post 3.1

Hi, Marcelo. I am really touched by seeing your efforts to connect with your teachers and can see how culture can affect the leadership role. As you pointed out the issue of “not being heard”, I appreciate your effort of taking personal interviews of the teachers. As you described the culture in Paraguay, I am curious, if personal interviews were effective, since you mentioned how people have mistrust and they do not share anything or share minimum things.

Secondly, for recognizing your staff members, I suggest you to consider giving a short speech to acknowledge “teacher of the month” during the school assembly. You can also invite students to participate in the acknowledgment. This would make the teachers feel special and know their worth. They will be inspired to do better and might as well focus on their shortcomings.

As I read through your post, I find the situation in China is almost similar to what it is in India. But I am curious to know if collaborations in educational systems would work in bringing a positive change. As far as I know about the scenario of the educational system in India, the culture is very competitive. There is a constant fight among students, schools, parents, and teachers to prove themselves to be the best. This tendency is carried further at the organizational level. I may use the analogy of a bushel stuck in a well; where, even if one crab tries to come out, the other pulls it down. Instilling a collaborative environment and creating a “bigger picture” (Zhang, 2018) would only increase competition; competition at even a bigger level. However, I must say, collaborating with parents to teach them that knowledge matters more than education, to teach that values matter more than excellence, to teach them that money is not a measurement of success.

Reference

Zhang, L. (2018). Layla’s takeaways from system thinking. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/layla11/2018/10/17/laylas-take-aways-from-systems-thinking/

Thank you, Pierre, for sharing your views on SLT. I liked the way you pointed out how teams doing excellent in their projects, might not be up to the mark as a strategic team. You discussed 3 questions from the STRAT survey (Hughes, Beatty and Dinwoodie, 2014) and drew results based on the situation in your team. I would like to share my thoughts for the first question, “These strategic leadership teams exhibit a high level of integrity” (cited by Florendo, 2018) (Hughes, Dinwoodie, and Beatty, 2014). As I think about “integrity” I think about “values” and I wonder if setting common values for the team affects the team’s performance? Correct me if I am wrong but I think having common values might negatively affect the integrity of the team. In fact, the mission and vision are more crucial for the team to perform well and to be a strategic team. Each individual is different and for them, their own values are important. I believe, rather than restricting individual’s actions through team values, one can enhance them by giving him/her the freedom to choose and work according to his/her own values. Moreover, as Lepsinger (2010) points out, there should not be two sets of values (p.17); if a team member has different values than that of the team, there is a possibility of him performing short. Also, having individual values would enable the team members to respect each others’ decisions and effectively understand the “why” behind individual’s actions. As pointed by Beatty, & Smith, 2013, one of the many challenges faced by the teams is disagreement on accepting the proposed change (as cited in Hughes, Dinwoodie, and Beatty, 2014, p.163). Might I say, it is because they find the team’s actions aligned to the team values (even if their individual values do not) and here’s where the “integrity” is lost?

References

Beatty, K., & Smith, R. (2013). Developing high impact teams to lead strategic change. Developing and enhancing high-performance teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and guidelines. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass

Florendo, P. (2018). Strategic leadership teams- HC1 (post 3.1) (healthcare). Retrieved from             https://create.twu.ca/pierreflorendo/2018/10/16/strategic-leadership-teams-hc1/

Hughes, R., Beatty, K., & Dinwoodie, D. (2014). Becoming a strategic leader: your role in your organization’s enduring success. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass.

Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the Execution Gap. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass.