies advance, and the competitive landscape is shifting. Effective leaders have to be looking at the bigger picture and know where the organization is going that it is clear for others to join and follow (Kouzes & Posner, 2011).

To conclude, I believe anyone can be a leader if you have the passion for making an impact on other people’s behavior. As a life-long learner and a leader in my current role at work, I reckon there is so much more skills and knowledge that I need to learn from people around me. I also appreciate Kouzes and Posner share that “it is the long-term dedication to learning and development in leadership that you become the best you can” (The Leadership Challenge, 2012, 1:41). With technology continues to evolve rapidly, it is possible that the leadership attributes I selected today may not be the most applicable in my future digital learning context. I look forward to exploring future research on leadership and discovering the top ten leadership attributes when artificial intelligence (AI) become part of our norm.

References

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2011). Credibility: How leaders gain and lose it, why people demand It. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved from Books 24×7 e-book database. https://royalroads.skillport.com/skillportfe/assetSummaryPage.action?assetid=RW$564:_ss_book:43184#summary/BOOKS/RW$564:_ss_book:43184

Readytech. (n.d.). What is a digital leader (and do you need to be one)? ReadyTech. Retrieved February 5, 2023, from https://www.readytech.com.au/news-and-views/blog/what-is-a-digital-leader-and-do-you-need-to-be-one/

Sarder, R. (2015, June 4). What makes a great leader? By Peter Senge, author of the fifth discipline. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aYaj2-GZqk

Sheninger, E. (2022, August 31). 7 pillars of digital leadership. HMH. https://www.hmhco.com/blog/pillars-of-digital-leadership-in-education

The Leadership Challenge. (2012, July 20). Truth about leadership by Kouzes and Posner. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz4olUu9O0E

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

Yokota, H. (2019). Mapping four leadership styles in Japan: How has the role of the principal been shaped by policies? Journal of Educational Administration, 58(2), 187–207. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-03-2019-0032