Welcome back, readers! Our cohort has started our 5th course, Leading Change in Digital Learning. We’ve started with a two-week 10,000-foot view of leadership practices across all domains. This is a topic I am excited to explore in greater detail. In fact, one of the readings discussed Lance Secretan, an author and supporter of transformational leadership I’ve been reading since 2005. His CASTLE principles: courage, authenticity, service, truthfulness, love, and effectiveness helped me formulate an ethos in my twenties that propelled the development of leadership traits I employed as a community leader across multiple sports teams and university groups. This post explores how recent readings have bolstered my understanding of leadership traits that support and propel a community towards its potential. Most interestingly, when crafting these traits into actions, I discovered an overlap with the National Coach Certification Program’s (NCCP) making ethical decisions framework. Leaders with awareness, understanding, and the courage to act, when necessary, align with my view and is supported by the literature.
Our cohort started this course with a word scramble exercise that tasked groups of four to define, and rank leadership traits by importance. This activity followed the 1-2-4-All liberating structure I use as a National Coaches Certification Program (NCCP) coach developer, welcoming participants to reflect individually, then in pairs and small groups, before sharing with the entire cohort (Lipmanowicz & McCandless, 2014). And if role-modelling is a key aspect of effective leadership (Schwartz & Castelli, 2014), this activity reminds us to bring groups together by defining language. As a result of this exercise, our group established communication standards in both the way we use words and how we listen and contribute. By contributing to the exercise to the best of our ability, each participant earned the status of the in-group member, a concept introduced by Tafjel’s (1970) Social Identity Theory and refined by Self-Categorization Theory later in the decade (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Therefore, I’m reminded that awareness of the factors in play, not necessarily mastery of said factors, remains the foundational element of effective leadership because awareness can inform the use of activities that guide group development.
Acknowledging conflict as natural and healthy (Kudonoo et al., 2012), and fostering an appreciation for the potential of an individual’s ability to grow and transform, builds upon a leader’s sense of awareness. Acknowledging our strengths and vulnerabilities as leaders remain paramount. Without this “homework,” little can be said about our abilities to judge others and posit corrective or guiding measures. Values-based leadership consolidates this concept and reminds us that effective leaders embody the ability to reflect, balance introspection and the courage to act, self-confidence in previous experience, and humility in error (Castelli, 2016).
The most interesting component of our group 1-2-4-All activity occurred during our group discussion. Our group dramatically increased their ranking of the word “broad-minded.” The ability to place oneself in another’s shoes and see the world from their point of view is challenging. It is arguably impossible when these other people are associated with an in-group that the leader is not a member. In our case, due to the nature of our group’s dynamic, broad and sweeping changes in perception occurred quickly. Why did this take place? Perhaps because the member proposing the new idea did so with an appreciation for the audience and conducted the conversation by role-modelling the thought process of truth-finding, rather than stating their perspective as an outright and definitive claim. Therefore, leaders can aim to clarify language, listen, and contribute only the minimal necessary feedback.
Broad-mindedness also requires a certain degree of trait openness to experience, under the Five Factor Model of personality, and trait agreeableness, especially the sub-trait compassion. With appreciation for the academic discussion taking place between psychologists like Freud and Dweck as to whether personality traits can be altered, or if perhaps behaviours can instead be patterned to optimize one’s personality disposition, I wish to acknowledgement the challenge of exhibiting an effective mix of leadership traits (Cherry, 2021).
Finally, leadership requires the ability to act and manage the consequences. Under the ten leadership styles explored by O’Toole (2008), this matches Contingency leadership, whereby leaders can do what is necessary for moments of action. I would argue that patterns of this behaviour also manifest trust between leaders and followers, and a history that fosters a culture where the knowns are clear, and the actions in the face of unknowns, are agreed upon.
To avoid this post turning into a paper, I wish to briefly relate the above tenets: awareness, self-reflection, broad-mindedness, and courage to act, with the NCCP’s making ethical decisions framework. Coaches often face challenging situations. This required module helps coaches understand how to gather the facts and decide if a scenario is indeed ethical or legal. From here, coaches are challenged to brainstorm as many possible courses of action as possible, including non-action, and the benefits and costs of each option. And finally, coaches learn to make the best decision with the information available to them at the time and manage the consequences to the best of their ability.
As a sports leader in a position of influence, I aim to role model actions stakeholders can use to effectively lead groups. Defining language, listening for the purposes of understanding and crafting recommendations with an appreciation for and if possible, contributions from all stakeholders, provides leaders with the confidence to act in the moment and help achieve the goals of the community.
As we shift our focus to leadership in digital learning environments over the coming month, an example may include a strong appreciation for the place our learners are joining us from. What are their challenges? How can we help maximize the learning experience? This exploration undoubtedly requires us to put on new shoes! And humbly enter conversations we didn’t even know existed to effectively expand our domain of knowledge. Onwards into the unknown!
References
Castelli, P. (2016). Reflective leadership review: a framework for improving organizational performance. Journal of Management Development, 35(2), 217-236.
Cherry, K. (2021, February 20). Attitudes and Behavior in Psychology. Verywellmind.com
Kudonoo, E., Schroeder, K. and Boysen-Rotelli, S. (2012), An Olympic transformation: creating an organizational culture that promotes healthy conflict. Organization Development, Journal, 30(2), p. 51-66.
Lipmanowicz, H., & McCandless, K. (2014). The surprising power of liberating structures: Simple rules to unleash a culture of innovation. Liberating Structures Press.
O’Toole, James (2008). Notes Toward a Definition of Values-Based Leadership. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 1(1).
Secretan, L. (n.d.) The Secretan Center.
Tajfel, H. (1970). Experiments in intergroup discrimination. Scientific American, 223(5), p. 96–102.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. (1979). An integrative theory of inter-group conflict. The Social Psychology of Inter-group Relations. Brooks/Cole.
Hi Ben,
Thank you for your thoughtful and well-researched post. I had many questions, but one that stood for me was your inclusion of an ethical framework which you use from the NCCP. Though many of the attributes included in the Kouzes and Posner research (honesty, trustworthiness) infer ethical behaviour, it was not included explicitly as an attribute. Gail in her post shared another external framework for her healthcare profession (LEADS) and I noted it included “demonstrate character” but again did not explicitly reference ethics. As you point out coaches, and many others in leadership positions, need to make decisions that are ethical and legal – why do you think ethics doesn’t sit as prominently in the research of “admired” traits? When considering leading in digital learning environments the need to make ethical decisions about technologies has been at forefront of the discourse– particularly as we grapple with how to manage student data, the imposition of surveillance software and considering care in our pedagogy.
Hi Michelle,
Thank you for reading the post. I am intrigued to learn about your many questions! Yes, it is interesting that the research literature we’ve read so far hasn’t explicitly included ‘ethics’ as a quality of leadership. However, I would suggest that the traits we have seen in the literature support the historical depiction of great leadership seen across mythology. Universal motifs run across stories from every corner of the globe that propel us to carefully act out our decisions in the present with great appreciation for both the past and the present.
Words like humility (which is not directly associated with the Five-Factor model) and broad-mindedness (trait openness) may associate with our ability to consider the lessons of the past at different levels of resolution, but this requires great attention to detail (trait conscientiousness). Words like innovative and inspiring (trait openness to experience and extroversion respectively) may associate with our ability to create a vision of the future worth striving for.
One could also divide said leadership traits as left-brain or right-brain oriented.
“Being ethical” could also be deemed an outcome. I don’t view outcomes as ultimately very helpful. They are good things to aim towards, but actions are more helpful, more, dare I say, empowering. I don’t particularly like how the word ’empowered’ is used today. I suggest instead the word equip or enable, depending on the context. Helping people complete an “action” equips them with the tools to step closer to a goal they deem worthy. Instead of telling people to “be ethical”, we can recommend actions, like, gathering the facts, etc. As a result, people can take on the burden of choosing the best decision. They can engage in the hero’s journey. They can make an assessment between the patterns of historical behaviour they are aware of, and contemplate possible resolutions available today, to mitigate future disaster and strive towards an environment they see value in living in.
We are all on a hero’s journey. And the beauty of our age is our ability to articulate our stories in such creative and innovative ways.
We can contextualize the spirit of what makes us human, and what makes us strive forward each day, in ways that are as unique as everyone on the planet. We can make the hero’s journey our own.
However, some danger lies in such variability. But that is for another post!
With regards to surveillance in academic settings, one example would be the difference between recording a zoom-call lecture versus using a video-call software that monitors student behaviour.
Early in the pandemic, software was promoted in my sector that surveilled student attention. However the platform was outdated, difficult to use, and the hyped-up module to teach how to teach online was poorly received. Across sport, a rapid change occurred towards using ZOOM or other similar platforms (Telus Connect or Microsoft Teams), software that at the basic level, doesn’t surveil student behaviour as far as I understand.
Conversely, I am a proponent of recording education sessions facilitated using video call software. I believe it helps ensure the facilitator is abiding by the many ethical guidelines and meeting the desired learning outcomes. It propels learning “engineers” to design breakout room and group development activities that promote interaction from the students and motivates students to craft meaningful contributions to the discussion. It also provides opportunities for students who missed a session, who deal with bandwidth inconsistencies, or who wish to partake in a home-study version of the material in the future, with a catalogue of cohorts and a library is deep, contextual discussions that they can build a connection with.