Week 12

Leadership & Organizational Achievement

UTA SSW Practice III

Professor Dick Schoech

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Review Previous Classes

Class 2-3: Generalist practice, change, roles, levels of intervention, etc.

Theories, values, and perspectives

Community practice & community as client

Assessing communities

Administrative practice and agency as client

Assessing organizations

Supervising

LeadingSocietal and political practice, issues, etc §

Overview

• Leadership Concepts & Theories• Measuring Leadership• Core Leadership Tasks

– Embody & represent the organization– Planning & Implementing– Organization development– Developing an organization that learns

• Conclusion

Leadership concepts and theories

Leadership Overview

• Definition

• Leadership vs. management

• Theories and studies of leadership– Trait, style, task, follower, contingency

Leadership definition/tasks

• Depends on the management theory

• Common Wisdom:

– I am their leader, I must follow them

– In a leader, imagination is more important than knowledge

– Managers do things right, Leaders do the right things §

Leadership vs. Management

• Set day-day direction• Focuses on processes• Mostly internal• Concern=efficiency• Personnel focused• Worker needs/capacities• Embodies goals/objectives• Manages resources• Applies technologies• Seeks stability/Manage

change• Manage teamwork

• Set overall & future direction• Focuses on results• Mostly external• Concern=effectiveness• Stakeholder focused• Customer needs/capacities• Embodies mission/vision• Gets more resources • Secures technologies• Seeks to create needed

change• Create teams esp. top team§

Management Leadership

Leadership theories & studies

• A lot of research has been done

• Theories offer incomplete explanations

• Most research illustrates the complexity of

leadership

• Look at theories concerning trait, style, task,

follower, community power §

Trait theories

• Look for traits of a good leader– 1900s: brawn, guts, stamina, etc– Later: concerned, charismatic, flexible– Thinking, sensing, intuition, feeling– Current: participatory, inclusive, flexibility,

environmental scanning

• Trait theory not supported by research §

Theories Based on Leaders Style

• Authoritarian, democratic, laissez faire

• High concern for people vs. production

Research suggests that style is based on the

situation, e.g., In the military, an authoritarian

style might be more effective than in a human

service agency §

Theories Based on Leader Tasks

• Seek out: Find the best people & seek diversity • Empower: Involve, give support, & latitude to succeed/fail• Mentor: Encouraging and teach the right people• Orchestrate: Listen, coordinate & inspire • Unite: Articulate & motivate around agency vision • Mediate: Resolve competing directions• Symbolize: Embody culture, express emotions, set rituals • Innovate: Challenge the old and consider the new• Task theories are not supported by research §

Theories based on Followers

• McGregor belief in follower

– Theory X= lazy, unmotivated,

– Theory Y= motivated, eager

• Characteristics of group

– Hawthorne experiments

– Group Centered Model, Blanchard & Hersey§

Theories based on org culture

Culture: shared beliefs, values & assumptions assumed valid & passed on informally to new employees (wisdom from the snack room)

• Leaders define agency culture from mission/vision & stakeholders

• Leaders infuse org culture into systems/processes, training, etc. vs. constantly putting out fires

• Leaders represent agency culture to those inside and outside the agency §

TQM Leadership

TQM suggests leaders• Obtain client/stakeholder definition of quality• Define the vision/mission based on quality• Set up ways to measure quality• Create/refine systems that optimize quality work• Orchestrate followers behind the vision • Drive out fear of communicating problems• Break down barriers between departments• Avoid short term thinking and go outside for

change ideas

Theories Based on Community Power

(Concern is how community decisions get made rather than how an organization is led)

• Elites decide• Institutions decide• Interest group decide• Rational decision making prevails• Bureaucracies decide• Bargaining and negotiating decides• Systems model (interaction/environment) §

Contingency/Situational leadership

Key contingencies

– Leader’s characteristics

– Followers (education, motivation,)

– Situation (power, tasks, group behavior, etc)

– Culture of the organization & stakeholders §

Summary: Successful leadership

• Know yourself– Know your strengths, limitations, do not burn out– Understand how you communicate (listen, symbolize, etc.)

• Know your situation– Understand your system – Understand your environment (look for opportunities)– Define and measure quality (Patti)(TQM)– Rally internal/external support on quality (Patti)

• Know your followers– Understand the culture of your agency– Understand what motivates your people– Understand work group behavior

• Setting up system to optimize agency mission, goals §

Core Leadership Tasks

Core Tasks of Leaders

1. Embodying mission & representing organization

2. Plan & implement change

3. Organizational development

4. Developing a learning organization

5. Service marketing

6. Scheduling7. Public relations §

Core leadership task #1: Embody & represent the

organization

Embody Mission and Represent

• Embody the mission– Explain the mission to new employees– Explain the mission to the public

• Represent the organization– Participate in intraorganizational meetings– Make speeches to the public– Work with the press– Listen to clients and stakeholders §

Core leadership task #2: Plan & implement change

Strategic planning (soul searching)

• Reformulate vision, mission, policies, plans

• Identify customers and their needs

• Reflect on big picture

• Consider societal trends

• Examine core functions and capacities

• Speculate on long term results• Identify resources and opportunities

• Link strategic plans to performance reviews§

Achieving objectives, goals & mission

Implementation success increases when:• Create and communicate a vision for change• Responsibility placed in top level coalition• Establish sense of urgency for change• Develop written plans that are

– Grounded in vision– Built on stakeholder strengths/capacities

• Empower stakeholders to act on vision• Continuous quality improvement mechanisms used• Win/win & face saving strategies used for losers• Create short term wins, consolidate, produce more

change• Institutionalizing change (training, policies, etc.) §

Core leadership task #3: organizational development (education, training, team

building)

Organizational development

• Team building & conflict management

• Action research & employee involvement

• Consultation on processes

• Participatory management• Job enrichment, job redesign §

Core leadership task #4: Develop an organization

that learns

Develop Learning organization

• Insuring information quality• Info driven decision making or evidence based

practice (work patterns) • Accumulating expertise

– Capturing expertise during normal services– Linking to outside expertise

• Info dissemination (visualization, use)• Data warehousing (storage, links, retrieval)• Data mining (making sense of the info) §

Core leadership task #5: Service Marketing

2 tasks: Service marketing

Determine market by analyzing• What is your product• Who is your customer • How many potential customers exist• How will you identify customers• What % of customers will use your program• Why will they use your program• Incentives/disincentives to use your program • What will you do if use is not as anticipatedEducating & motivating the customer• Mechanisms to insure/encourage use

Core leadership task #6: Scheduling

Scheduling Techniques & Terms

• Tasks over time, milestones, critical paths, etc.

• GANTT Charts (shows completion date & length of time)• http://www.kidasa.com/Simplicity/2004Examples/HabitatforHumanity.html

• PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique) (Navy 50s) A PERT chart is a project management tool used for displaying project schedules depicting tasks and the dependencies between tasks.

– http://searchsmb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,290660,sid44_gci331391,00.html

• Output of MS project for CPS application– http://www2.uta.edu/ssw/utatdprs/msproject.htm

Core leadership task #7: Public Relations

Public relations• Cultivate reporters assigned to cover

your topic (read and compliment)

• Be ready for slow news days

• Piggyback with local slant on hot stories

• Try for a consistent image/brand

• Define your image before you’re defined by others

• Use multiple media, print, web, TV, etc.

Questions & Answers