The phenomenon and interplay between assigned and emergent leaders can be observed in many organizations (Northouse, 2019, pg. 8, 9). There is always an assigned leader, who, by title and position, is the one responsible for leading a group of people. Then, there is also frequently a leader who emerges amongst the followers who is perceived as the \u201cgo to\u201d person for the group. This may or may not be the assigned leader.<\/p>\n
Since my background is in education, I see this frequently in a school setting. One is hired as the Principal and legitimately is responsible to keep the school running successfully. Policies have to be written and implemented, budgets carefully drafted and accounted for, and educational programming moving forward. Teachers need to follow these directions very carefully and are evaluated frequently to ensure they are keeping the standards of the school and the Provincial mandates. However, within a group of teachers, an emergent leader can arise who becomes a \u201cteam leader\u201d in a sense, and generally interprets what it is exactly that the Principal wants, works with others to develop strategies to meet the set out goals, and encourages others in their personal classroom journeys. Sometimes this person may eventually grow into a Vice-Principal or Principal role with time.<\/p>\n
This emergent leadership was the impetus of my leadership journey, and occurred in exactly this way. Our Principal was a power based leader and although he provided clear direction, the \u201chow to\u201d get there was missing. Over time, teachers turned to me to interpret his vision, create systems, coach them in their practice, and request advice in the details of their work. My Principal saw this emergence occurring and, over time, gave me more and more responsibility with teachers as our school grew to the point where I was his Vice-Principal for several years. When he left our organization, I was therefore the most logical person to become the Principal. In contrast, in my current position, I was hired as a Vice-Principal and joined a staff I had never worked with. I was put into an assigned leadership role, without emerging into it. \u00a0However, even in a short time, I can see characteristics of emergent leadership in that I am forming identity with the group and becoming like the group prototype (Northouse, 2018, p. 8). Staff are beginning to trust me and identify me as one they can trust to have their best interests at heart.<\/p>\n
I was challenged by the definitions of leadership vs. management as I considered my current role. Northouse (2018) states that \u201cthe overriding functions of management is to bring order and consistency<\/u> to organizations, whereas the primary function of leadership is to bring change and movement.<\/em> Management is about seeking order and stability<\/u>; leadership is about seeking adaptive and constructive change<\/em>\u201d (p. 12). When I consider many of the tasks assigned to me in a day and compare them to what is described for each management and leadership, I see that for the most part, right now I am a manager. I spend much of my time planning (agendas, timetables, resources), organizing and staffing, and controlling and problem solving daily problems. These are all management tasks that produce order and consistency. However, as a leader, I should be engaged in activities that produce change and movement \u2013 dealing with vision and strategies; communicating goals and collaborating with teams; and motivating, inspiring and energizing staff. These are the things which bring me passion but I do not engage with them on a daily basis.<\/p>\n There are a few questions I ask myself around this. First of all, what are a few key practices that I could implement that would begin to move me towards being more vision oriented? Systems and organization are good and still needed, but how can I communicate vision and inspire change in the midst of that? Secondly, there is still very much a need for managers. Can a leader do both, or is it best to have a secondary person take care of these issues?<\/p>\n Northouse, P. (2019). <\/span>Leadership: Theory and practice (8th ed)<\/span><\/i>. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The phenomenon and interplay between assigned and emergent leaders can be observed in many organizations (Northouse, 2019, pg. 8, 9). There is always an assigned leader, who, by title and position, is the one responsible for leading a group of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":344,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ldrs500","category-unit-1","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/leadinnovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}