A633.8.3.RB_How Do Coaches Help?

Coaching to me is one of the most important aspects of being a leader.  Speaking from experience, I have found that coaching is one of those most influential aspects of learning and growing both personally and professionally.  I learn better when coaching is involved because I find the experience is more personal, it is one-on-one, and is geared to your needs and not the needs of a group of people.  What does coaching provide to their clients?  I suppose the question should be more geared to what they don’t provide because what they do provide is sometimes hard to put on paper (too much good qualities not enough space to write it all) all the wonderful things coaching offers. Coaching provides their clients with the experience to learn and grown at their pace, retain more information/knowledge, have the ability to ask questions without feeling judged, exponential growth potentials and most certainly gain a more positive learning experience.

Given the statement above what is it that coaches do to provide value to their clients?  How a coach provides value to their clients is going to be different for each.  No two coaches will perform the same tasks/activities and no two clients will have the same reactions. Everyone is different but the way coaches can provide value (given the statement) is by doing a little bit of talking, a lot of listening and even more action.  As a leader you need to talk less and listen more so that you can help to coach more effectively.  I have found that some of the best coaches I ever had listened to me more than anyone I knew.  I gained more from them after they knew and understood me.

Why is coaching a vital aspect of both leadership and strategy?  Coaching is a vital aspect because coaching takes new leaders who are rough around the edges and pairs them with experts who can help them to grow and flourish more.  When you are a stronger leader you are more strategic in your thinking and therefore affect strategy within your organization.  Coaching leads to positive change which then leads to strong strategies and or strategic changes.

How can it make a difference in an organization?  Coaching can help make a difference within and organization because it is empowering for employees/clients.  Coaching allows for individuals to hone in on their skills and sharpen them. 

What does this mean to you and your organization?  Coaching for me is a huge part of higher education.  I started off with the most amazing coach when I was 20 years old and I don’t think without her I would be where I am at today.  It only takes one good experience to change the rest of a person’s life.  The more organizations believe in coaching and actively coach their employees the more positive changes they can experience.
 

I love coaching and I truly believe it can change the way an individual feels about themselves, their job and the organization they work for!

A633.7.3.RB_Leader Follower Relationship

I guess it would be rather forward of me to say, “No my thinking hasn’t changed because I know I was a strong leader before” but for all intensive purpose, I truly feel that way.  I am very much a “pistol” in that when I set my mind to do something, or be something, I don’t often deviate from the path I lay for myself or my professional growth.  I understand we are all human and we have areas in which we can grow and change and manifest in a newer person but I don’t think this course has really altered me in a significant way.  I understand I am smarter, I have read another interesting textbook and that I am progressing through my MS in Leadership but I am not a chaotic decision maker and I like a I love my neurotic patterns and strategic ways of doing things.  I would venture to say that to some degree my thinking will constantly but this course missed the mark for me.

I think the reason I am not impressed with this course or the material is because I took a strategy course last summer that was in the MGMT program and it really showed all different types of strategic theories and didn’t hone in on one type.  I was really hoping this course would show strategy differently but it seems like all we have talked about is chaos theory and complexity and to me that is just a small part of strategy and how strategic leaders think.  I don’t think I applied a lot in this course and I think many of the assignments fell flat; I expected more.  I know that my job now makes me one of the harder critics but hard critics are what make good courses along with strong content and faculty.

In regards to the significance of this courses content in the context of my future leadership goals and objectives, unfortunately for me I won’t take much from this course going forward.  I was extremely let down by the course materials, the way the assignments were laid out, and mainly the content.  I am bummed and I am looking forward to wrapping this course and moving on

I would like to note that this assignment was not easy to follow because the website link provided in the textbook didn’t take me directly to the results I needed to find.

A633.9.3.RB_Polyarchy Reflections

The old saying, “Out with the old and in with the new” is slowly starting to take shape and form.  The positive progression to change what was once thought to be the correct way of doing things is a step in the right direction for the future of leadership theory, leaders and individuals and the organizational impact this will have.

Throughout my professional career I have sought out the guidance from others and I have also bounced ideas off of others in order to gain bigger picture perspective. It is important to me to make sure that as an individual and a leader that I am making decisions for the betterment of everyone and not just me.  I have to understand the decisions I am making and the implications my decisions will have on others.  The old way of thinking is not necessarily wrong; it just isn’t working anymore in this new age and era.  I think the best way to make decisions is when you brainstorm with others and see it from different perspectives and viewpoints.  With this all being said I understand that it will be impossible to have all organizations organized this way but for those who can lead and structure their organization this way, the pays offs for the organization in the end will be monumental.

For my future I would love to work in a situation where there are multiple people making leadership decisions and using one another to make those decisions as I have stated before I think it will help to bring a better understanding to the implications those choices are having.  I also think this will change the way strategy is understood.  We have all seen how strategy issues can be blamed on one person but now strategy will be a collaborative effort making the way we see it all so much more different than before.

Strategy and leadership are always changing.  Something new and or better is always coming out which changes the way leaders lead and followers follow.  With each new change things are affected differently but it will always be up to the leader to implement those changes for the betterment of everyone else.  I know that as I get older and more wiser I will be able to understand strategy is more and be able to better apply; this part of my developmental process is constantly in flux.

A633.6.5.RB_Circle of Leadership

I have reviewed this circle over and over again and it just makes me sad to think that this takes place within an organization.  Employees should never lower their confidence levels when they are need of additional assistance or advice.  I can vividly remember in grade school a poster that many of teachers had that said, “The only dumb question is the one not asked,” and I think that is 100% true.  I know that if I have a question about something pertaining to my job I need to ask before I do it incorrectly and do more harm than good.  Asides from many other questions the main question I had while reading about this “vicious cycle” was, does this really take place and where?  How can this be good business ethics or practice and how could a leader think that fear is the best way to train and keep-in-line employees?

I am glad to say that this practice is not used at ERAU Worldwide.  Many of the organizations I  have worked for had “Open-Door Policies” which means you could to go anyone ask them for help and would not be judged or turned away.  The effect of this style of leadership is damaging to not only the relationship between the leader and employee but also for the organization as a whole.  These types of negative business and leadership practices cast dark clouds over the organization which will in time deter people from wanting to work there.  Although work environments are designed to be a place where people do work, they are also a place where for many, they spend a majority of their time, and those places need to have some type of appeal in order to attract a person to come back day after day.

We talk a lot about what the ideal leader is but we never talk about how their characteristics can work for both a good and bad leader.  I suppose it’s easier to relate to the good strong influential and overall “good” leader than the bad but even this model is not something leaders that are doing harmful things use.  There is a certain level of stroking and caressing leaders must do in order to promote positive and steady followers. The figure above is rather repulsive and I suppose that  it would be used by a leader with no heart but below is how I would  like to see  the circle recreated.

Reference

Obolensky, N. (2012). Complex adaptive leadership, embracing paradox and uncertainty. Gower Publishing Company.

A633.5.3.RB_Reflections on Chaos

I have to start off by stating I think some of the people in the video changed who they selected in order to not have to walk around forever getting within equal distance of the two they had originally selected. I find that people tend to do that when they are looking for the easiest way out; unfortunately that does have a tendency to happen often in most real-world situations; we as humans like to find the quickest, shortest and or easier way out of situation regardless of how it impacts others. When people make those sometimes rash decisions it hurts not only individuals or a group but instead in this scenario it hurts the organization as a whole. Another way I saw this was people were selecting who they were closest to in both proximity and or if they knew the individuals previously – these are two things that have to be addressed in the business world. They do say it is not what you know it is who you know but who you know may not always be the best choice.

The exercise in the video shows that human behavior is unpredictable similar to Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory states that small changes now can affect the bigger picture in the future and the exercise in the video shows that small changes, selecting two people and then trying to get within an equal distance to them affects the bigger picture and events that will take place down the road (Chaos Theory also includes the Butterfly Effect, Fractals and other areas).

In this exercise, the participants were not allowed to speak to one another but instead position themselves equal distance from the two they selected. Where is the communication? You cannot have a strategy if you don’t communicate with those involved. This exercise in my opinion would never work and it also shows me how major organizations and or corporations get into trouble when they fail to communicate their strategy ideas with everyone involved.  Because my undergraduate studies focused on communication, it baffles me how people still feel the need to keep things from one another especially when they are trying to better an organization. I also believe there are many other factors that affect strategy which is include the structure of the strategy as well as the key players but for this example and exercise the key contributing factor in my opinion was the lack of communication.

A633.4.3.RB_Changing Dynamics of Leadership

The way organizations make decisions are changing, I find these changes to be for the better and help the organization to constantly move forward. Looking back, historically changes and or decisions were made from top down which mean that those making the changes were not aware of the implications that were taking place below. In order to bypass those issues, upper-management is now finding that making changes from all levels leads to happier work environments and a more prosperous organization.

I work for a relatively progressive organization and the organization as whole is constantly trying to put new ways of doing business for both the staff/faculty as well as students. I know that it can be difficult to allow decisions to be made from anything other than the traditional top down but it doesn’t mean that it cannot be done. It also can be hard to see how changes for the betterment of an organization can come from the middle or the bottom of an organizations hierarchy.

I would be willing to say that 75% of changes that have effective long term success rates come from those who are the middle to bottom of the hierarchy and I say that for many reasons. It has been my experience that upper management implement changes that will never affect them so they do know understand the repercussions. These types of changes seem to do more damage that good. I also think that you have to see who is on top to try and think like they do to better understand what changes they are trying to implemented. If you haven’t been in the trenches you don’t know how to help those people; leaders need to know their employees in order to make positive change from the top down.

How does this affect strategy? This method would squash the way most leaders feel about strategy because most leaders would find that this would infringe on their “bigger” plans but realistically this is the best way to conduct business. Take the idea of strategy and shift it so that you are strategically making changes based on what those who are going to be affect by it think/feel/say about it. No longer are you being strategic for your betterment but now you are being strategic in the betterment of those who will be affected by the change. To me it is all about how you approach strategy and how you approach strategic change.

Speaking to the idea of how to be strategic in how you approach change, I relate these ideas to my current position. I am constantly working with faculty, whom of which are notorious for being extremely finicky. You have to do a lot of stroking and caressing to get what you need and I am fine with that; this is where I have to be strategic. I cannot approach each faculty member the same way or my plans would blow up in my face and I would be dealing with sassy instructors so I strategically put feelers out there to see how I can affective change their way of thinking in order to be successful in a strong course development; it is all in the approach. I like to think of this as a dance, the Waltz preferably… not all partners will know how to move but once you find the right flow, the dance goes off seamlessly.

So what is indicative to these new ways of handling strategic change within an organization? First, organizations have to understand that the times are changing and no longer are people sitting back and letting upper management run the whole show. Organizations now understand that their best assets are not sitting at the top but are positioned all throughout the organization and their opinions matter. Second, organizations are beginning to recognize the need for diversity and in order to do that they have to go to the people. Those understandings help to unify the organization which leads me the third point which is organizations want to be better not only from an industry standpoint but also in the eyes of their employees. In the grand picture, employees are what sell the organization. They are the faces of the company and they are out there representing it all times. When someone asks you, “what do you do you and where do you work” the next question they ask is, “do you like your job” and the best way for organizations to keep good employees is so manage equally from within and create changes that start from the middle and work their way out. Top down management is out the door and new waves of thinking are now being created.

A633.3.3.RB_Complex Adaptive Systems

In order to understand another organization that is considered a CAS organization, we must correctly define what a CAS is and what those organizations consist of. Complex Adaptive Leadership (CAS) is defined as, “the term meant to reflect a dynamic organization where teams are formed, perform, and then disappear as the need arises… the foundation of this dynamic are clear people processes and policies, sound and flexible information and communication technology systems, and transparent, inclusive and flexible strategy development processes” (Obolensky, 2010). It can also be stated that these types of organizations are also defined as special cases of complex systems and are often defined as a “complex macroscopic collection” of relatively similar connected micro-structures. These micro-structures are formed in order to adapt to the changing environment, and increase its survivability as a macro-structure (the bigger picture).

I would like to take a step back in that I think I am looking at this concept too tightly. I have been trying to write this blog for the better part of a week now and I think it was because I was too tightly caught up in finding this type of organization I am supposed to write about but if a CAS is about an organization that has teams that arise and fall when needed to perform certain tasks then I think most organizations have those types of principles. When certain tasks need to be performed committees are created in order to evaluate a process or the creation of a new idea are those not a part of a CAS?

I know for a fact that the organization I work for relies heavily on groups appearing and disappearing in order to complete certain needs for organizational success but if I have to select one company or a strain of similar companies take for instance Johnson & Johnson. This organization has been around for decades (multiple decades at that) and they are comprised of a traditional hierarchy but they customer service based organization needs the input of others in order to create new products; this is where the teams are formed. The dynamics come from upper management who pull their resources together to create these teams of people who know what their one purpose is and when that purpose has been fulfilled the group or team dissolves and can be reborn again in a different way.

Being complex doesn’t mean it has to be complicated. I think sometimes we take those two and make them one although they are two separate ideas. I have found that any organization can be a CAS if there is flexibility within the infrastructure.

Obolensky, N. (2012). Complex adaptive leadership, embracing paradox and uncertainty. Gower Publishing Company.