A631.5.4.RB_McNerneyLeighAnn

Throughout the Leadership Program I have read books that include the following titles: Complex Adaptive Leadership, Messages: The Communication Skills Book, The Leader’s Guide to Story Telling, Leadership in an Organization, Wharton on Making Decisions, Getting to Resolution, The Leadership Experience, The Practice of Ethics, Interpersonal Conflict and many others. The only book that truly changed my thinking though was Learning to Think Things Through by Gerald M. Nosich because this encompassed the entire program.  For me one of the most critical skills necessary to lead effectively is learning to critically think about everything in our lives. The author wrote a message to the students reading his book and within this message he stated, “The aim of this book is to help improve your critical thinking about the subject matter of the courses you are taking. A secondary goal, a by-product of the first, is to help you improve your ability to think effectively in your life as a whole.” Critical thinking is sometimes difficult when you are not using it all the time.

For example when I wake up I do not critically think about brushing my teeth or getting dressed because I usually just want to do it and run out the door. However, when I making big decisions that will impact my life such as having a child I will think and think until I can’t think anymore before moving forward with a decision. Neither of these is a good example of critically thinking after reading this book because I am not thinking about every possible outcome that may follow my decision I am just deciding. Critical thinking requires being conscious on the knowledge you have prior to researching about the decision so that when you are making the decision you are more aware of how and why you are deciding. Critical thinking requires you to actively listen to any and all information coming your way in order to be open and embrace everything you can before making a decision.

Some of the main characteristics of critical thinking includes being reflective on why you already have views about the topic and involves developing standards that have been reasonably assessed. It is authentic and is applied to real problems so that you can make good judgments, and lastly it involves being reasonable so that can evaluate rules and regulations enforced. Asking questions and finding answers that you can believe in is also a major part of the critically thinking process which is a challenging process at times and this is why I find that leaders have a difficult time growing into a person who can lead a system-wide change effectively. Leadership cannot be defined in one short sentence and no matter how many books you read on this topic there is never a black and white answer on what exactly the traits a good leader has.

In my opinion good leaders set the example and follow through with everything they attempt, and if they fail they do it learning something more valuable then actually succeeding. Leadership is not a title it’s anyone who is living their lives pushing the envelope in order to see what else is out there  while making decisions after critically thinking about the issues at hand. I also believe that no leader is the same, thinks the same, acts the same or even believes in the same values because I think every follower of a leader and every leader of a follower empowers one another to meet one another’s needs no matter the situation. The leader fits the role because they are flexible and adaptable to recognize when its time to make a change for the better, and then they rely on others to help them get there together at the same time. No one is stepping on others because its not the right thing to do instead as one moves up the other reaches back to help the other one up and this type of relationship builds and builds on a solid foundation of trust. 

In every book the morale of every story appears to be that in order to become successful you have to be a good person and you have to do the right thing because it’s the right thing, and not because it’s what’s best for you. Every professor I have taken within this program has taught me a valuable lesson and that is you won’t get far unless you believe that you can, you have to work hard, and you have to make calculated risks and embrace the changes that will follow being prepared for anything that could come next. After starting this program in October of 2011 I have started to understand these important lessons and I feel like my mind has finally started to open up and critically think about my life in general. I try to be a leader in every situation I am involved in whether it’s as a mommy setting an example, a wife empowering my husband who works so hard to achieve his goals, or when talking to old friends scared to take the next step and go back to school.

Being a leader in this manner does not give me a title and there is absolutely no structure I am following. I am just trying to make a difference by going out of my way to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, and this is how I am trying to make a system-wide change everyday. I have witnessed friends and family rise and fall from their success because they were unable to critically think about their decisions, whether it was doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do, or choosing to stay quiet which ultimately lead to their business closing. No matter the situation each of these people suffered from making bad decisions because they didn’t know why they were making them, it was for their own pleasure and benefit, or because they didn’t take the time to think about what may follow. Being able to be effective and make changes where people will want to go with you instead of against you takes someone who can be the example, make good decisions for the good of everyone, is trustworthy, empathetic, a good listener, communicates well, is adaptive, open to diversity and change and remains ethical in all situations. All of these in my opinion start with developing good critical thinking skills.

Nosich, G. M. (2012). Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking across the curriculum. Boston: Pearson.

A631.4.4.RB_McNerneyLeighAnn

A self-managed team is a group of individuals brought together in order to accomplish a task. Brown describes them as a “work team of autonomous group whose members decide how to handle their task” (Brown, 2011, p 349). The members of the group are diverse in that they come from different backgrounds and cultural experiences, which is a benefit of having a self-managed team because each expert within their field of interest can bring something new to the table. These experiences allow everyone within the group to gain something even if it is just some useful information or how to accomplish a specific ask. When a team is brought together they are “assigned a wide range of tasks” from solving a problem to handling all of their scheduling, budgets etc. These teams are not being micromanaged, but instead independently managing one another through effective communication and goals setting where everyone agrees and accepts the objectives.

Some of the many benefits I see in self-managed teams are that they are a support group for each other through the challenging processes they encounter. Each member also acts as a motivator and encourager throughout every step of the way, which fosters the trusting relationships needed in order to accomplish the impossible. These groups are committed to one another and the vision they are following. Because of their strong commitment as a team they usually obtain rewards for their services that are designed specifically for the type of team they are composed of. Each member is different than the other and this brings an element of diversity and enables critical thinking to expand to eliminate complacency. I see better decision-making taking place when there are self-managed teams in place because each members brings that certain skill to the equation to open everyone up to embrace change more willingly, which also is strong because of the trusting relationships involved.

Some of the draw backs of a self-managed team is there will be disagreements at times that may require more counseling or mentoring form their leader to resolve. Collaboration is so significant to the flow of this type of team which is very similar to a family unit because there are always going to be disagreements that will need to be worked out successfully. Another weakness would be if the team was brought together and everyone involved was unsure of his or her purpose or role because of the lack of leadership from upper management. Brown identified some disadvantages as the organization in which they are working with does not see a need for a change to occur, the team may not be appropriate to the task, people and context, or the team can fail because the needed training wasn’t available to them. (Brown, 2011, p 353)

Personally I would love to work with a self-managed team because I work better when I feel I have a say in what and how I am doing. Being told when to do something and how to do it only makes me not want to participate because I feel like I am being treated like a child, and I typically rebel against this type of treatment. For example as a server in college I was constantly yelled at for everything I did even if I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was a great employee I never was late and I always had a good reputation with my customers. Although I was a server I took the job seriously and wanted to make sure I excelled in any way I could. The upper management at this restaurant lacked education and leadership capabilities. They would yell at us just to yell at us and if anyone took it upon himself or herself to resolve an issue they would have a problem no matter the outcome because no one asked for their permission. This type of attitude created disloyal employees who were always looking to screw them over because they had hostilities towards them. Luckily I was able to find a better job once I graduated and I have now experienced a more self-managed team atmosphere at ERAU.

In financial aid we are an independent group from the entire university because we handle a different aspect of the enrollment process, we award funding needed to attend. Our upper management does not have a clue how to do our job and I am pretty positive no one wants to learn. Our real upper management is the department of education as they set forth the rules and regulations we have to follow. This alone makes us feel a sense of independence because it is our responsibility as a group to stay up-to-date with what is going on, and then implement it. We as a group go over ways on how to handle problems we encounter and try to be proactive for future issues that may arise. Even though we are not setting our own schedules, budgeting or anything of that matter we are able to independently mange our time. For example when I come into work no one has laid out my path. I walk in and decide what my priorities are and then I work towards minimalizing them. I do not have anyone asking me what I accomplished that day because they instead assume that I am getting my job done. If I ever I need help I will try and resolve my dilemma with my fellow coworkers and if we cant we will then go to the director. We have all of our days off listed in OneNote and we each have partners that cover us so we never are having to put signs up on our desk like other departments require. Our director trusts us to do our job correctly and efficiently. The independence we are granted instills a sense of willingness and commitment to make sure we go above and beyond what is expected of us.

If I can one day lead like I hope to I anticipate that I can create a self-managed team for my employees because I have experienced the benefits that these teams offer. In the YouTube Self-managing teams: debunking the leadership paradox it was noted that these teams have the formal responsibility and authority on how they will manage their work which leads to a more flattened organization. These teams develop their norms and police behaviors without the help of their external leadership. The only time an external leader will step in is to help the team understand the goals and provide them with flexibility so they can be guided to the end result. This task does not involve micromanaging and creates an accepting environment with a healthy balance of power. The external leader needs to act as a motivator and coach to the team members as this will lead to reciprocated behaviors. This knowledge I now have has allowed me to recognize my own positive experiences so that I can reflect on the values a self-managed team encompasses for everyone involved. I plan to continue to identify self-managed teams within my organization as well as others and learn from each one so I can hopefully create my own one-day.

References

Self-managing teams: debunking the leadership paradox [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBnR00qgGgM&feature=youtu.be

Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.). Boston: Prentice Hall.

A631.3.4.RB_McNerneyLeighAnn

My personal understanding of feedback and goals to performance is that in order to grow and learn you must know what you could do to improve, but you also must know why you are trying to improve. In our text Brown states “the combination of goal setting with feedback on individual performance has a positive effect on performance; while in contrast giving feedback on performance without having previously set goals does not lead to improved performance” (Brown, 2011, p 321). This statement makes a lot of sense when reflecting back over the times I have received feedback and how I handled it. For example when I was younger and my sister would tell me that I was annoying I didn’t know why or how to improve and I never really had a desire to not be this way, so hearing this only made me defensive and react negatively usually ending in an argument. However, when I was in my evaluation earlier this year I was advised that I was doing a great job, but I needed to improve my confidence. I knew going into the evaluation I needed to improve my confidence, as this is an area I struggle with the most. When my director gave me positive feedback as well as this one negative I was able to internalize the goal to become more confident and accept the feedback. Since the evaluation I have been pulled into my director’s office to hear how impressed and happy he was with the way I have built my confidence over these past couple of months.

As a Generation Y (anyone born after 1980) I have to agree with Brown’s statement that my generation “wants a lot of feedback – from their immediate bosses and anyone else” (Brown, 2011, p 322). This resonates a lot with me because I am always asking for feedback no matter who the source is or what the task may be because I like to know what someone is looking for, and if I did it correctly. Maybe my generation is quick to please, or maybe it was the way in which our teachers within the school system reinforced us? Somehow there seems to be a correlation between the events that occurred from 1980 until now as far as the need for feedback. I know that I like to know how I am performing because I like to do things correctly. If I am not doing something correctly it usually shows me that I need more training, I need to understand my task better, or I am not critically thinking about the situation in order to change the way I am approaching it.

Recently I received feedback from my professor that I did not complete a certain assignment to the best of my abilities, which was extremely hard for me to handle. When reviewing the grade and the comments I was devastated and automatically shut down. Instead of remembering, “constructive feedback is a gift” I took it and shut it down. Constructive feedback is a gift when it is given in a “timely manor, its useful to the assignment, accurate, clear, and made with the best intentions” (Tremaine, R. (1997). This bad grade I received had a wonderful gift attached with detailed instructions of where I lacked explanation and how I could improve. The very next week I turned in another assignment and got a really great grade so this feedback served its purpose!

Overall I am pretty good at setting goals and following through with them. At ERAU I believe that they allow us the freedom to choose our own goals while also finding a way to get us to accept the goals that they have in place for the organization. Recently due to the government shut down our enrollment decreased which affected the entire organization as a whole. In Financial Aid we are a team of nine and our student population makes us a very busy department. A short time ago we requested and were denied new positions because upper management wanted to make sure we could get enrollment numbers back to what they were before hiring any new counselors. Knowing no help could come unless we could get caught up was a little overwhelming. Our goal was to finish all verifications and package all students possible in order to prevent them from being dropped from their classes and remained enrolled. Knowing that as a team we needed to work together and get these certain tasks completed to give our part to bring the numbers up was all we needed to hear. Today we are all very caught up in all processing times. ERAU’s management found a way to “align their people's objectives with their business strategy and then reward individuals/teams for specific, measurable and quantifiable contributions to these objectives” (Wartenberg, F. (2008). I am hoping that we will get our positions approved after the numbers are calculated.

Going forward I have recognized that I need to create more specific goals because my goals are all very broad such as go to graduate school and graduate with distinction. I have started a short list of measurable goals. I have shared my list with my husband and I am hoping that he can help me remain accountable as I am working towards them giving me feedback along the way. One of my goals is to get my daughter Olivia to sleep in her own room so to start this we have moved her crib into our bedroom in the hopes we can at least get her into her own bed. Another goal is to go to the gym to work on my stress issues I face while working and going to school with a family. I have joined a gym with my coworkers and started going at least twice a week. I am hoping to stay motivated and I am also hooping I can continue make short term goals for myself.

Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.). Boston: Prentice Hall.

Tremaine, R. (1997, Nov 30). Feedback critical to workplace success. Tulsa World. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/399628801?accountid=27203  

Wartenberg, F. (2008). The goal: Setting goals. Pharmaceutical Executive Europe (Online), , 22-24. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/198417181?accountid=27203

A631.2.5.RB_McNerneyLeighAnn

My group is called Learning Team B and consists of five members: Thomas Bugg, Emily Clifton, Shawn Fogarty, Annamarie Garcia and myself. Originally we were not all placed together as some of us dropped the class and some of were added during the add/drop period; however we have all settled in well together now that we have finalized who will remain in the group. As a team our first assignment was to create a Team Charter, which I was Team Leader on. Overall I feel that we successfully completed this assignment with ease. A Team Charter in my opinion is a way for us to formally get to know each other’s expectations and needs from the group. The Charter also provides us with a starting place to organize our goals, direction of how we will accomplish them, and basically get us all on the same page as to what we need to do. Once we began working on the Charter I noticed that we all have similar goals and expectations, which is nice because I knew right away we would be able to resolve any issues that presented themselves with cooperation among all members. Some of our expectations included “open lines of communication, respect on all sides and an understanding that we need to work as a team, timeliness and support for one another.”  Some of our goals include “use this as a positive learning experience, efficient task orientation, and encourage each other”. We laid out some ground rules that consisted of a “strong emphasis on communication and time management of individual’s tasks as well as the team’s”. (Learning Team B)

The way I approached this team was an understanding that we are all going to be responsible for our own tasks; however we also have interdependence on one another in order to get the job done which could lead to conflicts. So far everyone on the team has been very diligent in completing his or her portions of the task this week. In addition to an adherence to timeliness everyone maintained a positive attitude as each of us completed our portion of the Team Charter. One issues we ran into was that one team member accidently left one of his portions blank, and although I am the designated Team Lead another teammate stepped in to email him politely before I had a chance of reminding him to log back into the charter and complete his portion. Since it’s an individual portion no one could answer the designated questions so we needed our teammate to answer the question in order for us to meet our deadline. Thanks to the one teammate stepping up and shooting him an email we were able to get the questions answered and submit the Charter with no delays. The teammate’s effort shows that within this group no matter if you are designated as team lead we support each other as we said we would within the Charter. Every member of this team is a leader whether or not they are designated for the week. Some positive behaviors our team experienced this week were enthusiasm, positivity, and empowerment that led to our successful completion of the task.

Overall I do not feel we had any factors that inhibited our decision-making or problem solving because we all really worked well together on our first assignment. If I had to determine the amount of time spent on decision-making it would be at least a couple hours each day regarding how we could go about future assignments as well as the submission of our first Team Charter. The amount of information shared among team members was abundant and from the looks of it we are all highly motivated and show signs of over achievers! Each of us are prepared to be fully committed to the group, show a mutual trust for one another, make good decisions, clearly define each other’s roles within the week’s assignments, keep a positive environment and share information openly so that we can all benefit from this group. There does not seem to be an issue with power at this time because from the one instance of having to email a teammate for more information no one had to be assigned this task by another because showed voluntary behavior. which shows no signs power imbalances at this time.

Reflecting back on this weeks Team Charter as well as Charters from the past I can detect forming, storming, norming and performing in every single group project which has led every group I have participated in to exceed our own expectations. Through healthy collaboration this week we have all successfully submitted the Team Charter a day earlier than the actual due date. I have a great feeling that our group will continue to resolve time management issues and communications barrios that could surface through our virtual team because we received the following comment upon submission of the Charter.

Good. I think your group recognizes the need to have open lines of communication and have a commitment to each team member. It is important to make sure that you are able to overcome different schedules, etc. and stay committed to the task at hand. One thing that helps me in group work is to think that my actions impact a bunch of different people. I see that your group recognizes that and is working well together! Excellent stuff and I look forward to seeing more from your team over the remaining 7 weeks.

(Dr Matthew Earnhardt)