Jeslynn Theresa Puskar

Strength In Diversity

November 23, 2015 by Jeslynn Theresa Puskar

Photo source: https://www.pinterest.com/explore/diversity-quotes/

Prior to serving in the military, I have primarily worked in sales and marketing in which I relied upon “strength in numbers” to dictate my day-to-day business as usual. One could also assume that these words apply to the armed forces, if thinking along the terms of a “million man army”. However, based on my experience, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Rather, the greater force lies with “strength in diversity”. While I am sure that most, if not all fellow service members automatically understand this meaning, I am also sure that there are others that don’t. To summarize how diversity brings strength to an organization, I have provided a quote below from Naval leadership during the the Southern University Commencement Speech (Diversity, n.d.):

“Over many years in this uniform, I have galvanized my belief that our security, in fact, the strength of our nation is derived from the power of our diversity. Diversity of race, yes, but also of gender, thought, and culture. In the military and in business, in classrooms, in the halls of Congress, in institutions of education like this. And many voices, many minds, contrasting views, and healthy debates all contribute to our collective capability. ”

It is the latter part of this quote, in which I believe strength manifests itself and given the diverse range of military members, it is equally important for leadership to address these differences and focus on the similarities. Combined, this relationship with diversity is what glues the organization together, and bridges the gaps, because each individual unique contribution, solidifies and creates and impenetrable force. However, it is not to go without saying that leading this force of diversity does not present its challenges. The most obvious way that leadership not only recognizes differences, but focuses on similarities is through performance orientation.

Northouse (2016) describes the performance orientation dimension of culture as the extent to which an organization or society encourages or rewards group members for improved performance and excellence (p. 434). In the military, it doesn’t matter your what walk of life you came from, what part of the globe, your gender, your race, etc. The ability and perform trumps every difference and thus at the same time, places everyone in the same category, all the while, each unique contribution that an individual can draw from are what contribute to the process in the pursuit of excellence. Basically, leadership is able to take an actual cultural dimension and apply it to an organization to foster excellence, even if that cultural dimension doesn’t originally coincide with an individual’s native culture. On that note, I am brain twisted and will end with a question to my readers: Are there any other cultural dimensions you can think of that leadership can use in a similar way to what I have described to help foster excellence in an organization?

References

Diversity (n.d.). United States Biography. Retrieved from http://www.navy.mil/navydata/leadership/quotes.asp?q=11&c=5

Northouse, Peter G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. 7th ed. Sage Publications.

Authentic Leadership Assumptions

November 16, 2015 by Jeslynn Theresa Puskar

When I first read the words “authentic leader” my mind began to assume what it meant by simply interchanging the word “authentic” to “credible” leader, “genuine” leader, etc. Furthermore, it goes without saying, I had an automatic reaction to the words and began associating it with particular leaders that I have experienced. In a way, I sort of came up with an “authentic leader” mini definition in my head and thought, “ok, this should be an easy topic” as the words compared to the automatic assumptions and associations seemed pretty straight- forward. Well, so much for a wandering mind… I was wrong. Authentic leadership is indeed much more complex. Just to scratch the surface of the complexity, Northouse (2016) points out that not only is authentic leadership difficult to characterize, but “among leadership scholars, there is no single accepted definition of authentic leadership” (p. 196). Thus, the journey of finding its true definition begins!

As described by Northouse (2016), authentic leadership is defined through not one, but multiple definitions, each written from a different viewpoint and with a different emphasis (p. 196). We can see here how my mini definition of authentic leadership is becoming less and less significant. The interpersonal perspective of authentic leadership focuses closely on the leader and what goes on within the leader by incorporating the leader’s self-knowledge, self-regulation, and self-concept. The emphasis of this perspective is a leader’s life experiences and the meaning that he or she attaches to those experiences as being critical to the development of the authentic leader (p. 196). Already, from only one viewpoint, the complexity of authentic leadership is beginning to showcase, so the only thing to do now is press forward and take a look at the rest.

Authentic Stamp Showing Real Certified Product Not Fake

The second part of defining authentic leadership is where the “authenticity” emerges from the interactions between leaders and followers (p. 196). As described by Northouse (2016), this interpersonal process viewpoint of authentic leadership outlines authentic leadership as “relational”; created by leaders and followers together. It is a reciprocal process because leaders affect followers and followers affect leaders (p. 196). Finally, authentic leadership can be defined from a developmental perspective, which views authentic leadership as something that can be nurtured in a leader, rather than a fixed trait. It develops in people over a lifetime and can be triggered by major life events (p. 196). And this ladies and gentlemen, is exactly where it all “clicked” for me!

Going back to the description of what was taking place in my wandering mind, we can see how infant I was in terms of trying not only to define authentic leadership on my own, but also in grasping the concept. I thought as long as someone is “genuinely” leading, or is thought to be a “credible” leader, that they are demonstrating “authentic leadership”. Clearly, from the above definition or in this case, definition(s) provided by Northouse (2016), my infancy left out a whole LOT. I didn’t even include “moral reasoning”, which is quite important (p. 202). However, all that being said, it was the last few sentences described above that got to me the most.

Just to revisit:

Finally, authentic leadership can be defined from a developmental perspective, which views authentic leadership as something that can be nurtured in a leader, rather than a fixed trait. It develops in people over a lifetime and can be triggered by major life events (Northouse, 2016, p. 196).

As mentioned earlier, I also associated people with what I thought to be “authentic leaders” and shame on me. I couldn’t have been further away from it. I was thinking of a few people in particular that appeared as what I thought to be “natural born leaders”. They are the type of people that, even if they don’t want to lead, are thrown into the slot anyways because their personal traits are desired characteristics of leadership. It is safe to say that not only have I learned an important lesson about what “authentic leadership” actually is, but that I should also work on my assumptions about things. Especially considering I tend to associate people with words, I should probably make sure that in the future, I understand what those words mean before I apply them to people…

References

Northouse, Peter G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. 7th ed. Sage Publications.

Where Was The Leadership?

November 7, 2015 by Jeslynn Theresa Puskar

Servant leadership has been one of my favorite leadership approaches studied thus far next to transformational leadership and authentic leadership. However, when I first went into the lesson I found it a bit hard to wrap my head around the concept of servant leadership because I didn’t identify it with the conventional ideas of leadership such as order and charisma. “Serving others first?” “What kind of leader does that?”, are the type of questions I asked myself. To be honest, I at one point thought of servant leadership as the “pushover approach” and I really dislike saying that because I have many servant leadership characteristics myself. However, the more I thought about it, the more appealing this approach became to me as I started thinking about Mother Theresa, the Dali Lama, Martin Luther King, etc. Mostly, I began thinking about the coined term, “one act of kindness can change the world”. Then, prompted by a fellow student, Angela Darchuk, I began to wonder why this leadership isn’t prevalent in the workplace, and especially after conversing with her about it, I started digging around to find out why.

I found a very interesting article written by Jim Heskett of the Harvard Business School (2013). He discusses how “servant leadership is experienced so rarely because of trends in the leadership environment, the scarcity of human qualities required, demands that the practice places on the practitioner, and the very nature of the practice itself”. This is a little scary to think about. It doesn’t place much faith in human nature and seems like the task of implementation into the workplace may not come so easy. Northouse (2015) also points out how servant leadership first begins with a “natural feeling” to want to serve others first (p. 226). Thus if the idea of this type of leadership appears to be “going against the grain” of popular and more accepted leadership characteristics, I can see how this “natural feeling” may be hidden or stunted.

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However, we should not have little faith. The article also goes on to discuss that a group of organizational psychologists are attempting to measure the impact of servant leadership on leaders, not just those being lead. In a recent book by Grant as cited by Hesket (2013), he suggests that servant leaders are not only more highly regarded than others by their employees and not only feel better about themselves at the end of the day but are more productive as well. Furthermore, his thesis is that servant leaders are the beneficiaries of important contacts, information, and insights that make them more effective and productive at what they do and even though they spend a great deal of their time sharing what they learn and helping others through such things as career counseling, suggesting contacts, and recommending new ways of doing things. I believe (and this may be wishful thinking) that there is a massive amount of servant leaders in the workplace population and all we have to do is get past the stigma that this leadership approach is a sort of reverse pyramid. Servant leadership may very well be what society is lacking and could offer a solution to the flood of ethical dilemmas and the answer to the disturbingly common question of “where was the leadership”?

References

Hesket, J. (2013). Why Isn’t Servant Leadership More Prevalent? Harvard Business School. Retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-isnt-servant-leadership-more-prevalent

Northouse, Peter G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. 7th ed. Sage Publications

“The Motivator”

October 5, 2015 by Jeslynn Theresa Puskar

I will never forget when one of my previous mangers gave me the nickname, “The Motivator” and the best part about was how he said it. He would adopt the accent and tone of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s coined phrase, “The Terminator”. It was light and funny (I’m actually laughing out loud right now in remembrance), but it was true. I was always seeking more efficient ways to complete tasks or implement new procedures to the workplace to increase production and motivation. However, while my characteristic may remain constant throughout my career at various workplaces, the response from leadership isn’t always so, thus nor are the results, and I hadn’t ever understood why, until I learned about the path-goal theory.

As explained by PSU WC L. 6, WC. (2015, p. 12), the path-goal theory assumes that effective leaders will provide valued rewards for the follower (the “goal”) and then help them find the best way of getting there (the “path”). Now, while I have always been dead set on my goals, almost to the point with complete blinders on, I have always attributed failures in getting there to me not being smart enough, resourceful enough, etc. even though my ideas or aspirations would be acknowledged as viable by management. However, now that I understand the difference between whether or not leadership adapted to my specific characteristic. For example, the above mentioned manager went from directive leadership to participative leadership to adapt to my perception of my own abilities. Participative leadership refers to leaders who involve their followers in decision-making (p. 12) and he did just that. Not only after a few short months was I involved in the decision making process and implementation of new procedures, but he then adopted the achievement-oriented leadership style and further challenged me to new heights beyond what myself never would have thought of as achievable and all along the way he demonstrated supportive leadership. This is the essence of the path-goal theory. As pointed out by PSU WC. L. 5 (2015) he changed his style according to the situation (p. 13). In hindsight, whether he was aware of this theory or not, he demonstrated this technique with all of my co-workers as well.

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On the other hand, and going back to my “failures”, I have had made many viable recommendations to other workplaces, but leadership does not always adjust in such a way as my previous manager(s). For example, I’ve had several directive style leaders and while I can be very task driven, this leadership style also denied my or my workgroups path to increase in productivity (p. 13). It could have been something as simple as recommending an extra printer, or changing the location of one to eliminate steps, recommendation to improve the overall office climate by implementing team challenges, etc. However, leadership remained the same, demonstrating the same trait day in and day out. Thus, yielding the same exact results. However, my motivation never ceased.

Perhaps the directive leaders simply were not allotted the flexibility or authority to remove the road blocks in my path. Perhaps they weren’t very efficient leaders… Either way, it is important to remember that this theory is base on “assumption” and along our path to our own leadership, we will also be followers. Thus, the biggest takeaway from this is that just because a leader does not recognize or does not choose to adapt their style, does not mean that we should be less motivated. Eventually, and hopefully, enough motivation from the follower will ultimately break a leader outside of their own trait characteristic to adapt accordingly for a better and more efficient workplace.

Refrences

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2015). PSYCH 485 Lesson 5 Part 2: Path Goal Theory. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa15/psych485/001/content/06_lesson/04_topic/03_page.html

The Queen Of Sheba

September 14, 2015 by Jeslynn Theresa Puskar

When you think of leadership, most likely some key current or historical figures may come to mind such as John F. Kennedy or Mother Theresa, and while such leaders may vary greatly as to their purpose, style, behaviors, etc. the underlying commonality today is not supposed to be found with them. Rather it is with you. When the such examples come to your mind of the “ideal” leader, this is actually in response to archetypes, strong patterns in the human psyche that persist over time (PSU WC, L. 3, 2015, p. 8) and rest assured, you are not the only one.

Archetypes are embedded throughout patterns of literature and mythology. However, one may not typically answer to the question above the, “Queen of Sheba or King Arthur” as an immediate response of their envision of the “ideal leader”, but indeed they and the like play a significant role in our understanding of the psychodynamic approach to leadership. While the warrior and the magician are the most popular archetypes (PSU WC, L.3, 2015), I found the “great mother” to be the most interesting.

King Solomon And The Queen Of Sheba. (2015). The History Channel. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiW8h_6q588

Lets take the Queen of Sheba for example. A universal archetype featured in the Queen of Sheba myth is that of the Great Mother, or founder of a people. Many cultures have a powerful female goddess as the Great Mother and is often equal for a mate, as did the Queen of Sheba, or may even be the more dominant one (Myths & Archetypes, 2015). Does any of this sound familiar? Most likely so. But would you ever have considered that your association of the “ideal leader” comes from a your possessed collective unconscious?

The key take away here, is next time someone asks you a question and you automatically associate a response, take a few moments and think about where that immediate image is stemming from. Next time you are reading literature or mythology, think about the themes and how they apply to your every day life and if you are reading stories of knights and great mothers and magicians to your kids, ask them to think about how those stories may be important later because whether we realize it or not, we are already formulating our “ideal” answers to questions before they are even asked.

References

King Solomon And The Queen Of Sheba. (2015). The History Channel. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiW8h_6q588

Myths & Archetypes. (2005). In Search of Myths and Heroes. PBS. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/mythsandheroes/myths_arch_woman.html#content

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2015). PSYCH 485: Lesson 3: Psychodynamic Approach. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa15/psych485/001/content/03_lesson/12_page.html