Category: Unit 10

How can I know that I can trust what I am reading?

There are a number of considerations I can take to gage the reliability of what I am reading which includes the scholarly review process of the article, the author’s reputation, and its source of funding. When we consider the author’s reputation, we need to consider the authority of the author. This goes beyond the author’s credentials, and into looking the author’s association and time in the field and past credibility with his/her research. The source of funding is also important to consider as readers need to consider biases of the research due to who their study is being funded by. Goldacre (2011) gives the example of pharmaceutical companies “proving” the effectiveness of their drugs by purposefully skewing their research process.

How do I know the research has been performed competently?

To evaluate to competency of the research, readers can evaluate the technical procedures. Assuring the sampling is well represented, there control groups, that biases have been considered, and the processes in data collection and evaluation were intentionally minimized. Utilizing Plano-Clark and Creswell’s (2015) evaluation criteria is a great way of judging the research’s reliability.

How do I know the research is reported honestly?

Goldacre (2011) shares the best way of understanding whether research is reported honestly is “to lift up the lid, fingering around at the mechanics, and peer in” (“Battling bad science”). Goldcare (2011) further suggests this is achievable by considering the author’s authority and completeness and validity of the data collected. Considering the author’s intentions and whether all data is present is crucial to accuracy. If the author is biased due to personal or organizational gain, or if there are missing data about trials, the conclusion of the study is incomplete and therefore inaccurate.

How do I know the findings presented are consistent with what other researchers would conclude?

Seeking research of replicated studies is a good method of finding out whether the findings of a study are consistent with other literature. If other researchers are unable to replicate the study and the findings, then the findings are inconsistent and suggests to inaccurate.

My question: As noted, consistent findings between replicated studies is a good indication of the study’s accuracy. What I noticed for relatively “new” research topics, there are few studies to compare with one another to gage the accuracy of the findings. How would you suggest evaluating the credibility of a study’s finding if there is little literature about a topic to compare the findings to?

References

Goldacre, B. (2011). Battling bad science. TED. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science/up-next#t-834098

Plano-Clark, V., & Creswell, J. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Evidence and credibility are key themes in this class as we explored practices of accessing, evaluating, and applying research into leadership. As I consider the significance of what we learned, evidence-based decision making is crucial for the Transformational Servant leader because seeking truth and serving followers is inherent to Transformational Servant Leadership.

Imbenzi, Page, and Williaume (2017) state, “Transformational Servant Leadership[…] incorporate[s] influence, vision, respect or credibility, risk-sharing or delegation, integrity and modeling” (p. 17). To achieve these qualities of Transformational Servant Leadership, establishing personal credibility and trusting relationships with followers is needed. This can be established through evidence-based decision making. Incorporating influence, vision, respect, delegation, integrity, and modeling cannot be done without the followers’ trust in a leader’s capabilities to make good decisions. Good decisions must be based on evidence and therefore research. Without good research, decisions made could harm the overall organization and team. For example, purchasing a building in a community that does not fit the organizations’ market, or not establishing a good emergency preparedness plan for one’s team could be detrimental to an organization. Good decisions based on evidence could improve and protect an organization as they should, and ultimately, establish followers’ respect and trust in their leader.

Possessing the skills to decipher how to find, read, and utilize research is evidently – pun intended – useful, but knowing how to conduct research within or outside one’s organization is also important for making sound decisions. Focusing on research within an organization, action research projects could improve the processes of an organization while aligning with the values of Transformational Servant Leadership. Both the transformational and servant aspects of this leadership style emphasize the importance of caring for followers. While servant leaders focus on serving followers and transformational leaders care focus on followers’ engagement and support of organizational objects, both aspects need to understand their followers. If Tranformational Servant Leaders are capable of conducting evidence-based research through small action-research projects, logic-based changes and decisions can be made to improve the organization.

References

Imbenzi, G., Page, D., Williaume, D. (2017). Monograph 2: Transformation servant leadership. Retrieved from http://www.twu.ca/lead

As a refresher of the decision I shared in my first blog post, I made a decision based on the organizational values, past experience, and policies to help a pregnant co-worker seek medical attention. In a case such as this, I cannot say I would have changed my approach. The urgency of her personal health required an immediate decision, and would not have allowed me time to read articles about the best practices of handling similar situations.  After taking this course, I was prompted to wonder whether there are any studies that examined how organizational leadership handles such personal crises in the workplace. A general search on the TWU Library site revealed 14 results, and clicking the limiter – Scholarly/Peer Reviewed Journals – further shortened this list to four results. For me, the lack of research is understandable as each personal crisis someone faces in different work areas impact the organization and staff in such a variety of ways that cannot be fully predicted. Despite this, I think a study that looked into how servant leadership based organizations and non-servant leadership based organizations handled situations such as this would be incredibly interesting and worth studying.

Although I would not have changed my approach in this scenario, this course has shaped my decision-making and critique approaches in my workplace. In the duration of this course, there was a situation with a new staff member who had difficultly reading the schedule correctly and coming in for his shifts at the appropriate time. Beyond further developing my understanding of the servant leadership approach through the articles read in this course and my supervisor’s coaching, I was inclined to seek truth about the matter from the staff member directly and search for resources or approaches to support this staff member. I connected with this particular staff member and surrounding staff that were impacted by the situation, and  sought resources from our organization and online to suggest in hopes of helping this individual improve.