Monica Grace

"They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendour"-Isaiah 61:3

Author: MonicaGrace (Page 5 of 5)

Response to Ryan Morrow Blog: Northouse Leadership

September 29, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I appreciated Ryan’s blog post on Northouse’s definition of leadership linked here.

His thoughts around Northouse’s definition are centred around the relationship between the leader and the group and how this dynamic works. It was well synthesized and concise and I appreciated his comment on allowing members of the group ownership of the common goal and how this allows for the group to go further and tap into their potential.

I liked his question at the end, so I wanted to comment on it:

“How then should a leader respond to an individual who is no longer working toward the common goal?”

This is a tough question and I think it is a different answer for each person and it is situational. It depends on where the root of the issue is coming from.  In my experience, it is helpful to first take a look at your interactions with the person and your leadership. Then after evaluating, have a sit down with the person. To diagnose what is going on, you could ask yourself and them:

  • Have you (the leader) made the common goal (s) clear to them?
  • Ask them if they understood the common goal (s) ?
  • Assess: do you think they have understood and are on board with the common goal (s) of your team?

If you have a good relationship with them and trust has been built, it would be good to dive deeper and ask the following:

  • If they said yes to understanding the common goal of the team, ask: is this also what they think the common goal (s) should be or do they have other ideas?
  • Also ask: do you find yourself getting side-tracked by other pressing priorities? What are those?
  • If they say no to understanding the common goal, dig and find out where the misunderstanding happened. It could be that you failed to communicate the common goal clear enough.

Sometimes people just need help managing priorities or knowing what is expected of them. They may hear you when you say the common goal is X, but they have many other pressing priorities that they also think you expect of them that crowd that out. Clarify expectations around the common goal always!

In assessing and asking these questions you could discover some of these 5 possible situations:

1) The person misunderstood or was not clear on the common goal of the group.

2) The person is feeling crushed by other expectations and cannot move towards the common goal.

3) The person is being deliberately defiant.

4) The person has many pressing priorities outside of work that are leaking into work. These priorities could be related to tough circumstances: physically, emotionally or relationally.

5) The person has deeper personal issues, that could be: emotional, relational or spiritual issues that are affecting them in all aspects of life.

In relation to 1 & 2, they are easier to correct. Situations 3, 4 and 5 may be longer processes and not easy to work through.

I find the stronger the common goal and direction, the clearer it is who is really on board. When goals, mission and vision are not clear, its easier for people on a team to do their own thing and have their own priorities.

QUESTION: What would you do if situations 3, 4 and 5 were the case with a person on your team? You can answer for just one of the situations.

Monica

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

Leadership: Activity 3

September 28, 2018 / / 2 Comments

Northouse (2018) states this definition in regards to leadership:

“Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (p. 5).

In regards to this definition five components are mentioned:  process, power, influence, group context and goal attainment (Northouse, 2018, pp. 5-6; 9-11).

Process

Northouse (2018) talks about leadership as a process that is available to all members of a group (p.5). Leadership is not based in a trait or characteristic of one designated leader, but is an ongoing interaction between leaders and followers (Northouse, 2018, p. 5).

I agree with this description and as a leader of a campus ministry I see this aspect of process in my staff, interns and students lives. The process of them growing into leaders is a journey and always a surprising one. Right away, some people have clear leadership potential, with a few rough edges to smooth out. Whereas, others have hidden leadership potential that emerges slowly and sometimes surprisingly. Without the ongoing interaction between a leader affecting and being affected by the followers, leaders would not grow and emerge (Northouse, 2018, p.5).

Power & Influence

I have struggled with the concept of power and influence in ministry leadership. Northouse (2018) says, “people have power when they have the ability to affect others’ beliefs, attitudes and courses of action” (p.9).

This is a huge part of my role, as university students are impressionable and therefore having any influence on their lives spiritually, is not something to take lightly. The influence campus ministers have is the ability to cause transformation in the lives of students and this is only through God’s power through the Holy Spirit.

Personally, God has used the word “authority” to show me what power and influence means. It has reminded me that in any position I am given, it is a God-given authority that is entrusted to me. This has helped me to step into more influential roles in ministry, with a sense of confidence, peace, healthy fear and humility. In my opinion, healthy leaders should hold the mindset of influence and power being a privilege, not a right.

Group Context & Goal Attainment

Working together in groups on common goals cannot be separated from leadership. What is leadership, if no one is following? Working in teams, can be fun and exciting, but also has many inter-personal challenges. I enjoy when I get to see different team members contributing and growing in their strengths and gifts.

Personally, as a leader of many ministry different teams, the last 5 years, I have discovered three keys to forming a healthy and growing team:  1) strong community 2) strong ownership and 3) strong vision and mission. It has been my experience, that out of these three components,  healthy goals are formed and teams move forward together in the direction God is leading them.

Question: If you have led or participated in a team before, what are 1-3 things you have discovered about what it takes to form a healthy and thriving team?

Monica

 

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

Header photo: pexels.com by www.rawpixel.com shared under Pexels (BY) license.

Tracking the Trackers

September 23, 2018 / / 0 Comments

This has been my favourite exercise so far, but it was pretty frightening to be honest!

I always knew sites were tracking my data, but did not know it was to this extent. Also didn’t know so much of it is without my permission and from sites I am not aware of. I did this exercise for about 15 minutes and the image above was what happened on the Firefox extension: Lightbeams. I went on some of my regular sites I browse: Facebook, eventbrite (mostly for work), instagram, spotify and youtube in that order. The following are some of my observations and comments on the process and findings:

  • Going on eventbrite to an event I’m managing for work, increased the trackers a lot! However, I was warned when I opened eventbrite though about cookies and asked if I will accept them. To people who don’t know what cookies are though, they might ignorantly accept them.
  • Surprisingly Instagram seemed to have a lot less trackers than I thought. However, if I had clicked on some “ads” or “promo” it probably would have gone up more.
  • Facebook, youtube and spotify’s trackers were pretty high as well.
  • Facebook’s amount of trackers did not surprise me.
  • Spotify and Youtube’s did suprise me, but when I thought about it more it makes sense. Spotify feeds you music based on your preferences. Youtube is similar, feeding you videos they think you’d like, based on what you usually watch.
  • I usually use Safari for normal browsing, but I couldn’t find how long they keep cookies for. I did find out that Safari allows you to block cookies if you change your settings in preferences. When this option is on, each time Safari gets content from a website, they place a request not to track you. This sounds good, but the trouble is, it’s an honours system. This means, it is up to the website to honour this request and that is pretty sketchy! I doubt many website heed this request, because as far as I know ethics in this field is still grey and there seems to be a lot of money in tracking.

 

Digital Literacy Musings

September 21, 2018 / / 0 Comments

1. Have you ever witnessed or experienced negative fallout for something you or someone else said online?

Personally, I haven’t experienced this. However, I’ve witnessed some posts on Facebook by some people who are politically passionate and have seen some awful comments and people “tearing them apart” in the comments section. Usually these people are purposely posting things that are provocative or divisive politically.

2. Have you ever witnessed or experienced the public shaming a person or organizations for something that they said online?

Well, we’ve seen a lot of this in the “me too” movement when it comes to sexual harrassment. Saw some online posts of churches and church leaders who were subject to scandale. Thinking specifically of a post I read about Bill Hybels and his church and how he was exposed. Another example I can think of is the celebrity, Bill Cosby and how all those allegations came out about him.

3. What strategies will you employ to ensure that you don’t become a participant or victim of the Internet Rage Machine?

I usually don’t post provoactive or political stuff, because I don’t want to “poke the bear” or comment on heated comment threads. I tend to be careful of my wording and review what I’m about to say several times or think of the consequences of posting this, example: what people might think of me or what this might imply. I think these things are wise, in order to not be a participant or victim of the rage machine.

It’s hard because being so aware of how the internet is a rage machine can make you very “self-concious” digitally of making sure you have some sense of “control” over the right image you want to portray. Realistically though, you cannot control what people are going to think of you, since sadly the online world allows for quick judgements without really understanding the person.

“Annotating U” Exercise

September 21, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Setting up Hypothesis was quite easy and thought it was cool to be able to comment on the text on the website and see other’s comments.

The content itself was interesting, one of the quote rubbed me the wrong way…

“contact works in multiple ways. Face-time is over-valued”

I’m not a teacher in a classroom or online setting, but I teach through discipling students one-on-one and in my opinion that is best done in-person. A huge aspect of ministry is being “present” with students and being incarnational in how you live your life, allowing them to get to know you and learn from your life. Discipleship is wholistic and “life-on-life” and the online environment can supplement that and I enjoy that aspect of interacting with the students, but the primary and in my opinion most effective way to disciple is “in-person.”

Jesus in his Great Commission passage of Matthew 28:20 mentions that discipleship is “teaching them to obey everything I have comanded you.” I think the “everything” part of teaching is not possible in student ministry, if it only stays in the digital environment.

Hello!

September 21, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Hey everyone! 🙂 My name is Monica and I live in Vancouver, with my husband Matt. We’ve been married just over 2 years now and we serve together in full-time student ministry with Power to Change. I enjoy good coffee, deep chats, exercise, hiking, travel and music. My passion is global missions, helping students know Jesus, and empowering women to be leaders and influencers. My mission field the last 5 years has been Simon Fraser University as a campus chaplain and I lead a ministry team there. To be honest, taking on this MA has been quite a stretch already (started LDRS 591 in summer), considering all the hours that student minstry takes, especially this September-October as it’s our busiest time of year. Not sure how it’s all going to work out, but trusting God with it as I know He wants me to grow in the area of leadership and in my relationship with Him.

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