LRNT 525

This past week I had the good fortune of traveling in Thailand with an Organizational Psychologist, and U of C professor, Dr. Joshua Bourdage who is currently on sabbatical, as well as Michelle Stiphout, a senior researcher with AHS, and Alison Leathwood who is a high school Physical Education teacher and chair of the Wellness Committee at SSIS where I work.  We discussed a number of topics around leadership and digital learning environments while sharing our professional experiences as educators during Covid. 

Change leaders are people with creative visions, who are able to foresee a new reality and how to get to it. Change leaders have to understand how their employees perceive change and ensure they accept the change and are ready for it. They have to motivate employee (sic) to take responsibility and be an active part of the change. (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015, p. 6)

We all agreed that strong leadership was imperative to individual success during the pandemic. Those who were given clear objectives, whose concerns were addressed by leadership, and who took advantage of the various training and supports offered by their organizations stepped up to the challenge, while those who resisted the transition from face-to-face to online learning did not. Ms. Leathwood noted how she took the change as a challenge to deliver new and engaging lessons, to learn new tools, and noted all the sharing of ideas and resources within the professional PE community.  Dr. Bourdage further opined that self-determination theory (Ryan and Deci, 2000) distinguished those who thrived versus those who merely survived during this time.

Organizational readiness for change is a multi-level, multi-faceted construct; organizational members’ shared resolve to implement a change (change commitment) and shared belief in their collective capability to do so (change efficacy).  Organizational readiness for change varies as a function of how much organizational members value the change and how favorably they appraise three key determinants of implementation capability: task demands, resource availability, and situational factors. (Weiner, 2009, p. 1)

One theme that came up was a complete lack of organizational readiness for change during the pandemic, that everyone was in a reactive state, and that it is happening again with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).  We agree that no one is certain how this will impact teaching and learning, that different organizations in the education sector have wildly different policies on the issue, and everyone admits it is a revolutionary tool and a game-changer; so much so that some of our colleagues are choosing retirement over another disruption in an otherwise stable career.   

We discussed how Lewin’s change management model (1947) of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing no longer applies in the digital age as technology continues to evolve. We noted that we work in 3 very different sized organizations, and how there is no single change management model appropriate for all.  We concluded that McKinsey’s 7-S model (Waterman et al., 1980) or Kotter’s 8-step model (1996) would be the most universally applicable with their soft elements and iterative/compounding approaches, but that a new model would be required for the digital age. While we didn’t discuss what that model would be; however, after listening to the “Voices” interview with Sandra Norum I would expect something that acknowledges the individual and UDL within the organization.

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. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-11-2013-0215

Dolley, S. (2011, March 8). A Brief History of the 7-S (“McKinsey 7-S”) Model. Tom Peters. https://tompeters.com/2011/03/a-brief-history-of-the-7-s-mckinsey-7-s-model/

Norum, S. (n.d.). Voices | LRNT525 [EDUTECH 2023-1 OL] Jan 22 2024. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from https://malat-coursesite.royalroads.ca/lrnt525/schedule/voices/

Waterman Jr, R. H., Peters, T. J., & Phillips, J. R. (1980). Structure is not organization. Business horizons, 23(3), 14-26.

Weiner, B. J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4(1), 67. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-4-67

PS: all my APA formatting was lost by posting to the blog

My key takeaways from unit 1:

Leadership is a social construct.  It’s the ability to unify people towards a common goal.  

There are many theories about how to best do that (Workman & Cleveland-Innes, 2012), and the methods and metrics have changed over time (Unity Environmental University, 2015).

Although it’s a generalization, women tend to lead differently from men (Fitzgerald, 2003) with a greater focus on people as opposed to outcomes; however Fitzgerald, along with Huggins (2017) about HS principals’ (in)ability to distribute leadership, also fails to address the next point.

Leadership is action, not a job title.  Just because someone has leadership in title does not make them a leader, they are often glorified managers or simply the person in charge.  Senge (2015) also did a good job of differentiating the two.  I also found his definition of leadership as “the capacity of a human community to shape its future” a nice hybrid between the classical dichotomies illustrated by Fitzgerald.  But in the same video Senge also screwed up the origin of the word leadership claiming it was “leith”. That doesn’t abrogate his views, but it did lead me down another rabbit hole, ultimately leading me to this article on Napoleon.  Graziano (2023) highlights: vision, communication, decisiveness, adaptability, trust, empowerment, and recognition of the team as the qualities which made Napoleon a renowned historical leader.

How all of this ties into digital learning environments still isn’t clear but it’s a solid foundation on leadership to begin that exploration.  

References:

College, U. (2015, August 2). Leadership: “To Go” rather than not to go… Is The Literal Definition. Unity Environmental University. https://unity.edu/leadership-in-abundance/leadership-to-go-rather-than-not-to-go-is-the-literal-definition/

Fitzgerald, T. (2003). Changing the deafening silence of indigenous women’s voices in educational leadership. Journal of Educational Administration, 41(1), 9–23. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230310457402

Huggins, K. S. (2017). Developing Leadership Capacity in Others: An Examination of High School Principals’ Personal Capacities for Fostering Leadership. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.22230/ijepl.2017v12n1a670

Senge, P. (2015). What makes a great leader? by Peter Senge, Author of The Fifth Discipline [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aYaj2-GZqk

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

I like this activity because it focuses uniquely on qualities of a leader, as opposed to qualities of a good person, or a reflection of my personal values.  While I appreciate this is a group activity, it is also a perfect opportunity to contribute something other than required work to my blog. I’m not afraid of being wrong or having a bad take on something, and I expect this list will likely change by the end of the course.  I also think only the top 7 really matter, and the other traits are mostly in support of them.

Characteristics of an admired leader:

#1 is forward looking.  A leader needs a vision for the future.  No vision, no mission.

#2 is inspiring.  If you can’t inspire a team to pull in the same direction, or follow you, then you’re not a leader.

#3 is determined.  Generally, if you’re seeking a change, you will face some degree of resistance.  The bigger the mission, the greater the resistance will be.  It takes a great deal of determination to overcome the various forces resisting you and a willingness to battle time and time again.

#4 is competent.  I debated putting this lower on the list, but for me it belongs in the top 5.  People generally won’t follow a leader who fails them, and yet that doesn’t explain how we still have war criminals being paraded as heroes.  

#5 is ambitious.  Every hero’s journey begins with a desire to change something.  To be the face of that change is both courageous and ambitious.

#6 is intelligent.  There are lots of different ways to be intelligent.  There’s knowing and recalling information, problem solving, understanding people, and motives, planning ahead… so many ways to demonstrate intelligence that I feel like this is a catch-all.

#7 is caring.  Even if the leader doesn’t care about people (shame on you) they need to care about outcomes.

#8 is courageous.  People will follow someone who is willing to walk through the fire; or lead them through the jungle / into the dark..  It takes a ton of courage to be that person to go first.  Consequently, a good leader has to be willing to go first.

#9 is imaginative.  The biggest attribute to being fair or open minded is that ability to extrapolate and pull on the threads to imagine the outcomes.  It’s also important for coming up with new solutions to problems, especially when the tried and true hasn’t worked.

#10 is dependable.  There’s comfort in knowing that someone is there for you, or what you’re going to get from.

#11 is self-controlled.  I feel that this should be replaced with the word “poised” making mature redundant in the process.

#12 is broad minded.  Significantly more important to be broad minded than fair minded as a leader.  They need to be receptive to the multitude of elements at play at any given time, but only so that they can then decide what is best for the overall mission.

#13 is honest.  A leader doesn’t have to disclose all the reasons why they made the choices they did so long as their followers continue to believe in the mission. 

#14 is co-operative.  The squeaky wheel gets the crease, and if you’re taking on an “us vs the world” mentality then it might not serve to be co-operative with your adversaries.  

#15 is fair minded.  Everyone appreciates fairness, but we can’t all agree on the terms of what that looks like; for 30 million people, nevermind 8 billion people.. and it’s naive to think we can. 

 #16 is straight forward.  A good leader doesn’t have to shoot from the hip, but they do need to be clear in their communication.

#17 is mature, because I see immature kids acting as leaders in their peer groups.  

#18 is loyal.  This is tough because I personally value it a lot higher but loyalty is not a hallmark for a good leader.  Professional sports organizations overturn players (employees) and management every season, or contract cycle, and occasionally someone is replaced midseason.  There’s also the possibility of staying loyal to a poisonous entity that crumbles an organization from within.  This isn’t only people, but brand allegiance, suppliers or software too. 

#19 is independent, because they can surround themselves with supportive people.  I also tie this to influence.  Just because a person is a corporate shill doesn’t necessarily affect their ability to lead.

#20 is supportive, because a leader doesn’t need to exude that quality, they can outsource it.