On Jan. 9, 2017 MA LEAD student Christel Davidson wrote the following post entitled ‘Designing Our Boxes’ for another course. I quote it here, with her permission, as an introduction to this unit on values based leadership and critical thinking.
“Critical transformational learning is a holistic learning practice that helps people to crawl out of their boxes, experience the space outside the box and then reconstruct their next box which in turn they will crawl out of again and repeat over and over again. I say they will reconstruct their box each time because as human beings we need boundaries to our thought, actions and emotions, and without them, we become unsure of whether anything is concrete or valid, so to feel safe we have our boxes. This is perfectly alright as long as we don’t get stuck in the same box forever.
The value of critical transformational learning is that there is a personal intentionality to the process. This can be guided by an educator or it can happen independently. Each time the learner temporarily exits the box to take a fresh view of life, it is not to throw the person into a state of chaos or abandonment of absolutes, but to give a moment where thoughts can be free to explore other possible points of view or to reflect on habits and unconscious actions that are rooted in their beliefs. Once challenged or left open for review, a critical analysis can be made, conclusions drawn and a shifted belief or value stabilized, by restating or redesigning their box.
There are endless ways that this can be accomplished, so long as the process evokes the emotions, stimulates the soul and matures the mind.”
Critical thinking is an essential component of leadership because there is an intelligence to practice. This practical wisdom or phronesis is an intellectual virtue incorporating discernment and judgment and is enhanced through practice. How does one learn through practice? According to Cahalan (2017) there are 8 Ways of knowing essential to wise practice:
- Situated awareness
- Embodied realizing
- Conceptual understanding
- Critical thinking
- Emotional attunement
- Creative insight
- Spiritual discernment
- Practical reasoning
Check out her article referenced under ‘Resources’ if you’re interested in learning more about this topic. Experiential learning can lead to wisdom if experience is accompanied by critical thinking and intentionally grounded in values and beliefs about what is good. This wisdom is transformational both personally and professionally. But does that mean that in order to be a leader a person has to wait until s/he has a lot of experience? Not exactly – it’s possible to nurture leadership and indeed learn how to be a leader. Northouse (2016, p.27) identifies certain traits to cultivate in order to be perceived as a leader:
- Intelligence
- Self-confidence
- Determination
- Integrity
- Sociability
You are in this program to gain some technical skills and competence but also to cultivate traits and virtues toward professional wisdom. Exemplary professional conduct is the goal of professional development as Bondi et al (2016, p. 108) describe:
In recent years, indeed, it has been common to reduce this or that notion of professional conduct largely to a combination of the mastery of repertoires of technical occupational competence and the observance of professional regulations expressed in terms of obligations and prohibitions…this has often fatally missed what …lies at the heart of professional development – … the development of character. … It is the cultivation of virtues such as courage, temperance, justice and wisdom that really lie at the heart of exemplary professional conduct….
Leaders needs skills and virtues. The virtue of integrity is most often referenced by employers as a necessity for a leader. Warren Buffet, multibillionaire and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway says
In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you (Hoerr, 2017, p. 73).
Integrity stems from honesty, but is a higher, more public form of action. When we act with integrity we are consciously making our personal values known to others. The interpersonal nature of integrity makes it a key component of leadership (ibid, p. 77).
How does a leader develop integrity in him/herself and in others? Kavelin Popov (2004) and Rolheiser (1995) offer this timeless advice:
- Quickly and visibly admit to mistakes
- Talk about values and intervene in unfair situations
- Accept difficult consequences for acting with integrity
- Help followers understand the difference between honesty and integrity
- Find examples to discuss in the news
- Share your decisions, actions, rationale when faced with a decision where integrity was required
Excellence is a habit that we cultivate through practice. As philosopher Will Durant (1926, p. 87) explains:
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather have these because we have acted rightly; “these virtues are formed in man by doing his actions” (Aristotle); we are we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
How does a leader increase in wisdom?
- Offer receptive silence
- Gives others the space to speak fully, to tell you the whole story without interruption.
- A First Nations woman I met in northern Canada calls it ‘walk along’.
- How long should you remain silent? When you think you have been silent long enough, be silent a little more.
- Ask ‘cup-emptying’ questions that are open-ended and show non-judgmental curiosity (retrieved from https://www.virtuesproject.com/strategiesc.html
- Ask a more focused question eg ‘What is the most difficult part of this?’; ‘What does it mean to you when…?”
Believing in God is not incompatible with critical thinking. In other words, faith and reason can co-exist. In Proverbs 16:9 we read
“A human mind plans the way but the Lord directs the steps”(NRS).
We learn more about ourselves and the world through the lenses of faith and reason.
In graduate studies you are expected to think critically, analyze the assertions of others and propose your own ideas based on reasoned evidence and your phronesis. The currency of graduate level studies is peer-reviewed journal publications. Citing journals is preferred to citing websites or newspapers. Your professors will be able to recommend the journals most prestigious and appropriate in their discipline. Peer reviewed journals:
- are the principal means through which knowledge is advanced
- differ from articles published in newspapers and magazines and from chapters published in books
- are based on evidence and research. While newspaper and magazine articles may be helpful in providing up-to-date information on current events, because they are a different genre of writing, they are not considered to be peer-reviewed, academic sources such as articles in academic journals.
- that are difficult to read due to jargon or those that have weak implications for policy or practice can limit the good that leaders can gain from reading journals
Here are four good reasons to read journal articles (adapted from Chong, 2015):
- At some point, students should have firsthand exposure to journal articles.
- Journals are where the vast majority of researchers report their procedures, findings and limitations.
- In order to understand where new ideas come from, and how fields advance or not, students, especially graduate level students must venture into scholarly journals.
- To encounter social science only through textbooks seems comparable to an English student learning about literature only by reading Coles or Cliff notes or by watching the movie.
- Learning to evaluate journal articles can make you a better researcher.
- If you become a critical consumer of research, then you can find weaknesses in the existing literature. This is useful for interrogating one’s own work as well as the work of others. You can then pursue your projects with more confidence.
- Learning to evaluate journal articles can be useful for a variety of careers.
- Do we want our doctors to stop learning the moment they leave medical school? No!
- We need to engage in continuous education and attempt to stay current on research that pertains to our jobs and responsibilities.
- Knowledge is power and also a responsibility. Servant leaders want the best for the people they lead.
- Learning to evaluate journal articles might prove useful whenever you want greater insight into your life or the world around you.
- Reading the relevant literature can give you a much deeper and more nuanced perspective on social life compared to what is found in ordinary conversation.
- This can make you more intelligent and give you interesting things to contribute the next time the subject comes up.
- You will be able to provide a calmer and thoughtful voice with less judgment and more nuances.
How does a grad student use critical thinking with peer-reviewed journals? If they have been ‘approved’ and published how can a person ‘critique’ them? Isn’t that intellectually presumptuous? These articles are written by experts in the field but when you read them, know that:
- Authors make decisions about what to include
- Authors contradict other authors
- Authors neglect to mention information
- There are differences in their theoretical orientations, definitions, measurement strategies, findings.
- Authors use information selectively and sometimes misleadingly.
- Sometimes authors neglect to define terms
- Sometimes there are ambiguities in terms
- Sometimes articles define terms differently
- Sometimes authors implicitly define terms
So you can use your critical thinking as you’re reading and ask:
- Are there some important concepts that they authors could have defined but didn’t?
- Did the writer fail to include some research you’ve read about in another article in favour or highlighting research that supports their findings?
- Can I find a quote where the authors tried to explicitly or implicitly define one or two key concepts?
- Can I provide a concrete example that supports or contradicts the author’s definition of terms?
- Are there ethical implications with respect to the methodology or findings?
- Does the writer have a political agenda? (Who funded the study? What is the writer’s implicit or stated bias?)
- Does the structure of the article support the thesis clearly and logically?
- Does the article contain a section that outlines and reviews previous studies on this topic?
- If the author explained procedures that were followed, are these clear enough that they could be repeated and get similar results?
- How can I compare and contrast varying theoretical perspectives on the topic?
- Is it possible to show how approaches to the topic have changed over time?
- How does what I’m reading intersect with policies and procedures in my field?
- Are there biases or stereotypes represented in what I’m reading?
In order to get a good sense of a topic, the following recommended process inspired by the work of Chong (2015) and Goodson (2013) may be helpful:
- Do an initial search of recommended databases and find all the ‘hits’ from your key word searches
- Read the abstracts of these hits and move the articles that have potential value to your research questions into a file on your computer.
- Now narrow down those articles to the top 12-15 articles most relevant to your research.
- Once you have about 12-15 good peer-reviewed articles you are ready to read.
- Read all the articles and highlight relevant information, make notes in the margins etc. Look for themes, contradictions, interesting quotes
- Once you’ve read all the articles you can make a rough outline or plan for your paper and then start writing.
- Be careful not to over-quote, paraphrase and use your own thinking and ideas about how what the writers are saying applies to your particular context. To decide whether or now to quote, consider: If the words are strikingly original or express your key concepts so compellingly that the quotation can frame an extended discussion; if the passage states a view that you disagree with, and to be fair you want to quote it exactly; if the words are from an authority who backs up your claims. This is critical thinking!
- Remember, critical thinking means that when you are writing your papers you are not merely reporting the related literature. You are expected to evaluate, organize, synthesize what others have done and also to think about the implications for your practice, in your context.
You learn critical thinking through the practice of thinking critically. It is helpful to reflect on Brazilian philosopher, Rubem Alves (1979) comments that everything is interpretation:
Language functions as a mediation tool between humans and their world. As humans, we don’t contemplate reality face to face. Since birth, things in our world don’t come to us in their naked form, but always dressed up in the names our community has given them. This community has already defined how and what the world is like and, therefore, already knows it (the world). This knowledge of the world is crystallized in our language. Language, therefore, is not a copy of objects and facts. Language is always interpretation (cited in Goodson 2013, p.47).
Eventually you will be able to engage in the demanding tasks of academic thinking and writing with less effortful analysis or deliberation. However, it is through the effort and struggle that you’ll improve so stay with it. Welcome to the academe!
References
Cited in the Unit Notes, these resources are for reference purposes–read further in your areas of interest as you wish!
Aristotle. & Smith, J. A. & Chase, D. P. (1911). The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle. London; Dutton
Bondi, L., Carr, D, Clark, C and C. Clegg (2016). Towards Professional Wisdom: Practical Deliberation in the Professions. New York: Routledge.
Cahalan, K.,Foley, E. and G. S. Mikoski eds. (2017). Integrative Knowing and Practical Wisdom in Minding the Gaps: Integrating Work in Theological Education. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.
Chong Ho Song, P. (2015). How to read Journal Articles in the Social Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Durant, W. (1926). The Story of Philosophy. New York: Garden City Publishers.
Goodson, Patricia (2013).Becoming an Academic Writer. Los Angeles: Sage
Hoerr, T. (2017).The Formative Five: Fostering Grit, Empathy and other Success Skills Every Student Needs. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervison and Curriculum Development.
Kavelin Popov, L. (2004). The Pace of Grace: The Virtues of a Sustainable Life. New York: Penguin.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice, Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 971452203409
Rolheiser, R. (1995). Against an Infinite Horizon. London: Hodder and Stoughton.