The Human Side of Enterprise, Essay Example

Information about self

I am international student in the Middle East. I was a Kindergarten teacher and after getting my degree I intend to be a professor in my country. In order to successfully start my career as a professor, I need to learn from the experience of different leaders in education. The interview which I conducted with the education leader help me gain a lot of exposure in teaching at Kindergarten level. I can say that this course experiences were awesome. From the beginning of my class I was thrilled learning about the administrative process in leadership. The most significant learning was gathered from themes related to values and workplace ethics, managing change and group dynamics and work teams.

Leadership learning experience

First, my field experience meeting with an educational leader was very interesting. I was privileged to interview a department leader with 15 years teaching experience at the Kindergarten Level. She has an additional six years in her new position as a department leader. This educator advises teachers concerning situations that develop within her school district. Also, she has the authority to evaluate teachers’ performance along with the school principle functioning as a link between teachers and school administration (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968).

Primary areas of her focus are Decision Making, Motivation, Communication, and Conflict Management. My aim was to identify core leadership theories or strategies utilized by Seham that are consistent with her focus. More importantly, I wanted to find out how she articulates leadership principles when communicating with teachers during her tour of duty daily.  I learnt how leaders, especially, in education can transform theory into practice in evidence-based approaches to administration (Osland et al., 2007).

In reflecting how interpersonal and intrapersonal sides of leadership will affect my own practice, means that I have to develop a firm, friendly as well as fair relationship with the people I interact in a superior position as a leader. I would  have to remove personality out of the way creating objectivity at all times in my decision making, communication, conflict resolution and motivational strategies (McGregor, 1960).

Most learning areas

Information communicated in the values and workplace ethics class was a profound. For example, explaining moral reasoning was valuable. One would think that what may be morally correct for one person should be for everyone (Andols?k & S?ebe, 2004). I learnt from this lesson that in fact this is moral misunderstanding because everyone has a moral conscience, which is unique to his/her culture. Therefore, this is a moral reasoning misunderstanding and could lead to many workplace conflicts.

Managing change was another very significant development for me in class. I used to think that change was an unacceptable development in a society, institution or someone’s life. In fact it is the only thing we cannot avoid in our interactions with the world and people generally (Myers, 1970).  For example once we are born we begin to change every day. If we do not change how can people grow up to become adults? However, when people become complacent change is hard and difficult to manage. Strategies on how to deal with changes were discussed in my class.

If we do not learn group dynamics and working in teams life will ultimately filled with conflicts. In fact managing conflict is a group dynamic strategy experts apply to conflict resolution (Osland et al., 2007). The truth that was learnt about groups is that there are both positive and negative benefits in group behavior. We were given opportunities to demonstrate as practical in our group dynamics class.

Conclusion

In concluding this reflection I must admit that many changes have occurred in perceptions of myself as an educator after taking this class. The most profound related to leadership. In my anticipation of becoming a leader in educator one day I was thinking of transmitting the same type of leadership that was observed during my training and working with leaders (Andols?k & S?ebe, 2004).  Now I know that many of the strategies they used were not the best for professional development or the profession.  I have made the adjustment of being more democratic and benevolent with staff I have to lead instead of domineering and autocratic.

References

Andols?k, D. M., & S?ebe, J. (2004). Multinational perspectives on work values and commitment. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 4(2), 181-209.

Huey, J., Colvin G., Kelleher, H., Welch J. (1999). “The Jack and Herb Show,” Fortune 139(1) (January 11, 1999): 163–66.

McGregor, D. (1960). The human side of enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Myers, M. S. (1970). Every employee a manager: More meaningful work through job enrichment. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Osland, J., Kolb, D., Rubin, I., & Turner, M. (2007). Organizational behavior: An experiential approach. New Jersey: Person Prentice Hall.

Rosenthal, R., & Fode, K. L. (1963). The effect of experimenter bias on the performance of the albino rat. Behavioral Science, 8(3), 183-189.

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. F. (1968). Teacher expectations for the disadvantaged. Scientific American, 218, 19-23.