Laverne's Blog

My initial blog post has a focus on balanced decision-making and integrity. In another class that I am taking, we have just finished a group project on Inclusive leadership, which I also resonated very strongly with. Our group not only completed research on it, we modeled the attributes to it which worked out wonderfully for our project. I continue to feel very strongly about both balanced decision-making and integrity in leadership and both can be found in inclusive leadership. After that project was complete, I did add another goal, which was to be curious, to ensure that I am leaning into the what my teams needs me to hear, creating meaningful connections (Anderson, 2024). They weave together with many other traits from other leadership models to create a style that is unique, and often found in indigenous leadership styles.

Indigenous leadership has been evolving throughout my adulthood. As a young adult, it was not nearly as prevalent as it is now, 20 year later. Indigenous leaders are modeling ‘new’ ways of successful leadership in a colonialistic world, changing the view from hierarchical to a more collective view (Benmira & Agboola, 2021). New in colonial leadership, not so new in indigenous communities or cultures. Indigenous leadership is very similar to inclusive leadership in many ways. A leader that I’ve followed for many years is my Haida dancing and singing leader. He often tells us that his goal is to teach us to become leaders of our own group, empowering us to become the leader (Benmira & Agboola, 2021)

I come from a matrilineal culture. As significant as the Maori women are in Fitzgerald’s article (p. 16), so too are women in my culture. The matriarch’s in my lineage are the policy holders, they are the ones who we go to for counsel, or knowledge. These women are the original inclusive leaders in my culture.

As you seen in our group project, our focus was on a feedback loop, Anderson also discusses the importance of regular, consistent feedback in order to grow. In my current role, I am helping our team to lead change through collective leadership. It helps the team to attain our goal. My role is to do whatever I can to effectively help, whether that is reaching out to my contacts or writing a supporting brief. The feedback loop comes in as we are checking in with one another, and seeing how the progress is going bi-weekly. In doing this, I am practicing my vision of balanced decision making, having integrity in my communication, and being curious to the other in my team to be inclusive and ensure that we are all recognizing one another’s strengths and running with it when we can!

References

Anderson, C. (2024, December 11). Principles of Indigenous leadership and self-care in the academy. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/principles-indigenous-leadership-and-selfcare-academy

Benmira, S., & Agboola, M. (2021). Evolution of leadership theory. The Learning Zone, 5, 3–5.

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

I once worked for a small law firm. We filed all electronic documents using folders and file naming protocols. Our issue was: they were only saved and accessed through Windows Explorer. Searching was difficult, and if a file was misnamed, misfiled, it was lost for good. Our goal was to find a proper litigation file management product that included a financial management aspect to the program that would output customized reports for our main stakeholders: our clients. Within the firm, our main stakeholders were all staff.

Was our mismanaged adventure successful? Yes, and no. We were capable and successful in migrating our files. The program advertised the ability to recognize duplication, but we found there was a caveat, in that it had to be an exact duplicate, with the same metadata. We were looking for how to find duplication within file contents. As well, the financial customization that was promised was not delivered.

Our instructions were to research the top 3 software options that were selected by our principal lawyer and meet with the distributor and select one based on the principal lawyers demands.

We were a small firm with less than a handful of staff to complete this. We chose a program that was not used often in Canada because of the promises of the finance forms customization. This ended up requiring a lot more extra work on the part of our finance staff, and I, a semi-savvy sql nerd. It did not produce the form customization that we had believed that we would get in the end.

What we should have done: We required much more expertise in determining our actual needs. We should have hired a Project Manager and a knowledgeable consultant to do the research, based on an environment and digital scan (Watt, 2014; University of Calgary, Learning Technologies Task Force, 2014) of our data along with our contracted IT professionals. A Project Manager would have been able to determine the terms of this project and the management of it. A consultant with the required expertise to find the software that would do exactly what we needed. A Project Manager could have determined the difference between needs and wants, the need of the software, and the need as a law firm.

Down the rabbit hole we go! Once we selected a software program, the distributor/sales person set us up with installation plans and basic training. That was our only training plan. It was decided that I would be the Administrator. I took all of the training offered. The front-end of the program was managed through security levels. Certain employees would get certain training based on the security level that they were assigned. This created issues when staff began working within the program as they were asked to access files that their security level did not allow, creating issues for me, as the Administrator, as I would either have to change their access, or access the files for them.

What we should have done: Have the Project Manager create a more succinct, permanent plan to follow-up training to support staff (University of Calgary, Learning Technologies Task Force, 2014, p. 3). Clearly determine security levels for staff based on more than their prescribed job descriptions, security levels should have been based in reality, rather than assumed roles (an aside, so should have job descriptions).

In short, there were many things that we could, and should, have done differently. The software program remained in place and band-aid solutions were put in place for the areas that did not work to our expectations. Having a Project Manager and consultant whose only jobs were to focus on the implementation of this software program would have given us ample time to do our prescribed jobs to our expected standards.

University of Calgary, Learning Technologies Task Force. (2014). Strategic framework for Learning Technologies.

Watt, A. (2014). Project Management (2nd ed.). BCCAMPUS.

In a previous post I discussed the Open Homework System (OHS) by Lalonde. I identified the challenge of buy-in from institutions, staff, students, and technical support staff. I imagine that the most relevant data collection to clarify that scope would stem from the largest group of stakeholders: students. Prompting the inquiry of this line from the movie “Field of Dreams”: If you build it, they will come.

Prinsloo and Slade discuss the use of “harvesting and analys[ing]” (Prinsloo & Slade, 2014, p. 306) of data for determining things like enrolment and staffing. But there is caution to simply using data. A personal example of this is in the program that I am enrolled in: It is advertised as having the option to vote on five courses, with the top 3 chosen being taught. Students went into the program with this thought, and having reviewed the options, had their picks and were ready to vote. They soon found out that the school had already chosen the three courses they were going to offer. According to the program, this was based on previous years of data and previous student choices. Without the curiosity that human nature would prompt, an assumed dependence on simply data caused students to no longer have the option to have their intended vote. This may raise the moral question of false advertising and using strictly data to inform decisions that Prinsloo & Slade discuss throughout their article.

Marsh et al. share that “data-driven decision making (DDDM)” (p. 2) comes from the viewed success of industry and manufacturing. In education, the user must also consider that there are countless ways to analyze data sets (p. 3), while it can be used to add to the framework of education through the triage that Prinsloo discusses, it must be analyzed effectively and thought through with morals and ethics and psychology to determine students’ best interest.

My prime take-away is that we cannot rely strictly on data alone. This is akin to relying on AI answers alone without thought or further curiosity. Data or AI lack the human characteristics of navigating data and having informative inquiry to the results. However, data is not as scary as it may seem, and can be quite valuable (Zettelmeyer, 2015).

Prinsloo, P., & Slade, Sharon. (2014). Educational triage in open distance learning: Walking a moral tightrope. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 15(4), 306–331.

Marsh, J. A., Pane, J. F., & Hamilton, L. S. (2006). Making Sense of Data-Driven Decision Making in Education. 15.

Zettelmeyer, F. (2015, May 1). A Leader’s Guide to Data Analytics. Leadership & Careers. https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/a-leaders-guide-to-data-analytics/

Successful change can be implemented within an organization utilizing many strategic models. Change in a digital environment adds another layer to change. There are numerous ways in which change management has been modeled. I will share my idea on change management through the diagram in the Appendix, and compare it to the Change Model and discuss the alignment with established models.

I started creating this model based on my own thoughts on change management, and then began to look at it overlaid with other models to see which aligned more succinctly. The Change Model, as outlined by Biech (2007) was the most comparable. My thoughts and ideas were not too dissimilar from the Change Model. I also found that Luecke’s Method (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015) aligned with my own ideas on change management. Luecke’s ideas of “motivating employees” and “address[ing] the different reactions” (p. 250) resonates with me, as it puts the stakeholder first in change decisions. The step to “identifying leadership” (p. 250) also aligned, as it comes after the idea of “developing a shared vision” (p. 250) and other steps. To me this means that leadership is identified based on their strengths, and vested interest in a change.

My colleague discussion (V. Theissen, Personal communication, February 12, 2025) contributed to my thoughts on change management leadership by sharing their experience. Their biggest takeaway was that a leader must also consider the technological abilities of their stakeholders and others impacted by the change. This raises the question of viability of a change. If the lack of understanding of stakeholders is significant, does the benefit outweigh the risk of losing stakeholders in the process? This brings me back to Leucke and the step of “seeing the change as an opportunity” and to motivation (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015, p. 250). 

Where Luecke sees opportunity, Weiner provides the reminder that even though stakeholders may agree that the change is positive, that does not mean that they are ready (p. 3-4). His discussion on the importance of “change valence” (p. 3) encourages leaders to be mindful of their stakeholders through change management. Stakeholder engagement at the “Evaluates environment” in my model is not necessarily simply to gage whether there is interest and support for change, but to determine whether they are prepared.

The leadership type which successfully initiates and follows all of the steps and is successful and analyzes the change through my model and the alignment to the Change Model is Transformational Leadership. “Empathy”, “inspirational motivation”, and “emotional intelligence skills” (Castelli, 2016, p. 223) are all descriptors of Transformational Leadership. These skills are key to ensuring the steps that are outlined in my model, and alignment with the Change Model, are completed with the thought and consideration of all who are affected by the change. Stakeholders are considered for when change is presented. Change management through Transformational leadership could potentially lead to more time taken to create change, which is not always ideal, however, it can create a thorough and complete change for an organization that is successful.      

References

Biech, E. (2007). Models of Change. In Thriving Through Change: A Leader’s Practical Guide to Change Mastery (p. 8). ASTD.

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.

Weiner, B. J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4(67), 9.

Castelli, P. A. (2016). Reflective leadership review: A framework for improving organisational performance. Journal of Management Development, 2, 217–236.

In our discussions on the attributes list provided, our team discussed. I knew that there were more that I would consider.

From the list of attributes provided in Activity 2, part 1, within Competence, I value Balanced decision-making. I feel it is very important when it comes to digital learning environments. A leader must understand the balance, within the moments, between the need for collaboration and the need for quick thinking. An attribute of a few theories, balanced decision making can be a key factor in Situational Leadership Theory. A leader must make decisions based on the situation. “The short-term actions of the followers” (Cleveland-Innes, 2012, p. 317) and their potential outcomes is what a leader must take into consideration, at times, in an instant. A leader with balanced decision-making qualities must understand “the importance of the context or circumstances” (Voyageur et al., 2015, p. 6) of a situation in order to make an informed decision, this is in understand as many aspects as possible, or in understanding that which is required in the moment and trusting that that is enough.

Wisdom, being the ability to look forward, but keeping in mind what has come before. For example, a former boss of mine was researching a new database software to move our data into. She had been through this process before and knew that she needed to find a program that would allow for easy transfer of the data from the old system into the new system. She needed to know format, field parameters, delimiters, to name a few. In going through this process of research with her, I learned what I would need when it came time for me to do this type of work. Her understand of the needs of moving forward taught me how to use historical knowledge to push us forward within these systems. This knowledge transfer has stayed with me throughout so much of the work that I’ve done.

This characteristic is found in the Reflective leadership model, as well, Castelli shares that wisdom can be found in other leadership theories as well, such as: “authentic leadership, servant leadership, and emotional intelligence” (p. 218).

Integrity in a leader is a very large part what I value, and what I strive to reflect. To technology, integrity is crucial to running systems effectively. To leadership, “Schwartz and Castelli’s (2014) research found that followers will produce more effort if they perceive their leader as a positive role model whose actions demonstrate integrity” (Castelli, 2016, p. 221). Integrity is found to be crucial in many areas of leadership in technology, not only to system, to followers, but also to those that you answer too. Your integrity is what builds their trust in you to be an exceptional leader.

Integrity, as a part of leadership theory, can be found within the Servant leadership Theory. O’toole counts “Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., [and] Nelson Mandela” (p. 6) and others, as top leaders who modeled integrity to the greatest degree.

While not a complete list of attributes that I would consider, and I will admit, that list varies, depending on the situation that requires leadership, these three are always considerations. From a technology perspective, or analog perspective, these three attributes are the ones that I would consider the most.

It is not lost on me, as an indigenous person, that they are all a part of Transformational Leadership. Transformation is a prevalent part of our culture, and the attributes that are within Transformation Leadership are all a part of what we are taught from birth.

References

Castelli, P. A. (2016). Reflective leadership review: A framework for improving organisational performance. Journal of Management Development, 2, 217–236.

Cleveland-Innes, T. W. (2012). Leadership, personal transformation, and management. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 13(4), 313–323.

O’Toole, J. (2008). Notes Toward a Definition of Values-Based Leadership. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 1(1), 9.

Voyageur, C., Brearley, L., & Calliou, B. (Eds.). (2015). Restorying Indigenous Leadership: Wise Practices in Community Development (Second). Banff Centre Press.