{"id":243,"date":"2017-11-11T23:24:16","date_gmt":"2017-11-12T07:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/?p=243"},"modified":"2017-11-11T23:24:16","modified_gmt":"2017-11-12T07:24:16","slug":"unit-7-activity-1-leadership-behaviour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/2017\/11\/11\/unit-7-activity-1-leadership-behaviour\/","title":{"rendered":"Unit 7 Activity 1: Leadership Behaviour"},"content":{"rendered":"

“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.<\/p>\n

Van Buren (2013) outlines six processes that can help promote ethical and moral leadership behaviours in an organization:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Be a visible role model:<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n
  2. Communicate ethical expectations:<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n
  3. Promote effective financial management:<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n
  4. Provide ethical training for leaders and followers in the organization:<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n
  5. Institutionalize an ethical culture:<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n
  6. Provide protective mechanisms:<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Personally, I really connected with the concept of authentic leadership as described in Avolio and Gardner’s journal article\u00a0<\/em>(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.<\/p>\n

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

      \n
    1. Authentic leaders are true to themselves.<\/strong><\/li>\n
    2. Authentic leaders are motivated by personal convictions rather than external rewards.<\/strong><\/li>\n
    3. Authentic leaders lead from their own personal point of views.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n
    4. The actions of authentic leaders are based on personal values and convictions.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      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).<\/p>\n

      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.<\/p>\n

      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.<\/p>\n

      References<\/strong><\/p>\n

      Avolio, B. J. & Gardner, W. L. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership.\u00a0The Leadership Quarterly<\/em>, 16, 315-338.\u00a0<\/em>Retrieved from\u00a0https:\/\/ezproxy.student.twu.ca:3744\/S1048984305000263\/1-s2.0-S1048984305000263-main.pdf?_tid=4b8f5204-c75f-11e7-ac2a-00000aab0f6c&acdnat=1510459956_dacf0570c5afa560b201b46581a09030\/.<\/p>\n

      Van Buren, J. (2013, March 29). What is Ethical Leadership? [Video File]. Retrieved from\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ks2QGoIq5nA\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      “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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ldrs500","category-unit-7","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}