Month: November 2018

According to BuildingCapacity (2013), ethics is “values and beliefs that define what is right and what is wrong behavior”. Regardless of the leadership style, ethics is the foundation of leadership style directly related to leaders’ behaviours and decisions (Northouse, 2019). Ethic gives leaders criteria of judgements.  However, there were few articles about ethical aspects of leaders (Northouse, 2019). Avolio and Gardner (2005) define authentic leadership as the root underlying all positive forms of leadership and its development. Authentic leadership focuses on how to be moralistic and fair to all the member not only inside the organization but outside the organization. Either authentic leadership or ethical leadership is what we have to have as a foundation before thinking about leadership styles.

Building Capacity states very famous influential leaders such as Ghandi, Kennedy, Martin Luthur King also struggled with ethical challenges in their context (BuildingCapacity, 2013). Defining ethical or authentic is sometimes different from each other and contain grey zones. Some researcher tried to define “an inauthentic leader” first. (Avolio, B. J., & Gardner, W. L., 2005).

Furthermore, it is very important for leaders to create an ethical climate in the workplace. A strong organizational culture that supports high ethical standards will have tremendous influence in the community and employee behavior.

Avolio and Gardner (2005) mention Luthans and Avolio (2013) defined the process of constructing authentic leadership in organizations “a process that draws from both positive psychological capacities and a highly developed organizational context, which results in both greater self-awareness and self-regulated positive behaviors on the part of leaders and associates, fostering positive self-development.”

BuildingCapacity (2013) suggested six ways for leaders to grow and flourish an organization in ethical climate.

1. Leaders should be a visible role model to show the examples of what moral behaviours are.
2. Leaders should communicate ethical expectations. Leaders have to create an organizational code of ethics which shows the followers organization’s primary rule and ethical framework.
3. Leaders should try to promote effective financial management using the resources in a socially responsible way.
4. Providing ethical training to show the followers organization’s ethical code.
5. Institutionalize an ethical culture by measuring performance focusing on “means” and “ends”.
6. Provide the place to discuss about unethical behavior which enable protecting an ethical climate such as a whistleblower policy, ethical counselors and ombudsman.

 

References

Avolio, B. J., & Gardner, W. L. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 16(3) 315-338.

BuildingCapacity. (2013, March 29). What is Ethical Leadership? Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks2QGoIq5nA

Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice (8^th Ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

 

According to Northouse(2018), it is important for transformational leaders to  “exhibit greater individual consideration and promote intellectual stimulation for followers”(p.183).  Also, for servant leaders, follower’s career development is the first priority. Servant leaders help employees grow and succeed with providing the followers mentoring and support.(Northouse, 2018)

Here is an imaginary employee training plan if  I need to train a physician to use a new operation technique.

1. I will share the vision, in another words, I will clear the main purpose of the operation. What we can do with this operation and why we have to do it. Sometimes an operation procedure is one small piece of whole treatment, so it is important to clear ” what this operation is for”.
2. Ask the doctor to read some articles and textbook related to the new procedure
3. Ask the doctor to search YouTube or past operation recordings to watch the same procedure.
4. Let the doctor join the operation as an assistant to watch how I perform the procedure until she get used to the operation and remember all the procedure in the brain.
5. Allocate a new patient who needs the operation.
6. With the real case, do some simulation with drawing.
7. Let the new doctor perform the operation technique.
8. Use the recording to reflect the doctor’s performance.
9. Give the feedback.
10. After he learn, let him teach somebody

For the physician training, most important thing is simulation before apply to real patients. Nowadays YouTube is quite good to give resources to learn. Another important thing is feedback from leaders. For that, SNS, using modern technology to create platform which we can share the information have become the great tool. Doctors do not always work together. Sharing information is quite important also if we post the case, we can get feedback and advise as well. I put teaching somebody is the last step because if you are not clear you can’t teach people.

For my employee development plan, the important step is simulation and giving feedback. Recently we could use the technology to easily achieve it.

References

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice, Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

I interviewed Sarah.
Sarah is a 33-year-old, wife, mother to two toddlers, full time student and employee. She has worked for a large, national, non-profit organization for the past seven years. She is at her best when she works for a cause that she is passionate about. She is a very independent and self-driven enthusiastic leader. She can perform herself the best as a leader when she has the autonomy as the field expert to build a strategic plan and is given trust and flexibility to complete her work. In fact, she was aware that in the past, she really improved herself gained trust as a leader when she engaged in a special role for several years. In five years, she is going to be in an associate director or director level position at some non-profit organization to help building and implement a strategic plan to lead the organization passionately. For that, she thought she needs to finish this MA Leadership to gain the knowledge, skills and recognized degree. She plans to apply the lesson directly to her workplace.

“Andragogy is the art and science of helping adults learn”( Navarro, C.P., 2018, para 1) . For adult learning, they can use their experience to help their learning. According to Malcolm Knowles, the foundational thinker of andragogy, there are six points where adult learners are different from children. (Navarro, 2018)

1. An adult is a self-directing human being, in which point they are different from children who are dependent personalities.
2. An adult can utilize their past experience to learn new things efficiently.
3. Adult learning is enhanced by their social role.
4. When we are a child, mostly our purpose of the study is just to study Children rarely have the real purpose to learn. However, learning is more problem-oriented for an adult.
5. Adults are mostly driven by internal motivation, rather than external motivators.
6. Adults need to know the reason for learning something (Merriam & Bierma, 2014, p. 47).

These concepts remind me of when I started to restudy English. Ten years ago, I thought English is important for my children and would like to put them to English language school because I had no confidence in my English and I didn’t want my children to have the same issue. My husband who is a good English speaker suggested me that I myself go back to study English to teach my children instead of putting my children to English language school. In fact, I had a 6-year experience to study English in the Japanese school system, but I didn’t have any opportunities to use it.

My husband also set a rule that we only used English for our daily conversation with children. For the first day, I found my study in school was totally useless.  I was shocked even I didn’t know how to say, “Let’s change a diaper!” in English. I started to take an English lesson and read a lot of books and used what I learned directly into daily conversation with my kids at home. Actually, to teach my children English is a great opportunity to restart English. It gave me the firm purpose and motivation for the study. At the same time, I was given an environment to apply what I learn.  After 1 month, I started to get feedback, which was that my children started to speak English. Getting feedback encouraged me more. I was such a busy full-time worker that I did not have as much time to study as when I was a student. However, I know how to learn a new thing efficiently in my experience and my motivation was higher.

I was astonished how much faster I learned as a mom than when I was a student. How important it is to have the purpose and the motivation when you learn new things. I understand this experience as a good example of andragogy and fits the condition of Malcolm Knowles’s six rules.

 

References

Navarro, C.P.. (2018) Unit 6 Notes, Retrieve from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs500/unit-6/unit-6-notes/