{"id":306,"date":"2024-02-04T13:38:02","date_gmt":"2024-02-04T21:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/?p=306"},"modified":"2024-02-04T13:38:02","modified_gmt":"2024-02-04T21:38:02","slug":"leadership-to-me-is-all-about-the-feeling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/leadership-to-me-is-all-about-the-feeling\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership to me is all about the feeling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Image source: Articulate content library<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While working on our team consensus for activity three, my teammate Ano<\/a> reminded me of one of my favourite quotes of all time: \u201cPeople will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> I had attributed this quote to Maya Angelou but it appears that I was wrong, that Dr. Angelou did say this quote but it was not originally from her (\u201cThey May Forget What You Said, But They Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel,\u201d 2014<\/a>). Regardless, I think this quote captures an important aspect of leadership qualities for me. Leadership is about people and how those people are made to feel. This may be why the lasting effects of stellar and poor leadership impact us so deeply, and why the way a leader makes us feel can lead to lasting change.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our personal introductions for this class I shared that I was hesitant to reflect upon leadership in education because I had been in such a role and didn\u2019t feel it suited me. Since then I\u2019ve realized I was wrong, I was reflecting upon my experience in Management (which is a role) and not Leadership which, according to author Peter Senge can be \u201cthe capacity of a human community to shape its future\u201d (as cited in Sarder, 2015, 2:43 – 2:49<\/a>). I have been thinking of Leadership as what I once did, as a Manager of a corporate training team, when in fact I was not given any ownership in that role for strategy, vision, or empowering my team to invest in their continuing education. I realize now that my rejection of Management has actually been a reaction to disliking the role, not disliking the opportunity in Leadership to care for people<\/em>, to encourage innovation<\/em> and personal growth<\/em>, while developing a strategic vision for the future rooted in collaboration. That, I realize, is the type of Leadership I want in a modern learning team.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how do I want those in Leadership to make me feel as a passionate adult educator and digital learning advocate? One of the attributes I want to see in my Leaders is a dedication to personal development and life-long learning. My beliefs here align very much with a feminist approach to leadership, one where \u201csocial justice, individually and collectively transforming themselves to use their power, resources and skills in non-oppressive, inclusive structures and processes to mobilize others\u201d (Batliwala, 2010, p. 14<\/a>) is highly valued. The social justice lens of this feminist perspective may seem odd coming from someone who works in corporate learning, but for me it is complimentary as these ideals encourage upwards mobility, opportunity, and supporting others in building on their skills to reach their goals. A few years ago I facilitated a leadership development program at my organization which was influenced by the concept of strengths-based inclusive leadership and a book by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie (2008)<\/a>. In their book, Rath and Conchie propose that in order to build effective teams leaders should focus on building on their employees\u2019 existing strengths, instead of micro-managing their weaknesses. This concept makes a lot of sense to me as it aligns with my feminist perspectives of redistributing power so it doesn\u2019t reside only with the Leader (Batliwala, 2010, p. 17 – 18<\/a>), but also with building trusting teams where individuals share a sense of psychological safety and trust, knowing their individual strengths are seen and valued. I have seen this be effective in the learning team I belong to; when our leaders have a sense of trust and build psychological safety with us, we know we are able to be innovative, take risks, and try new things. As an employee, it\u2019s under these sorts of leaders who prioritize life-long learning and psychological safety that I know I can perform my best and be the most innovative. Aren\u2019t those both results which are highly prized in the digital learning space?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As our class further explored Leadership in this unit I also realized I value Leaders who invest heavily in their own personal development and share their growth with their team. This level of role modeling encourages me on my own personal development journey. Workman & Cleveland-Innes (2012)<\/a> include this in their definition of \u201ctrue\u201d leadership, stating that\u00a0 \u201cLeadership without personal transformation is simply different forms of management\u201d (p. 314<\/a>). I still remember how it made me feel the first time a Leader told me they were wrong about a previously-held belief, that something they had learned made them challenge their previous perception. In their paper, Castelli (2016)<\/a> lists this attribute – challenging beliefs and assumptions to develop creative solutions to problems<\/em> – as one of several reflective leadership practices, along with psychological safety and building trust, open communication, relating a team\u2019s work to a broader organizational strategy, building self-esteem, and valuing a team\u2019s diversity (p. 221 – 226<\/a>). Seeing a leader\u2019s own personal transformation as part of their leadership strategy within a team that values innovation, personal growth, and psychological safety allows me bring my authentic self to work, take risks, and continue to improve my performance. If I do ever rejoin the ranks of Leadership in the corporate world I\u2019m confident I will incorporate these reflective leadership practices with a feminist approach, which I\u2019m sure will leave my teammates with a lasting feeling that their contributions are valued.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

They May Forget What You Said, But They Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel<\/em>. (2014, April 6). https:\/\/quoteinvestigator.com\/2014\/04\/06\/they-feel\/<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Batliwala, S. (2010). Feminist Leadership for Social Transformation: Clearing the Conceptual Cloud<\/em>. https:\/\/creaworld.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/feminist-leadership-clearing-conceptual-cloud-srilatha-batliwala.pdf<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Castelli, P. A. (2016). Reflective leadership review: a framework for improving organisational performance. Journal of Management Development<\/em>, 35<\/em>(2), 217\u2013236. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1108\/JMD-08-2015-0112<\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths Based Leadership<\/em> (1st ed.). Gallup Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarder, R. . (2015, June 4). What makes a great leader? by Peter Senge, Author of The Fifth Discipline<\/em>. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1aYaj2-GZqk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workman, T., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2012). Leadership, personal transformation, and management. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning<\/em>, 13<\/em>(4), 313\u2013323. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.19173\/irrodl.v13i4.1383<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image source: Articulate content library While working on our team consensus for activity three, my teammate Ano reminded me of one of my favourite quotes of all time: \u201cPeople will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.\u201d I had attributed this quote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}