If “leadership is
a relationship” (Kouzes & Posner, 2007, p. 52), then leadership is about
finding balance. It is about giving and
taking, it requires love, time, commitment, and passion; hopefully with the
reward of having those who follow you reciprocate and your organization finding
success. As a leader in the educational
community, I want to liberate my students and empower them to grow as learners
and as human beings, especially through building strong relationships. I will explore how the Colombian and
educational culture has influenced my leadership style, the types of power I
want to use in my classroom, and my shift towards authentic leadership.
My
organization is a Colombian private school with a mostly Colombian
population. As a bilingual school,
students speak both Spanish and English and most parents speak a little bit of
English. Living and teaching here has
been a very interesting cultural experience and definitely has had an impact on
the leadership strategies that I have found effective in this context. I am “confronted with the need to influence
people from other cultures, and successful influence requires a good
understanding of these cultures” (Yukl, 2010, p. 437). The culture here is extremely social. In meetings, small talk prevails over the
main business agenda for longer than I am used to. Parents always have their BlackBerrys on hand
and will answer the phone in the middle of a dialogue. The people here are loud, passionate, and
energetic. Relationships are important
in this culture, which aligns with my own philosophies on human
interaction. This aspect influences my
leadership processes because leaders are supposed to find a balance and work
towards logos or self-transcendence
and transformational leadership (Carey, 2005, p.6). I think that the human frame requires more
attention in my position, but I must use that process without moving towards
the oppressive management of prescription.
Without satisfying both mine, my students’ and their family’s needs, I
will not be able to gain their trust and confidence. I am a guest in their city and their culture,
and I need to show appreciation for their customs. According to Maslow, I need to satisfy their
belongingness and love needs first before I can move towards esteem needs and
self-actualization needs (as cited in Carey, 2005, p. 10). Viewing my organization as having an
educational culture as well, the humanistic approach is, again, a necessity
because I work with children; some of whom do not get a lot of attention or who
do not get to see their parents much at home.
In
the classroom I have a lot of power and authority as the teacher, but I do not
want my students to follow me just because of my legitimate positional
authority. I want them to follow me
because they have an invested interest in learning. Presently, I use a combination of power
types. I exercise reward power (Yukl,
2010, p. 157) by giving students incentives for good behavior and performance. I use coercive power (p. 158) to teach them
that negative actions can have consequences, so that hopefully they will be
deterred from making a bad choice. I use
ecological power (p. 163) to control where my students sit in the
classroom. While these work in various
situations, I want to work on strengthening referent power with my
students. Going back to the idea of
leadership as a relationship, I want my students to be able to personally
identify with me. Yukl (2010) stated
that “another way to exercise referent power is through ‘role modeling’” (p.
161), which is an important aspect of a teacher’s job. If I can foster that bond with my students I
can help them grow as good citizens of our learning community through my
actions. Some ways that I will achieve
this goal are to “show acceptance and positive regard” (p. 161), to be
“supportive and helpful” (p. 161), to take genuine interest in my students
daily lives, and to listen to their stories.
I want to show “genuine acts of caring [to] uplift spirits and draw
people forward” (Kouzes & Posner, 2007, p. 49) such as writing individual
notes and having more appreciation circles.
The students are the most important things in my organization and
creating those personal connections is an integral step towards building a
strong educational community of trust and learning.
Yukl
(2010) stated that “influence is the essence of leadership, and powerful
leaders can have a substantial impact on the lives of followers and the fate of
an organization” (p. 408). With so much
influence, there is a great possibility for corruption. The educational community is in desperate
need of ethical leadership because teachers form the backbone of the students’
morals and values. The school I work at
is not a religious school, and so the theory of ethical leadership that I am
working towards is authentic leadership.
This theory includes “positive leader values, leader self-awareness, and
a trusting relationship with followers” (Yukl, 2010, p. 423). Throughout the course of my studies, one main
idea I have taken away is that a leader must be in tune with themselves. Palmer (2007) stated “good teaching [leading]
comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher [leader]” (p. 37). Authentic leadership aligns with this idea in
that “these leaders have a high self-awareness about their values, beliefs,
emotions, self-identities, and abilities . . . they know who they are and what
they believe” (Yukl, 2010, p. 424). In
authentic leadership, leaders “create a special type of relationship with
[followers] that includes high mutual trust, transparency (open and honest
communication), guidance toward worthy shared objectives, and emphasis on
follower welfare and development” (Yukl, 2010, p. 424). This is the type of relationship that I want
to create through the human frame and develop with referent power. I appreciate the ideals of authentic
leadership because of their positive values, and optimism is something that is
very important to me.
While
I focused on relationships in this paper, I know that to achieve great
leadership I need to find a balance between all of the frames. However, based on the cultures that I am a
part of, relationships are of extreme importance and perhaps “balance” in this
case means there is a little more emphasis on the people. To achieve my goals of empowering students, I
need to develop strong bonds and trust with them. I need to gain their respect and their
parents’ respect. I need to define my
core values and make sure that my actions are consistent with those values to
be a good role model for the students. If
I can work towards authentic leadership, then I think that I will help myself
and my students move towards transcendence.
I believe that
everyone should have the opportunity to grow as leaders, especially young
children. Obviously their learning would be age appropriate, but I
believe that giving students the opportunity to learn leadership skills early
can only help them as they grow older. Being a good leader takes
practice, reflection, and knowledge- and if children can start those things at a
younger age, by the time they are adults and have big leadership positions,
they may be more ready to take on the role of a positive leader.
As I begin to
transition from a position of classroom teaching to working in the leadership
and teambuilding, I still feel like my leadership philosophy is applicable and
transferable to my new field. The human
frame will still be emphasized more than others, but the type of power I use
will have to change. Working with more
adults versus children requires different types of relationships than those I
have with my students.
As a leader, I am constantly
learning- about myself, about how the world works, about people, about
life. It takes a constant effort to find
balance and maintain it. Not only does a
good leader need to find balance between frames and theories, but in his or her
own life as well. Balance,
relationships, and new knowledge are things that I will continue to strive for
in my life as a leader.
