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Ruiz Rivera

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human transcendence

Blog VI: Transformational Leadership – The modern approach to Leadership in the 21st Century

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Transformational leadership is an approach widely used and accepted by scholars and leaders alike in the 21st century. It’s an approach to leadership theory that focuses on leaders as individuals who lead through mentoring and empowering followers to make decisions and ultimately put the needs of their group over their own (Northouse, 2016, pp. 161-162). Transformational leaders recognize that followers who are empowered to make decisions grow as individuals and in doing so, benefit the group. Northouse (2016) identifies several ways transformational leaders transform their followers:

  1. Leaders use their charisma to act as positive role models to followers through their integrity, professionalism, and ethical behaviour.
  2. Leaders are able to motivate followers by selling the organization’s vision and spurring emotional investment to the group through symbolism, inspired action etc.
  3. Leaders intellectually stimulate their followers by challenging them to be creative in their approach, reflect on their beliefs, or evaluate the direction of the organization.
  4. Leaders also take the needs the needs of their followers into consideration such as providing challenges ,opportunities, or tasks to capable and willing followers while implementing more structure to those who need it.

Transformational leadership is often contrasted to a more traditional style of leadership known as transactional leadership which focus on providing faithful followers with material rewards while punishing those who don’t meet their set standard (Northouse, 2016, p. 162).

 

References

“Bikes for Fish”. (2015, December 31). Taking a Trip [Digital image]. Retrieved October 21, 2018, from https://bikesforfish.com/tag/transcendence/

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice, Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 971452203409

Blog V: Overcoming Inherent Human Biases

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Linda Elder’s writing and work on critical thinking provided to be hugely insightful for anyone interested in further exploring and understanding the concept. As human beings, we are inherently limited in our ability to understand and perceive the world partially due to our egocentric natures. We view the world through a subjective lens that’s tainted by our biases, self-interests, and irrationality which ultimately affect how we act towards others. Much of the darkness in human history stemmed from this pattern of thinking and were responsible for many of the historical atrocities you could list off the top of your head. The ones that come first to my mind are the witch hunts in the 17th century, the Lehman Brother’s role in the Great Recession, and the United States invasion in Afghanistan. Elder (2007) makes an important point that those who think critically seek to transcend our egocentric patterns of thinking by recognizing our inherent flaws and then improving the world by contributing to moral and just society. Another idea of hers that I found significant is that critical thinking is life-long skill that should constantly improved and that one should never be content in their ability to think critically . Contentment is a path towards reverting to egocentrism because when we begin to get over-confident in our abilities to think critically, it enacts the opposite effect because we then lose the ability to see things with an open mind. As we seek to improve our critical thinking skills, be wary of other possible traps that may regress your progress.

 

References

Elder, L. (2007, September). Our Concept and Definition of Critical Thinking. Retrieved October 13, 2018, from http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/our-concept-of-critical-thinking/411

Blog IV: What are my leadership traits?

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The results of the ‘Leadership Theory and Practice’ and ‘Style’ questionnaires I partook in didn’t reveal too much and confirmed what I mostly knew about myself already. In terms of style, I’ve always preferred to lead based on relationship because I like to give people the freedom in the way they do tasks instead of prescribing a method because often there’s more than one way of doing tasks and someone else’s way might be more efficient than mine. Also in the long term, I believe it’s better to facilitate good relationships with team members and allow them room to discover things on their own as it benefits the group overall if individual members are improving.

As for the ‘Leadership Theory and Practice Questionnaire,’ I’ve always known that human skills have always been a strength of mine so scoring highest on that wasn’t much of a surprise. I was surprised though that I scored higher on technical skills than conceptual skills.

Lastly for the ‘Leadership Trait Questionnaire,’ I found that my self-perceptions of my leadership traits were mostly consistent with the perceptions of my peers with the biggest difference between perceptions about my dependability. For this trait, I had rated myself as a ‘5’ but found my average rating from my peers was ‘3.5’ which I found surprising. My weaknesses as a leader aside from dependability was conscientiousness (3.8), sensitivity (3.5), and empathy (3.8) which were all weaknesses I thought about myself as well and scored myself as ‘3’ for those three traits.  My strengths were also consistent with my self-analysis with them being self-assurance (5), out-goingness (4.7), persistance (4.7), and diligence (4.8).

 

RE: Light from many lamps Part 1

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Hi Georgeena,

Your absolutely right when you tie in Lincoln’s quote about folks being as happy as they make their mind up to be. Like you said, many fail to realize that happiness is an intrinsic quality that comes from within rather than from external sources such as money or acknowledgement. While those things are important to have in life to some extent, I want to add on that happiness can also be achieved by adjusting one’s mindset, attitude or perspective. It’s true that in life we all experience highs and lows but I think what’s important is how to react to these highs and lows (especially the lows) that determine your character. Instead of perceiving a negative event as a negative event and letting it affect your behavior, perhaps perceive it as a learning tool that’s to be used for when a similar event arises again in the future. Try to remove the emotion associated with the event and perceive as something necessary for your development as a person. I honestly think mistakes are life’s best teacher anyways.

Cheers,

-Ruiz

 

Light from many lamps Part 1

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Light From Many Lamps I: The secret to happiness is something to do.

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In John Burroughs story, ‘The Secret to Happiness is Something To Do,’ he practically relays the message of the story in the title itself. John argues that ‘the best thing for a man is that which keeps the currents going – the physical, the moral, the intellectual currents going… Take away the occupation of all men, and what a wretched world it would be (Watson, 1998).’ Also earlier in Burroughs’ story he argued that men (and women) having congenial work is more important than any other common associations to happiness such as money, power, fame, or friends because those who lack either money, power, fame, or friends will constantly strive for them (Watson, 1998). A woman with money, for example, isn’t necessarily happy because wealth may have come at the cost of true friendships or love which then is something she thinks she needs to be happy whereas a poor woman with good friends may feel that money is what would make her happy. These things are all the product of people wanting what they don’t have. What many fail to realize though, is that it is in the journey of attaining these goals that produces true happiness, not necessarily the end goal itself. It also seems Watson was aware of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as he mentioned that people also need food, shelter, and clothing to feel any sort of happiness before they can find the sort of work that’s fulfilling. This is similar to Maslow’s idea in that physical and security needs take priority over any kind of happiness but people should work towards ‘self-actualization’ which partially involve finding congenial work to truly experience happiness.

I wholeheartedly agree with Burroughs’ story about finding true happiness in work that you find fulfilling. As someone personally trying to adapt the principles of transformational servant leadership in my interactions with others, one of the things I try to do is help enrich the lives of those around me by helping them find their passions. To me, pursuing passions is one of the best reasons to get up everyday as I feel it gives life purpose and direction. With each passing day, it feels like another productive step closer to achieving my dreams. For those around me who feel lost in what to do in their lives, my best advice to them is pursue the things you love to do and try to incorporate those passions either in your job, your recreational time, as a side business or with your family. And if they’re not quite sure what they identify as passions, then those are journeys that I would be happy to take with them.

 

References

Maslow, A., & Lewis, K. J. (1987). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Salenger Incorporated, 14, 987.

McLeod, S. (2018). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs [Digital image]. Retrieved October 7, 2018, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

Watson, L. E. (1988). Light from many lamps. New York: Simon & Schuster.

 

RE: Follow the Leader – written by Matt Squirell

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Hi Matt,

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading your article about the corporate activism of Rose Marcario, the CEO of Patagonia. I agree that society needs to shift it’s values of being a product-consumer to product-owner as far too many resources are wasted on producing clothing items to keep up with ever-changing fashion trends and old clothing ending up on garbage heaps. We need more business leaders like Rose Marcario out there reflecting on the overall impact her organization has on the environment. I think one of the ways we can also follow in Rose’s example is by publicly advocating for social change, especially in the clothing industry, in adopting better business practices which support the environment and end consumerist ideals. As students taking part in higher education, what better way to enrich our educational experience than to bring along others with us on our educational journey by attempting to influence those within our social circles. Actions for change start with the ideas that are influenced or planted by others which is why I challenge you, if you aren’t already doing so, to broadcast your reflections to those who are immediately in your sphere of influence. Again, I applaud you for the outstanding article you wrote and keep up the good work.

-Ruiz

 

References

Squirell, M. (2018, September 29). Follow the Leader [Blog post]. Retrieved from

Follow the Leader

Blog III: A Leader is a Servant

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A popular approach to modern leadership theory was one coined by Robert Greenleaf as servant leadership. Greenleaf defined servant leadership as:

“the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead… the difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant – first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test… is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to be servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived?” (Greenleaf, 1970)

One may ask how a leader can be a servant and vice-verse since they seem to be two polar opposites? However, it’s in their contrast that is the beauty of servant leadership as it serves as the balance between the two opposing concepts. Servant leaders focus on putting followers first over their self-interests, empowering them, developing them to their full capacity, and are attentive to their concerns (Northouse, 2016). The leader’s aim is to ethically develop their followers to be leaders themselves and encourage them to spread the philosophy to their own peers, thus lessening the divide between leader and followers. Greenleaf goes further to explain that a servant leader should also be concerned about the less privileged and remove any social injustice exists around them.

A metaphor to symbolize this process is a tree with the leader who introduces the philosophy of servant leadership to a group representing the main trunk and his followers as the branches that sprout from the main trunk. As each follower internalizes the principles of servant leadership and spreads their influence to others, their branch further multiplies into several more branches and so forth; producing a healthy, vibrant, and beautiful tree which springs life to the environment it lives in.

As a striving leader, I myself aim to adopt the principles of servant leadership in my daily ethos.  One of the principles, however, that I often have difficulty with is the listening. Listening, from a servant leadership context, is described as a learned discipline which involves hearing, being receptive to what others have to say, and acknowledging the viewpoint of other followers (Spears, 2002). I personally find this the most challenging to put into practice because when I speak with others, my mind often attempts to complete the sentences or thoughts of the people I speak with rather than letting them complete their idea. A servant leader communicates through so to improve my listening skills, I need to make a conscious effort of processing people’s thoughts as they present them rather than anticipating it for them.

Another principle which I think is crucial to adopting a servant leadership approach is community building. I consider building community as one of the biggest components to servant leadership because it allows followers to understand their overall purpose or role in the grand scheme of things. This is done by having followers feel a sense of connectedness with other followers and identify with something of greater importance than their own. An example I have to illustrate this is when I’m training new employees in the shelter team for the homeless community members in the Downtown Eastside. When training new staff members, I always communicate how our work affects the community and the lives of those we serve in an effort for staff to buy in early to the work that they do.

Now, a question I have for my readers is whether there are other strategies you can think of to improve my listening skills based on my tendency to process others’ thoughts before they conclude them?

 

References

Lide, R.C., Wayne, S.J., Zhao, H., & Henderson, D. (2008). Servant leadership: Development of a multidimensional measure and multi-level assessment. Leadership Quarterly, 19, 161-177.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (Seventh ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Spears, L.C. (2002). Tracing the past, present, and future of servant-leadership. In L.C. Spears & M. Lawrence (Eds.), Focus on leadership: Servant-leadership for the 21st century (pp. 1-16). New York: Wiley.

Leadership v Management

Blog II: Leadership vs Management

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An interesting topic that’s explored amongst scholars studying leadership is the contrast between leadership and management. In many ways, the relationship between leadership and management can be compared to the social process of a person ‘emerging’ as a leader, described as emergent leadership, and a person being ‘assigned’ a leadership position which is described as assigned leadership.

The process of emergent leadership is, in my opinion, what produces true leaders due to the respect and trust they receive from followers, despite holding any formal title or office. As described in earlier blog posts, leadership is a process that involves influencing followers towards a common goal and it’s in that process where leaders emerge and are identified.

On the other hand, people who have been ‘assigned’ management positions which hold legitimate power remain as such unless they garner the respect of their followers throughout the leadership process. Leaders and managers are often used interchangeably for one another, but in reality they are two distinct concepts. Managers focuses on maintaining the operational systems within the organization by mastering routines, and helping others master those same routines (Northouse, 2016). Meanwhile a leaders focuses on the person itself by providing a vision, influencing, and transforming their followers (Northouse, 2016).

A personal example I have which outlines the difference between leadership and management is when I was training a colleague to take over the social housing building that I had been running. When I was allotted time to train her, I did my best to use a transformational servant style of leadership by essentially focusing on her development. I imparted advice that would teach her the basics of running the building but also allow her to input ideas and changes that best suited her style. I also offered support by stressing that she could freely contact me after the allotted training time if she needed advice or experienced difficulty. Afterwards, my manager tried to administer his influence by teaching her the systems he used to manage his other building and allowed little input from her even though the building was different from others. As a result, my colleague still continues to consult me about the building and does her best to avoid the manager as neither she or I saw much positive value in the practices he was trying to implement on the building and it’s tenants.

Ideally, those that make the best managers for an organization are the ones who’ve emerged as leaders over time. There are cases however, where having an emergent leader move into a management position is not ideal such as when the environment of an organization is toxic and the emergent leader would further advance the toxic culture. In such cases, it is the responsibility of superiors to recognize these issues and look elsewhere to assign leadership to someone who can help change the culture. What are other instances that you can think where it’s more appropriate to assign leadership positions to those who don’t emerge as leaders? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

 

References

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (Seventh ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Suresh, B. (n.d.). Leadership vs Management [Digital image]. Retrieved September 29, 18, from http://www.asiainc500.com/leadership-vs-management/

 

what makes a great leader

Blog I: Defining Leadership

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Throughout time, the conceptual understanding of leadership has varied where in the early 20th century for example, leadership was thought to be linked to specific behavioral or personality traits that certain people possessed (Northouse, 2016). Today we will be critically examining the modern definition of leadership, as defined by Northouse, and the components which make up its definition.

Northouse defines leadership as “a process whereby an individual influences a group towards a common goal.” Northouse goes further to identify the four components of leadership that’s remained consistent over time which have been included in his operational definition: 1) that leadership is a process, 2) it involves influence, 3) it occurs in groups, 4) and it involves a common goal (Northouse, 2016).

Overall, I largely agree with the definition that Northouse has given about leadership but with the major difference occurring amongst individuals in how they influence their followers towards a common goal. I also think there’s another dimension to consider in regards to the idea of leadership being a process, and that involves time.

The estimated time it will take for a group to accomplish their goal is a factor that should be considered when leaders determine how they will lead their group from point A to point B. Generally, if a leader is tasked with leading a group or an organization to completing a large and lengthy operation, it would be advantageous for the leader to take on a transformational servant style of leadership to produce followers that’s also capable of accepting more responsibilities (particularly leadership). In doing so, a leader would accomplish lessening their workload, produce highly competent and empowered followers, and would ensure a smooth running operation if the leader were to depart.

In contrast for shorter operations, my hypothesis is that a leader should adopt a more authoritative style of leadership, assuming the leader at least has referent and expert power at their disposal. Reasons for this is because for operations where time is the enemy, ideally you’d want to accomplish the task as quick and efficiently as possible. Authoritative leaders are better suited for these types of tasks and in situations where a groups members are unfamiliar with one another because leader don’t have time to necessarily influence followers, only direct them to execute certain tasks for the sake completing the goal.

From the point I articulated in this post, it’s easy to see why the definition of leadership has differentiated over time as it’s such a fluid concept with many factors to consider. In my readings so far of Northouse’s textbook, I haven’t yet seen any discussion about the relationship between leadership styles and time but I think it’s a factor that’s certainly worth exploring when trying to understand the process of leadership. Which styles of leadership DO YOU think is best suited for a leader handling shorter operation? What about a leader handling a longer one? Let me know what you think in the comments section below.

 

References

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (Seventh ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

What Makes a Great Leader [Digital Image]. (2016). Retrieved September 29, 18, from https://www.linkstrategies.com.au/blog/15-important-leadership-qualities-for-success

 

 

Steve Nash Pass

Assignment One: Follow the Leader

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Hello everyone, welcome to my first official week as a Master’s Student here at Trinity Western University! I’m excited to share with everyone my first assignment which involves writing about a leader we each admire and how their leadership influences us. My understanding for the purpose of this assignment is to articulate what leadership means to us by describing how our chosen leader exemplifies the values that we envision in an ideal leader. As always, I’m looking to strengthen my writing skills and learn how to create a website so please leave some helpful tips or feedback about the progress of my blog below.

 

Leadership, as a concept, has always been difficult and ambiguous to define as there are so many ideas from different people about what leadership is. But throughout time, there’s been at least four components of the overall definition of leadership that remained consistent; as described by Northouse in his textbook Leadership: that leadership is a process, it involves influence, it occurs in groups, and involves a common goals. To me personally, influence is what really stands out as a central tenet to leadership. There’s many people from different backgrounds that I consider hugely influential such as Elon Musk, Michael Jordan, Dr. Allyson Jule, and my Dad but this time I chose to write about one of my biggest heroes growing up, Steve Nash.

Steve Nash is widely regarded as the greatest basketball player to have ever come out of Canada. Although he’s won many awards that the great players before him have won, what stood out to me about his legacy are the lasting contributions he’s made on and off the court after his hall of fame career. Despite all the odds, such as coming from a little known place in the basketball world or being a below average athlete by NBA standards (he was only about 6’1 compared to the league average height of 6’6 and could not even dunk the ball), he crafted a legendary career by literally influencing the playing style of NBA teams today through the high octane, fastbreak offense he led with his former team, the Phoenix Suns. Although it’s easy to see why he was so influential as a player to the game of basketball, it’s his off the court work and interactions with others that stood him apart from many of the greatest athletes.

Steve Nash began to spread his influence more when he created his Instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/stevenash/) to give fans more access into his life. Some of the ventures he shared to followers included starting a charity foundation (https://www.instagram.com/stevenashfdn/?hl=en) that serves underprivileged kids in the inner city, managing Canada’s national basketball program, holding private training lessons for kids living in the Greater Los Angeles area as well as for NBA Players, and helping to propel green initiatives and human rights movements. Given all his work and his public affairs, he’s also very private in his own respects. You can see this from his social media accounts that he greatly values just being a normal family guy. From following Nash closely, my observation is that Nash tends to lead mostly through his actions. He connects people towards initiatives mostly through his platform as a star athlete. Sports in general have the power to teach and hone the importance of work ethic, attitude, and teamwork which can translate to everything you do in life and Nash is the embodiment of this on the court as people everywhere strive to replicate his work ethic and mindset in sports and in their lives. Off the court, his activities include bringing people together for celebrity basketball and soccer games to raise proceeds for his charity foundation, attending human rights protests, voicing his thoughts on controversial political topics such as the Trump administration or the War in Iraq, or advocating for better environmental practices by being selective of the companies he partners with.

It’s clear Nash lives what he preaches and his actions have done a lot in influencing people. However, one way I think he could further promote the initiatives he’s campaigned for is by publicly speaking more in forums or conventions. Nash is in a position were he can facilitate change and rally more support through public speaking because of the platform he stands on. Even if he isn’t necessarily an expert on the topics he advocates for, people will listen simply because of who he is and the positive public opinion about him. Athletes such as Lebron James, Colin Kaepernick, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have been vocal to the public about their opinion towards human rights controversies in America which have influenced other athletes to speak out on controversies they feel strongly about. If Steve Nash somehow came across this blog post, I would empower him as well to speak more about the initiatives he believes in as he has the referent power to help advance society.

Through watching some of his interviews and his play style, I can tell that Nash uses the transformational servant style of leadership which is what I also try to model in my daily life. Many of his teammates enjoyed the most successful parts of their playing career statistically when playing with Nash as his playing style allowed teammates to impact the game more so than they would playing on other teams. In his interviews, Nash also talks about being consciously aware of empowering his teammates to feel like their impacting the game. By placing his teammates in great positions to score, he and the team got a lot more in return because his teammates were engaged in the game, gave more energy on defense, hustled, or shared the ball more amongst each other. Many of the techniques that athletes such as myself and Nash use to get the most out of their teammates can be translated into the workplace, to social groups, or even with family. How I try to implement his example in teams I play on or in my workplace is by always encouraging, trying to create an environment where my peers can openly voice their questions or concerns, sharing information as much as I can, consciously allowing others to be involved in the decision making processes, or allowing others to speak and take the lead.

As a leader, Steve Nash was successful during his playing career in leading his teams to many regular and postseason wins. His playing style allowed teammates to feel empowered in bringing out their true talent and as a result, the team collectively enjoyed successes. The way he played also inspired basketball players to play in a similar manner and hopefully translated some of the important qualities of being an athlete to their personal lives. Off the court, he’s used his platform through social media to narrate his story on youth development, political issues, and environmental concerns. Hopefully through this post, readers can look past the awards and accolades of Steve Nash the athlete and instead, begin to implement the examples of Steve Nash, the social entrepreneur, into their own lives.

 

 

References

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (Seventh ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

 

Ground Zero: Ideas for my Blog Layout

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September 23, 2018

So I’ve started brainstorming ideas for how my blog’s going to look. It’s still a rough draft but if you guys have any helpful tips or suggestions definitely leave me a comment below. So my idea for this blog is to document and share my academic journey towards earning my Master’s Degree in Leadership at Trinity Western University. Here’s a visual for the menu I’ll have up for the blog and it’s contents:

The first section on the left titled About Me is just a page to introduce myself, my interests, and my motivations for doing my Master’s degree. Please check out that page to have an idea about who I am as a person and my background so you’ll have an understanding of the viewpoint or lens from which I interpret information from.

The second section, titled MA Leadership Journey, will be about the work that I contribute to my classes. For my first class, which is titled Leadership Foundations, I’m required to write a blog post every week about a topic on the course. For example, I know for our first topic we will be asked to define leadership and what this means to us so there should be a post about that before the end of next week. This is great because for those who’s interested in learning more about leadership as they’ll be able to access useful information about the content and gain insight into how this learning process transforms me in the next year and a half to two years that I’m taking this program. I’m planning to take other courses online as well so I’ll make sure to tie in some of my work from other classes into this blog. This semester I will also be taking a class titled Ethical Leadership which basically explores real-life ethical dilemmas that people face daily and the frame of mind we should have when facing these dilemmas.

Other plans I have in the blog is to include a section of all the different research articles or books I found helpful for my writing as well as a section for travel as I think there’s a lot to be gained by studying organizational dynamics in local companies or different cultures.  Learning is not just limited to a classroom or on the web but it’s around you everywhere you go. On the news, with the businesses and services you use, nature, the people you interact with etc. I think this section will be a good chance to reflect on the theories and principles I learn and how they relate with the physical world.

Again if you have any helpful suggestions or comments please let me know in the comment section below, I look forward to starting my journey towards higher education and I can’t wait to bring you guys along with me!

 

-Ruiz