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Women in Leadership at Google

July 3, 2014 by bzs5345

Please watch this brief video about women in leadership at google:

As a business woman in a male dominated society, it can often be frustrating to see men continue to climb the ladder of success while fewer women have this opportunity. According to Northouse (2013) women face a glass ceiling, even in female dominated occupations, in which they are unable to reach the top positions. According to the text, women hold 50.8% of managerial/professional positions, earn 57.5% of Bachelor’s degrees, but only 3% of women are CEOs in Fortune 500 companies (p. 353). These statistics are puzzling to me, but the text offers a lot of variables as to why.

In my opinion, and based on my experience, women are typically seen as weaker individuals given that, in the past, we stereotypically stayed home to take care of the children while men work. The issue that is posed now is that women seem to not be trusted to hold positions and still be mothers. Although providing a lot of insight into this dilemna, the main thing that stood out to me in this clip from youtube.com is how Google is able to still have many women as leaders, but finding the balance between motherhood and leadership.

One quote that stuck out to me in this clip was the “Google allows women to be women.” Yes, women are the child bearers of the family, but this should not hinder us in the workplace. Northouse (2013) summarized research that states that while most women are less likely to promote themselves to leadership positions, probably due to motherly roles, men and women are both view their jobs as secondary to their family (p. 357). Although a man does not have to take off due to literal child birth and maternity leave as long as a woman, I know my husband would still need to be off of work in a heartbeat if one of our children were hospitalized. As far as the physiology of women being a hindrance, I feel the only difference is during the literal maternity leave, and then the rest of our career is just as balanced as a man. Do we deserve to be “punished” due to brief time periods of birth? Does this time period for those of us who choose to be mothers truly make us less qualified?

Reference:

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Servant Leadership: In a perfect world

June 29, 2014 by bzs5345

In such a corrupt world, there is the need for laws and enforcement of those laws. It is expected that those put in positions to keep those safe, such as politicians, police officers, and firefighters, are actually putting others before themselves, but this is not always the case. Unfortunately, there are many in these types of positions who hold their positions because of gaining income (which is of course of importance) but do not have a strong passion for people. This brings to the case the theory of servant leadership.

Northouse (2013) defines servant leadership as emphasizing that leaders be attentive to the concerns of their followers, empathize with them, and nurture them. Those who are truly servant leaders have the best interest of their followers at heart and are able to help them and lift them up, selflessly. Because politicians, police officers, and firefighters are all considered community and national leaders of our country, it is important that those are are put into these positions have characteristics of being a servant leader. Although some may argue that we may not be “followers” that does not take away from the leadership impact that they have.

Although Northouse (2013) lists 10 characteristics of servant leadership (p. 221), 5 that I feel are of the most important for political and community leaders are stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, listening, empathy, and awareness. Collectively, all of these make the leader aware of their positions, aware of their impact, and ready to commit to the growth of those they are called to lead.

In a perfect world, instead of politicians having hidden agendas, there only agenda would be the one they were voted into: leading others and having a positive impact on our communities, states, and country as a whole. If more leaders truly led due to their passion of people and encompassed many servant leadership characteristics, we would have a better nation.

Reference:

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Power and Influence: a negative viewpoint

June 17, 2014 by bzs5345

When you think of leadership and power, do you always think of positive leaders? While it would be wonderful for all leaders to be positive and to evoke positive change in the world, this is not always the case. If a leader does not do positive things for their subordinates, are they are bad leader? According Pennsylvania State University World Campus Online Commentary for Psych 485 (2014) “power is the capacity to cause change and influence is the degree of actual change in attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors.” (PSU WC, Lesson 7, p. 3). Those who have power and influence are not always good leaders. I can give many examples of this, but lead character Joe Carroll from the hit television show The Following is the perfect example of this type of leader (2014).

Joe Carroll, previously a college professor and author, leads a cult of killers and influences them in many ways to kill individuals, reaping havoc on the world. When watching the show, it is very interesting to me how he is able to influence so many people and has moles in the FBI, schools, and pretty much everywhere. Seemingly normal people, even those with families and children, drop their lives to follow his cult and kill on his behalf.

Because he has a vendetta against FBI agent Ryan Hardy for falling in love with and sleeping with his ex-wife, he is currently out for revenge to ruin Ryan’s life, or anyone around him, and get his wife back. Although he has a natural need to kill others, he controls his cult and gets them to kill for him using personalized power. Individuals with a high need for personalized power are selfish, impulsive, and exercise power for their own needs, not for the good of their followers (PSU WC, Lesson 7, p. 6). While his followers think that he truly cares about them, his only care is in getting what he wanst, which always involves proving to the world that he is a force to be reckoned with.

It is hard to understand how someone is able to influence seemingly normal people to kill other human beings and be alright with it. According to online lesson 7 (2014) there are many influence tactics, orbehaviors, designed to change another person’s attitudes, beliefs, values, or behaviors (p. 3), that Joe Carroll uses with his cult members. In particular, two tactics stand out: rational persuasion and inspirational appeals. Rational persuasions involve the leader using logical arguments or factual evidence to influence others and inspirational appeals involve the leader making requests that are designed to arouse enthusiasm or emotion in the group (PSU WC, Lesson 7, p. 7). Carroll’s followers literally worship the ground that he walks on, and that is because he is able to make them believe that he is their family and the cult is the only thing they have in a world where no one else understands them. All of these are reasons why Carroll is a perfect leader according to the power and influence theory, but a negative one at the same time.

References:

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2014). Lesson 7: Power and Influence. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su14/psych485/001/content/07_lesson/01_page.html

Williamson, Kevin. (2013). The Following. New York City: Outerbanks Entertainment.

Below is a clip of Joe Carroll:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7fUGw4lpes

Parenting Styles: The Situational Approach

June 5, 2014 by bzs5345

Anyone with kids knows how complex it can be to discover what type of parenting style you need to adapt to help your kids thrive in today’s world. What about TWO kids? Well I have two kids, and they are both polar opposites. Making it frustrating at times to determine what is the best route to take to help mu children. Whether it be with homework, learning, potty training, etc, it can be a very complex situation to determine how the raise them. What worked for my oldest son, may not necessarily work for my daughter. So what is a woman to do? That is where the situational approach fits perfectly.

The situational approach to leadership focuses on leadership in different situations and realizes that different situations may demand different kinds of leadership (Northouse, pg. 99). The key to situational leadership is finding the balance between directive and supportive dimensions that has to balance out the commitment of your subordinates, or in this case, the kids. Using the situational leadership approach, the leader must first determine the level that the subordinate is on in development, and based on that determine what type of leadership they should provide as far as how much direction of support the subordinate may need.

Using this example, my son is much more advanced than my daughter, but still does not know it all in the world, although he may think that he does. Using this model, I would place my son at a D3 level, and often have to be more supportive and give less direction with his homework. He absorbs the information extremely quickly and his able to do most of his homework on his own. I usually just have to check in with him and make sure I’m supporting his learning process and creativity.This D#, supporting style, requires that I do not focus as much on my son’s homework, as he usually can do it on his own, but that I bring out his skills and listen, give praise, ask for input, and provide feedback (Northouse, pg. 101). I usually try to tell my son what a good job he is doing, and offer prizes, etc for such good work to continue to motivate him in school.

My daughter on the other hand, at 2 years old, is already showing that she is the social butterfly of the family. She is a lot more sneaky than my son was at her age, and tends to do what she wants without listening. She is not as sensitive and still moves forward whether or not she is cuddled or not. Because of her ways, I often adapt the Style 1 approach with her. Because of her age and her natural personality that is already showing through, she needs a lot more direction. With this style, also called the directing style, I often have to gie instruction about what and how goals need to be achieved (Northouse, pg. 101). For example, with getting her to go to the body, or clean up her toys, or follow instructions in general, I have no choice but to be more direct with her and let her know exactly what will need to be done and how. Otherwise, she will just march to the beat of her own drum.

Using the situational leadership approach, I am able to adapt my parenting style for each of my two children. If I were to simply act how I am naturally, which is probably a balance between supportive and directive, all of the time with both children, I would properly not be able to achieve as much with them. I am able to tap into their needs and determine how I need to respond to get things done!

References:

Northouse, Peter.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Psychodynamic Approach to Leadership: A Mirror

May 24, 2014 by bzs5345

The concept of leadership is one of the most complex topics as there are many different viewpoints in regards to what the definition of leadership is and what types of people make effective leaders. When I think of leadership, I often think of leaders being the examples to others. Whether this is in the community, politics, religion, or in business. I personally find it hard to look up to anyone and follow their lead if I find them hypocritical. While studying the psychodynamic approach to leadership, I realized that I am a strong advocate for this theory as this approach takes into consideration that individuals personality characteristics cannot simply be changed, but the key is to accept one’s own personality characteristics and understand the effect they have on followers (Northouse, pg. 321).
I am currently a salon manager, and I thought a lot about this approach when studying leadership in another course here at Penn State this past spring semester. When reading about a lot of the approaches, I would often try to exude some of the qualities in each lesson, and some came naturally, but some were more difficult. Of course the ones that were more natural made me feel like I was a true leader, but the others made me feel like some approaches were just too complex and that people could not simply be developed into leaders and change who they are. My thought process behind this is that no matter how much you “train” a person, if certain characteristics are not innate, they will come out eventually.
With that being said, the psychodynamic approach, being one of the last chapters, was like a rainbow appearing at the end of the storm. Having roots into the studies of Sigmund Freud, this approach realizes that some things are indeed just a part of who we are, and that the best way to overcome them is to face them. For instance, I can be very emotional or sensitive, so in leadership, I often find that this could hinder me or lower the respect that my subordinates have for me. I find myself often taking a “look in the mirror” so to speak and realizing that this weakness can have a negative effect on my success and that I must learn to remove my emotions and having too much of a soft spot to keep subordinate’s respect.
In conjunction with this theory and the hypocritical issues I spoke of, in the past I would sometimes find myself not finishing simple duties in the salon because I would be running late or needing to leave work to get home to my kids. I realized after studying this theory that I cannot expect my subordinates to always finish simple duties if they ever catch me doing the same. With that being said, I made just to have a “no excuses” policy for myself. With the psychodynamic approach I realized that I should take a look in the mirror, in any ways necessary, and see how my choices could affect subordinates.

Northouse, Peter G. (Ed.). (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.