A633.6.4.RB - Circle of Leadership

     

 Circle of Leadership

 

     The leader/follower charade consists of a vicious circle of  a follower asking for advice, which shows low skill to the leader. The leader then gets concerned about the follower, which causes them to take a more hands on approach where this follower is concerned. By doing this, the confidence of the follower is diminished, which causes the follower to ask more questions and do less on their own. The cycle then repeats itself (Obolensky, 2009).

     When I read this chapter in the Obolensky’s Complex Adaptive Leadership book, I was overwhelmed by the information. The reason I was overwhelmed is because it was if someone has be secretly watching my office for the past month and wrote down everything that was happening and then put it in this book. Now, let me start off by clarifying that I would not ordinarily be a low skill, level 3 follower, but with this particular job, this is a exactly what I have “trained” to be. That diagram of Obolensky’s is exactly what happened. 

     I was hired under the knowledge that I did not have any experience in this particular field, but I had a background and a degree that they wanted. I was told that there would be training, so experience was not necessary. However, the training that I have received has been very little and happens when I can find someone, anyone, with the extra time to show me how to do things, and I have to be the one to ask for the training! With me not having any experience in this particular job, I have no choice but to ask questions. They don’t want me just doing it on my own and making mistakes either, which I would be perfectly fine with since  mistakes are lessons learned, but apparently that system that is being used is still new and not everyone is comfortable with it, so if I make mistakes, it means a lot more work for someone else. So, my behavior now mimics the vicious cycle that Obolensky illustrated.

      It’s not just me though, I see everyone always asking for conformation that the job they are doing is correct. The leadership makes it feel as though if you make a mistake, any mistake, it’s catastrophic and unacceptable.  One might ask why I am still here, and the answer is simply that it’s a foot in the door, a stepping stone to where I really want to be.

      If I could create a new circle that would promote strong followership and better leadership at the lower levels, It would start off with better training across the board. There seems to be a lack of training in every department. Once the people were trained properly, I would let them do the job they were just trained for without interference. High level and low level leaders need to let them know that they WILL make mistakes and when they do, they are there for guidance, not to give the answers to them, but to help guide them in the right direction. Lots of positive feedback would need to happen as well. Once the positive feedback happens, the level of confidence will increase and they followers will do more on their own. The more they do on their own the less mistakes will be made which will only increase their confidence more. Leadership will continue with the positive feedback and then you will have people who take initiatives to do things on their own without the fear that they will be reprimanded for mistakes. The new cycle will also generate new lower level leaders. 

     For example, the each department…environment, marketing, communication, accounting, operations, and administrative all seem like separate companies at this point because there is no uniformity for the organization as a whole. I would have meetings once a week with every department together instead of each department only meeting with their department and then only one person reporting back to the leader. 

     We are supposed to be one big organization, but we act like we all work for separate companies. The organization as a whole needs to get out of the  “us vs them” mind set and starting simply thinking of every department as a “WE”. 

Reference:

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Gower.

A632.6.3.RB - The High Cost of Conflict

The High Cost of Conflict

     Stewart Levine’s 10 principle of new thinking have really changed the way I view my interactions with people. There was a quote by Horace Rutledge at the beginning of chapter 15 that was simple, yet very powerful to me when I read it, “When you look at the world in a narrow way, how narrow it seems!...But when you look at it in a broad, generous friendly spirit, what wonderful people you find in it” (2009, p. 46). I would have never thought that this is how I view things until reading this chapter and then realizing all the ways in the past that I have used narrow-minded thinking. My understanding of conflict and confrontation was misinterpreted as well. I used to think that they were one in the same and this on its own caused problems. My way of dealing with confrontation is to duck and run. I usually do not deal with any type of confrontation and since I see conflict as a mode of confrontation, I usually do not deal very well with conflict. However, thanks to Levine, I believe this is going to change.

     Most recently I found myself in a situation where I could sense conflict starting to brew. It was at work and it was between two people who felt they were in charge of the training that I was to receive. I was not aware of one specific person who was in charge, so I listened to both. I started noticing right away that there was conflicting information being given. One person would say do things this way and then the other person would ask why I did it that way because it was wrong. Then they bad-mouthing started to happen. I thought I was doing well by not getting involved and not allowing the conversations to go that way, but then things started turning towards me. I started hearing, “why don’t you just tell her that I am training you and to butt out”.

      If I was aware of Stewart Levines principles, I could have used principle one, abundance, and looked at the two of them as a “we” instead of the way I was looking at them, which was basically me against them.  I could have used principle two, creating partnership, to them and me working together as a team I could have done that by acknowledging that there was a conflict and then getting them to agree to help me come to a resolution to solve it. 

     We could have used principle 3 and got creative together to build a plan that would have worked for all three of us. When it came down to it, each person was doing the same job, but they had completely different ways of going about it. We could have used principle 4, fostering sustainable collaboration, and looked at this situation as an opportunity for each of us to learn something from the other. The only way that would work is by using principle 5 and becoming open. When one of the trainers was teaching me something, I could have told them openly and honestly what I was being taught instead of trying to spare the other trainer any retribution. Of course, how I framed it would have been important. By interacting with both of them in a way that they both understood and felt comfortable with, we could have built a long-term collaboration with each other, versus having them become the enemy. They are both prideful and they both think that their way is the best, so when the other trainer taught me in a way that was different from the first, their feelings became involved as they felt as though it was some kind of judgment on them. 

     I feel that if I would have approached the situation using these nine principles, then the conflict might not have ever happened. Approaching it from a collaboration point of view from the get go would have allowed us to work together for a solution versus feeling like I was in the middle of a tug-of-war. I took the, “it’s not me, because I’m new”, hands-off approach to this dilemma, when really I could have been the one get us working together. Through this exercise I have really learned change my mind frame in how I approach conflict.

A633.5.3.RB - Reflections on Chaos

    Chaos Theory

      As I watched a video of professional people playing the chaos game, I first thought that there was no way that it would work the way the instructions implied it would. It seemed as though it would have continuous fluidity to it as each member constantly moved to position themselves the exact distance from their “marker”. Then, just like a bouncing ball eventually stops bouncing if untouched, the people just stopped, each of the them an equal distance from their marker. It took me by surprise at first, not because they stopped moving, but because of the reason the stopped moving…they had all successfully achieved their goal. 

     I was also curious about the fact that they were all given the same instructions, they were simple, and everyone understood what was expected of them. There was also no leader helping guide them. This was the most fascinating part to me because as I thought about what it would look like had there been a leader and I actually believe that it would have been really chaotic and would have taken a lot longer to achieve the goal. 

     I believe the reason this is the case is because one of the five principles Obolensky mentioned, “discretion and freedom of action” (2010, p. 2670). Because each person was able to think about their own actions and use their own brain power to accomplish the task, they gave the power to themselves. If there had been a leader involved, most likely there would have been a great deal of them that would have waited for conformation from their leader before proceeding with their actions. 

     People, companies, and people within those companies interact with each other, as well as outside influences. These interdependent reactions are strategic since the action taken by one person is done so with anticipation of a reaction from the other. It would be hard to calculate these types of movements within an organization. Since organization are constantly changing and evolving, the movements cannot be calculated by any model. This would make it hard for any company to look toward the future and build a strategic plan based off what they anticipate might happen. 

Levy, D. 1994. Chaos Theory and Strategy: Theory, Application, and Managerial Implications.

            Vol. 15, 167-178. Retrieved December 20, 2016, from

            https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c5db/10f69cf4a47101620905d1dcca43bb7d329a.pdf

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Farnham,  Surrey, UK: Growler

A632.5.5.RB_Protected Values in Decision Making

 Protected Values

     The first protected value that I wrote about was human rights. I just feel that as humans, simply because we were born on this earth, we have basic rights and anyone wishing to violate those rights should be punished. We all have a right to life. A right to live with dignity, freedom, equality, justice, and peace. No one should be violated because they think something different than someone else, that is simply wrong. No one has the right to walk up to me and take something that is mine, nor do they have the right to harm me. I have a right to be on this planet and live the life that is mine, just as everyone else has the same right and for someone to try and take even a piece of that away from me makes me very angry. However, it happens every day, more often than I’m even aware. I would be willing to do whatever I needed to do in order to protect those rights, even if it meant sacrificing my own life so that those rights are protected. 

     My second protected value was animal rights. I don’t feel that they should have the same rights as us because that’s just crazy, but they are a living being that can feel pain and happiness. Most of the time animals are defenseless when it comes to us humans and that just makes it even worse when a human harms an animal. I understand that some animals are here for our food consumption, but that does not mean that they have to be treated horribly, or tortured. I live in Alaska where hunting moose, bear, and other animals is vital for their survival. The families live only off the meat they hunted. They use every last bit of the animal so that nothing goes to waste. They do not hunt for sport and they don’t hunt more than they need. I understand that side of things, but what I don’t understand is the people who beat, starve, or kill their dogs. People who are just cruel for one reason, because they can. That, is unacceptable. In my concept map the animal rights was geared more towards animal testing; however, the same concept still applies. I would go through extreme lengths to protect this right; however, with this one I do have limits. I only say that because if I am forced to choose between my family and an animal, I will have to choose my family. 

     The third protected value I have is the deforestation that is taking place all over the world. To me, this one is just plain common sense. Our forests are natural resources and when a natural resource is gone, it is gone forever, it does not replenish itself. A lot of corporate men only see the trees as undeveloped land and they see it as their job to get it developed. Now, I am not your “tree-hugger” type who believes that trees have feelings and such; I am more practical. The facts of the matter are, that the forests they are killing having species living in them where we get a most of our medicines from. For heaven’s sake, trees is what makes our oxygen!  If we don’t have trees we have more carbon dioxide which equals human extinction. I would go to great lengths to protect this value, but it too has limits on how far I would be willing to protect it. I only say that because if protecting it would put my family in harm’s way then I would not. 

     These values would completely affect my decision-making process and I would be completely biased when it comes to the decision. If there was a decision that I was faced with that was in complete contradiction to the values I have, I would make my decision based on my personal values.