The Jack and Herb Show, Research Paper Example

Background Information

Leadership is a process that according to Osland et al (2007) requires the ability to (a) establish direction for a group, (b) gain the group members’ commitment, and (c) motivate and influence them to achieve set (Osland, Kolb, Rubin & Turner, 2007).  This sheds light on the versatile and complex nature of effective leadership and what it entails. The following research evaluates leadership in the field of higher education through an interview data analysis process that combines professional and personal experience with knowledge and other information in the practice of leadership. The person who I interviewed is a department leader. Kayla (pseudonym) has 15 years of experience in teaching and the field of education specifically in regards to the Kindergarten Level. Furthermore, she has an additional 6 years in her new position as a department leader. Her new position is to direct teachers and to update them in field developments that occur within her school district. Also, she has the authority to evaluate the teacher’s performance beside the school principle. She works as the link between the teachers and school administration. The following interview was done over Skype. The interview assesses Kayla’s leadership strategies and their relation to certain theories taught throughout the course. The primary areas of focus are Decision Making, Motivation, Communication, and Conflict Management. It is the objective of this research to identify the core leadership theories or strategies utilized by Kayla that fall within these areas of focus during her work as a leader in the field of education.

Decision Making

Being decisive is a key aspect of decision making, but their other attributes as well that come into play, especially when leaders make decisions pertaining to the ideal or intended direction of the group which they are leading. Osland notes that these leaders had to be informative, decisive, effective bargainer, honesty, dynamic, and dependable (Osland et al., 2007). All of these key aspects of effective leadership, especially in respect to decision making can be seen in Kayla’s leadership.

In regards to her decision making methodology, Kayla places an emphasis on establishing strong relationships with school teachers, as these are the main people with whom she must interact on a daily basis. This requires extensive interpersonal communication skills, which she has in droves. This also requires establishing a relationship of trust, specifically in respect to other teachers knowing they can rely on her for support. She says that “usually, I like to make a perfect relationship with teachers. I like to give them feeling that I’m the first shelter that they can come to it in any tiny problem. I like giving them the feel that I’m their older sister. In the same time, they have to respect the boundaries between us.”  During the time I spent with Kayla, I inquired as to how she handled tough situations where she felt challenged ethically as well as situations where she anticipated potential problems. She is definitely a sincere and honest person and has demonstrated a strong sense of ethics. A core aspect of her leadership involves fairness in her ethics and taking responsibility for her actions. This reveals the emphasis she places on truth. The idea of honesty playing such an important role in her interpersonal relationships ties into the way she approaches handing problems and devising rational solutions.

Kayla revealed that the problems that she most anticipated occurred with new teachers. This revealed she had a conscious awareness that her success with a particular teacher hedged on how close she was relationship wise, and how sincere and informed her interactions were with a particular individual. She states, “usually, it happened with new teachers. So, I try to be close to her to know her well, and to collect more information about her and her background.” The more Kayla confronted conflicts, the more she demonstrated a reliance on interpersonal relationships. It was her key background level of support for all her interactions, the idea that through greater exposure to well-trained or more informed individuals one can become more informed or enhance their skills. Also, I try to give her the big picture of our work and goals, and what we accept her to do and to do not. I try to advise her to be close to other excellent teachers so she can learn quickly from them. I try to describe for her what are the difficulties that could face and who is the best person she has to go to. Also, I ask the other teachers to help her as they can, and be a good role model for her.

Both how Kayla handles tough decisions and the way she goes through her prevention process demonstrate aspects of the theory Osland et al. (2007) refers to as the Rational Decision Process. This is a process that entails Kayla identifying problems and then taking action to assess the problem, follow up that assessment with a identifying a decisive course of action towards a resolution and then taking that decisive course of action. This is a well thought out process, which results in more rational decision making.

Motivation

McGregor (1960) breaks down the difference between old forms of thinking in management and new forms of thinking in management, noting that, “people are formed by heredity, childhood, and youth; as adults they remain static; old dogs don’t learn new tricks” (McGregor, 1960). The author further points out that the newer way of looking at things entails the belief that, “people constantly grow; it is never too late to learn; they enjoy learning and increasing their understanding and capability” (McGregor, 1960). This way of thinking can be seen applied within Kayla’s leadership style, specifically in how she approaches motivating her staff. She demonstrates a clear belief that all employees can develop and grow, and she creates a nurturing environment. She effectively utilizes positive reinforcement as a tool to motivate her staff, citing such examples as giving directions to staff as a whole and showing the hypothetical consequences, as opposed to punishing one in particular as an example or singling anyone out. Here Kayla demonstrates the McClelland Need Theory (Osland et al. 2007).  She demonstrates one need as the necessity to affiliate with her fellow students, due to her emphasis on interpersonal relationships as a key necessity.  She also demonstrates a need for affiliations through her use of positive compliments as a form of positive reinforcement. The author notes that using positive compliments for the right behaviors. Telling stories or examples that have the same goal of what I am looking for to give inspiration to change.

While it’s true that there are some individuals that are driven by external rewards, such as salary, employment, or benefits, there are others who are motivated by the sheer pleasure of their work.  Kayla’s approach to dealing with the complexity of motives and motivation, specifically as it relates to managing long-term senior level teachers while also adapting to new teachers who need guidance requires an understanding of people management that extends beyond basic management skills. To keep teachers motivated, Kayla noted that, “by nominate her name in our school administration to get a bonus, attend a workshop or conference. Also, we can thank that teacher in the morning assembly in front all other teachers.” Through this method, Kayla demonstrated she could foster the ideal environment for worker development. She provides incentive to her staff to make improvements, and she creates an environment where teachers feel competitive with one another without having to single any students out by example.

Kayla acknowledges the importance of interpersonal relationships “by being close to them. Asking about their family or social life. To know more information about her background.” In a Forbes article interviewing Jack Welch, reaffirms this perspective , “informality gives you speed. It takes the crap out of the business equation, the pontificating. I can remember 20 years ago in this company when you went to a meeting, the lights went down, you read a script, you gave your pitch, and you got the hell out of the room. That was the game. Today you’re in there having an open dialogue with self-confident people, real exchanges about real things” (Huey, 1999). The concept Welch talks about here is identical to how Kayla approaches keeping her teachers motivated. This also ties into why Kayla often has the most problems with the newly hired teachers, primarily due to the fact that she hasn’t established the same depth of interpersonal relationship with these employees as she has with her more senior teachers.

Conflict Management

Osland et al. (2007) identifies conflict as interaction between parties with diverging interests. Earlier in the interview, Kayla talked about the ability to get along with her supervisor even when they disagree. She made it clear she was open to compromise and establishing sound interpersonal relationships with the individuals she works with to better understand their drives and motives. Occasionally however, these efforts don’t give birth to the ideal relationship which is why Kayla endured many situations where she didn’t get along best with her collogues but still managed to make it work.

When encountered with those that didn’t agree with her path, Kayla never gave up on converting them to her side. She implemented some most unique and focused methods of convincing. For example, she would Yes, I tried to convince this person by discussing the consequences of her behavior of opposing the rules, and give her more examples about others excellent teachers as a role model. If that’s not work, I let one of her best friends in the school give her some advices. And if that doesn’t work, I let the school Principal intervenes. Kayla continuously engaged in conference calls, team meetings and other collective gatherings where she allowed team members to vice their opinions. One amazing business factor that Kayla shows works when dealing with conflict is the power of sympathizing with one’s enemies.

Communication

It’s undeniable that communication is essential for effective leadership. To be clear, Osland (2007) defines communication as “the process by which information is exchanged between communicators with the goal of achieving mutual understanding”(Osland et al., 2007). When asked whether or not she though communication was important to being an effective leader, she responded by saying, “sure. It helps me to understand a person or situation and enables to resolve differences, build trust and respect. Also, it helps me to create an environment where creative ideas are coming up beside cooperation, problem solving, affection, and caring can flourish.” Here once again Kayla placed more emphasis on the importance of the relationships she established with the teachers and how it fed into the essential aspects of effective leadership. Likewise, she seems to be most challenged when she is il informed about her teachers. It makes perfect sense that a director of a team might not know how to schedule that team, or play to that team’s strengths or weaknesses without being more fully engaged.

Conclusion

In sum, Kayla arrived at her career path through hard work and dedication to developing new skills. She also focused on gaining new experiences which propelled her faster into succession. Her typical days entailed taking teachers on a tour of classes.  She made it to her leadership position after long days of inspecting teacher attendance, performing teacher evaluations by assessing their classroom performance. Finally, once all of her evaluations were done, she took those assessments to the school principle to serve as a mediator between the head office and the teachers.

At the close of the interview process, Kayla provided some recommendations for future teachers aspiring to get in leadership roles. She stated that have to be excellent communicators and they also need to be extremely comfortable communicating with students, and creating a nourishing environment for them that supplements. The most telling takeaway that can be formed from Kayla’s biography is that interpersonal relationships are one of the most vital aspects of the leadership process.

References

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, 21, 166.

Myers, M. S. (1970). Every employee a manager: More meaningful work through job enrichment.

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