Category: UNIT 10

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Unit 10, Learning Activity

Summarization

Task 1: Think about what I have learned from this course and choose one related quote that is meaningful for me.

I have benefited a lot from this course and am going to write down the top three answers.

1. I have gained a whole deep framework of servant leadership including the definition, ten characteristics of a servant leader, the model of servant leadership, and servant leader behaviours from the textbook written by Northouse (2016). Also, I have genuinely understood how a servant leadership could be practically exerted in real problem-solving processes, such as making decisions, guiding the team, and improving organizational processes, and so on. We all know that “serving other people” lies at the heart of servant leadership, which would make the leadership style be considered as a weaker one or a less tough one. Although I honour the servant leadership very much, I was also confused about how to wield it to serve and help the team stand firmly in the organization without hurting other people’s feeling during the processes of negotiating and decision-making. Then I learned from Page and Wong (2000) that “Being just a service-oriented person does not qualify one as a servant leader…a servant leader is one who invests himself or herself in enabling others, in helping them be and do their best…what distinguishes servant-leaders from others is not the equality of the decisions they make, but how they exercise their responsibility and whom they consult in reaching these decisions” (p. 70-71). These words mean a lot to me, and I realize the servant leaders are adept at empowering other people and gathering collective perspectives to move and act effectively. Also, the goal and vision established by servant leaders are mostly long-term and for the mutual good of all the people.

2. The interactional and interrelated relationship among transformational leadership, authentic leadership, principled leadership, ethical leadership, and servant leadership. Although the different types of leadership are illustrated in different chapters respectively, it turns out that a leader will never demonstrate or embody only one of them. For example, a servant leader no matter female or male, is also a leader with high ethical level, positive psychological capacities, and applies “values and virtues to policy development and decision-making” (Byler, 2017, para 2). There are many sentences I would like to quote here, and I will quote some of them which impress me the most: “Higher levels of moral reasoning make it possible for the authentic leader to make decisions that transcend individual differences and align individuals toward a common goal” (Northouse, 2016, p. 204); “the vision had to grow out of the needs of the entire organization and to be claimed by those within it”(p. 173); “They have a clear idea of who they are, where they are going, and what the tight thing is to do. When tested in difficult situations, authentic leaders do not compromise their values, but rather use those situations to strengthen their values” (p. 198-199).

3. From the unit of learning Andragogy, I have gained a whole new perspective to consider the learning process I am engaged in right now. The journal articles I read in that unit make me rethink about the knowledge I have accepted through learning and the view I am using to examine the things I have learned. Unlike children and teenagers, the adult learners are prone to accept the knowledge corresponding to their intrinsic beliefs, and they are motived to learn for completely different reasons from the youths. Knowing these kinds of information can greatly help me reassess my ability of critical thinking and adjust the way of my professional work. The article: A Transformation Theory of Adult Learning written by Jack Mezirow (1993) has changed my view entirely, and I would like to quote some profound sentences:

Learning may be understood as the process of construing and appropriating a new or a revised interpretation of the meaning of one’s experience as a guide to action. No conscious experience is free from interpretation, indeed, to have an experience means that we have identified its content, we have construed its meaning. (p. 141).

Task 2: What are two course learnings that have impacted my practice?

I would like to present two kinds of impact to answer this question, one for my professional work, one for my life.

1. My work is to train the stuff for the organization, to make sure the stuff acquire the needed skills and knowledge for the professional work. I used to find that some employees, especially the senior workers, were indifferent to learning and training. I liked to construe this phenomenon or attitude as them being ignorant. Anyway, it is my duty to deal with whatever happens during the teaching process, and I was overwhelmed when facing this setback. Fortunately, I got to know the knowledge of Andragogy in this course and realized the adult learners’ motivations were different from teenagers. They do not mechanically learn in the class like the children and teenagers do. More important, the motivation factors for adult learns “can also be a barrier” (Lieb & Goodlad, 2005, p. 3) because adults have to “balance many responsibilities against the demand of learning”(p. 3). For example, the motivations for adult learners are “a requirement for competence or licensing, an expected promotion, job enrichment, a need to maintain old skills or learn new ones, a need to adapt to job changes, or the need to learn in order to comply with company directives”(p. 3). If the adult learners were not motivated by any of those factors, they would have no interests to learn and take the classes. Lieb and Goodlad (2005) also mention that “the best way to motivate adult learns is simply to enhance their reasons for enrolling and decrease the barriers”(p. 3). Inspired by the points showed in this article, I designed a questionnaire for them to find out how can they be motivated to learn and what kind of skills they are interested in. After one month, the outcomes of the course are significantly remarkable, and the staff all come to me and tell me they like to have my classes. These positive results not only reinforce my faith in my professional work but also shape my ways of thinking and applying the methods in a critical and reasonable way.

2. The book Light from Many Lamps (Watson, 1951) has kept me company entirely through this course. I do not want to restate how profoundly this book has influenced me in my life. Instead, I would like to talk about how my family has been influenced by the stories included in this book as well.

One day in May, our family was driving the car to visit the mountains nearby our city. I was doing the reading of Light from Many Lamps (Watson, 1951) on the way. I just started to read the words louder in the car:

Let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers. The heroes of old. Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears of pain, darkness and cold. For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, the black minute’s at end. And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave, shall dwindle, shall blend. Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, then a light, then thy breast. O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, and with God be the rest! (p. 59).

After several silent seconds, my four-year-old son suddenly asked:” Mummy, what’s next?” I said:” It’s over, my dear.” He then added:” Where is God?” I asked him:”Where do you think he will be?” He said:” He is in the mountain, and we are going to find him.” I smiled and asked:”Is it going to be hard to find him?” He answered:” God has light! Follow the light, we can find him.” I was shocked and surprised. I did not know how much he had understood the poem, but clearly, he had construed the words and meaning in his own way, and it was a marvellous way I had never thought about. After that, I always read the stories from Light from Many Lamps to him. Sometimes he listened very carefully, and sometimes he just lost his patience and went to play. This reminded me of the definition of leadership which is a reciprocal process of influence (Northouse, 2016). And is not the process of parenting another form of leadership? My construct of leadership has been expanded through the process of learning from the stories of Light from Many Lamps. And I am recommending this book to my husband and mother.

There are still so much I have learned from this course, such as the interview with my role model Olivia for the assignment Women in Leadership, and the reflections of other classmates. I will keep all those in mind and revisit the blogs written by us to refresh the knowledge regularly.

References

Byler, K. (2017, July 30). Why we need principled leadership? [web log comment]. Retrieved from http://highergroundcg.com/need-principled-leadership/

Lieb, S., & Goodlad, J. (2005). Principles of adult learning. Retrieved from http://carrie-ekey.com/handouts/Rotterdam2012/Eu_Coaches_Conf2_Rott_Day_1_A4.pdf

Mezirow, J. (1993). A transformation theory of adult learning. In Adult Education Research Annual Conference Proceedings, 141-146.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.

Page, D., & Wong, T. P. (2000). A conceptual framework for measuring servant leadership. The human factor in shaping the course of history and development, 69-110.

Watson, L. E. (1951). Light from Many Lamps.  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Unit 10, Response

This is a response to Jamie-Lee  Keith’s post https://create.twu.ca/jlkeith/learning-activity-10-3/

Question: Would you, a consumer, be less inclined to take a highly credible journal article as legitimate if it was by someone who once published something subpar?

My answer would be it depends. I like this question because Jamie-Lee has implicitly mentioned that checking the previous studies of the authors is a good way to examine the credibility of the current study and the researchers. As to this question, I would not be less inclined or more inclined. First, I think the evaluation is a much more comprehensive work than we think it would be. It is just like the decision-making procedure which evidently comprises the consideration of many aspects and personal preferences. Therefore, it is necessary and reasonable to consider the previous work. Second, this question contains the evaluation of one’s history. And I think history is more of a reference value. Anything happened in one’s past just represents the past and cannot completely serve as the standard for judging him right now. Third, I would find out the situation when the subpar research was conducted, gather all the details of that research such as where was the author and what he or she was doing at that time, and explore the reason of this study being subpar. In addition, the social context should be added to the consideration. There might be the possibility of the author being compromised by some organizations or the government at that time, just like the examples illustrated in the TED by Ben Goldacre. Definitely, the author was untrustworthy at that time and that study was under performed. But if the current study could stand up to the open scrutiny and is evaluated authentic and credible, then I deem that it is a highly credible journal article and use it for reference without hesitation.

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Unit 10, Learning activity 10.3

Honestly, I thought I knew all the answers to the questions posted by our instructor Professor Strong in this learning activity. They were what I had learned from the past two months in this course, and basically, they were pretty much like what our Professor had summarized in the Unit 10 Note. For example, examining whether the articles are peer-reviewed, tracing the reputation of both the journal and the author(s), finding out whether the paper has been presented at conferences, looking for the funding source of the research to see if it is prestigious, evaluating each section of the study through the extremely academic and rigorous criteria provided in the textbook (Plano, & Creswell, 2015), figuring out whether the limitations of the research reveal the reality, analyzing the intended audience, and involving critical thinking in the whole procedure, particularly in evaluating the bias hidden in the study, were the essences and also could be the answers to the questions.

Then I watched the video of TED presented by Ben Goldacre. Initially, I was appreciated that he brought up the notion of epidemiology. Epidemiology is quite common in my country because of the prevalence of the Traditional Chinese Medicine. Apparently, there are a lot of unscientific conventions or statements coming from the Traditional Chinese Medicine, and these conventions are still fooling the people right now, even including those Professors and international students. For example, there is a saying that regardless the season and climate, the women cannot take any shower and brush their teeth for a whole month after they give birth to the babies. If the female touched the water in that month, they would get terrible diseases which will be the nightmare of the rest of their life and cannot be easily cured. Even the newspapers are disseminating and bragging about this “Traditionally superior” saying. After that Goldacre (2011) mentioned that “the real science is all about critically appraising the evidence of somebody else’s position”. I have learned four main factors that can be used additionally in evaluating the studies: looking for the reasons for conducting the research rather than the authorities of the authors, examining if the findings are proper science with proper evidence, figuring out whether there is missing data, and focusing on the ethical issue of the study. After that, many examples were illustrated to demonstrate the information of distorted evidence by him. And I was completely shocked. I know the epidemiology all the time but I have never given any thought about the reasons invisibly supporting this phenomenon. If the researchers intentionally distort the evidence, such as moving away half the data, it might be impossible for us to discern the cheating behaviours through the ways mentioned in the first paragraph.

I thought about this “puzzle” for a whole day, and I have found some answers in my mind. The knowledge points mentioned above are the tools for evaluating the various studies. Tools do not think, but we can. In another word, we can use the tools, but we cannot rely on them. We should rely on ourselves. First, we have to learn as much as we can to be knowledgeable in the domain of the research, not only in the domain of evaluating the research. This would serve as a sound basis for discerning the information of the study and make us confident in thinking critically. Second, we should be extremely careful in evaluating every detail of the research and analyzing the reason behind that detail. For instance, we should figure out whether the number of the participants is appropriate and reasonable, and why the researchers chose these participants. Third, we must be aware of any “weird feeling” originating from the evaluating process and keep them in mind. Because sometimes when a group of researchers are cheating together, it will be hard for us to find out the reality just through reading and evaluating. Although we cannot explicitly tell what is wrong with the study, the feelings will be the hints in the future. We must discern our skeptical feelings which might indicate the untrustworthy part of the study.

Not only the tools we gained from this course but also the ability of critical thinking and discerning are all of high significance.

Question: When the evidence of the study is distort intentionally, what strategy might you adopt to find the truth?

Reference

Goldacre, B. (2011). Battling bad science. TEDGlobal 2011. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science

Plano-Clark, V., & Creswell, J. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

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Unit 10, Learning activity 10.2

Chaudhuri, Kettunen, and Naskar (2015) illustrate that transformational leadership focuses on how the past experience would influence the actions of the future through innovative ideas and views; and servant leadership emphasizes collective power, collaboration and the empowerment of followers. Furthermore, transformational servant leadership is defined as “the ability to cast a collaborative moral vision while actively caring for those participating in moving the vision to reality” (Parolini, 2012, p. 13). As far as I am concerned, a leader who is embedded in transformational servant leadership style would consciously collaborate and care about his staff at the same time. In order to implement the vision, a transformational servant leader would carefully communicate and guide the staff to make it come true. Parolini (2012) also states that the transformational servant leader will not grasp an opportunity just because it makes him or her instantly feel good. On the contrary, when a transformational servant leader is making decisions, more aspects and different perspectives should be taken into consideration.

Based on what I learned from this course, the evidence-based practice encompasses critical thinking, rigorous evaluation, academic researches, and well-thought-out procedures. In addition, when evidence-based practice is applied to decision making, the various perspectives matter a lot. Apparently, all the features of evidence-based practice resonate with the essential needs of the transformational servant leadership. In order to make the decision more comprehensive, first, a transformational servant leader would collaborate his staff’s ideas; second, the leader would communicate thoroughly with each of them to see their real thoughts and potential needs; third, combining all kinds of perspectives, the transformational servant leader would cultivate a common belief towards both the staff and the organization and completely support personal integration to fulfill the goals (Chaudhuri, Kettunen, & Naskar, 2015). The evidence-based practice could help the leader find sound evidence (such as academic evidence) serving as the theoretical basis for the decision before collaborating the staff’s ideas. Then, the rigorous evaluation and critical thinking could help the leader better analyze the personal needs of the staff in the decision-making process. Furthermore, the various perspectives, which are emphasized in evidence-based practice, play a significant role in decision making of transformational servant leadership as well. After all, the decision made by a transformational servant leader will be aiming at serving both the staff and the organization eventually. The evidence-based decision would be not only rigorous and logical but also thoughtful and mature.

References

Chaudhuri, M. R., Kettunen, J., & Naskar, P. (2015). Transformational and servant leadership: Evidence from Indian higher education. Online J. Qual. High. Educ, 2(4), 93-101.

Parolini, J. (2012). Transformational Servant Leadership. Maitland, Florida: Xulon Press.

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Unit 10, Learning Activity 10.1

I would like to restate my original decision that I posted in unit 1. I am one of the mentors in the company and my job is to regularly pass the knowledge and skills required in the work to all the new staff and part of the old staff. Last year, I decided to change their course arrangement to make the timetable perfect for everyone.

Most of the old staff resisted this change at first for thinking that their arrangement for personal time would be changed as well. Therefore, I made a survey and did the research to find out the available time for everyone. I also adjusted the arrangement of different courses to make sure everyone was on the right course and right time. At last, the new timetable was implemented.

After taking this class, based on what I have gained for the last two month, I think I should not have just technically found out their available time through the survey. It would be better for me to consider my decision from other perspectives and then make up my mind. First, I could look for some documents and literature to see if there is a better way to rearrange the course or another way to help the staff. In addition, I could ask my manager to obtain his opinion, talk to my colleagues (the other mentors) to see their perspectives, and “interview” some staff to find out the reasons why they would accept the new timetable or refuse to accept. Furthermore, I would like to make the implementation a spiral process. If there were anything unsuitable during the implementation, I would go back to the problem or the other parts to reconsider and adjust the process. All these procedures and critical thinking above would make the decision more comprehensive and mature.

The most important thing I gained from this course is critical thinking. I have realized that critical thinking should be applied to not only reviewing articles but also decision making and other issues in work and life.

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