Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

Mothers: The Most Altruistic Servant Leaders

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As mentioned in Northouse’s Leadership textbook, servant leadership originated in the writings of Greenleaf, who states that the main goal of servant leadership is “to create healthy organizations that nurture individual growth, strengthen organizational performance, and, in the end, produce a positive impact on society (Northouse, 2019).” A group of people who emulate this description are mothers.

Mothers epitomize this kind of leadership, as early as pregnancy. They offer their bodies to nurture and fulfill all of the needs of the child, from ailment to shelter. For example, some mothers follow strict diets during their pregnancy, create birth plans or attend birthing classes to learn more about this process, and even prepare their child’s nurseries before they are born. Following birth, they provide the most exemplary care necessary to shape a future member of society. For example, mothers provide the best education they can for their children, encourage their children’s hobbies and extracurriculars, and provide them with life skills that they use beyond childhood and into their adult lives.

This aligns with Greenleaf’s conceptualization of servant leadership, as he hypothesizes, “when followers receive caring and empowerment from ethical leaders, they, in turn, will likely begin treating others in this way. Servant leadership would produce a ripple effect in which servant leaders create more servant leaders.” When mothers serve their children and teach them attitudes such as kindness, compassion, and respect, they, in turn, are more likely to share these attitudes with others as they enter adulthood. We can see this by remembering lessons that our mothers or guardians have taught us, and how we find ourselves applying these lessons to our everyday encounters. If our mother taught us to be respectful while in another person’s home, for example, we would always use this life skill whenever we are in that situation.

While most other theories of leadership focus on influence as a method of the leadership process, servant leadership instead values sharing as means of being a leader. For example, Northouse argues that with servant leadership, “leaders should not dominate, direct, or control; rather, leaders should share control and influence. To give up control rather than seek control is the goal of servant leadership.” Some mothers use this method when parenting. They will often encourage and support their child, without directly expecting to control their child or dominate.

Through Northouse’s description of Greenleaf’s theory of servant leadership, we can see how mothers are exemplary candidates for leaders that live to serve others, their children or otherwise, without expecting anything in return and through their drive to lead and provide for their “followers,” or children in this case.

Reference

Northouse, P.G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Evaluating and Conceptualizing the Style Approach

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Assessing leadership is crucial when it comes to determining traits that are ideal for leadership. The style approach, which was spoken about in this week’s lesson, is an important aspect when it comes to assessing leadership (Hamel, 2021). The process of assessing leadership can be challenging, so it is crucial that it is done right. According to Hamel (2021), this theory explains that there are two types of behavior that when combined together, they help influence subordinates to achieve something. This reinforces the fact that there is a correlation between relationship and task behaviors. Hamel (2021) describes the first are the task behaviors, which are the ones that focus on achieving goals, and the second, relationship behaviors, as those that help followers feel more secure with themselves, each other, and in the situation. 

To try to better understand the concepts spoken about in Lesson 5, I tried to think about the definition of the style approach theory and try to apply it to real-life. My example may not be realistic, however, the different roles present help me better understand the correlation between the task and relationship behaviors. I thought about a baker and his/her crew while making and decorating a cake in the kitchen. 

Of course, cooperation and patience are important for teamwork, but they are also helpful when defining trait behaviors. These two traits help enforce the accomplishment of a goal by encouraging the baker’s team (or subordinates) to work together. It takes the patience of explaining directions and listening to the directions by the leader and cooperation with others to follow through to get the task done. As well as the trait behaviors, there are the relationship behaviors. These are behaviors such as kindness expressed from the baker, meaning the instructions are explained so the team can understand and not in a condescending way. 

As all approaches have, there are strengths and weaknesses to the Style Approach (Hamel, 2021). These are important to acknowledge so the task is accomplished in the most effective way possible. First let’s address the weaknesses. Though this approach reveals about the style of a leader, it does not acknowledge performance outcomes (Hamel, 2021). How leaders perform when trying to accomplish a task is important for the entire process. In Lesson 5, Hamel (2021) explains how this approach also fails to find one specific leadership style that is effective in the majority of situations. It would be helpful if the theory was guaranteed to work in most situations, however, unfortunately it is not. Its strengths highlight its wide support, its help in understanding leadership, and the fact that leader behaviors can be taught and trained reinforces that leaders are made, not born (Hamel, 2021). Acknowledging the strengths and taking into consideration the weaknesses of the Style Approach can help make this theory overall more effective in leadership.

 

Hamel, R. (2021). Lesson 5: Style and Situational Approaches.

How do teachers demonstrate the skills and situational approach?

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Through this week’s lesson we were exposed to the concept’s that create the style and situational approach. The style approach focuses on the idea that the leader’s behavior will have a more direct relationship with the leader’s effectiveness. The two core factors of this approach are task and relationship behaviors. A task behavior is something that focuses on an accomplishment of a goal, while a relationship behavior focuses on making followers feel comfortable with themselves, each other, and with the situation (Lesson Commentary 5). The situational approach explains how leaders adjust their behavior depending on their followers and the situations they are positioned in (Lesson Commentary 5)

When thinking about these two approaches of the style and situational approach it led me to think about how teachers in a classroom must apply both these concepts in order to be a successful teacher. Firstly, the style approach is something that corresponds to how a teacher is presented in the class. In the Ohio State study, the researchers found that initiating structure and consideration were two of the biggest factors that were found in effective leaders. These two clusters correspond directly to the task and relationship behaviors discussed above. When applying this to how teachers lead in their class it is significant that teachers both use initiating structure which is organizing their work, giving structure, and scheduling activities (Lesson Commentary 5). In order to be a successful teacher, you must use this factor to demonstrate your effectiveness to the class and management in the school. However, consideration is also very apparent in a teaching role as well. Building relationships gaining trust, respect and linking between your students and a teacher is something that all of them seek. In order to have an effective classroom dynamic the teacher must demonstrate that they are worth leading the class. Several times teachers do not set the factor of consideration in a classroom leading to a tense relationship in the classroom. Northouse (2019) describes the important of human skills incorporated in the skills approach. As mentioned above this is similar to the consideration aspect founded in the Ohio State study. Katz (1995) describes these skills as being aware of one’s own perspective issues, while at the same time being aware of other perspectives. As a teacher these are extremely important skills to have while teaching and leading a classroom environment.

While skills approach is extremely beneficial for teachers’ situational approach can be just as helpful. A study conducted Franklin (2000) analyzed the readiness of public-school teachers for elementary, middle school, and high school and how ready they would be to conduct eight management skills while teaching. The situational approach can be addressed towards teachers because the developmental levels can be linked to this career. The best applied factor is coaching which demonstrates high directive and high supportive behaviors (Lesson Commentary, 5). This means that these leaders must focus on goal achievement as well as their followers needs, which is their students. However, these leaders will still make the final decision in how goals are accomplished which corresponds to teachers effectively because teachers will guide their students to the end goal.

As discussed above, the situational approach discusses the importance of directive behaviors and supportive behaviors. These two concepts intersect with the skills approach because they are extremely similar to task and relationship behaviors. Directive behaviors incorporates the important of a leader describing the responsibilities of a group, and tell people what to do, how to do it, and when to do it (Lesson Commentary, 5). This is important for teachers because they must delegate to students their responsibilities and teach how to do it. In addition, supportive behaviors consist of listening, encouraging, facilitating, clarifying, and giving emotional support (Lesson Commentary 5). This applies to teachers for they must ensure they are using their supportive behaviors towards their students for it creates a bond among the leader and follower, which in this case is the teacher and students.

 

References

Franklin, Terry, “Situational leadership: An analysis of public school teachers readiness levels and preferred principal leadership styles” (2000). ETD Collection for Fayetteville State University. AAI3345644.https://digitalcommons.uncfsu.edu/dissertations/AAI3345644

Hamel, R. (2021). Lesson 5: Style and Situational Approaches.

Northouse, P .G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications

Know to read the air.

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The importance of the interaction with the followers is significant. But also, the interaction with other leaders has a big value. If a leader does not have social judgment skills then it will be harder for them to stand out in society and build up their leadership. For social judgment skills, the leaders must have empathy and know the social system. The leader will need to have a good relationship with the followers, and support opinions, decisions, and change in the leadership. The leader will need to enable the followers to participate in any ideas or make any suggestions that can be better for the things that they are working on. Also, the leader will need to enable themselves to highly support and work with other people to solve a problem or achieve the goal. The importance of social judgment skills is that the leader will need to be in the teamwork instead of just assigning things to the followers.

Another thing that will benefit the leadership is that the leader will need to understand people and the social system. The understanding of how social work and the rules of the environment that they are working on. In a more easy form, is to know how to read the air and do and not do things when they are working. Unfortunately, if a leader has a personality that does not fit with the “society rule,” then sometimes it will be very hard for the leader to collaborate with other leaders or fields that prefer someone who understands the social system. Even though it sometimes made the leaders’ hand-tied, and it is not pleasant to understand the social system and have to change themselves, yet when interacting with different leaders, it is still better if they understand the social system and react “properly” when working on the leadership.

So how can you improve your skills on “reading the air”? Yoshihito Naitou, a Keio University Ph.D. in sociology suggested there are ways to improve this skill. First, one needs to understand the situation, which is like knowing the social system of the social judgment skills. Also, use a proper language no matter what, even when facing complicated and tough situations. Moreover, always pay close attention to the climate in the situation. Observed everything and make a cation that fit the situation.

When having a leading skill, it needs to be sold so that other workers and the followers understand and accept it. Knowing to follow the social system’s rules and allowing people to participate in things when leading will decrease the possibility of creating communication barriers between the interaction with other leaders or the followers.

 

References:

Chiang, Benjamin, and Benjamin Chiang. “’Reading the Air’｜Culture｜2008-10-09｜CommonWealth Magazine.” CommonWealth Magazine, CommonWealth Magazine, 2008, english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=1283.

Hamel, R. (n.d.). Lesson 4: Skills Approach, 2021

Mumford, M. D., & Connelly, M. S. (1991). Leaders as creators: Leader performance and problem solving in ill-defined domains. Leadership Quarterly, 2, 289–315.

Mumford, M. D., Zaccaro, S. J., Connelly, M. S., & Marks, M. A. (2000). Leadership skills: Conclusions and future directions. Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), 155–170.

Northouse, P.G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice. 7th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

 

When Your Leader Lacks One of the Three Skills

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I work for two different bosses. One is the director of the preschool in which I am the Assistant Director. The other is the lead Pastor at the church where the preschool is located. I recently began working as a part-time office administrator for the church along with my existing duties as an assitant director. It has been eye-opening to see the differences between the preschool director and the lead pastor in their roles as leaders.

As defined this week, the three skills needed to be a good leader according to the skills approach are technical, human and conceptual skills (Northouse, 2019). Technical skill is the knowledge of the mechanics of the job, human skills are the interpersonal skills necessary to interact effectively with staff and conceptual skill is the ability to think of ideas and solutions to problems to make the business better and innovate. My preschool director excels at all three skills, she is knowledgeable of all areas necessary to keep our preschool healthy and safe for all kids and staff. She has a great personality with seemingly endless reservoirs of patience and she has the best ideas for how to solve complex problems. I am really very lucky to get to work alongside her every day.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for my second boss. As a pastor, I think that she is probably amazing. I don’t attend this church (or any, to be fair) but she seems to be really good at sermons and congregational care. Unfortunately she lacks the knowledge to do many of the other tasks necessary to be a good leader of a church. The lead pastor has to lead many groups and activities, as well as managing all of the employees of the church. This lead pastor often lacks the most basic knowledge of how her church functions, relying on her staff to keep everything under control. Up until I pointed it out to her very recently she didn’t even know when or if the custodians were working even though she was approving their timesheets on a weekly basis. As far as human skills, she is an admitted introvert, choosing an office on the upper floor of the building in order to avoid bumping into people, rather than use the office that the lead pastor has used for years and years before her, which is right next to the church office and accessible to all employees and congregants. Under her leadership, most of the church staff have moved to areas of the building that makes them inaccessible to church members. Her conceptual skills seem to be pretty rough, many of her ideas are overly complicated and require a lot of tweaking to actually become usable ideas.

All in all, I don’t know how long I can stand to work for both bosses. Working for the preschool director is amazing. Working for the lead pastor is a daily slog. Being able to see the differences in here in writing makes it pretty clear to me what the issues are. The question for me is how long can I put up with it?

References

Northouse, P. (2019). Leadership : Theory and Practice (8th ed.). Los Angeles Sage.

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