Katie's Blog tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011-09-06:/kranz078/katiesblog//14179 2011-12-03T18:05:33Z Movable Type Enterprise 4.31-en Week 13 Leadership Definition tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011:/kranz078/katiesblog//14179.325311 2011-12-03T17:50:54Z 2011-12-03T18:05:33Z Last Week's Definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through actions and words that are best for the group's interest, social ethics, and personal values. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging... kranz078 Last Week's Definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through actions and words that are best for the group's interest, social ethics, and personal values. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging others to find their own leadership abilities.

This Week's Definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through actions and words that are best for the group's interest, social ethics, and personal values, keeping in mind how to best achieve this through each individual in the group and the group culture and structure. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging others to find their own leadership abilities.

This week, I decided to add a bit about individuals in a group and how a group is structured. Reading the Saphiere chapter this week, I've been thinking about how diverse every group is and how it's impossible to be a great leader to all groups using the exact same leadership style. Saphiere, Mikk, and Devries write about the complexity of communication in the chapter "Factors Affecting Communication Style: Starring Acts in the Circus." The comparison to the circus, with all its complexities, relates well to communication. They write, "It is quite an amaz-
ing feat that communication occurs with any amount of frequency and accuracy,
particularly across cultures" (Saphiere, 2005). There is so much that goes into being able to communicate, as they say, especially across cultures. This made me think about the diversity of groups that leadership pertains to. In the past few weeks, I think I've been looking at leadership only through what "leadership" experience I have had in the past. I wasn't including the wide range of groups that require leadership that Saphiere, Mikk, and Devries talk about in their chapter. I realized that leadership happens in many more places than I had originally thought, and therefore, would like my definition to reflect this recognition. By adding that leadership needs to keep in mind each individual in a group, as well as the group culture and structure, I make my definition more applicable to outside categories of leadership.

]]> Week 10 Leadership Definition tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011:/kranz078/katiesblog//14179.321708 2011-11-12T21:24:52Z 2011-11-12T22:01:56Z Last Week's Definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through actions and words that are best for the group's interest, social ethics, and personal values. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging... kranz078 Last Week's Definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through actions and words that are best for the group's interest, social ethics, and personal values. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging others to find their own leadership abilities.

This week's definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through actions and words that are best for the group's interest, social ethics, and personal values. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging others to find their own leadership abilities.

I decided to keep my definition the same this week. The readings taught me about different ways groups work together, but didn't affect my leadership definition. In the Komives, Lucas, and McMahon article "Interacting in Teams and Groups," they state, "There are many different dimensions to how groups are structured, and each has implications for the leadership dynamics in the group. Three key dimensions that help us understand different types of groups are purposes, structure, and time" (1998). They go further into the specifics of purposes, structure, and time in relation to a group's leadership dynamics. Although I believe in all three of these, and agreed with the majority of the article, I feel that my leadership definition still stands true. The strongest thing I connected with in this article was the section about a group or team's purpose, which I already have included in my leadership definition.
The Yoon and Johnson article "Phases and Patterns of Group Development in Virtual Learning Teams" shows an interesting perspective including research about online learning groups and how they work in comparison to traditional education groups. The authors state, "Studying the literature for collaborative and cooperative learning, group decision making, and group development has led us to identify several group development views and models, most of which could be classified as either a linear or a nonlinear model" (2008). The article continues through much research and background information unveiling and specifying the differences and oftentimes challenges that online groups have to overcome. Although I found this article very interesting, it did not at all change my definition of leadership because I believe leadership, whether online or in person, though brought about through different means, is ultimately the same.

]]> Week 9 Leadership Definition tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011:/kranz078/katiesblog//14179.319438 2011-11-03T23:39:11Z 2011-11-04T00:57:35Z Last Week's Definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging others to find their own leadership abilities.... kranz078 Last Week's Definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging others to find their own leadership abilities.

This Week's Definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through actions and words that are best for the group's interest, social ethics, and personal values. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging others to find their own leadership abilities.

This week, I decided to change my definition to more accurately reflect my personal view of leadership. The readings this week were around the general topic of social issues and they made me consider what part of my definition reflected my personal values. I added and changed a bit of my definition to better show what leadership means to me. In the article "Pluralistic Leadership: Incorporating Diverse Voices," Kezar talks about the difference that takes place when viewing and assessing leadership from multiple cultural perspectives (2000). This made me think about the way that I view leadership and how my style of leadership may be completely different if it was being viewed by someone familiar with a radically different culture. It made me appreciate the act of working as a team and identifying what the groups social ethics and values are. My personal leadership definition also needed to include this thought. Tatum's article "Defining Racism" (1997) also made me think about different cultural definitions of leadership. This article, however thought-provoking, is not what made me change my definition. It talked about the history of racism and the system of advantage which defines it. I enjoyed reading the article and it helped shape my definition of Racism, but not of leadership. Gladwell's article "The Warren Harding Error" (2005) talked about our automatic associations of people and why we instinctively made judgements (sometimes wrong judgements) about others. It is important to think about these things, especially when in a leadership position, or leading a group. Making judgements is a natural, oftentimes helpful thing, but it is necessary to evaluate and be aware of one's perceptions. The article talked about Warren Harding, and his ability to move up the political latter because of people's perceptions that he was a confident, worthy leader, when in reality, he didn't know much about running a nation at all.

]]> Week 8 Leadership Definition tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011:/kranz078/katiesblog//14179.318205 2011-10-28T03:36:35Z 2011-10-28T03:53:17Z Last Week's Definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging others to find their own leadership abilities.... kranz078 Last Week's Definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging others to find their own leadership abilities.

This Week's Definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging others to find their own leadership abilities.

I decided to keep my definition the same this week because the two readings did not change how I view what the core of leadership is. The Heifetz and Linskey article Get On The Balcony, talked about the necessary ability to be a part of the teamwork and interaction of a group but also to step back and view the big picture, seeing all players including yourself. In the introduction of the article, they state, "Few practical ideas are more obvious or more critical than the need to get perspective in the midst of action" (Heifetz 2002). I agreed with the article, but did not think it changed the base values of leadership. In the other article, Identifying Each Person's One Big Thing, by Kegan and Lahey, the authors give a great story about developing a company's individuals. However great the story was, I didn't feel that it applied to many other leadership situations and did not change my definition of leadership.

]]> Week 7 Leadership Definition tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011:/kranz078/katiesblog//14179.316597 2011-10-23T01:04:44Z 2011-10-23T01:41:28Z Last week's definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal of objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies. This week's definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or... kranz078 Last week's definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal of objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies.

This week's definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies. It also includes continual growth individually while encouraging others to find their own leadership abilities.

I decided to include a second part to my definition because of this week's readings and their focus on servant-based leadership and the importance of effective teamwork. In the article Becoming a Servant Leader: Do You Have What It Takes? authors Barbuto and Wheeler write, "Servant leadership is characterized by a belief that leadership development is an on-going, life-long learning process" (Barbuto 2007). This statement struck me as very important based on my own leadership experience. I've always considered myself a leader, but it's only within the past year that I have been able to see how my leadership has developed. I also realized that I needed to add something about the group dynamic of leadership. In A Social Change Model of Leadership Development by Astin and Astin, they compare a group-centered leadership style to a music ensemble. "Any competent musician knows that good ensemble work depends in part on knowing each other's skills and proclivities" (Astin 1996). Leadership cannot be effective without an effective team. This statement in the article stood out to me and gave me much more to think about in my Leadership definition.

]]> Week 6 Leadership Definition tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011:/kranz078/katiesblog//14179.315338 2011-10-16T03:48:26Z 2011-10-16T04:11:35Z Last week's definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies. This week's definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal of... kranz078 Last week's definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies.

This week's definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal of objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies.

This week's reading, Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis, written by R. Heifetz, A. Grashow, and M. Linsky was dealing with leading a group and getting though many different types of crises. Although I found this reading very interesting, I don't think it changes my personal definition of leadership. It's important to know what to do as a leader in the situation of a crisis of but, in my opinion, it does not change the basis of leadership. In the article when talking about the different ways leadership exists within crisis circumstances, the authors state, "In this context, leadership is an improvisational and experimental art" (Heifetz 2009). I believe, however, that these have always been factors of strong leadership: in any situation leaders should be able to be flexible and change their style to fit the circumstance. In this view, I decided to keep my definition the same as last week.

]]> Week 4 Leadership Definition tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011:/kranz078/katiesblog//14179.311448 2011-10-01T20:13:49Z 2011-10-01T20:25:47Z Last week's definition: I define leadership as the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through relationship, guidance, stability, and encouragement. This week's definition: Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective... kranz078 Last week's definition:
I define leadership as the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through relationship, guidance, stability, and encouragement.

This week's definition:
Leadership is the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through a varying assortment of procedures, relationships, and strategies.

Through this week's reading, I noticed that in my definition, I was leaning towards my style of leadership only (very relationship and encouragement based) but I was leaving out so many other types of leadership that can be just as effective. By broadening the last part of my definition I more clearly articulated that there are many different ways of being a leader in different situations. Terry's article mentioned this when he states, "Those who practice leadership must develop the wisdom to read the shifting worlds and to bring the appropriate skills and knowledge to bear." There are many situations where we need to shift and modify leadership styles to produce the best result. This definition is more inclusive to that thought.

]]> Week 3 Leadership Definition tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011:/kranz078/katiesblog//14179.309817 2011-09-23T22:41:37Z 2011-09-23T23:18:05Z I define leadership as the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through relationship, guidance, stability, and encouragement. This definition is based mostly on personal experience through experiencing other's leading me as well as opportunities that I... kranz078 I define leadership as the ability to guide others toward a common goal or objective through relationship, guidance, stability, and encouragement. This definition is based mostly on personal experience through experiencing other's leading me as well as opportunities that I have had to lead others. When thinking of personal experiences with great leaders and what qualities they posses, I too thought of many of the words mentioned in the article "Understanding why people follow" (Rath, 2008). The authors did a study and found the "followers" looked for four main qualities in a leader: trust, compassion, stability, and hope. I think relationship is the base of each of these characteristics. In my own experiences, when it's clear that a leader genuinely cares about the people they are leading, the team is usually successful. In this same thought, it is through relationships with their followers that the leader will accomplish anything at all. Which is why Rath and Conchie end their article saying, "Perhaps the ultimate test of a leader is not what you are able to do in the here and now--but instead what continues to grow long after you're gone" (Rath, 2008).

]]> My first post! tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011:/kranz078/katiesblog//14179.307275 2011-09-10T17:42:00Z 2011-09-10T17:42:25Z Hello all! This is my first post to my cool new blog! :)... kranz078 Hello all! This is my first post to my cool new blog! :)

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