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There is a program for veterans called Troops to Teachers. This program helps with teaching placement for veterans with the desire to teach that want to “Serve Again”. (Troops to Teachers, n.d.) When one is called to duty, you learn to lead from very early in your career. Leadership is instilled in military members in every aspect of what they do. But when you think of what it takes to lead effectively in a combat zone, it’s likely very different that what you think of when you are a school teacher. The reason why is, these are two very different situations, requiring very different leadership styles.
As a military leader
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Not only are your followers and their needs vastly different:
Leading service men and women trained for combat
- Needs decisiveness
- Needs grit
- Passion and aggressiveness
As a school teacher
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Leading children and adolescents learning basic functions for life
- Needs compassion
- Needs understanding
- Needs Patience and dedication
But the environment is vastly different as well
Military leader
- Astute areas away from family and friends for long periods of time
- Lack of resources, amenities and comforts
Classroom leader
- Indoor comforts during work hours, then home to family and friends
- Comfortable, normal level of stressors
With such a wide array of differences, going from a military leader to a classroom leader provides a great example of how the situational approach to leadership works. In a combat environment, directive behaviors are more effective to get the team where you need them to be in order to accomplish your mission. Whether delegating or directing, a strong directive approach is required. (Northouse, 2016) Whereas in a teaching role, you would exhibit more of a supportive role in your leadership. Supporting and coaching both allow you to get your students to a developmental level needed for success. (Northouse, 2016) Can service members navigate these two? I believe that is the beauty of the situational approach to leadership knowing how to adapt your leadership style based on the situation, the followers and the needs of those you are leading.
dqt5182 says
Thank you for your research. I’ve heard of this program and others like it and appreciate all that they do to help acclimate warfighters back to the civilian world. As it relates to leadership and moving from one theater of service to another (warfighting to teaching) I would argue that although vastly different, the same styles of situational leadership could apply to both because its based on the situation hence the name situational approach.
To recap, Northouse (2016) describes situational leadership as a leadership style that varies based on each situation with the leader adapting his or her style the needs of the follower. From the perspective of an American War Fighter, the leader has to be able, sometime in very stress filled situations, understand his or her followers to fulfill a goal. In same manner, just different circumstances a teacher would also need to lead in different situations and be able to cater their teaching styles to the students (followers) so that tasks can be completed.
So how is this done? Northouse (2016) taught us in the past lesson that there are four styles within the situational approach. The Directing Approach (D1). In this stage of leadership, the leader uses less supportive means and more directive. This is perfect in a military or para-military function where time is of the essence and there is no time for communication or communication is at a minimum.
Leaders using the directing approach supervise the followers very closely (Northouse, 2016). This stage is probably better for combat and less for teaching, but it still may have its place somewhere in the realm teaching. Remember the matching follower development level is level 1 (D1) where the follower is high in commitment but low in competence.
(S2) is Coaching. In this stage the leaders focus is on both directing and meeting the followers needs. Although the follower’s input is accepted the final decision belongs to the leader (Northouse, 2016). Development level 2 (D2) is when the followers have low commitment but have a little bit of competence. I think this is stage that presents the best parallel between a soldier and teacher and because both spend a great amount of time in this stage the transition from one to the other is probably easier than some would imagine.
The third stage is the supporting approach. In this stage the leader is low directive and highly supportive. The leader will praise and encourage the troops but will leave them to figure out most of the day to day situation but is there to help if problems arise. The matching development level is D3 in which followers that have high to moderate competence, but their commitment level varies (Northouse, 2016).
S4 is the Low Supportive Low Directive or the Delegating Stage. In this stage the leader assumes the follower has the prerequisite knowledge and skill and complete the task with little intervention from the leader. D4 assume the followers that have high competence and high commitment.
So how do we determine if this leadership style is conducive to transitioning leaders from warfighting to teaching? Northouse (2016) reminds us that although understanding the situation (teaching or combat) is imperative, what’s more important is the leader’s ability to understand where the followers are on the development stage continuum and to be able correctly apply the support level that best helps the follower complete the task. Why is this important? Because leaders in military and para-military functions have to understand where each follower is in order to make them better in whatever process is being supervised.
The best example I can think of is boot camp. I would imagine that there has never been a recruit class in which all soldiers had the same development level. This forces the leaders to cater their instruction to each recruit in order for them to succeed. Now using that same logic, I’m also rather certain that a teacher does not have a class full of people in the same development level so teachers, just like DI’s or SSgt’s have to know where each student is on the continuum so that the proper leadership style can be administered to achieve goals.
If I hadn’t read your blog, I may have never made this correlation. Programs like this are important for vets and if we were able to look at it from this perspective perhaps there would be more opportunities for incoming warfighters to use the leadership skills they used in war to help in times of peace. Thank you for your research!
References
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.