After reading about the Contingency approach the one theory that stuck with me was the Path-goal theory. When I was a daycare teacher years and years ago, one of the fun things I got to do was to teach kids how to use the bathroom. This was a process that their parents were involved with in order to keep their training consistent across the board.
Not every teacher has the patience for this, let me tell you. Even parents sometimes would lose their patience and that is what I was there to be, their rock and support. This made me a supportive leader. My job was to be friendly and approachable to the parents so that I could attend to the well-being of their children and their peace of mind that we were in these trenches together to accomplish the same goal (“Penn State Canvas Login”, 2019). Being a part of this process also made me a directive leader. I gave these children straightforward discussions on what they were to do when they would use the facilities (“Penn State Canvas Login”, 2019). This came with setting up bathroom schedules and making a routine for these children, that every couple of hours they were going to go to the bathroom and try (“Penn State Canvas Login”, 2019). To help them accomplish this goal, parents and I would come up with (or I would follow their) reward systems at home whether it was a piece of candy every time their child would successfully go to the bathroom, or it was a sticker they received so that parents could keep track on their progress and maybe earn a toy or anything the child desired.
In conclusion, I have experienced the path-goal theory in my days of being a daycare teacher when I would help children learn how to use the bathroom on a regular basis. This made a supportive leader for their parents and a directive leader with their children. I used rewards to help guide these children to their goal of successfully using the facilities.
References:
Penn State Canvas Login. (2019). Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1975088/modules/items/25786837
rko4 says
It’s all in the wording – i.e. your blog title. Not a chance I was not going to read it. Your choice of path-goal appears to be well thought out and explained. The desciptive challeges fit well in the model. At any given moment you are in one or more behaviors simultaneously. Quite the juggling act of effective leadership in a role that requires mutli leadrship attributes and skills. Fun read, well done.
Lauren Rae Knudsen says
From the moment that I read your sentence “one of the fun things I got to do was to teach kids how to use the bathroom” I knew that I had to comment on your post. Can I just tell you that potty training was my nightmare in parenting, and I have thanked God multiple times that I am done potty training my children? It was literally a deterrent from my husband and I having more babies. That doesn’t really have anything to do with the actual content of my response except that I commend you on the fact that you feel like this terrible rotten time of parenting small children is fun, and the parents of children in your daycare loved you, I’m sure of it.
My blog post for this week focused on the skills theory, and since you’ve used path-goal to analyze your leadership I’ll take the opportunity to apply skills theory to your leadership example. You’ve mentioned a few specific skills you have already: patience, being approachable, being supportive and effectively giving direction. According to Northouse, each of these skills fall into the human skillset except giving direction effectively, which falls into the technical skills section. (Northouse, 2016, pg. 44)
Mumford and Colleagues’ (2000) skills model breaks down the skills needed further, with one focus being “effective problem solving”. (PSU WC, 2019, Lesson 6) Potty training, from my own personal experience, is entirely comprised of problem solving. The initial problem of not using the toilet is then transformed into other problems: don’t have accidents, stop whining, sit on the toilet for longer than 5 seconds, please don’t poop directly next to the toilet instead of inside the toilet, and so on. Maybe those were simply my specific experiences, but I think the general fact that the problem transforms and creates new smaller problems in the same. So, having the ability to problem solve is highly important in your position.
Using the original three skills model for the theory, Katz (1955) states that the “human” skill, or people skills, is one of three important basic skills to have. (PSU WC, 2019, Lesson 6) You displayed very important people skills in two ways. First with parents, ensuring they felt comfortable interacting with you and trusting you with their babies, and then again with the kids, who needed to feel comfortable and safe with you to learn a new skill from you. Aside from people skills, there are assuredly many technical skills you have in your toolbelt that you’ve learned from experience or training. This follows the same three skill model, and the knowledge of how to actually potty train falls into the “technical” skill set. (PSU WC, 2019, Lesson 6) There is a third skill, “conceptual” that speaks to the ability to formulate ideas and communicate them, such as in a vision statement, but that does not seem to apply to this direct example. (Northouse, 2016, 45) According to Northouse, conceptual skill is the most important for upper management and less important for leaders doing the work at the lower levels, so this makes sense. (Northouse, 2016, pg. 45)
Do you feel as though there are certain personal traits that you have that allowed you to learn the skills needed to help these children? The further along in the lesson we go and the more that we apply these theories to real life, it seems as though perhaps not just one theory works along, but the combination of a few.
The path-goal approach seems very well applied in your case, but perhaps the skills theory came first; without the skillset to accomplish this task, you may not have been able to use the path-goal theory to help these families?
Thank you for your post, and your service to these kiddos!
Resources:
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2019). PSYCH 485 Lesson 6: Skills Approach Models- Skills Model (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs & Fleishman, 2000); Yammarino, 2000) Retrieved from: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1972967/modules/items/25704864
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2019). PSYCH 485 Lesson 6: Skills Approach Models – Three Skills Model. Retrieved from: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1972967/modules/items/25704863
Northouse, Peter G. (2016) Leadership: Theory and Practice. Sage Publications. 7th Edition.