Week 8: Leadership Lessons
Technology and Transformational Leadership
Throughout this EdD program, I feel there has been a push for us to be transformational leaders. With the help of technology, it could be even more accessible for leaders to showcase their transformational leadership style. As a reminder, a transformational leader has the following characteristics, as described by Bass and Breevaart et al.:
- followers identify with, trust, and respect the leader
- the leader communicates their vision and the leader is optimistic about the future
- the leader mentors and supports all followers in their unique way
- the leader challenges their followers to rethink ideas and look at other perspectives
Technology can help support transformational leaders to be successful with their followers. For example, using social media can help support the narrative of the company and/or leader, showing the great things the leader is doing. Through social media, the vision of the leader can be established. Stakeholders can follow the leader on social media and see what the leader/company is doing. Through websites and blog posts, the leader can challenge their followers to see things from a different perspective and support each follower's uniqueness. By curtailing the message to each follower, the leader could support everyone individually. Though I am not sure my leadership will change, my outlook on using social media to impact the community I am in will change.
My Take Aways
One thing that I took away from this course is to not ignore blog posts. In the past, I felt blog posts weren't necessarily "scholarly." However, they can be used to share information with followers in a quick and easy way. Yes, the post might be skewed one way or the other, but it would be a way of showing a follower how something is working for someone else (or not working).
Another takeaway is how technology (and likely leadership) is constantly changing. Therefore, it is vital to keep up to date with what is happening. Though it might be nice to shy away from social media/technology, it might be necessary to keep your finger on the pulse to know what is going on. For example, I have a TikTok account, but I rarely go on it. It is nice to have, however, since all of the students use TikTok, and it is important as a Teacher Leader to keep up with trends (like Devious Licks). As a leader, however, I would need to set boundaries on social media and technology usage.
I happen to be a fan of transformational leadership ... it certainly factored in to my own doctoral dissertation. But I would hope each of you strives to find the leadership approach that works for you. That might be transformational .... or servant ... or authentic ... they all exists within systems, and determining your own fit to that system is important.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I agree with you that technology has affordances that leaders can capitalize on to improve connections and communications within an organization. Keeping up with changing tech is a moving target, but I have worked to build a network that in turn educates me daily ... one of the reasons I like Twitter so much.
Carli, I think we hear a lot about transformational leadership, but I think the EdD program has provided us opportunities to explore a variety of styles. White (2018) states that transformational leaders can inspire and motivate workers to innovate and create change. She also noted that transformational leaders trust employees and don’t micromanage. With the increase in remote workers and new digital tools consistently rolling out, transformational leadership seems well aligned with today’s digital world.
ReplyDeleteI have also become interested in reading blogs! We get different things from different digital tools, and each has its own purpose. It has been fun learning about the variety of digital resources available.
Thanks for sharing on your blog posts the past eight weeks!
Megan
White, S. K. (2018, February 21). What is transformational leadership? A model for motivating innovation. CIO. https://www.cio.com/article/3257184/what-is-transformational-leadership-a-model-for-motivating-innovation.html
I really enjoyed your take on things throughout this course. I like that you said, "my outlook on using social media to impact the community I am in will change." That is huge in and of itself.
ReplyDeleteI guess one thing I have learned here is that my initial feelings of being overwhelmed by Twitter and other social media was due to my lack of understanding and my resistance to learn how to communicate in a different way than I was used to. I am no longer overwhelmed; I am intrigued and excited about the future.
Thanks for the dialogue throughout the course.
Vivian
"... I am no longer overwhelmed; I am intrigued and excited about the future."
DeleteThat in and of itself is huge, Vivian!
Hi, Carli!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed learning from you these past 8 weeks in Technology & Leadership.
I agree with your views on social media. When the pandemic first began, my company invested a lot of time and funding to develop our social media presence. This was necessary so that we could continue communicating to our clients and general public as well.
I am glad that your views changed on blogging! I admit that this way my first time using blogs in an educational space and can say my view changed too about the various ways you could use this type of writing.
Wishing you the best as you continue you on your ILD journey!
Best,
Brandi