Blogging is not in my comfort zone as I am not comfortable talking about myself and opening up. I am basically a shy and introverted person, so I am stepping out of my comfort zone and giving this a try.
Reasons that I chose blogging for an assignment are:
- To learn what strengths and weaknesses I have regarding leadership. The hope is that I will build confidence within self, learn more about me and discover areas that I can strengthen or change within.
- The idea is to blog about what we have learnt through the week with the intention of disgesting what we covered.
- The hope is that blogging what we have learnt will help me retain the information. I have a weakness in that department.
I have never thought of self as a leader in terms of leading in a business environment. Of course I am a mother and a wife, so have naturally the responsibility of taking care of my children and my home, working together as a husband/wife team and a family team and that is taking a leadership role.
The thought of leading a crew of employees and/or being responsible for a department or organization leaves me feeling some what intimidated. I come from the era of 'do as I say and don't argue", and I know that I feel very uncomfortable with taking on that type of leadership role. Thank goodness we have evolved from that time and that there are different leadership models one can choose to follow. The more I learn about Stewardship leadership, the more comfortable I feel about taking a leadership role and I look forward to learning more about this model. This model feels right for me as I see many advantages of working with my coworkers on a more equal footing and growing together as a team.
Ken asked us what Strategic and Innovation meant to us. At this point my understanding of these two words are:- Strategic to me sounds very military. Specific plans are made to reach a specific goal and specific steps have to be taken to reach that goal.
Here is a link that talks about strategic leadership, "Defining the challenge".
http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/win03/guillot.html
Innovation to me means creativity, openess, stepping out of the norm, looking for differences, trying new things.
Following is a link with a definition by Hutch Carpenter with his interpretation on innovation.
http://www.cloudave.com/202/definition-of-innovation/
My understanding so far on Strategic leadership and Innovation is that the leadership has strategies to reach it's goals, the innovation is part of the leadership model which creates an atmosphere of building teamwork, sharing of ideas, trust, creating a healthier work culture in order to reach the goals in a more conducive and cooperative manner. To me it sounds more like my understanding of stewardship leadership.
Great start to your blog Fran! It's well written and insightful. I appreciate that you are going out of your comfort zone sharing a bit about yourself. I hope you enjoy the journey!
ReplyDeleteStrategic or strategic actually has it "roots" in the military. But like most things/words, they tend to evolve. Do you see the value of being a "strategic" leader in a "Stewardship Leader" way?
Ken
Yes, I do believe I see the value of being a "strategic" leader in a "Stewardship model". What I see at this point is, a foundation, walls and stairs to guide and reach the set goals. This is what I would call the strategic area. An area where there is consistency, boundaries and expectations that the leader and co-workers are aware of.
ReplyDeleteInside this area is the innovative space where there is room to understand, build and trust relationships within the organization, department, family etc. This space allows for the creativity, sharing of ideas, allowing for debates, disagreements, agreements and the building of trust and growth within the team members as individuals and as a whole in a respectful and committed manner.
The leaders role is to work as part of the team, allowing his/her co-workers the room to take on responsibilities and be a part of the decisions made in reaching the set goals. Although the leader is part of the team, he/she is the shephard guiding his/her flock within those strategic boundaries.
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ReplyDeleteHey Fran,
ReplyDeleteI love to see the fact that you have defined goals for your Blogging exercise. I feel confident that you will achieve your goals.
I like what you said about using your Blog to help digest the weekly offerings of inspiration that Ken dishes up for us. Seems to me that writing about it is a very strategic move. I too retain more information when I do more with it than just listen (ie write, repeat, share, discuss, reflect).
If you don't mind, I will follow your Blog as a way for me to also digest our lessons through your insights and thoughts.
Happy Blogging Fran!
Hi, Fran
ReplyDeleteKeep sharing your own thoughts. It is the best way to learn from one another. :)
Week 25th & 27th January, 2011 PART A.
ReplyDeleteThank you all who have contributed to my blog and for the words of encouragement.
This has been a pretty intense week; in fact it is hard to believe that it is only a week since I started blogging!
I have spent a lot of time being a family leader in particular at the end of last week and during the weekend. Both my sons have their birthdays 2 days apart, so that always requires making time to think about and buy presents and organize either a special dinner and cake or an outing or something. This year was my youngest son's 19th birthday and my eldest son arranged for a nightclub event over on the mainland. So I was busy with the normal purchasing of presents and arranging for a cake to be sent to the restaurant where we were all going to meet up and then coordinating with friends and family, and deciding whether we should book a suite at a hotel down town so that no one had to drive. There seems to always be something that trips you up in my family, like getting to the restaurant and finding out that the folk responsible for bringing the presents there left them in the taxi! That caused a bit of panic, but with the help of city dwellers, we were able to track them down and get them to the restaurant without too much stress. It was a great event with a big turn out and everyone had a blast. For Bon and myself it was quite a learning curve in experiencing today's nightclubs, I felt like I was going down into a dungeon to where this very different kind of music was playing called dub step. It is a loud drum base beat, which seems to be the new thing, interesting!
Pascale, Chris and I interviewed Micki last Thursday. She was very honoured that we chose her as she seemed to think there were other leaders that were better qualified for this assignment. I am not sure that I totally agree with her as I feel she plays a significant leadership role in all our lives right through the program. This became evident as we progressed through the interview as she mentioned the importance on her part of being aware of the growth that takes place throughout the 4 years with the students and how her leadership has to accommodate that. She is one instructor that really gets to know us on a more personal level, I think, as she feels she needs to understand what it is we are looking for and in order to help us find what we want she needs to take the time to get to know us on that more personal level. That also plays a role in how she works with each of us individually as a leader. One thing that struck me with a disciple that she works on, is taking enough time at the end of the day and reflecting on her day to see what worked and what did not work so well. This is an exercise that she feels strongly about as it helps her to see where she can improve her leadership abilities and take action if need be in areas that need the attention. I would say that Micki is being strategic and innovative in her style of leadership.
I have bla, blaad way too many characters here, so have to break it up. The next post will be a continuation of this blog.
PART 2 25th & 27th January, 2011
ReplyDeleteThis week in class we looked at the importance of understanding our strengths and weaknesses, whether dressing formally is an important strategy, the importance of self reflection, evaluating self, developing and maintaining confidence and taking risks.
Understanding strengths and weaknesses I believe is a life long journey. As Micki says taking the time to reflect on your day and assessing what went well and why and what did not go as well as intended and why and what went terribly wrong and why, is a good tool to see where you have weaknesses and where your strengths lie. The biggest challenge here is being disciplined and allowing self the time to do the reflection. In my present reality time is the challenge, it is like finding time for exercise, that too is important, and it is a challenge to make room for all these things. So then balance comes into play and figuring out what is the propriety order that works best for you. That comes around to whether you have the strength to be disciplined!
I did the Enneagram test and I guess there was nothing too surprising that came out of that. There was confirmation that I strive for perfectionism, so I guess it is time that I accept that truth. I have been accused of being too hard on myself and setting high standards, but I have not recognized that within me, so maybe there is truth there. My other high scores are helpfulness, adventurousness and anxiety. I do have to agree with anxiety being a weakness of mine. This I find is a difficult trait to conquer. The book I am reading "Feel the Fear and then do it anyway" is brilliant in trying to help me understand fear and how it can freeze you if you don't know how to live with fear and understanding it is just part of growing stronger. Hopefully this knowledge will benefit me in growing stronger and conquering anxiety.
Being adventurous is definitely something I am aware of. I thrive on the unexpected and the unknown. My adventurousness is not driving at dangerous speeds or jumping out of airplanes, it is more of handling crisis situations or doing whatever it takes to get to where ever I need to get to. I am not someone who can live in a consistent and safe environment; I need that uncertainty and unexpectedness. It must be something to do with coming from Africa. Consistency, certainty and safety become very boring for me.
Enough talking, I am now going to "try" and post this without losing it all!
Hey Fran,
ReplyDeleteJust a suggestion here. Try to post on a fresh page, instead of in the Post a Comment box. This box limits the number of words and is intended for replies. By starting a new blog on a fresh page, it then gets treated individually and appears in your Blog Archives on the right, sorted by date. It is a simpler way to organize the blog entries and does not restrict your typing. I can show you how if you would like. Just let me know.
Interesting about your Enneagram test, being both adventurous and having anxiety. Sounds like one type of fear (uncertainty and unexpectedness) you thrive on and other types of fear causes you anxiety. A real paradox. Great self-reflection Fran, I'll try the Enneagram test for myself now.