Category: LDRS 500

I know of two women who have lost their jobs because they were pregnant. One is a friend who had recently started a position at the time. When she found out that she was pregnant and told her boss, she was terminated during her three month “probation”. The second is my mother. She was being groomed for management at her job when she discovered she was pregnant with my sister. Her supervisor actually told her that she BLEW IT.  She was never given the opportunity for promotion.

I wholeheartedly agree with Georgeena’s thoughts citing Northouse in her post : “legalities around the Family and Medical Leave Act should be front and center for an organization (Northouse, 2018). Senior administrators and division heads should have this legal education embedded into their practice and organizational policy and immediate action must be taken if law is violated. Moreover, training sessions on rights of employees and educational seminars to bring awareness to gender discrimination in the workplace is necessary.”

When women today feel they are terminated due to pregnancy I fear there is still a lot of ignorance about their rights and how to proceed legally. It is important that women know their rights and are able to speak out about injustices such as this. The only way that change will take place is when people are empowered to speak out.

 

After reading Monica’s post I was even more surprised that my score on the IAT was positive, indicating that I have subconscious associations between female / supporter and male / leader. Like Monica, I also work in a female-dominated environment. I fully expected that I would not have these stereotypes in my head. The experience made me realize how important it is that these stereotypes continue to be addressed, even in companies that have a higher proportion of females than males. I wondered if I have in any way communicated gender stereotypes to my students? The readings in unit 8 really served as an eye-opener for me. It made me appreciate my work environment, but I realize that I have to be careful and very intentional to challenge gender stereotypes and not promote them inadvertently.

In his blog, Chris’ quote by Goodwin clearly showed that a successful company needs to do more than just come up with a good product. For just because you make a good product today does not mean that circumstances will stay that way forever. He also argued that companies, including non-profits, need to be honest about the impact that societal trends are having on them, and they need to exercise foresight. Such was not the case with GM, General Motors was fortunate to be bailed out by the US government in 2009. Had that not happened, they would not be in existence today. It is unfortunate that many people will lose their jobs because the leadership lacked foresight and was resistant to change. They chose not to act as good stewards of their resources and ended up almost losing everything.

Northouse  (2016) states that “leadership is a highly sought-after and highly valued commodity” (p. 1). Some people seek it for the power associated with it, others seek it for prestige. Some seek it because they have a dream or a cause, and others are propelled into it. Two course learnings that have impacted me and my practice as a result of taking Leadership 500 are the power of servant leadership, and the power of critical thinking.

The idea that leaders can act as servants and yet influence people in powerful ways seems at first to be an oxymoron…..until one points to the life of Christ the most influential leader in history. Aside from Christ, the greatest example of servant leadership that I encountered in this course was that of Herb Kelleher and Colleen Barrett of Southwest Airlines. They set out to be servant leaders and their motto was simple: to treat others the way they would like to be treated (Stanford Graduate School of Business, 2009). Ms Barrett focused upon  the needs of their employees above all else (KnowledgeAtWharton, 2008). Although they did not set out to become transformational leaders, they were so influential that they transformed the entire aviation industry.

Whereas traditional leadership is transactional in nature (leaders monitor employees and either reward or punish their behaviour) (Northouse, 2016), Northouse points out that servant  leadership has at its core a positive relationship between leader and follower. Through this relationship the leader comes to understand the follower’s perspective, strengths, motivations and needs. The leader puts the needs of the follower above all else.  I am working to build such a relationship with my new teaching support staff now that I have learned the importance of placing their needs even above those of my students.

Mulla and Krishnan (2011) found that transformational servant leaders can have a positive impact upon the moral development of their followers, and therefore the character and values of a transformational servant leader are very important. Moral character is derived from the quality of one’s thoughts (Mulla and Krishnan, 2011). Critical thinking is thus crucial for making good decisions. The second way that my practice (and indeed my life) has been impacted by this course is by my new awareness of the need to be aware of my thinking. I now prayerfully examine repetitive behaviour patterns in my life to uncover my underlying beliefs. The following quotes taken from The Foundation for Critical Thinking website aptly summarize the need for me to demonstrate critical thinking:

“You are what you think. Whatever you are doing, whatever you feel, whatever you want—all are determined by the quality of your thinking.” “Critical thinking, when deeply understood, enables you to take control of the thinking you are doing in every part of your life. It enables you to solve problems more effectively, make better decisions, as well as recognize pathological and manipulative thinking.” 

 

KnowledgeAtWharton [Screen name]. (2008, July 9).  Southwest Airlines’ Colleen Barrett on ‘Servant Leadership’ . [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TgR95vnM0c&t=303s

Mulla, Z. R., Krishnan, V. R. (2011). Transformational leadership: Do the leader’s morals matter and do the follower’s morals change?, Journal of Human Values 17(2), 129 – 143.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Stanford Graduate School of Business [Screen name]. (2009, July 27).  Herb Kelleher: Managing in Good Times and Bad. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxyC3Ywb9yc&t=393s

The Foundation for Critical Thinking  (n.d.). Professional and Personal Development. Retrieved from http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/professional-and-personal-development/800

 

 

Change is inevitable and technology is one major driver of change in our world today. Organizations that do not adapt to this new reality are doomed for failure. One case in point is General Motors, who recently announced that they are shutting down their plant in Oshawa which was once one of the largest car assembly plants in the world (Rodriguez, 2018).  General Motors, a staple of the North American auto industry for many decades (Rodriquez, 2018) was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2009 and underwent major organizational changes in order to survive, despite the fact that its leadership was resistant to change (Loy, n.d.).  It had failed to exercise foresight in its leadership, assuming that its past success were a guarantee ofcontinued success in the future.

Malgeri (2010) defines foresight as the “ability to develop and maintain a forward-looking perspective and to anticipate emerging opportunities and problems by continually scanning the environment for trends and new developments”.  According to Spears and Lawrence (2002) cited by Trinity Western University (n.d.) “foresight is the ‘lead’ that a leader has. Once he loses this lead and events start to force his hand, he is leader in name only”. According to Smart (2015) there are three types of foresight: that involving idea creation and innovation, that involving forecasting and risk management, and that involving vision and strategy, which is a hybrid of the first two types.

Transformational servant leadership (TSL) combines the goals of transformational and servant leadership to get “followers to accomplish more than what is usually expected of them” (Northouse, 2016, p. 161) by “putting the needs of the followers first, empowering them, and helping them develop their full personal capacities” (Northouse, 2016 p. 225). My understanding of how all of this relates to TSL is that the vision or foresight of the TSL is a hybrid of (1) innovation and idea generation (necessary to be able to chart a course that will keep the organization ahead of the curve) and (2) forecasting/risk management (to enable the organization to be good stewards of its resources and make prudent decisions going forward). As a servant leader, the TSL chooses to empower the followers to be the drivers and instigators of this change. He or she does this by effectively communicating the vision, its importance, and their vital role in its accomplishment; by pouring time and resources into their personal development so that they can function to the best of their capacity and thus serve the organization optimally; and by meeting their needs so that they will in turn be highly motivated to meet the needs of others as servants too.

 

Loy, B.  (n.d.). Case study: Organizational change at General Motors. In Business 307: Leadership and organizational behavior. Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/case-study-organizational-change-at-general-motors.html

Malgeri, J. (2010). Organizational foresight and stewardship. Public Manager, 39(4), pp. 39 – 41.

Rodriguez, J.  (2018, November 26). General Motors Oshawa assembly plant: A brief history [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ctvnews.ca/autos/general-motors-oshawa-assembly-plant-a-brief-history-1.4192810

Smart, J. M. (2015, April, 8). John Smart – Leadership of Tech Change – WFS 2013. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhdWqLNUJns

Trinity Western University (n.d.). Unit 9 notes. In Leadership 500: Fall 2018. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs500/unit-9-notes/

When I took the IAT test it took me 5 seconds longer to do trial B than trial A, indicating that I have bias towards associating leadership qualities to males over females.The results were surprising to me (1) because I am a woman and (2) because I feel that women can excel in leadership roles. I immediately wondered how statistically significant this five second difference was and I was disappointed because I could not find about this on the IAT website. Thus I do not know if 5 seconds represents a relatively large or small bias.

According to Northouse, prejudices against women in leadership roles are deep seated and pervasive (p.  ). The problem is that even people like myself, who hold egalitarian values can still harbour prejudices unbeknownst to themselves, as was evidenced by the test. My learning from this exercise is that there is value in anti-bias training even in companies that value equal opportunities for men and women.

I value and appreciate the work that the non-profit organization Catalyst is doing to promote workplace inclusion for women on many fronts via its four research centers (Nugent et. al., 2016). I also learned that it has a long history in working to promote women’s rights, beginning with its work in 1962 to help women get into the labour force (Catalyst, n.d.). I  consider myself fortunate to work in the field of education, one of the few fields where women have relatively equal opportunities for leadership. Over the past 18 years for example, three of the six directors of education for the Toronto District School Board have been women. I feel that the greatest way I can promote recognition and a sense of belonging for women in the workplace is by modelling effective leadership at the classroom and school level and by making students aware of, and actively disproving implicit social biases against women.

 

Catalyst (n.d.) Our history. Retrieved fromvhttps://www.catalyst.org/who-we-are/our-history

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Nugent, J., Pollack, A., & Travis, D. (2016). The Day to day experiences of workplace inclusion and exclusion. [Pdf file]. Retrieved from http://www.catalyst.org/system/files/the_day_to_day_experiences_of_workplace_inclusion_and_exclusion.pdf

How can leaders level the playing field so that both women and men can have equal opportunities to make meaningful contributions in leadership? (Trinity Western University, n.d.) The issue of gender equality in leadership needs to be addressed at the individual, interpersonal, organizational and societal levels. A more androgynous conception of leadership focusing on best practice is what is needed. How might leaders embrace the challenge? (Trinity Western University, n.d.)

According to Northouse (2016), three prevalent explanations for the lack of women in upper leadership roles worldwide are: human capital differences (women have less education, training and work experiences than men); gender differences (differences in leadership style and effectiveness) and prejudice. In case study #1 Lisa’s advancement barriers were clearly due to pervasive negative stereotypes of women and a general unwillingness to challenge the status quo. Gender stereotypes are highly resistant to change (Northouse, 2016). In this situation gender equality could be challenged at the individual level if her colleagues were to publicly acknowledge to the CEO that Lisa knows as much as they do about what is going on during their staff meetings. At the interpersonal level, Lisa could point out the hypocritical nature of her colleagues’ interactions when they seek her opinions privately but not publicly. At the organizational level gender equality could be addressed through transformational leadership, the goal of which would be to shift the culture of the company to begin to engage in courageous conversations about gender biases. It would also protect those who speak out from negative repercussions to their future employment or advancement. Finally, gender differences could be challenged at the societal level by the utilization of social media to promote awareness of companies that ‘walk the talk’ as well as negative attention to companies that do not.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Trinity Western University (n.d.). Unit 8: Unit 8 notes. In Leadership 500: Fall 2018. [Webpage] Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs500/unit-8/unit-8-notes/