Author: MonicaGrace (Page 4 of 5)

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.

Here is the link to Chris Vacher article on Activity 4. I enjoyed reading his article and thought it was a really good point that he made that assigned leadership is top down, while emergent is bottom up, I also found his question very relatable and a good reflection:

As a leader, do you find yourself more comfortable when you are the assigned leader or the emergent leader?

I realized in reflecting on that question, that I am more comfortable as an assigned leader. I think the reason is that having a clear position gives me a sense of security in my role and what I can and cannot do.

I remember when I was an emerging leader, that I always worried about over-stepping or coming across too strong to the leaders I worked with. When leadership is assigned there are clearer expectations and boundaries I seem to thrive more. When I did the Birkman test, I came out as having a high Freedom score, but I do need some structure or at least knowing what is expected of me. I think this is because my Birkman score on Authority is fairly high. I generally respect authority, although I find myself often wanting to push against it. This was a really interesting question to reflect on and it made me wonder if that insecurity I have stems from a deeper issue in my life or if it is just a personality thing, like my Birkman might show. Probably a bit of both?

I know in leadership something that makes me feel insecure and I struggle with, is when I feel disrespected by team members. This usually happens when boundaries are pushed or crossed and expectations that I clarified are not met.

Question: What have you noticed makes you feel insecure as a leader?

Monica

Three principles of Servant Leadership I want to highlight are: Healing, Persuasion and Building Community (Spears, 2002, pp.1-16).

Healing

The characteristic of Healing means to “care about the personal well-being of the followers” (Spears, 2002, pp.1-16). An example of this, from my experience, comes out of recognizing where the person is coming from and their past experiences. There have been cases where I have taken people onto my team, who have either come from toxic ministry situations recently or in the past. In one of these situations, I found the experience that this person had come from, to be similar to one I had been through and was still healing from. Listening to this individual’s experience and being able to offer advice and support, was a healing experience for me as I worked through the situation I had dealt with.

Persuasion

“Persuasion is clear and persistent communication that convinces others to change” (Spears, 2002, pp.1-16). Recently, the ministry organization I am with, have rolled out a lot of changes. We are entering a season of adaptive change and part of my role as a team leader was to communicate those changes to our staff team this summer. This communication required persuasion and that meant I had to be clear on what the changes actually were and also highlight the need for them to happen. In regards to the implications of the changes I wanted to invite our staff team into that process to explore and to join us in discovering what to do next, not to look to myself and the other ministry leader to have all the answers.

Building Community

I enjoy building community and this comes naturally to me. An example of this is in our ministry team we take time to do something fun together, at least once a month as a team, during work hours. This allows us to build a sense of community through shared experiences. We also take time at the end of every ministry year to go away and do a staff retreat together in one big house for a week. This is a great time of bonding, where we share openly and grow in a sense of unity as a team. I have also found praying for each others needs in our team check-in time is a way for team members to feel connected and support each other (Spears, 2002, pp.1-16).

I think currently the principle that will be most challenging for me to consistently realize in my context is Persuasion, because as the characteristic is described it requires “clear and persistent communication that convinces others to change” (Spears, 2002, pp.1-16). The persistent part is what will be most challenging because of all the other priorities I have in my ministry role. The only way things are going to change, is to persistently communicating the need for change and give my team space to explore and try new ideas. The couple meetings we had as a team, are not going to facilitate adaptive change happening, we need to come back to our need for adaptive change over and over for something to really change.

Question: In your experience, what were some barriers that hindered your team or organization from changing?

Monica

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

To quote Northouse (2018), “Assigned leadership is based on a formal title or position in an organization. Emergent leadership results from what one does and how one acquires support from followers” (p. 15).

There have been several instances where I “emerged” as a leader. One particular instance was a couple years ago when I was overseas on a mission trip with the organization I do ministry with. The two leaders (directors) gave me a fairly large role on the mission trip and I accomplished it well. I also helped organize other aspects of the trip and sometimes would be thinking ahead and reminding the directors of things we needed to get done. The directors expressed appreciation for the role I played and how I supported them. Through leading in my role on my team and helping take responsibility for other parts of the trip, that were not expected of me, I demonstrated emergent leadership to the directors and other team members. The following year I was asked to co-direct that same trip.

The section on managers and leaders was very interesting, Bennis and Nanus (2007) described the difference as the following:

“To manage means to accomplish activities and master routines, whereas to lead means to influence others and create visions for change” ( p.221).

I identified that my ministry organization has a very combined approach to their assigned leadership roles.  Their roles often entail both management and leadership combined. However, I have found that the management side always seems takes over and it becomes 80% management, 20% leadership. There are good changes being made, but there is still a constant barrage of management tasks do, as well as national and local priorities that still make management a huge part of the role.

Personally, I appreciated Zaleznik’s (1977) viewpoint that narrowed it to the fact that managers and leaders should be distinct (p. 14). I have been thinking about what that would look like in my ministry context. Potentially we could have an assigned managers and an assigned leader who leads a team together. This could be a personal bias, but because I naturally lean towards leadership, I think if I had less management on my plate, I could really thrive in leadership. Our organization has entered a season of adaptive change and through this I am noticing more of my natural bent towards leadership, rather than management.

To conclude, it is clear there definitely is a difference between management and leadership. I think dependent on the context, personalities of the leaders and the goals of the team, it is important for companies and organizations to define how management and leadership interact, especially when trying to apply change. In defining how they interact, it could be decided whether to divide management and leadership between two individuals or combine it together in their assigned leadership roles.

Question: In your context, do you think there should be a distinctive management role and leadership role, for two seperate people or do you think that it should be combined into one role, for one person? Explain.

Monica

Bennis, W.G., & Nanus, B. (2007). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Harper & Row.

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

Zaleznik, A. (1977, May-June). Managers and leaders:  Are they different? Harvard Business Review, 55, 67-78.