I will post more later in the week, but after tonight's conversation there are a few things I wanted to say now before I forgot about them.
1. Is there truly an effective way to measure leadership? I would say that the only way would be to survey and interview the people being led and see what their opinions of the leader are. This is something I want to know more about. In education, how can you judge if a school has a good leader? There is no "one-size fits all" cookie cutter for an effective principal. Plus, principals are too often judged only on test scores which is unfair. A terrible leader can benefit from great teachers and vice versa.
2. How do leaders initiate change? Leaders must be able to build relationships within those people that are being led. An effective leader can iniate change by being an effective communicator and providing a clear vision for what is needed and wanted. Leaders must have a more than adequate understanding of the values of the people being led so that the leader can do an effective job of creating buy-in to the vision. Leaders must show the need for change and be willing to work with the people being led and not just tell them what to do.
I will post more
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Hey Seth, Two interesting questions here. I am specifically interested in how one measures leadership because this has implications for your future study. How have you seen leadership studied/measured in the literature? Are surveys and interviews the only way to get at this variable? What about observations? Is it possible to use credentials of the leader to measure leadership behavior or would that only allow one to predict leadership behavior?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post!
Rob
Thanks for the email. We'll miss you tonight, but will look forward to your reading your blog.
ReplyDeletetesting a post
ReplyDeleteSeth -
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that you frame your first question in terms of efficiency. Is that because we all want our studies to be efficient or because there is something about leadership that should/is/could be efficient?
Seth,
ReplyDeleteGreat questions. And your questions are difficult to answer. I think there are ways to address aspects of what you are asking. However, you are right in that there are so many variables that factor into the elusive umbrella we call leadership.
To your second paragraph, I wonder how research in organizational culture might influence the important questions you are asking surrounding the question of change. Underlying your question is the reminder that we must all be great students of the cultures we live and work in if we hope to have any positive influence within our organizations.