Looking back on my first reflection on leadership, I do not think that too many of my thoughts had changed except for one: my role in project or change management. In my original reflection, I discussed some essential characteristics of a leader, such as caring, competence, and communication. Those are things I would look for in a leader. Being communicative is an essential characteristic for me, especially with recent shifts happening at my work. There are a few new employees and others taking on newer roles, and sometimes there is miscommunication. As Shenigner (2022) pointed out, communication is one of the essential pillars of digital leadership. The last few weeks have shown me the importance of keeping communication open between leaders and employees and among colleagues, which I am working on, and it brings me to reflect on my role in digital leadership.
In another blog post, I discussed my thoughts on my work role. Initially, I reflected on my role as part of operations rather than on project management (Watt et al., 2014). Throughout the different assignments in this class, I have some characteristics that align with change management and digital leadership. For instance, I am adaptable and flexible when things change that are out of our control, which are traits of an adaptive leader (Khan, 2017). When completing our last assignment for this class, we had to think of a plan to incorporate a technology change. Upon researching and writing the plan for this assignment, I realized I have many ideas for incorporating technology into my organization for educators and children. For instance, when researching e-portfolios in early childhood settings, there were ideas on making portfolios more child-centred (Bedel et al., 2024), which I would like to incorporate. Thus, upon reflection, I have ideas that can benefit my work, and perhaps I have more leadership traits than I initially thought. I aim to continue discussing these ideas and incorporate them into my work one day.
References
Bedel, E. F., İnce, S., & Başalev Acar, S. (2024). Voices from the field: Integrating e-portfolios in early childhood education. Education and Information Technologies.
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). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i3.3294
For this blog, we were asked to reflect on a recent project that we were involved in. Initially, I struggled with this as where I work, the educators are not entirely involved in the project management process but rather in the operation (Watt et al., 2014). When a change is being implemented, the ideas are brought by the daycare’s director to the educators and the board of directors. After an idea is approved, the change/project can begin. The person in charge of the project is usually the daycare’s director, and throughout the process, they inform the board of directors and educators on how the project is progressing. Thus, as I mentioned above, I am not part of managing a project but rather an operation.
An example of a project the director headed was creating a website for the daycare. Initially, the daycare needed an online presence; it took much work for potential parents or employees to find information about the daycare. The director decided we needed a website for a better online presence. The creation of the website was the project, and the maintenance of the site and the backend was the operation, as it is ongoing and repetitive (Knolscape, 2013). The website aimed for parents to access important documents, like schedules, lunch menus and photos of special events. The goal for potential employees is to look at the website to gain information on our philosophy and mission.
Once the website was created, it was up to the director to maintain it by continuously inputting the documents or photos. Because it is time-consuming to input these documents or images, I was appointed to be the person to do so. There were some barriers to the website as some parents were apprehensive about putting the children’s images online, making this barrier a cultural norm issue (Conway et al., 2017), as this website was new and parents were unsure of how it worked. Parents were given an account with a password to access these images to ensure this issue was resolved. Moreover, the parents are asked to sign a permission slip; if they still do not want their child on the site, we make sure not to use their photos. Implementing these accounts and permission slips made the parents feel more comfortable with the website. Another barrier is that I was initially the only one who could input these images or documents (causing a delay in updating if I was unable to input the new photos or documents), which would be a tame problem (Conway et al., 2017), as it had a simple linear solution: to train someone else to use the website. This specific barrier could have been avoided if more than one person had been trained at the outset.
To conclude, while I was not part of the project management, I am involved in the operation and maintenance of this website. Some methods I would use in my practices would be to continue to have ideas for implementing more digital resources for both teachers and students. Before initiating these ideas, I would communicate them with the director, staff, and board of directors to understand organizational readiness and apprehensions before beginning the project.
Reading about change management and the various models that could be used was mind-opening (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015). Discussing change and change management with colleagues allowed me to narrow down four important key points for change. These four key points are planning, adapting, supporting, and educating.
Recently, the daycare has gone through a significant change in that it expanded and doubled the amount of children in the centre. Both colleagues I discussed with mentioned the planning it took the leader to make this change go as smoothly as possible (C. Bentivegna, personal communication, February 9, 2024).Because the expansion was happening while the rest of the daycare was open, the director ensured the children already enrolled could still come as we could not shut down. Thus, ensuring the daycare remained open took much organization and planning. Regarding technological change, each class has recently been supplied with laptops.
The provided laptops were to help educators plan activities, create a weekly schedule, and move towards creating the children’s portfolios using Microsoft Publisher instead of printing, glueing, and handwriting comments on paper. The provision of laptops also took much planning as the director needed to discuss the idea with the board of directors to get approval, and only then could the laptops and necessary software be provided. Of course, this was with some challenges, which brings up the idea that a leader must be adaptable.
My colleagues and I discussed the need to make adaptations during these changes. While the director was organized and had planned for the change, there were some setbacks. Some setbacks involved were the delayed delivery of the materials, causing the two new daycare rooms to not open on time while the children were still coming to the daycare. Thus, the educators and director needed to adapt by briefly having the children enter a different class (C. Bentivegna, personal communication, February 9, 2024). Regarding the laptop, the educators needed to adapt to that change as they were not used to using the software implemented to create the children’s portfolios (A.B. Reis, personal communication, February 14, 2024). These two changes were extensive and required the director to plan and adapt accordingly.
Both changes mentioned are on a large scale as they involve much planning, adapting, and vision (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015). The board of directors was involved in both the expansion and the decision to provide the laptops, and the educators were asked for their input. While no formal change management method was mentioned, based on discussions and the strategies discussed by Al-Haddaded and Kotnour (2015), the organization seemed most similar to the Jick and Kanter method. This method has ten phases, and through the conversations I had with my colleagues, a few of them were brought up. The director analyzed the need for change, created a vision, developed a plan, communicated these ideas to the educators, and reinforced the change by providing necessary support.
The implementation of laptops was where employees expressed their apprehension the most. As one of my colleagues mentioned, they were worried about using laptops as they are not the most tech-savvy (A.B. Reis, personal communication, February 14, 2024). On the other hand, my other colleague was relieved as it helped to make planning, finding activities and making portfolios more efficient (C. Bentivegna, personal communication, February 9, 2024). These differing opinions on this change are reminiscent of Weiner’s (2009) idea about change valence, as one colleague saw the value in the laptops right away compared to the other who was unsure about using them. Thus, the question was, what did the educators need to be at ease with using this new software? How can the director help with those needs? The director saw this apprehension and offered support by providing them with informational sessions on using the software.
In order to support these educators, the strategy used was informational, where the educators were taught how to use the software through step-by-step workshops (Biech, 2007). If this session was not enough, she provided the educators with one-on-one sessions, which one colleague said was valuable to help increase their understanding of using the software (A.B. Reis, personal communication, February 14, 2024). The director still provides these informational sessions as new employees are onboarded throughout the year. These sessions are still valuable to employees, new and old, as the workshops are constantly evolving based on differing needs. Ultimately, the educators feel supported and more comfortable using the software.
To conclude, these four key elements are what my colleagues felt were essential to making successful changes in the daycare. What was interesting about coming up with these elements was the experience they each had at the daycare, one colleague having over thirty years and another having six. While the amount of experience here differs, they both discussed the need for a leader to plan, adapt, support and educate. Thus, it shows that these four elements are valuable for a leader during a change.
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.
I have never been one to reflect on leadership; I have been in the same job with the same manager for approximately eight years and have yet to think about the different aspects a leader can bring to a team, nor have I thought about what kind of leader I could be. These last few exercises allowed me to reflect on what attributes, characteristics and values I would look for in someone in a leadership position. After completing the first activity, where I ranked different leadership attributes from 1-20 and then discussed them with my cohorts, I found my opinions on specific characteristics shifting in importance.
After reading Workman and Clevland-Innes’ (2012) article on leadership versus management, a phrase that stood out to me in this reading was that “management affects outcomes for efforts, while leadership affects outcomes for people” (p. 319). I looked at this as managers trying to get favourable results from the workers, whereas a leader would try to see how they can help the team members reach their goals. Once I reflected on that and discussed it with my cohorts, my views on leadership characteristics somewhat changed, but not too drastically. For instance, one of my values when looking at leaders was that they were to be dependable, fair-minded, and cooperative, and while I still think that is true, they are no longer my top priority for leaders. I believe that what I would look for in a leader now would be that they are caring, communicative, and competent. Castelli (2016) discussed reflective leadership practices and the value of a leader being open to dialogue and feedback, which are attributes I would look for in a leader. These attributes are essential when working in an early childhood setting where we must discuss the children’s abilities, interests and needs. As for leadership characteristics in a digital learning environment, I think leaders must be adaptable, as technology constantly changes.
Khan (2017) discussed the concept of adaptive leadership in a higher education context. In the case of digital leadership, someone who is adaptable is vital as well. Adaptive leaders are flexible, recognize change, and find solutions that best fit their current challenges. As Shenigner (2022) pointed out in their definition of digital leadership, there is a lot of change, and schools constantly shift how technology is used to help students as new software and tools become available. Furthermore, in their seven pillars of digital leadership, Shenigner (2022) had communication in their first spot. In this context, communication would be a means to discuss with stakeholders in various ways, not just one way. For example, they could communicate through email and social media. Communication, whether in person or digitally, is essential for a leader. If they cannot communicate clearly, then issues could arise due to miscommunication.
Moreover, an adaptive leader could communicate differently depending on what others prefer (Khan, 2017). Another pillar that can connect to adaptive leadership would be to motivate students to be engaged (Shenigner, 2022). Both the pillar mentioned above and adaptive leaders find ways to encourage students to move beyond their capabilities and provide means to develop essential skills. Thus, the attributes I discussed, in the beginning, can also fit within digital and adaptive leadership, as I value a leader who can communicate and is caring and, after reading some articles, adaptable.
References
Castelli, P. A. (2016). Reflective Leadership Review: A framework for improving organisational performance. Journal of Management Development, 35(2), 217–236. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmd-08-2015-0112
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). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i3.3294
Workman, T., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2012). Leadership, personal transformation, and management. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 13(4), 313. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v13i4.1383
