Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Transformational Leadership
James Mcgregor Burns is creator of Transformational Leadership. He coined the term in 1978 with his book Leadership. With a doctorate in political science from Harvard, Burns specializes in the study of leadership among the American political system. Because of his career focus on biographies, he won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his biographies, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox in 1956 and Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom in 1970. The relationship between power and purpose drives leadership in Burns’ eyes. He shifted away from talking about leaders to talking about leadership. This made people see the topic in more philosophical way. Burns had the idea that leadership was an added action that was separate from management and helped define leaders from great managers.
I chose this video because I feel it fits with what Burns believes about managers and leaders. Coaches can be managers at times but great coaches are those that act as leaders and this specific coach does just that. He inspires on player to keep going which translates to the whole team. The use of power and purpose it displayed perfectly in this video and captures Burns whole concept.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Hot in Cleveland
I love the show Hot in Cleveland, mostly because I am a fan of Betty White. The recent episode had a few demonstrations of leadership that when well with this assignment. It was clear and easy for me to see the examples and types of leadership theories being displayed. The episode I recently watched had the ladies back in their hometown of LA all trying to accomplish different goals like selling a house, tracking down Robert Redford and trying to sabotage an enemy.
http://www.tvland.com/shows/hot-in-cleveland/full-episodes/i-love-lucci-pt--1
Melanie returns to LA to sell her house because she is divorced and her kids are all grown up. She demonstrates the LMX theory of leadership with the potential buyers of her house. She is trying to convey the importance of everything in the house to this couple to build a trusting relationship with them and show them the positive impact the house would have on their lives. I would say she is in Phase 2- Acquaintance with couple. She is sharing positive experiences of her life and how they can be replayed in theirs.
Elka is the hilarious old lady determined to find Robert Redford with the hopes he will fall in love with her instantly. She utilizes the Path-Goal theory of leadership. Her goal is to get to Robert Redford and she convinces any person she encounters to give up information about his current location. She leads the people into thinking she wants to be friends and cares about their relationship by tricking them with compliments and her dimples.
Victoria is definitely task oriented. She is a has-been movie star trying to restart her career and fame. She was called back to LA to make an appearance on an old TV show with her biggest enemy Susan Lucci. Susan changed the scene last minute so she took the spot light from Victoria and all Victoria is determined to do is mess it up so it has to go back to the original plan. She sabotages Susan so she can't do the scene and tries to convince the producers she is more than capable of doing it alone.
http://www.tvland.com/shows/hot-in-cleveland/full-episodes/i-love-lucci-pt--1
Melanie returns to LA to sell her house because she is divorced and her kids are all grown up. She demonstrates the LMX theory of leadership with the potential buyers of her house. She is trying to convey the importance of everything in the house to this couple to build a trusting relationship with them and show them the positive impact the house would have on their lives. I would say she is in Phase 2- Acquaintance with couple. She is sharing positive experiences of her life and how they can be replayed in theirs.
Elka is the hilarious old lady determined to find Robert Redford with the hopes he will fall in love with her instantly. She utilizes the Path-Goal theory of leadership. Her goal is to get to Robert Redford and she convinces any person she encounters to give up information about his current location. She leads the people into thinking she wants to be friends and cares about their relationship by tricking them with compliments and her dimples.
Victoria is definitely task oriented. She is a has-been movie star trying to restart her career and fame. She was called back to LA to make an appearance on an old TV show with her biggest enemy Susan Lucci. Susan changed the scene last minute so she took the spot light from Victoria and all Victoria is determined to do is mess it up so it has to go back to the original plan. She sabotages Susan so she can't do the scene and tries to convince the producers she is more than capable of doing it alone.
Leaders and Situations
The whole point of this class is to show that there is not one single thing that defines a person as a leader but rather multiple ideas and attributes that manifest to make someone a leader. There are two men who argue that a leader will rise based on the situation they are placed in, Fred Fiedler and Kenneth Blanchard. They have created similar concepts about leadership involving the situation a leader is placed in but have two complete different views.
Fiedler has the Fiedler Contingency Model believing leaders are either task-oriented or relationship-oriented and no in between. He feels people do not change their style and depending on the situation that arises calls for either type of leader. He created a scale called the Least Preferred Coworker to help determine which type of leadership style an individual has based on how high or low he or she rated his or her least preferred coworker. Science and research have proven this to be a none effective way of recognizing a person's leadership views.
An example of Fiedler's Model in my life would be at my ranch when my trainer's new dogs attacked her livestock creating a stressful, chaotic and horrific situation. Myself and everyone present turned to her task-oriented leadership style to know what to do to handle the attack. She grew up on a ranch her whole life and none of us have been in this type of ordeal and had no clue. In conclusion many lives were lost that day but it was the only solution and if she had been relationship oriented I believe a terrible incident like that would have occurred again.
The Blanchard Situational Leadership Model takes a very different spin on this situation/leadership concept. He almost says the opposite of Fiedler. Blanchard thinks based on the situation the leader will change his or her leadership style to accommodate the situation presented. Another factor taken into consideration for the type of leadership displayed would be the ability and willingness of the followers. Depending on them would determine the most effective type of leadership whether it is directing, coaching, supporting or delegating. All of these are based on high to low task and high to low relationship.
I consider myself a more task-oriented leader but I have had situations where I needed to learn to change my style based on the person I was leading. I have done it many times in group projects depending on the level of involvement I have had with group members or in training a new person at my numerous jobs. But one being able to do this really relates back to the training of my horse. She was and still is a stubborn son of a gun and we would butt heads every day. She had a bad attitude and I'd get frustrated and be stubborn right back. I had to learn to understand her lack of ability and willingness to be trained because she was abandoned and trusted no one. I had to switch my leadership style to a coaching style involving direction and support. I ultimately had to be a combination of both task and relationship oriented leader for my horse.
Fiedler has the Fiedler Contingency Model believing leaders are either task-oriented or relationship-oriented and no in between. He feels people do not change their style and depending on the situation that arises calls for either type of leader. He created a scale called the Least Preferred Coworker to help determine which type of leadership style an individual has based on how high or low he or she rated his or her least preferred coworker. Science and research have proven this to be a none effective way of recognizing a person's leadership views.
An example of Fiedler's Model in my life would be at my ranch when my trainer's new dogs attacked her livestock creating a stressful, chaotic and horrific situation. Myself and everyone present turned to her task-oriented leadership style to know what to do to handle the attack. She grew up on a ranch her whole life and none of us have been in this type of ordeal and had no clue. In conclusion many lives were lost that day but it was the only solution and if she had been relationship oriented I believe a terrible incident like that would have occurred again.
The Blanchard Situational Leadership Model takes a very different spin on this situation/leadership concept. He almost says the opposite of Fiedler. Blanchard thinks based on the situation the leader will change his or her leadership style to accommodate the situation presented. Another factor taken into consideration for the type of leadership displayed would be the ability and willingness of the followers. Depending on them would determine the most effective type of leadership whether it is directing, coaching, supporting or delegating. All of these are based on high to low task and high to low relationship.
I consider myself a more task-oriented leader but I have had situations where I needed to learn to change my style based on the person I was leading. I have done it many times in group projects depending on the level of involvement I have had with group members or in training a new person at my numerous jobs. But one being able to do this really relates back to the training of my horse. She was and still is a stubborn son of a gun and we would butt heads every day. She had a bad attitude and I'd get frustrated and be stubborn right back. I had to learn to understand her lack of ability and willingness to be trained because she was abandoned and trusted no one. I had to switch my leadership style to a coaching style involving direction and support. I ultimately had to be a combination of both task and relationship oriented leader for my horse.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Like Me or Not like Me?
I spent a good hour reading through everyone's blogs to find some sort of similarity between myself and others based on leadership views. I think I have a very different leadership outlook in the sense it is about you and accomplishing something that gives personal gratification. I have done this my whole life and I never thought I was a "leader" until I came to college and people started nominating me for leader positions on groups and having a professor say to my face that "its hard to see great natural born leadership". You can argue I am for trait based theory and I do agree with it since I see it in myself and others I know but I also feel it can be learned. That is why I feel Melanie and I have similar blogs. We did have the exact same PMAI results and agree on similar aspects of a leader we admire. What is interesting to me though is she never thought she was a born with leadership traits and had to learn them. I feel I was the type of person to always take control but like I said it is college where I learned that is my leadership shining through. Like Melanie I had to learn to work with what I was give to mold myself into what I am today.
For someone who also had similar PMAI results as mine, I would say Caroline and myself are very different when it comes to leadership. She feels she is a relationship based leadership style and I believe I am task oriented. For similar results on a tests you could slightly assume we would have a some parallel views. But I believe that is the beauty in all of this. You really get to see a side of someone that doesn't get to be expressed and once its out there its undeniable. I hope that people don't get offended when someone claims their views are mismatched but it should open your eyes in to other perspectives that can potentially improve your own.
For someone who also had similar PMAI results as mine, I would say Caroline and myself are very different when it comes to leadership. She feels she is a relationship based leadership style and I believe I am task oriented. For similar results on a tests you could slightly assume we would have a some parallel views. But I believe that is the beauty in all of this. You really get to see a side of someone that doesn't get to be expressed and once its out there its undeniable. I hope that people don't get offended when someone claims their views are mismatched but it should open your eyes in to other perspectives that can potentially improve your own.
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