Culturally Advantaged?

I know I relate this blog a lot to Human Resources – maybe it’s because it’s the class I have other than leadership on Wednesdays or maybe it’s because it is actually relevant. Either way, I am going to talk about another HR issue as it relates to leadership today.

Today, we talked about the issue of a global economy. We spoke about the fact that we are no longer competing again just the best people in your region, province or country. We compete for jobs with people from around the world and that got me thinking. Do other countries have better leadership cultures than we do?

I would like to think that Canada is a leader on the world scale in leadership because of our diplomatic nature, but maybe every citizen must think the same of their country.

Do we have cultural leadership skills that set us apart from other countries? And more importantly, do these skills give us an advantage or disadvantage when competing globally?



High conflict

High conflict individuals really got me thinking. I decided that I am probably in the 90% of people who are not high conflict and I would like to remain there for the rest of my professional life.
Now, my parents own their own business and have grown it from a 3 person company to 45 plus employee company and I couldn’t be prouder, but they have to deal with so many different personalities and adapt their leadership style to each one.
Shannon is one of their employee’s who I would consider high conflict and when speaking to my parents about how they deal with her they reiterated a lot of what we learned in class today. They would first speak to her emotions saying that they understood where she was coming from, they would use non-verbal cues to help her through and lastly, they try to educate other people in the company on how to deal with high conflict people. My parents also decided that it would be beneficial for Shannon and the company in general, if she was able to learn about high-conflict and they sent her on a course.
I believe that their action plan reflects how leaders should approach this question. Control yourself and your actions towards the individual, and then reach out and help that individual to better himself or herself.


One last unrelated note would be that during a presentation today I saw a quote that really spoke to me. “ The status quo is more dangerous than the unknown”. If everyone could live by that philosophy, I think we would all be better off!

What to do?

This whole Penn State debacle got me thinking. Leadership is a fragile entity with endless boundaries that influences every corner of society. As a future leader, that is a scary concept to try to tackle. If every action has a reaction and following the rules/chain of command can still result in your termination, it is hard to know how big of a wave you want to make with your leadership style. Yet, following your moral compass can result in stepping over tangible and intangible borders, which is not always right. Where do I draw the line in my leadership style?
I hope that strong communication, logical perceptions and resolute conflict management are the addition skills I need to face this problem in the future, because it makes me quite unease not knowing if I have the right tools to deal with situations like this.   

Group Roles

Last week in class, we talked about roles in groups. It was interesting to me that not a single one of those roles were formally assigned. I found it intriguing how many roles you can fall into and when we fall into them. For me, I know that I can be a variety of roles even within the same group.

In my family, I am usually the social specialist and the tension-reliever. This is one of the only groups where I am the social specialist. I was considering why that might be and I decided that I feel most comfortable around my family and therefore it is easy to support them.

In school, I am usually the star, mostly because I need to be actively involved in order to feel like I am contributing. I also jump between task-related roles because it would depend on my depth of knowledge around the subject. If I feel like I know, what I am talking about I will be an opinion and information giver and when I am less confident, I become a seeker. I feel as though I am always an analyzer but that may be more just my personality. I also find myself leaning towards being a tension reliever. I know that it is a thin line between joker and tension reliever and I think that sometimes I walk too closely and end up distracting instead of contributing.

In my group of friends, I am usually the expediter and a harmonizer. I always push my group to move forward and I like keeping a normal pace. I don’t like other people being uncomfortable and I try to minimize these situations by being a harmonizer.

My biggest flaw in groups would be that I become a withdrawer if I feel that my personal standards or goals are being compromised. I know that I should relax and try to engage but it is difficult at times.

Just Add a Bit of Personality

I really enjoyed our last class with Dr. Janet Miller. Her enthusiasm for her work and personality studies made the class extremely interesting. I am someone who truly believes that in order to better understand others, we need to fully understand ourselves, and I felt that the entire class dealt with getting to know what you’re like so that you can lead others more effectively. I also found her practical examples such as job interviews, made the topic hit home because it has this real world application.

 It was not only a few hours later that I was sitting in Human Resources and Dr. Fred decided to talk about selection and how we can be effective interviewees and interviewers. He related our topics about to the type of leader we want to be because good interviewers are unbiased and objective, they listen effectively and actively question. Understanding personality types can also be useful as an interviewer as you can tell what their personalities are like from their experiences.   
   

Karen's Class!

I couldn’t help but think that our experiential learning of last class reminded me of a simpler time... well maybe not a simpler time but a time when Karen ran our show in Community Development. She really focused of different styles of leadership and even practiced many of those styles in her classroom. For some, this experience was less than fulfilling but for me, it proved that leaders in community development need to be diverse and creative.

I feel as though the communication exercise we did in class related to many of topics we covered with Karen. In community development, it is always the first task to try to get everyone on the same page, which was what the first round of the activity was. Second, we needed to expand our knowledge and make sure we understood the same aspects – just like community development leaders have to do. Third, we confirmed and tweaked our designs and ideas to try to make the identical structure. Leaders in community development tweak concepts by brainstorming or World Cafes but it all boils down to the same idea. Finally, we then compared the designs and despite the fact that they we not perfectly similar, both groups felt like they had accomplished something. Community development relies on finding something in common and even if that is the littlest piece of your design.

The communication exercise provided me with insight on the value of communication to any leader but especially to those working in community development.    

The Good Ol' Generation Gap

In human resources we were talking about the generation gap that leaders in every industry are facing. A few articles we read in HR illustrated that this generation gap may not really exist, that the research behind it is actually quite shoddy. The article states that a person’s life stage is what makes them relatable to other people. The Baby Boomers and Generation Y are actually quite alike in their beliefs so leaders should look to mentorship instead of seeing it as a possible conflict. It tied really well into the discussion we were having a week or so ago in class about what our generation was looking for in the work place.

“Conversely Gen Yers, who expect their social lives to be integrated with their work lives, can be educated about the complications of marriage and family experienced by Gen Xers and Baby Boomers.

As future leaders in the Sport and Recreation, I feel as though a strong understanding of the different life stages will greatly benefit us! We can help bridge this generational gap through strong mentorship and coaching programs in the workplace and a little compassion towards people who have more life demands than we do.