Leadership Autobiography
Kelsey Mackin
My Leadership Roles
Currently, I am a seventh grade social studies and language arts teacher at Esperanza Middle School. I am a member of the School Improvement Team for the social studies department as well as the department chair. I am also a leader for the school's mentoring program, which provides mentoring for non-tenured teachers in the building. In addition to those duties, I also work as the supervisor of the Student Council Association. In this role I work with a group of students who help coordinate school activities.
In each of my roles, my leadership is different; I look to the situational theory of leadership approach to best describe this. When I am in a leadership position, I analyze the situation which I am in. For example, I consider the group participants, the task at hand, and the environment in which we are in. Each of these components will help me decide which behavior and traits I must use for each particular situation. For example, with my student council members, I must take a directive approach with them. Especially at the beginning of the school year, many participants are new and don't know each other or how the organization works. However on the school improvement team, we work very well together and delegate responsibilities as necessary.
Leadership & Teambuilding Attributes, Qualities, and Values
Personality Type & Competition
Individuals with a cooperative personality focus on their group. These individuals are concerned with not only their individual outcomes, but the outcomes of other as well. Cooperators make sure the group is successful. I feel that the survey accurately reflects my personality type, as I often have to work in small and large groups for many of my roles, and often I find that I lean towards working with the group to achieve our goal, rather than worrying about my individual accolades or accomplishments.
Conflict Resolution Approach
After taking the survey, the approach I seemed to lean towards was compromise. This approach lands right in the middle of being assertive and cooperative. The goal is to find a quick middle group. Essentially, both parties find a mutually acceptable solution by having each person "give in" a little.
Compromising is the better of the five approaches, however, collaboration is the most effective. I do see myself as "compromising" because I hope to please everyone. I think this could be done in a situation in conflict if everyone gives up something to make the group successful. However, after doing research, I would like to try to become more collaborative when dealing with conflict. In this approach, time and effort is required by all parting so that everyone can voice their opinions and work to solve a problem. This approach requires creativity to please all concerns.
Power Styles & Positive Assertiveness
I took a survey by Sam. R. Lloyd to get some insight about my level of assertiveness. I scored a 45 on the survey and a score of 30-45 is "assertive in most situations" but my "natural response is either non-assertive or aggressive." A score of 45-60 though says I am "fairly assertive." This score says that I am naturally assertive in some situations but I should be able to increase my assertiveness through practice. As a team leader, this is going to be one of my goals. I think I need to first create more confidence in myself and work on assertiveness. I need to practice active listening, set clear expectations and learn to say "no."
Group Decision Making & Problem Solving
Group decision making helps with problem solving. When there is a problem or task, the more people available to help with the decision, the better off the team may be. Group decision making allows for multiple perspectives to be taken into account. For example, as a leader, I may not always be correct. I want to work to make sure I incorporate group decision making so that I can get as much input as possible before making a decision or a change. Using a group also helps rationalize decisions and promotes shared responsibility.
When problem solving, especially as a leader, if you include all individuals you will be gaining more respect at the same time. The members of the group will know that you value their opinion and therefore work successfully together and with the leader.
WIth all problem solving and group decision making I also want to make sure I am incorportating some sort of structure for the decision making. This will make the decision and discussion flow in a smooth pattern. It will also ensure that we, as a group, incorporate all major steps of problem solving. One example of an important step is defining the problem. It will be important to incorporate this step because it will make sure all members of the group understand the problem and what we need to do. All successful decision making comes by clearly understanding the problem.
Leaders who have influenced me...
Both my language arts content area supervisor and my social studies content supervisor have influenced me as a leader. Both of these individuals treat me as equals when we work together. They value my opinion and show me that they take my ideas, as well as others', into consideration. In addition, if they are introducing a new initiative or something of the like, they are always asking for opinions of others. When they present something to a group, they often ask for input or areas to improve. By doing this, it shows that they realize they are still learning themselves and just because they have a specific title does not make them all knowing. We can all still learn from one another.
My principal is also a leader who has influenced me. She constantly gives me opportunities for leadership and professional growth experiences. This showed me that she values building the capacity of her school staff and team. In my opinion, this is is great because a leader works to build and develop their teams members. Both my social studies and language arts supervisors also allow me to take on leadership roles. If I have an idea for an assessment of unit plan, they will always support me but also challenge me so that I can grow.
As previously stated, I want to work on my positive-assertiveness. I want to make sure I come across clear and confident when communicating. In addition to communication, I will work on active listening. This is a very important component of leadership and team building. I want all individuals to know that I value their input and opinions.
I also want to build the capacity of my team. It's very important for leaders to delegate tasks and spread leadership throughout the team. Therefore, I want to help my team members develop as leaders so that we are all working as one cohesive team.
Essentially, I want my team members to look at me as if I am "in the trenches" with them. I will work just as hard as everyone, if not harder, to complete a task successfully. In some groups and teams, the leader and group members work so seamlessly together that an outsider may not even know who the leader is. I would like my teams to look like this. I think it shows all team members how important they are individually.
Leadership is not always the role of a single person, it is a set of processes that help a group function. Therefore, to define myself as a leader I would conclude that I should be a hard-working individual who works well with others to build the capacity of an effective group.
Resources
Levi, D. (2011). Group Dynamics for Teams (3rd ed.). Sage Publications.
Lloyd, S. R., Rouff, L., & Woodbury, D. (2002). An Assertiveness Quiz. In Developing positive assertiveness:. Menlo Park, CA: Crisp Publications.