A633.1.2.RB - Leadership Gap

There are three great questions in the beginning of chapter one A Journey of Discovery that would be a great way for anyone who is interested in leadership to be able to ponder over and reflect upon.  The first one asks Has your own attitude to leaders changed in your life, and if so how?  I had to really think about this because I have held a few jobs in my life and have had many types of managers and leaders with very different styles of leading.  To answer this question I would have to say yes my attitude has changed in regards to leaders.  I have seen many styles, some good, some bad and some that left me scratching my head wondering what the heck they were thinking.

Having been through a few courses now in leadership development I can say that I have more of a firm grasp on how to be a more effective leader and reflecting on the ways of past managers and bosses I can see that some of them really got it but sadly most did not.  I look around at the different departments and the styles of leading are very different from department to department.  Some tend to micromanage where others are very relaxed and still others are able to have a good balance.  I think a big reason I feel that my attitude has changed is that I have grown as a person and I believe I have a better understanding of what makes a great leader and it is not by intimation and fear, or making unrealistic demands it is about communication on both sides and being able to give and take.  You have to be able to adapt and grow.  This leads to the second question.

If we take as a starting point in the attitude to those in authority/leaders as held by your grandparents, and then look at those attitudes held by your parents, and then by you, and then by the younger generation, is there a changing trend?  If so, what is it? My grandfather came over from Italy as a teenager for a better life.  He was a young man during the great depression and managed to own his own business as a tailor in CT.  From the stories I have been told his management style was to lead with an iron fist.  You did what you were told and you didn’t question anything.  His employees and family were both ruled this way, you didn’t ask questions and you followed out of fear. For his generation you just did as you were told there were no questioning things.  For my parents’ generation it was different because there were many changes with civil rights and more and more women joining the work force.  Leadership was more about power and more women were emerging as managers.

Women had to prove themselves as managers that they could be just as firm and hardcore as their counterparts.  My mom had several female managers who were very strict and demanding of their employees.  It was a do as I say kind and don’t question me kind of attitude.  When I joined the workforce at 15 I was completely naïve to how things worked and if my boss said to clean the bathroom I didn’t question it I did because I was taught that you didn’t talk back when someone told you to do something you just did it no questions asked.  As I grew and changed jobs I realized that it was ok to ask questions and to challenge things if I felt that they weren’t right.  I quit a few jobs because I didn’t believe in what the company was doing or selling.  For example, I worked for a company that sold women’s bathing suits and the gimmick of this place was that all the employees wore the suits we sold in the store.  This way when a customer came in they would see the suit on and want to purchase one. 

My first day of working was fun and the lights were really bright so it was warm in the store.  At the end of the shift we changed back into our clothes, had our purses searched to make sure we weren’t stealing and told to hang our suits back up on the racks.  I immediately questioned this practice and was told ‘that is the way we do business’.  I didn’t feel it was right to do business this way and when the manager said she didn’t see a problem with it I knew I couldn’t stay there and work for that company.  Watching the younger generation interact with managers I am surprised by it.  There seems to be no authority, trust and respect on either side.  It seems to be lacking that special something that sparks people to want to follow their manager. 

This now takes me to the last question Why do you think that this has occurred?  From looking at each generation there seems to be a change in the sense that leaders aren’t as tough and ruling with an iron fist but they also don’t seem to have found a good footing on how to be better leaders either.  Perhaps this is because there has not been a standard way of teaching or lack of teaching people how to be good managers and leaders.  There are more and more books and classes on how to become an effective leader which is great however if we as future leaders cannot learn to understand ourselves and how we lead and how to be able to adapt to change we will not make any progress.

A632.9.3.RB - Role of Emotion in Decision Making

There have been many decisions that I made over my lifetime that have been emotionally based that come out either for the better or for the worse for me in the end.  In my younger day I must admit that my emotions got the better of me when making decisions and yes I definitely made some bad ones because I let my emotions get the best of me in some situations.  However, I can say with a good amount of self-assurance that I have come a long way from those days and I have learned to not let my emotions get the best of me these days.

A situation where I was very confident in the outcome was when I was tasked with writing the Verification manual for the financial aid department at all three campuses at ERAU.  I have to admit I was very nervous at first because I wanted to make sure that I did the best job I knew how to.  I also wanted to make sure that I covered most scenarios that the counselors would come across so that they would feel self-confident about completing verifications.

I worked every day for 2 weeks making sure that each step was clear and concise and worked through any issues that I felt that they might encounter.  When I was done I gave the manual to a couple of the counselors to review and see if they felt it flowed and made sense.  When they were done they had nothing but praise but the manual because it was clearly written and covered most of the situations that they would come across.  I felt very good when they told me.  I was proud, confident, and excited that all my hard work paid off.  The decisions I made were the right ones because the end product was exactly what our department needed to move us in the right direction with a process that was easy to follow.

A situation where I was not very confident in the outcome was when I first started training for the operations center when it was in Kentucky.  I had never had any trouble speaking in front of people but this was my first time actually being in front a  group talking about financial aid and my director was going to be there which made me more nervous.  I got off to a rough start when I started my presentation but by the end of it I felt I did a good job. 

I asked my director for feedback and he told me to be more confident and sure about myself in my delivery and to slow down when I spoke.  I took everything that he said to heart and though I was disappointed, worried that I would fail, and nervous that I would not do well I feel that when I worked on it I would be better at it.  I had to train again the next day so I felt a bit more confident in my delivery. 

This situation was a good turnaround for me because of dealing with my confidence in training I am now very comfortable in front of any size group when it comes to teaching and I learn something new each time I travel out to our operations center.

A632.8.3.RB - Reflections on the Cynefin Framework

Working on a team over the past few weeks has been a lesson in patience and reflecting on what did and didn’t work on this team.  Everything that we have read and learned so far in this course has come in handy for figuring out how to make this team work and work well.  One of the biggest assumptions I feel we made with this team was that we all thought it was going to be simple, easy and straightforward without actually looking at all the dynamics at work here.

Using multiple contexts I can see that one of the mistakes we made was that it was not going to be a cookie cutter process like we thought.  First we had to deal with the fact that we all have strong personalities and different ways of looking at how to get the project going.  Communication is key and though we were communicating it was all done through email and email doesn’t convey tone so things were misunderstood and attitudes started to flare.  I suggested that we meet several times face to face to air out any conflicts so that we could move forward and continue on the project.  Each time there was a reason for why we couldn’t meet by one of the team members.

Looking back I realize that one of team members became defensive because she felt that her idea was shot down though it was all in her approach for why it was shot down.  After that she didn’t really want to listen because she was defensive so she was combative after that.  Finally after much back and forth we were able get back on track because we realized we all wanted the same thing and that was a great project to turn in.

Another area I can use the multiple contexts is with my upcoming verification training.  Most of the counselors have gone through this training before and there is a temptation to fall back on the old ways of completing verifications and how they were taught years ago.  By involving the counselors in training and having them ask questions and even do hands on training there will be more interaction and perhaps a better understanding of how these changes affect a student’s financial aid.

There are many changes to verification this year so helping everyone understand that there are may be more than one right answer and it is a matter of stepping back and reflecting on the best way to approach it.  Sometimes it will take an expert in this area to review and walk the counselors through how to ask more probing questions of the student in order to come to the best resolution. 

I feel that are 5 ways I can improve on my decision making skills that will allow me to become a better leader in both my personal and professional life:

·         Don’t assume things are simple just because they appear to be

·         Be patient and allow time for reflection

·         Create open communication channels on both sides

·         Think outside the box

·         Use approaches that encourage interaction

By incorporating these steps in the multiple contexts I can critically assess various situations and come to the best resolution that works for everyone.

A632.7.4.RB - Collaborative Decision-Making

As the Verification manager I am responsible for making changes to our verification forms each year and since we are one university these forms have to be approved by Daytona and Prescott as well as by Worldwide.  Last year I was new to this process and when we decided to meet there were a total of 15 people who reviewed the forms.  It was hard to get everyone on the same page and keep the forms simple and easy to read for the students and parents.

Some people wanted more items added and others wanted things removed.  It seems that no one was on the same page with how the forms should be done and we went around and around on it for weeks before we finally made a decision.  I decided that this year I wanted to make it as smooth as possible.  It was too much back and forth last year and I didn’t want to have to deal with that again this year.

Because there are so many changes this year for the 2013-2014 academic year I wanted to make sure that I got a head start on the forms and that we would have a smaller group making the decisions this time to avoid a delay in getting the forms out.  I approached my director and manager and asked them what they thought about me working on the forms ahead of time and presenting the first draft to a select group of people, mainly managers and then the directors.  They agreed and at the next status meeting it was brought up that I would be working on the forms to get a jump on this upcoming year.

I sent an email out to 5 managers and told them that I would have the forms done and ready for their review within 24-48 hours and that I wanted their feedback.  I worked on the forms and had my manager review them before I sent them and got the thumbs up from her.  My email explained that the verbiage came straight from the Department of Education and that the forms were more streamlined and easy to read.  I pointed out that we needed to get them approved and ready for submission.  My last statement was that we were the ones were going to be making the final decision.  Once we approved the forms and sent them to the directors it was a done deal.

I was waiting for there to be resistance from at least some of the managers but everyone seemed to be on board and happy with the results of the forms.  We set up a meeting and everyone was very happy that the forms were more streamlined and easy to read and understand.  I also had all of the counselors review the forms since they are the ones on the frontline who deal with the students on a daily basis so they would be the best ones to see if there was anything missing that I may have overlooked.  Each counselor was able to provide their input and I used this to finalize the changes I made before they were sent out to the managers.

Reviewing the difference between last year and this was that there was no direction last year and there were too many people involved in the process.  By using an explanation on what the steps were going to be and how we would proceed instead of waiting for someone to take the lead I found that the forms were greeted with less resistance and everyone was ready to move forward knowing that the final decision was ours to make.  Everyone was comfortable enough to bring up any concerns and they were addressed and cleared up.

After some minor changes were made I sent an email out to the directors and copied the managers and thanked everyone for their hard work and presented the finalized forms as a green light to get uploaded for the upcoming academic year.  I believe this approach of being prepared ahead of time and having a set schedule on what we were going to do helped make this an easy and fast collaboration for all involved.  It was a lot of work on my end making sure that I was doing things right and that the forms were as close to perfect when I presented them to the managers.  Having a timeline break down of what was due when really helped as well as what was expected of everyone.

This was a great lesson for me to see if I could do this from start to finish and get everyone on the same page between managers and directors without too much conflict.   I feel that this has helped me with the team project in class as well.  By getting some feedback and getting everyone to understand the steps everyone is more readily to give their all.