This is my response to Sadie Thompson’s post Unit 7, Learning Activity 2. 

Hi Sadie!

I am also a teacher and have been wondering how I can incorporate transformational and ethical leadership in my courses. This year, I am actually teaching in the Coquitlam School District’s online program so there is less opportunity to interact face-to-face with students.

One thing that I think is a great way to incorporate ethical leadership in a classroom or course is to set the expectations at the beginning of the course. During my pedagogical training for my Bachelor of Education, we learned that it is always a good idea to set classroom expectations at the beginning of the course or school year. Communicating ethical expectations is one of the leadership behaviours that Van Buren (2013) lists as an effective way to help build a moral and ethical community in an organization. I believe that including expectations on ethical and moral behaviour in classroom rules is one way teachers could bring explicit ethical leadership into the classroom.

I agree with you that honesty is one of the major building blocks of a good community. Transparency and openness as an educator is so important when building relationships with students and parents.

Thank you for your post, Sadie!

References

Van Buren, J. (2013, March 29). What is Ethical Leadership? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks2QGoIq5nA/.

This is my response to Simarjit Shergill’s post Unit 7 Activity 1. 

Hi Simarjit,

Thank you for your post on ethical and authentic leadership. I really appreciated your critical analysis of authentic leadership, especially when you pointed out the paradox in authentic followership of needing to stay true to oneself but also needing to align with the leader’s beliefs and values (Shergill, 2017).

I think the problem lies in the vague and various definitions of authentic leadership. Avolio and Gardner (2005) mention that there are many accepted definitions of authentic leadership (p. 321). Most definitions value high self-awareness and genuine relationships but not all touch on the high moral character and ethics of the leader (Avolio and Gardner, 2005, p. 321). For the purpose of this article, Avolio and Gardner (2005) regarded an authentic leader as someone who is highly self-aware, transparent, and ethical. Thus, when I was reading the article, I did not see the same issue with authentic followership since I felt that if the followers were also ethical, their values would naturally align with the leader’s.

After reading your post, it makes me review my perception of authentic leadership. In my original post in this topic, I really liked this form of leadership. However, I can see how based on different accepted definitions of this leadership style, the implications could differ greatly.

Thank you for your post, Simarjit!

References

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

Shergill, Simarjit. (2017, November 6). Unit 7 Activity 1 [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/icandothis/2017/11/06/unit-7-activity-1/.

In their study, Wang, Oh, Courtright, and Colbert (2011) found that “transformational leaders lead not only their individual followers but also their teams and organizations to achieve higher levels of performance” (p. 255). Wang et al. (2011) discovered that while transformational leadership style is trainable, there are certain individual characteristics that make training more successful and substantial (p. 253). They urge organizations to choose individuals who are extroverted and emotionally stable to train and promote to leadership positions as these characteristics seem more conducive to transformational leadership qualities (Wang et. al, 2011, p. 253). While there are other forms of leadership that can raise performance in individuals, such as transactional leadership, transformational leadership is the most effective in settings involving teamwork and collaboration (Podsakoff, Ahearne, & MacKenzie as cited in Wang et. al, 2011, p. 253).

Understanding that there are individual characteristics that can equip me to be a better transformational leader, such as extraversion and emotional stability, allows me to identify certain areas of my life and personality that I may want to work on if I want to grow and develop as a transformational leader. While extraversion is perhaps an innate quality, I believe there are ways to train oneself to be more comfortable with extraversion. Emotional stability is something that all individuals should focus and work on. This means being aware of one’s emotional and mental well-being and that these concerns are not neglected in the busy-ness of life.  A transformational servant leader can only focus on the development and well-being of his or her followers if he or she is in a good place mentally and emotionally themselves.

Ethical leadership is defined as a leadership style where decisions are made based on the virtuousness of leaders and their motives (Northouse, 2016, p. 330). The five principles of ethical leadership are (Northouse, 2016, p. 341-347):

1. Respect: Ethical leaders respect others, making them good listeners, empathetic, and tolerant. Being respectful means treating others as individuals and valuing them for their differences. Ethical leaders never treat followers as a means to ends.
2. Service: Ethical leaders serve others by making decisions that prioritize the well-being of their followers. They attend to their followers needs and make decisions that benefit their welfare despite the implications that it may have on him or herself.
3. Justice: Ethical leaders are  just and fair. They treat all followers the same and equally. If certain individuals are treated different, the reasons must be clear and transparent, and based on moral and ethical values. Fairness should always be at the center of an ethical leader’s decision-making.
4. Honesty: Ethical leaders are honest and transparent. This is not limited to just telling the truth. Being honest also means representing reality honestly and openly even when the truth could be counterproductive or destructive to the group. Ethical leaders need to maintain balance between being honest with followers while deciding what is appropriate or not appropriate to share in a specific situation.
5. Community: Ethical leaders need to define a common goal for followers and the organization. They need to be attentive to the purpose of all members and the needs of the community and culture.

While all five principles of ethical leadership that Northouse (2016) outlines are fundamental, I believe service and honesty are the two most important principles.

I believe that when a leader serves other and makes decisions based on the well-being of his or her followers, he or she is showing respect and justice for the members in the group as well. Prioritizing the welfare of the followers makes the leader empathetic to the group’s needs. The leader is also treating all followers fairly and equally if he or she is prioritizing each individual’s needs.When a leader is honest and transparent, this allows them to build open and trusting relationships with their followers. This leads to community building. Without trust, followers would lose respect for their leaders and thus, there would be a culture of mistrust and resentment.  Without honesty, a leader cannot even begin to attempt to find a common goal for followers and the organization.

When a leader serves others and acts with honesty, the other principles of ethical leadership are naturally also considered in his or her decision making. A leader cannot properly serve his followers without also respecting them and treating them fairly. When the leader acts with honesty and transparency, this naturally creates a culture and community of trust with the followers and the organization.

References

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wang, G., Oh, I. S., Courtright, S. H., & Colbert, A. E. (2011). Transformational leadership and performance across criteria and levels: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of research. Group & Organization Management, 36(2), 223-270.

“Leaders are the ones who uphold shared values of the organization and set the cultural tone” (Van Buren, 2013). One of the responsibilities of a leader is to role model the type of behavior that is expected from the followers and members of an organization. When a leader is ethical, honest, and transparent, followers are more likely to see this as the culture of the organization and to act similarly.

Van Buren (2013) outlines six processes that can help promote ethical and moral leadership behaviours in an organization:

1. Be a visible role model: Followers see what leaders in an organization do and they will generally follow and take on the same values and priorities. When a leader acts ethically, followers understand that this is the expectation of the organization and they generally will try to follow suit.
2. Communicate ethical expectations: Leaders should create an organization code of ethics that clearly outlines values and ethical rules. This solidifies the moral and ethical expectations of the organization for all employees.
3. Promote effective financial management: Van Buren stresses that the most common ethical and moral downfall of organizations often happen in the area of money management. By being transparent in the organization’s financial management and processes, it removes the potential for conflicts of interests and room for unethical management.
4. Provide ethical training for leaders and followers in the organization: While acting ethically seems to be intuitive, situations in an organization can sometimes become complex and complicated. It is important for all members of an organization to be trained in different situations on how to act ethically and morally.
5. Institutionalize an ethical culture: Followers and employees’ performance should be measured against the code of ethics instead of outcomes. Focusing on the “means” instead of just the “ends” helps create an ethical culture.
6. Provide protective mechanisms: Create systems where employees or followers can approach leaders and speak about their concerns about unethical behaviours without having to worry about backlash from the rest of the organization. This will help create a system of accountability and trust without disturbing the peace between members of the organization.

Personally, I really connected with the concept of authentic leadership as described in Avolio and Gardner’s journal article (2005, p. 315-338). I feel that of all the leadership styles and concepts we have reviewed so far in this course, authentic leadership is the one that resonates the most with me.

Avolio and Gardner (2015, p. 321) state that the four characteristics of authentic leaders are:

1. Authentic leaders are true to themselves.
2. Authentic leaders are motivated by personal convictions rather than external rewards.
3. Authentic leaders lead from their own personal point of views. 
4. The actions of authentic leaders are based on personal values and convictions. 

Avolio and Gardner (2015) believe that authentic leaders role model high moral standards and expectations for followers based on their own values and ethics. This gives way for a transparent and trusting relationship to grow between the leader and the followers. Authentic leadership is a relational and interactive leadership style. Followers are inspired by the self-awareness of authentic leaders and are influenced to become more self-aware themselves. Authentic leaders use the “processes of identification, positive modeling, emotional contagion, supporting self-determination and positive social exchanges” (Avolio & Gardner, 2005, p. 326).

In my classroom, I believe my leadership style is authentic leadership. My relationships with my students are candid, honest, and transparent. As much as possible, I try to model moral and ethical behaviours such as being respectful of others and honest about my mistakes. I believe I am a fairly self-aware individual and while I would like all my students and their parents to like me, I stand by my personal convictions and values despite the status quo or norm. My strength, as many of my colleagues and superiors have noted, is my ability to build positive and genuine rapports with my students and my coworkers.

I really enjoyed reading about authentic leadership and the differences between it and other forms of leadership styles such as transformational and servant leadership. Being able to identify that authentic leadership is my style of choice also allows me to see what I need to work on if I would like to work towards being a better transformational servant leader. For example, authentic leaders do not explicitly or purposefully prioritize the development of their followers (Avolio & Gardner, 2005, p. 331). Knowing that this does not come naturally in my leadership style reminds me that I need to consciously be aware of when I am neglecting the development of my students or others whom I am leading. While it almost seems counter-intuitive to try to change my leadership style as an authentic leader, I believe that leadership is a learning process and that leaders are not confined by one style or another. While my natural tendencies may be to lead authentically, I can definitely work towards being a better leader by working on the weaknesses that come with this style of leadership.

References

Avolio, B. J. & Gardner, W. L. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 315-338. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca:3744/S1048984305000263/1-s2.0-S1048984305000263-main.pdf?_tid=4b8f5204-c75f-11e7-ac2a-00000aab0f6c&acdnat=1510459956_dacf0570c5afa560b201b46581a09030/.

Van Buren, J. (2013, March 29). What is Ethical Leadership? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks2QGoIq5nA/.

This is my response to Tim deHaan’s U6 – LA 1 – BL1 post on andragogy. 

Hi Tim, thank you for sharing your experience as an adult learner. You expressed that you took a bit of a different path when you decided to pursue education as an adult instead of right out of high school. Your post clearly demonstrates how adult learning can often be much more meaningful and  rewarding.

As a high school teacher, I often encourage my students to continue post-secondary studies immediately after their high school graduation because I know how challenging it is to return to schooling once they have started working full-time. However, I also understand the benefits of taking some time off to discover your passions and interests before committing to an area of study in college or university. I admire your internal motivation to return to school while working full-time! It could not have been an easy feat!

Again, thank you for sharing!

Professional development is very important for teachers and educators. In fact, it is a requirement of profession and written into all collective agreements in the province. While professional development can cover many different areas, from sessions on how to organize garden clubs to talks on professional and personal ethics, there is a large trend towards educating teachers on how to incorporate and troubleshoot technology in the classroom.

As an online teacher, I use technology in my work every day. I correspond with students and other teachers using programs such as Zoom or Skype and deliver my courses through Moodle. For BC online schools, many districts purchase stock course websites from BC Learning Network (BCLN). Essentially these stock courses have lesson videos and a general layout of the course. However, it is up to the individual teacher to personalize each course by rearranging units, creating assignments and tests, and changing assessment and evaluation weights and methods. The problems that I come across most often are issues with my course website on Moodle. To combat this, BCLN has very good  course specific forums where teachers discuss mistakes or issues with the Moodle. I have found this to be exceptionally helpful, especially when I see other teachers post mistakes that can be found within the lesson videos or learning guides. This allows me to go into my own course and make the needed changes before it affects the learning of my students.

My department head at school and I have been trying to encourage the other teachers at our school to use this online forum because it helps us eliminate many of the issues our students face when using the course website. At our  next in-school professional development day, we plan to use some of the time to introduce and help teachers get set up on the BCLN forum. Having planned other professional development activities with my department head, we are aware of a few things that are required to make a new initiative, especially on that involved employee development, successful.

1. The new initiative needs to be meaningful and directly related to the teacher’s work. There needs to be “buy-in” for employee development plans to work. Teachers need to see the value of the learning otherwise they will not implement or use the strategies even after they have learned it.
2. There needs to be time made specifically for implementation of the employee development plan. I have participated in employee development initiatives that required work and training, but my superior expected me to add it to my regular work day without allotting me the time to learn and be trained. Eventually, I gave up on trying to sustain the new strategies I learned because I simply did not have the time in my busy work day.
3. Employees should be able to give feedback on the plan and to help make changes as necessary. Being able to give input and help continue to develop the plan helps employees take on more ownership and increases participation.
4. The skill level required for the new initiative needs to be manageable. If that tasks are too difficult or complicated, employees will eventually give up and the revert to old strategies.

In order to successfully deliver an employee development plan and initiative, my department head plans to incorporate the above four points as much as possible when introducing the BCLN forum. She will direct the teachers to their course specific forums and show them the ease and accessibility of the discussions. Her and I will be available to help teachers who are having troubles with the forums in order to decrease frustrations and complications as much as possible. We are trying to make this employee development plan as successful as possible by eliminating many of the implementation and sustainability issues that we have experienced in the past when introducing new strategies and methods.