Month: October 2018 (Page 2 of 2)

Norm, I appreciated your blog on activity 3. In his post, Norm talks about the Gino and Staats article, Developing Employees Who Think for Themselves. He points out that the article focuses on three things employers can do to help employees use critical thinking: process, identity and time (Gino & Staats, 2015).

I especially appreciated what was written about Process and found it really helpful. Gino and Staats (2015) state “managers punish their subordinates for failing to follow instructions” but then “complain that employees don’t think for themselves.”

I see this as a reason why my organization is struggling to embrace Adaptive Change, the leaders are encouraging us to think for ourselves and lead in change, but for so many years the staff have been taught to “follow instructions.” So the staff and leaders in my organization need to grow in embracing the shift of ownership and in the capacity to think for themselves. Also the leadership over us needs to give leaders and staff proper space and training to develop these skills.

I agree with what Norm points out at the end of his post that in today’s world the only way companies will thrive is to get employees to really think for themselves and not just follow procedure. One potential issue I see is when employee maturity is low giving that much ownership to how employees perform their job, act in their job and manage time is a potential danger. Low maturity can lead to low job performance or even going completely off-track from the company’s direction.

Any thoughts on how to apply these developmental principles to employees with low maturity?

Monica

References

Gino, F. & Staats, B. (2015, June). Developing Employees Who Think for Themselves. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/06/developing-employees-who-think-for-themselves

I chose the article by Cahalan (2017) on Integrative Knowing and Practical Wisdom because I studied theology in my undergrad and currently work in a ministry setting. This article was well written, insightful and I found myself tracing my steps of development as a minister through her descriptions.

Cahalan starts off by illustrating two different experiences she had observing ministers presiding over funerals and questions the process of how one priest turned out one way and the other differently(Cahalan, 2017). She asks the question: “How did this priest learn to be this kind of minister?” (Cahalan, 2017). She then goes on to describe an overview of what does developing “practical wisdom” entail under the title “The Intelligence of Practice” (Cahalan, 2017). This sets up her descriptions for the stages in development that she outlines afterwards (Cahalan, 2017). I chose to summarize the 4 titles after”Intelligence of Practice” in her article because it seemed the most fitting for this assignment.

In terms of ranking them in importance, I do not think with this particular article there is a place for that, as from what I understand all the stages Cahalan described are important to the growth of a minister and so I labelled them as Stage 1, 2, 3 and 4  in the order that they are written in Cahalan’s article. She defines the people in the stages of development as: novice, practitioner, professional and finally expert (Cahalan, 2017).

Stage 1: “In the Beginning”

To start novices have limited “practical wisdom” and rely on:  theory, rules, steps and mimicking others. They generally struggle with: being self-conscious and have limited ability to read dynamics (Cahalan, 2017).

Stage 2: “Advancing in Practice”

With practice and time novices become practitioners meaning they are less dependent on theories, models and rules and become more intuitive. They grow in reading and assessing situations through comparing other situational experiences (Cahalan, 2017).

Stage 3: “Competence in Practice”

Practitioners become professional with more time and practice and this takes the form of both skill and character development. Skill development produces more competency and character development produces authenticity (Cahalan, 2017).

Stage 4: “Another Kind of Competence: Expertise or Unknowing?”

Becoming an expert is not something everyone attains or strives for in their fields, but when pursued requires hours of practice in honing skills and it requires in some ways going back to the beginning and becoming a novice again (Cahalan, 2017).

Cahalan’s stages of development were very well-rounded and described and I see that process in my life as a minister. I guess I wonder though in relation to her article, what about those people who do not develop accordingly? Maybe they get stuck in Stage 1 or 2 and how much does personality, natural skills, background and deeper rooted unresolved issues have to do with it? Also for some, is it just that they chose the wrong profession and therefore are not advancing?

References

Cahalan, K.,Foley, E. and G. S. Mikoski eds. (2017). Integrative Knowing and Practical Wisdom in Integrating Work in Theological Education. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.

Overall I found these three assessments enlightening, encouraging and helpful!

Northouse (2018) provides definitions of the leadership approaches that these assessments are based in: 1) Trait: focused on personality characteristics of the leader 2) Skills: focused on the leader’s capabilities 3) Behavioural: focused on what leaders do and how they behave (p. 73).

Trait Approach (LTQ)

For this assessment I asked five of my team to do the survey. The scores on dependable and determined were the most enlightening. My team’s average was notably higher on dependable than my score. Lately, I have been worried about being dependable as a leader, because I have multiple roles and responsibilities and am now doing this part-time MA. In juggling many things, I noticed I can sometimes be forgetful or fail to follow through on things. I want my team to feel like they can rely on me and trust I will do what I say.

I was challenged when my team scored me lower on determined than I scored myself. I have always seen myself as a very determined person and my husband, my family and close friends often comment on this. This makes me want to ask my team more about their scores, because I may need to grow more in this area in the ministry setting.

Skills Approach

For the skills assessment, I was surprised that my technical score was as high as it was, at 18. I generally shy away from technical things as much as possible. The human and conceptual scores did not surprise me, as both were very high and equally scored at 27. I have known those two areas are my leadership strengths.

Behavioural Approach

For the behavioural approach, the results were not surprising. Both task and relationship were high. Task was scored at 40 and relationship at 45. I know I prefer relationship over task, but I am still very task-driven.

This exercise was good to do and I would like to use these assessments in my ministry staff team, as we navigate changes for the near future and a possible shift in leadership roles.

Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: theory and practice (8th ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.