Fall 2012 EDAD 503

Title: EDAD 503 - Organizational Leadership

Term: Fall, 2012

Description: The description of the course is noted in the syllabus as: This course focuses on using organizational and leadership studies to understand schools and how to bring about change in the schools. The course includes study of the organization, structure, and cultural context of schools and the study of techniques used to guide, motivate, delegate, build consensus, and lead others in the achievement of goals. With this, I would like to learn about what it means to be a leader and different leadership styles.  I will focus on the Leadership Interview Paper and my Personal Educational Leadership Philosophy paper. 

Learning Outcomes: For these assignments, learning outcomes are based on the course objective

5. Participants will take part in writing activities, cooperative learning activities, and collegial sharing through reading, group activities, and personal reflections, will help shape their development as effective leaders.

• SWiBAT interview a leader in Higher Education regarding his experience as a leader, his leadership style, and frame to better understand what it means to be an effective leader.  
• SWiBAT make a clear statement regarding my personal educational leadership philosophy based on readings, discussions, and experiences.

Assessment Rubric: Due to the learning outcomes being a product of my assignments, I will be using the instructor's grading rubric to evaluate my learning.  

Evidence:  Below are part of my interview paper and personal philosophy paper:

Interview paper:  
Through his various leadership experiences, Hunter’s leadership theory is “know yourself, be yourself”.  According to Hunter, being comfortable with yourself and acknowledging the circumstances and decisions you will be making are critical for being an effective leader.  With this, he stresses how personality enforces an individual’s leadership abilities and styles, that, “leaders are a product of their personality.  Some are warmer and are willing to listen while others enjoy being the authority figure.”  For instance, Hunter was a soldier in the U.S. Army, an occupation of strict nature and demanding of the utmost obedience of its members.  Nonetheless, his leadership style in the Army was not concurrent to this atmosphere of unquestioned authority, and was rather congruent to his style of leadership in the field of Education.  His theory has evidence revealing consistently that a large amount of internal conflict occurs when an individual’s leadership styles are inconsistent with the styles and expectations of that person’s institution.  An example includes when Hunter applied for a job as an Assistant Dean.  Due to his inclusive style, not wanting to make difficult decisions without knowing the views of others, he believed it would be bad for the institution if he was offered the job under the belief that they would be hiring someone with authoritative leadership.

            By reflecting on the challenges he encountered by working as a professional and studying as a student, Hunter is sensitive to the needs of people in the receiving end of services.  Coming from a background of color, he understands the struggles of being discriminated against.  He grew up working his entire life: a bagger at a grocery store, a mail room man, Resident Assistant at UCR.  As a minority member, he was disrespected and discredited of being as bright as he was.  Therefore, Hunter focuses his attention on those who are discriminated against.  Sensitive to the issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation, he discovered and molded his leadership style based upon his experiences working with different people.  Developing his style was not difficult when he distinguished what he liked and disliked about leaders based on the impact they had on others and the organizations they worked in.  He states that his leadership style is servant leadership. By relating to others as an educator, he actively listens and gives advice to his students and workers.  His definition of a leader is based upon the ideas of Warren Bennis, an author of Leadership studies, quoting “managers do things right, leaders do the right things” (Bennis & Nanus, 1985).  He said that leaders have ethical values and set a certain tone in the organization by inspiring and motivating people to buy into their visions.  For instance, he likes to lead from behind by motivating, inspiring, and making things happen without giving direction.  He too provides “…coaching, feedback, and role modeling…(Kotter, 2001)” as a motivational technique.  As a leader, he wants to delegate and empower those he works with and help them grow because the stronger one is, the stronger the team is.

            The frame Hunter is utilizing is the Human Resource frame.  He is very caring of those he works with, building relationships and empowering them (Lee & Deal, 2008) to become leaders themselves.   Like the Human Resource frame, his leadership challenge is to align organizational and human needs.  He found it challenging at times to balance and commit to personnel decisions and financial decisions.  Some difficult personnel decisions he had to make were legal implications such as terminating individuals and reporting unfavorable evaluations.  Honesty was required in these actions, but performing to this standard was difficult knowing that firing his employees or writing negative evaluations about them would decrease the food on their families’ tables.  As for financial decisions, he stated that finance is the lifeblood of the institution, which maintains and creates jobs and outcomes.  There was a time when he worked at Miramar, a college campus that at the time did not have facilities.  There was a bond for millions of dollars and he was responsible of creating an environment to support the bond.  There was trouble with the facilities and he had to make a decision at the moment whether or not to continue with the project.  As the President, he worked with the Vice President and Budgeting Committee to come up with a solution.  By listening and communicating, he was able to negotiate with his workers.   

Philosophy Paper:

My philosophy of educational leadership stresses building strong relationships with students in order to create trust and equal status, allowing both parties to be open-minded and have opportunities to learn and grow from each other.  In addition, I believe that educational leadership should be about empowering students to become leaders themselves. 

All students have the potential to become leaders but some individuals realize their leadership characteristics earlier than others.  When traits and characteristics are discovered, they can become great leaders.  With this, I think every student has certain leadership qualities and the leadership theory best defining my belief is the Trait Theory.  Everyone is born with inherited traits with some traits aligned to qualities of leadership.  In addition, individuals are born with certain level of emotional intelligence skills which can be increased to better their leadership and followers’ performance (Goleman, 2004).    

To help students become better leaders, I must reflect and learn to become a better me.  Through my strengths, I can utilize my philosophy in daily activities to benefit students I assist.  According to the Strengthsfinder 2.0, three of my top five strengths are restorative, developer, and communication.  Being restorative displays my excellence in figuring out problems and resolving them, which is beneficial to student affairs professionals because students turn to them for nonacademic help.  I can assist students in prioritizing their schedule, organizing their notes, and encouraging them to finish their assignments.  With this, as a developer, I can have a personal relationship with the students and see their improvements.  By being able to see potential in others, I am able to give praise and motivate students to strive for the best.  Through my strength in communication, students would not be scared or embarrassed to express their point of views and thoughts.  Conversations in dyads will break barriers when I describe my personal stories and share experiences.  Students can listen and learn from my experiences and mistakes.  They can apply them to their lives if they encounter similar situations or they can freely ask for my advice if their situation worsens.  Through these strengths, students may want to continue building a relationship with me.  I would remind students of their importance in the community and college, as well as offer my availability in helping them in any way possible. 

Reflection:  Interviewing Dr. Hunter was an interesting experience as he shared his experiences as a student and as a leader in Higher Education.  His views on leadership, the definition of a leader, and his leadership style corresponded with my views which made it easier for me to write my Personal Educational Leadership Philosophy paper.  As I reflect on the knowledge he shared with me and as I am building on my sense of what it means to be a leader, I am learning I have much to learn before I believe I am an effective leader.