Leadership Philosophy - New Learning

Kevin Jones

Indiana Wesleyan University

DOL 760C

Dr. Tim Beuthin

May 29, 2007

Revised November 8, 2008

Revised February 12, 2009

Leadership Philosophy - New Learning

The study of organizational behavior is one that appears in some ways to be a moving target. With ever increasing globalization it has become one of the more important areas for study in the field of leadership.  The course in organizational behavior has enabled me to better understand how people behave within the context of an organization.   

Changes in Latest Iteration of Philosophy Paper

The changes I made in the latest iteration of my personal philosophy of leadership paper were primarily driven by the feedback given by Dr Beuthin, the facilitator during the previous iteration, and Dr. Lindsey, my mentor. There was s significant amount of revision work to be done and the new learning was to include only two or three paragraphs for Domain Three.

Included in those changes were word choice corrections in several sections. I made numerous changes in wording particularly in the first four pages of the paper. I also included a section on what assessments I would accept that would demonstrate personal mastery. 

Changes in My Understanding of Leadership

One of the changes in my understanding of leadership is just how much the culture of an organization will, at least to a certain extent, determine just how effectively one can lead. Greenberg and Baron (2003) define organizational behavior as "a cognitive framework consisting of attitudes, values, behavioral norms, and expectations shared by organization members" (p. 515). The culture of an organization is determined over a period of time and a new leader coming into an organization may find it difficult to change that culture.

As a leader, I must first understand the culture of the organization before I begin to attempt to change it. I must look for shared values between myself and other members of the organization in order to connect with them.

Schein (1999) points out that "culture matters because decisions made without awareness of the operative cultural forces may have unanticipated and undesirable consequences" (p. 3). Taking the culture of an organization seriously is a key to preventing major upheaval. Organizational culture results from shared experiences. For someone new being brought in to lead an organization understanding these shared experiences must become a priority if they are to be successful. 

Schein (1999) identifies three levels of organizational culture: artifacts, espoused values, and shared tacit assumptions. The artifact level is that which is seen and emotionally reacted to but does not necessarily give great insight on the "Why" of the culture. Acting too quickly to cause change in the culture based solely on this level of understanding will almost certainly lead to failure.

An espoused values level understanding begins by asking "Why". This level is typically where one can find the written strategies, goals, and mission. What may become clear though is that what actually happens within the organization may not line up with the espoused values. This necessitates one going to an often invisible level of culture.

The shared tacit assumptions level of culture forces one to look at the history of the organization. Why was it founded?  Who founded the organization? This is the beginning to an understanding of how the organization, through shared experiences, began to develop a culture. Developing an understanding of this level of culture allows one to begin to decide if the culture is appropriate or needs to be changed and how to best start the change process.

Drucker (2006) notes that organizations "have no choice but to become information-based" (p. 127). Organizations are moving away from the traditional assembly line approach to knowledge workers which will cause a change in the culture of organizations. Knowlededge workers are resistant to controlling leaders in part because they oftentimes have more current information than do the leaders. This shift is a change in the cultures of many organizations.

Refinement of Personal Mission, Values, and Vision

I added an additional value to my philosophy of leadership paper. This value is to lead in such a way that those who follow know that I value them as individuals. They are not simply a means to moving towards a vision but are viewed as having value to me personally as well as to the organization.

I felt this needed to be included as a core value if my leadership is to be modeled after that of Christ. It is far too easy to begin to see people as a means to an end as opposed to them having value as individuals. And yet, Jesus notes that the Father sees them as individuals in John 3:16 when He says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (New International Version). This modeling of leadership is one that I desire to follow closely.

Focus

The process of journaling on order to be able to write about my new learning of leadership has helped me to focus on the type of leader I desire to be by causing me to reflect on the type of leader I am on a weekly, and at times daily, basis. I am learning to ask myself the hard questions in regards to my reactions to circumstances in out organization.

I am learning to reflect on the cause of not only my reactions but on those of others as well. Is the way that I approached the issue what caused the negative reaction? Was my approach in alignment with the shared assumptions of the rest of the members of my organization? Does the culture need to change or am I the one needing to adapt?

Experiential Leadership Learning

I am learning to be more assertive in that I am willing to volunteer for different assignments. For example, I was recently placed on a taskforce for the Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), Appendix A, studying retention. This came about because I was in the process of doing my literature review for my course in organizational behavior and shared my findings with those selecting people to serve on the task force. Frankly, I would have never agreed to serve on the task force prior to the origination of my study on leadership.

I also recently completed work on a committee tasked with developing a rubric for the business and management courses, Appendix B. This came about as a result of my being willing to challenge the assumption that we needed to raise the grading scale in order to curb grade inflation. My assertion was that we needed to find a workable tool that would give students the information they need to do the writing assignments well, be useful to facilitators for supplying higher quality feedback, and make the facilitators more accountable for that feedback. This assertion was based on reading I had done on the research conducted by DuCharme-Hansen, B. A. & Dupin-Bryant, P. A. (2005) on the importance of providing in-depth evaluations to students in order to facilitate a higher level learning experience.

I am becoming more confident in my ability to lead and yet I find myself troubled by the fact that the more I learn about leadership the less that I feel I know about the subject. I mentioned this to a faculty member who smiled and replied that the program was working as intended. The idea is to ramp up our learning but also our understanding that this will be a lifetime study.

Three Specific Highpoints of Learning

The first highpoint would be having to do the literature review. While it was challenging, to say the least, it gave me a little taste of what doing the dissertation might feel like. The comments on the final version were something along the line of: The first draft looked like something an admittance counselor would have written but your final paper was of a doctoral level in that it was well researched with a great reference list (Drury, 2007, Personal Communication). This gave me hope that I will be able to make it through the program and earn my doctorate.

The second highpoint of learning this term was beginning to understand the importance of alignment in my personal and organizational values. Kouzes and Posner (2003) point out that "shared values are the foundation for building productive and genuine working relationships" (p. 121). This is not having the unrealistic expectation that you will get everyone within the organization to agree with all of your values. Rather, it is finding those values you have in common and building upon them.

The third highpoint of learning this term has been to realize that there is no one organizational structure that works for every organization. Nor is a hierarchical structure necessarily bad. The type of organization will, in part, dictate the type of structure that is necessary in order to be successful. That does not mean that an organization should not be willing to change to meet changing circumstances but all too often the assumption is made that a type of structure is the problem with an organization.

My Commitment to Doing Better as a Result of My Leadership Learning to Date

I am committed to making sure that those whom I lead are assured that I value them and their role in the organization, Appendices C & D. I am also committed to making sure that they sense I am the type of leader that, as Kouzes and Posner (2003) state "demonstrates an enthusiastic and genuine belief in the capacity of others" (p. 218).

I am committed to being a compassionate leader. I want to have those who follow be able to say that we suffered together. In this way I can encourage and lift up those who follow me as I follow Christ.

I am committed to a better understanding of organizational culture and structure. I will endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of the culture of Indiana Wesleyan University, the College of Adult and Professional Studies, and the Center for Distributed Learning for at least two reasons. The first is for the sake of understanding those cultures, and the second is to be better able to lead change whenever necessary. This understanding will also allow me to view inter-departmental problems through a broader lens, Appendix E.

References

DuCharme-Hansen, B. A., & Dupin-Bryant, P. A. (2005). Course planning for online adult learners. TechTrends 49(2), 31-39.

(Drucker P F 2006 Classic Drucker: Essential wisdom of Peter Drucker from the pages of the Harvard Business Review)Drucker, P. F. (2006). Classic Drucker: Essential wisdom of Peter Drucker from the pages of the Harvard Business Review. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

(Greenberg J Baron R A 2003 Behavior in Organizations)Greenberg, J., & Baron, R. A. (2003). Behavior in Organizations (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

(Kouzes J M Posner B Z 2003 Credibility: How leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it)Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2003). Credibility: How leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

(Schein E H 1999 corporate culture survival guide)Schein, E. H. (1999). The corporate culture survival guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc.

Appendix A

Hello All,

We have scheduled a conference call for this coming TUESDAY, April 3 at 2:00 p.m. (EDT).  Please find attached the directions for calling in.  I will send out an agenda on Monday to help guide our discussion.  In the meantime, please revisit the list of items below, per our charge from the Consultation Day, and be prepared to contribute your thoughts and ideas along these lines.  If you can, please also take the time to visit the Noel-Levitz website and look over their sample Adult Learner Early Alert form, for ideas on how to identify potentially high attrition-prone students.

Thanks to Cynthia for getting the phone conference set up!

Have a great weekend.

Jon S. Kulaga, Ph.D.

Assistant Dean, School of Adult Studies

Associate Professor

Director, University Honors Program

Spring Arbor University

106 E. Main

Spring Arbor, MI  49283

(517) 750-6351

Appendix B

One of the times that comes to mind for me is during the meeting we had about the new grading scale.  In it, you were able to passionately and effectively establish (and support) your position that was counter to the ‘prevalent' position.  You first listened to their viewpoint and then assertively (but not overly aggressively) asked probing questions and gave food for thought.  You backed off to allow ‘simmering' of those thoughts and further discussion.  You then reiterated your stance and provided evidence about how it would hurt (online) students after a comment was made about it "not hurting but possibly helping" the situation.

Your actions were to help the program, the students, and the facilitators—and thereby the ADs as well.

Strengths, as mentioned above, included: passion, reason/logic, debate skills, assertion, and discernment.

The outcome was to table what appeared to be an edict and imminent change that is now under discussion.

Mark Alexander

Director, Center for Distributed Learning

Indiana Wesleyan University

Appendix C

Kevin,

The most meaningful task that you ever preformed was when you went to bat for me concerning the Resources ordering layout.  The textbook distribution office was wanting us to fill out an excel spreadsheet every time we ordered resources for the facilitators. This would have created a lot of undue work for the schedulers.  Even though Sherri was firm on the report looking "exactly" the same, you were able to get her to say that "as long as it looked like the excel form", they would accept our FileMaker Layout.

I think that it is important for leaders to portray concern for their employees in action.  It really is true that actions speak louder than words.  You can say that you are concerned about an individual everyday until Sunday, but if your actions don't reflect that, the words are meaningless.

LouAnn Schrock

Appendix D

  It is easy for me to express the positive influence you have had on our CDL dept.   Many times you have brought fresh ideas or shed a new perspective on a project that we as a dept were considering.  Your wonderful sense of humor and caring ways are present in all that you do.  The knowledge and discernment you display in guiding your facilitators and students are outstanding.  I believe knowing you have come up through the ranks of being a student, teacher, and now administrator gives those you work with a greater respect for your experience and guidance. 

            I will never forget the encouragement you gave me personally as a student in the ASBO program.  When I was trying to finish the program by catching up on some courses I had missed, I had over weighed myself with 3 online courses at the same time, you reminded me of the real importance in life: My family.

Yes, getting a good grade was important but taking time to go to a daughter's recital was also important.   I completed my goal of completing my associate's degree but I also was there for my children when they needed me. 

            Thank you for the strength and wisdom you have shared with your students and our CDL dept.

Pamela Thompson

Online Support

Appendix E

What I believe you are best at is seeing through an issue to how important it is in the big picture.  I have seen you do this several times since coming to IWU.  There are many issues that we deal with daily that are caused internally by other departments who do not understand the nature of the online department. I have seen you calm coworkers down so that they can understand why the person in the other department handled things they way they did.  I have seen you give constructive suggestions on how to help the other areas to understand our idea.  This is a very unique leadership skill.  It is very hard to stay in the middle of a situation that is at a boiling point and help someone to understand the other person's side of things.  

The hardest part of this situation is telling the person who came to you that we just have to learn to deal with it.  It is not worth the bridges it will burn if we pursue it.  This is true in a lot of cases but I have seen things get blown so out of proportion because this side was either not seen or ignored. 

Rhonda Watts

IWU Online

Center for Distributed Learning

Business & Management Program Specialist