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BOOK EXCERPT: LEADING ON PURPOSE

Pay particular attention to pages 58–73 as you explore your leadership style and temperament.

Leading on Purpose

Bruno, H. (2012). What you need to lead an early childhood program: Emotional intelligence in practice (pp. 51–75). Washington, DC: NAEYC.

 BOOK EXCERPT: LEADERSHIP

Leadership

Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed., pp. 195-223). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

9 Authentic Leadership ( BOOK EXCERPT: LEADERSHIP Info)

Description

Authentic leadership represents one of the newest areas of leadership research. It focuses on whether leadership is genuine and “real.” As the title of this approach implies, authentic leadership is about the authenticity of leaders and their leadership. Unlike many of the theories that we have discussed in this book, authentic leadership is still in the formative phase of development. As a result, authentic leadership needs to be considered more tentatively: It is likely to change as new research about the theory is published.

In recent times, upheavals in society have energized a tremendous demand for authentic leadership. The destruction on 9/11, corporate scandals at companies like WorldCom and Enron, and massive failures in the banking industry have all created fear and uncertainty. People feel apprehensive and insecure about what is going on around them, and as a result, they long for bona fide leadership they can trust and for leaders who are honest and good. People’s demands for trustworthy leadership make the study of authentic leadership timely and worthwhile.

In addition to the public’s interest, authentic leadership has been intriguing to researchers: It was identified earlier in transformational leadership research but never fully articulated (Bass, 1990; Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999; Burns, 1978; Howell & Avolio, 1993). Furthermore, practitioners had developed approaches to authentic leadership that were not evidence based, and so needed further clarification and testing. In attempts to more fully explore authentic leadership, researchers set out to identify the parameters of authentic leadership and more clearly conceptualize it, efforts that continue today.

Authentic Leadership

Character and Purpose

Authentic Leadership Defined

On the surface, authentic leadership appears easy to define. In actuality, it is a complex process that is difficult to characterize. Among leadership scholars, there is no single accepted definition of authentic leadership. Instead, there are multiple definitions, each written from a different viewpoint and with a different emphasis (Chan, 2005).

One of those viewpoints is the intrapersonal perspective, which focuses closely on the leader and what goes on within the leader. It incorporates the leader’s self-knowledge, self-regulation, and self-concept. In Shamir and Eilam’s (2005) description of the intrapersonal approach, they suggest that authentic leaders exhibit genuine leadership, lead from conviction, and are originals, not copies. This perspective emphasizes a leader’s life experiences and the meaning he or she attaches to those experiences as being critical to the development of the authentic leader.

A second way of defining authentic leadership is as an interpersonal process. This perspective outlines authentic leadership as relational, created by leaders and followers together (Eagly, 2005). It results not from the leader’s efforts alone, but also from the response of followers. Authenticity emerges from the interactions between leaders and followers. It is a reciprocal process because leaders affect followers and followers affect leaders.

Finally, authentic leadership can be defined from a developmental perspective, which is exemplified in the work of Avolio and his associates (Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Gardner, Avolio, & Walumbwa, 2005; Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, & Peterson, 2008). This perspective, which underpins the approaches to authentic leadership discussed in the following section, views authentic leadership as something that can be nurtured in a leader, rather than as a fixed trait. Authentic leadership develops in people over a lifetime and can be triggered by major life events, such as a severe illness or a new career.

Taking a developmental approach, Walumbwa et al. (2008) conceptualized authentic leadership as a pattern of leader behavior that develops from and is grounded in the leader’s positive psychological qualities and strong ethics. They suggest that authentic leadership is composed of four distinct but related components: self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency (Avolio, Walumbwa, & Weber, 2009). Over a lifetime, authentic leaders learn and develop each of these four types of behavior.

Building Authenticity

Vital Leadership

Approaches to Authentic Leadership

Formulations about authentic leadership can be differentiated into two areas: (1) the practical approach, which evolved from real-life examples and training and development literature; and (2) the theoretical approach, which is based on findings from social science research. Both approaches offer interesting insights about the complex process of authentic leadership.

Practical Approach

Books and programs about authentic leadership are popular today; people are interested in the basics of this type of leadership. Specifically, they want to know the “how to” steps to become an authentic leader. In this section, we will discuss Bill George’s authentic leadership approach (2003).

Bill George’s Authentic Leadership Approach.

The authentic leadership approach developed by George (2003; George & Sims, 2007) focuses on the characteristics of authentic leaders. George describes, in a practical way, the essential qualities of authentic leadership and how individuals can develop these qualities if they want to become authentic leaders.

Based on his experience as a corporate executive and through interviews with a diverse sample of 125 successful leaders, George found that authentic leaders have a genuine desire to serve others, they know themselves, and they feel free to lead from their core values. Specifically, authentic leaders demonstrate five basic characteristics: (1) They understand their purpose, (2) they have strong values about the right thing to do, (3) they establish trusting relationships with others, (4) they demonstrate self-discipline and act on their values, and (5) they are passionate about their mission (i.e., act from their heart) (Figure 9.1; George, 2003).

Figure 9.1 illustrates five dimensions of authentic leadership identified by George: purpose, values, relationships, self-discipline, and heart. The figure also illustrates each of the related characteristics—passion, behavior, connectedness, consistency, and compassion—that individuals need to develop to become authentic leaders.

In his interviews, George found that authentic leaders have a real sense of purpose. They know what they are about and where they are going. In addition to knowing their purpose, authentic leaders are inspired and intrinsically motivated about their goals. They are passionate individuals who have a deep-seated interest in what they are doing and truly care about their work.

The Authentic Leader

A good example of an authentic leader who exhibited passion about his goals was Terry Fox, a cancer survivor, whose leg was amputated after it was overcome by bone cancer. Using a special leg prosthesis, Terry attempted to run across Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, to raise awareness and money for cancer research. Although he died before he finished his run, his courage and passion affected the lives of millions of people. He also accomplished his goals to increase cancer awareness and to raise money for cancer research. Today, the Terry Fox Foundation is going strong and has raised more than $400 million (Canadian) for cancer research (www.terryfox.org). Of the dimensions and characteristics in Figure 9.1, Terry Fox clearly demonstrated purpose and passion in his leadership.

Figure 9.1 Authentic Leadership Characteristics

SOURCE: From Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value by Bill George, copyright © 2003. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Authentic leaders understand their own values and behave toward others based on these values. Stated another way, George suggests that authentic leaders know their “True North.” They have a clear idea of who they are, where they are going, and what the right thing is to do. When tested in difficult situations, authentic leaders do not compromise their values, but rather use those situations to strengthen their values.

An example of a leader with a strong set of values is Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nelson Mandela. Mandela was a deeply moral man with a strong conscience. While fighting to abolish apartheid in South Africa, he was unyielding in his pursuit of justice and equality for all. When he was in prison and offered early release in exchange for denouncing his viewpoint, he chose to remain incarcerated rather than compromise his position. Nelson Mandela knew who he was at his core. He knew his values, and his leadership reflected those values.

A third characteristic of authentic leadership in the George approach is strong relationships. Authentic leaders have the capacity to open themselves up and establish a connection with others. They are willing to share their own story with others and listen to others’ stories. Through mutual disclosure, leaders and followers develop a sense of trust and closeness.

George argued that people today want to have access to their leaders and they want their leaders to be open with them. In a sense, people are asking leaders to soften the boundary around their leadership role and to be more transparent. People want to have a trusting relationship with their leaders. In exchange, people are willing to give leaders greater loyalty and commitment.

As we discussed in Chapter 7 (leader–member exchange theory), effective leader–follower relationships are marked by high-quality communication in which leaders and followers demonstrate a high degree of mutual trust, respect, and obligation toward each other. Leaders and followers are tied together in productive ways that go beyond the stereotypical leader–follower relationship. This results in strong leader–member relationships, greater understanding, and higher productivity.

Self-discipline is another dimension of authentic leadership, and is the quality that helps leaders to reach their goals. Self-discipline gives leaders focus and determination. When leaders establish objectives and standards of excellence, self-discipline helps them to reach these goals and to keep everyone accountable. Furthermore, self-discipline gives authentic leaders the energy to carry out their work in accordance with their values.

Human Rights Leadership

Like long-distance runners, authentic leaders with self-discipline are able to stay focused on their goals. They are able to listen to their inner compass and can discipline themselves to move forward, even in challenging circumstances. In stressful times, self-discipline allows authentic leaders to remain cool, calm, and consistent. Because disciplined leaders are predictable in their behavior, other people know what to expect and find it easier to communicate with them. When the leader is self-directed and “on course,” it gives other people a sense of security.

Last, the George approach identifies compassion and heart as important aspects of authentic leadership. Compassion refers to being sensitive to the plight of others, opening one’s self to others, and being willing to help them. George (2003, p. 40) argued that as leaders develop compassion, they learn to be authentic. Leaders can develop compassion by getting to know others’ life stories, doing community service projects, being involved with other racial or ethnic groups, or traveling to developing countries (George, 2003). These activities increase the leader’s sensitivity to other cultures, backgrounds, and living situations.

In summary, George’s authentic leadership approach highlights five important features of authentic leaders. Collectively, these features provide a practical picture of what people need to do to become authentic in their leadership. Authentic leadership is a lifelong developmental process, which is formed and informed by each individual’s life story.

Theoretical Approach

Although still in its initial stages of development, a theory of authentic leadership is emerging in social science literature. In this section, we identify the basic components of authentic leadership and describe how these components are related to one another.

Background to the Theoretical Approach.

Although people’s interest in “authenticity” is probably timeless, research on authentic leadership is very recent, with the first article appearing in 2003. The primary catalyst for this research was a leadership summit at the University of Nebraska. This summit was sponsored by the Gallup Leadership Institute, and focused on the nature of authentic leadership and its development. From the summit, two sets of publications emerged: (1) a special issue of Leadership Quarterly in the summer of 2005, and (2) Monographs in Leadership and Management, titled “Authentic Leadership Theory and Process: Origins, Effects and Development,” also published in 2005. Prior to the summit, Luthans and Avolio (2003) published an article on authentic leadership development and positive organizational scholarship. The article also helped to ignite this area of research.

Authenticity and Brand

Interest in authentic leadership increased during a time in which there was a great deal of societal upheaval and instability in the United States. The attacks of 9/11, widespread corporate corruption, and a troubled economy all created a sense of uncertainty and anxiety in people about leadership. Widespread unethical and ineffective leadership necessitated the need for more humane, constructive leadership that served the common good (Fry & Whittington, 2005; Luthans & Avolio, 2003).

In addition, researchers felt the need to extend the work of Bass (1990) and Bass and Steidlmeier (1999) regarding the meaning of authentic transformational leadership. There was a need to operationalize the meaning of authentic leadership and create a theoretical framework to explain it. To develop a theory of authentic leadership, researchers drew from the fields of leadership, positive organizational scholarship, and ethics (Cooper, Scandura, & Schriesheim, 2005; Gardner et al., 2005).

A major challenge confronting researchers in developing a theory was to define the construct and identify its characteristics. As we discussed earlier in the chapter, authentic leadership has been defined in multiple ways, with each definition emphasizing a different aspect of the process. For this chapter, we have selected the definition set forth in an article by Walumbwa et al. (2008), who defined authentic leadership as “a pattern of leader behavior that draws upon and promotes both positive psychological capacities and a positive ethical climate, to foster greater self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational transparency on the part of leaders working with followers, fostering positive self-development” (p. 94). Although complex, this definition captures the current thinking of scholars regarding the phenomenon of authentic leadership and how it works.

In the research literature, different models have been developed to illustrate the process of authentic leadership. Gardner et al. (2005) created a model that frames authentic leadership around the developmental processes of leader and follower self-awareness and self-regulation. Ilies, Morgeson, and Nahrgang (2005) constructed a multicomponent model that discusses the impact of authenticity on leaders’ and followers’ happiness and well-being. In contrast, Luthans and Avolio (2003) formulated a model that explains authentic leadership as a developmental process. In this chapter, we will present a basic model of authentic leadership that is derived from the research literature that focuses on the core components of authentic leadership. Our discussion will focus on authentic leadership as a process.

Fostering Authenticity

CEOs and Positive Psychology

Components of Authentic Leadership.

In an effort to further our understanding of authentic leadership, Walumbwa and associates (2008) conducted a comprehensive review of the literature and interviewed groups of content experts in the field to determine what components constituted authentic leadership and to develop a valid measure of this construct. Their research identified four components: self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency (Figure 9.2). Together, these four components form the foundation for a theory of authentic leadership.

Self-awareness refers to the personal insights of the leader. It is not an end in itself but a process in which individuals understand themselves, including their strengths and weaknesses, and the impact they have on others. Self-awareness includes reflecting on your core values, identity, emotions, motives, and goals, and coming to grips with who you really are at the deepest level. In addition, it includes being aware of and trusting your own feelings (Kernis, 2003). When leaders know themselves and have a clear sense of who they are and what they stand for, they have a strong anchor for their decisions and actions (Gardner et al., 2005). Other people see leaders who have greater self-awareness as more authentic.

Figure 9.2 Authentic Leadership

SOURCE: Adapted from Luthans, F., & Avolio, B. J. (2003). Authentic leadership development. In K. S. Cameron, J. E. Dutton, & R. E. Quinn (Eds.), Positive organizational scholarship (pp. 241–258). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler; and Gardner, W. L., Avolio, B. J., Luthans, F., May, D. R., & Walumbwa, F. O. (2005). “Can you see the real me?” A self-based model of authentic leader and follower development. Leadership Quarterly, 16, 343–372.

Authenticity and Identity

Internalized moral perspective refers to a self-regulatory process whereby individuals use their internal moral standards and values to guide their behavior rather than allow outside pressures to control them (e.g., group or societal pressure). It is a self-regulatory process because people have control over the extent to which they allow others to influence them. Others see leaders with an internalized moral perspective as authentic because their actions are consistent with their expressed beliefs and morals.

Balanced processing is also a self-regulatory behavior. It refers to an individual’s ability to analyze information objectively and explore other people’s opinions before making a decision. It also means avoiding favoritism about certain issues and remaining unbiased. Balanced processing includes soliciting viewpoints from those who disagree with you and fully considering their positions before taking your own action. Leaders with balanced processing are seen as authentic because they are open about their own perspectives, but are also objective in considering others’ perspectives.

Relational transparency refers to being open and honest in presenting one’s true self to others. It is self-regulatory because individuals can control their transparency with others. Relational transparency occurs when individuals share their core feelings, motives, and inclinations with others in an appropriate manner (Kernis, 2003). It includes the individuals showing both positive and negative aspects of themselves to others. In short, relational transparency is about communicating openly and being real in relationships with others.

Fundamentally, authentic leadership comprises the above four factors—self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency. These factors form the basis for authentic leadership.

Factors That Influence Authentic Leadership.

There are other factors such as positive psychological capacities, moral reasoning, and critical life events that influence authentic leadership (Figure 9.2).

Leadership from Within

The four key positive psychological attributes that have an impact on authentic leadership—confidence, hope, optimism, and resilience—have been drawn from the fields of positive psychology and positive organizational behavior (Table 9.1; Luthans & Avolio, 2003). Positive attributes predispose or enhance a leader’s capacity to develop the components of authentic leadership discussed in the previous section. Each of these attributes has a trait-like and a state-like quality. They are trait-like because they may characterize a relatively fixed aspect of someone’s personality that has been evident throughout his or her life (e.g., extraversion), and they are state-like because, with training or coaching, individuals are capable of developing or changing their characteristics.

SOURCE: Luthans, F., & Avolio, B. J. (2003). Authentic leadership development. In K. S. Cameron, J. E. Dutton, & R. E. Quinn (Eds.), Positive organizational scholarship (pp. 241–258). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Confidence refers to having self-efficacy—the belief that one has the ability to successfully accomplish a specified task. Leaders who have confidence are more likely to be motivated to succeed, to be persistent when obstacles arise, and to welcome a challenge (Bandura, 1997; Luthans & Avolio, 2003). Hope is a positive motivational state based on willpower and goal planning (Luthans & Avolio, 2003). Authentic leaders with hope have goals they know can be accomplished; their hope inspires followers to trust them and believe in their goals. Optimism refers to the cognitive process of viewing situations from a positive light and having favorable expectations about the future. Leaders with optimism are positive about their capabilities and the outcomes they can achieve. They approach life with a sense of abundance rather than scarcity (Covey, 1990). Resilience is the capacity to recover from and adjust to adverse situations. It includes the ability to positively adapt to hardships and suffering. During difficult times, resilient people are able to bounce back from challenging situations and feel strengthened and more resourceful as a result of them (Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003).

Authentic Leadership

Moral reasoning is another factor that can influence authentic leadership (Figure 9.2). It is the capacity to make ethical decisions about issues of right or wrong and good or bad. Developing the capacity for moral reasoning is a lifelong process. Higher levels of moral reasoning make it possible for the authentic leader to make decisions that transcend individual differences and align individuals toward a common goal. They enable leaders to be selfless and make judgments that serve the greater good of the group, organization, or community. Moral reasoning capacity also enables authentic leaders to use this ability to promote justice and achieve what is right for a community.

A final factor related to authentic leadership is critical life events (Figure 9.2). Critical events are major events that shape people’s lives. They can be positive events, like receiving an unexpected promotion, having a child, or reading an important book; or they can be negative events, like being diagnosed with cancer, getting a negative year-end evaluation, or having a loved one die. Critical life events act as catalysts for change. Shamir and Eilam (2005) argued that authentic leadership rests heavily on the insights people attach to their life experiences. When leaders tell their life stories, they gain greater self-knowledge, more clarity about who they are, and a better understanding of their role. By understanding their own life experiences, leaders become more authentic.

Critical life events also stimulate growth in individuals and help them become stronger leaders (Luthans & Avolio, 2003). For example, Howard Schultz (founder and CEO of Starbucks) tells a story about when he was little: His father, who was a delivery driver, fell and was hurt on the job. His father did not have health insurance or worker’s compensation. Seeing the problems that resulted from his father’s difficulties, when Schultz built Starbucks he provided comprehensive health insurance for employees who worked as few as 20 hours a week. Schultz’s style of leadership was triggered by his childhood experience.

As the theory of authentic leadership develops further, other antecedent factors that influence the process may be identified. To date, however, it is positive psychological capacities, moral reasoning capacities, and critical life events that have been identified as factors that are influential in a person’s ability to become an authentic leader.

How Does Authentic Leadership Theory Work?

In this chapter, we have discussed authentic leadership from a practical and theoretical perspective. Both perspectives describe authentic leadership as a developmental process that forms in leaders over time; however, both perspectives provide different descriptions for how authentic leadership works.

Authenticity

The practical approach provides prescriptions for how to be authentic and how to develop authentic leadership. For example, the George approach (2003) focuses on five characteristics leaders should develop to become authentic leaders. More specifically, George advocates that leaders become more purposeful, value centered, relational, self-disciplined, and compassionate. The essence of authentic leadership is being a leader who strongly demonstrates these five qualities.

Rather than simple prescriptions, the theoretical approach describes what authentic leadership is and what accounts for it. From this perspective, authentic leadership works because leaders demonstrate self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency. Leaders develop these attributes through a lifelong process that is often influenced by critical life events. In addition, the literature suggests that positive psychological characteristics and moral reasoning have a significant impact on authentic leaders.

Authentic leadership is a complex process that emphasizes the development of qualities that help leaders to be perceived as trustworthy and believable by their followers. The leader’s job is to learn to develop these qualities and apply them to the common good as he or she serves others.

Strengths

Although it is in its early stages of development, the authentic leadership approach has several strengths. First, it fulfills an expressed need for trustworthy leadership in society. During the past 20 years, failures in public and private leadership have created distrust in people. Authentic leadership helps to fill a void and provides an answer to people who are searching for good and sound leadership in an uncertain world.

Second, authentic leadership provides broad guidelines for individuals who want to become authentic leaders. Both the practical and theoretical approaches clearly point to what leaders should do to become authentic leaders. Social science literature emphasizes that it is important for leaders to have self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency to be authentic. Taken together, these approaches provide a map for becoming an authentic leader.

Third, similar to transformational and servant leadership, authentic leadership has an explicit moral dimension. Underlying both the practical and theoretical approaches is the idea that authenticity requires leaders to do what is “right” and “good” for their followers and society. Authentic leaders understand their own values, place followers’ needs above their own, and work with followers to align their interests in order to create a greater common good.

Authenticity Framework

Fourth, authentic leadership emphasizes that authentic values and behaviors can be developed in leaders over time. Authentic leadership is not an attribute that only some people exhibit: Everyone can develop authenticity and learn to be more authentic. For example, leaders can learn to become more aware and transparent, or they can learn to be more relational and other-directed. Leaders can also develop moral reasoning capacities. Furthermore, Luthans and Avolio (2003) contended that leaders could learn to develop positive psychological capacities such as confidence, hope, optimism, and resilience, and could use these to create a positive organizational climate. They contended that there are many ways that leaders can learn to become authentic leaders over a lifetime.

Finally, authentic leadership can be measured using the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ). The ALQ is a validated, theory-based instrument comprising 16 items that measure four factors of authentic leadership (Avolio et al., 2009; Walumbwa et al., 2008). As research moves forward in refining authentic leadership theory, it is valuable to have an established instrument of this construct that is theory-based and can be used to measure authentic leadership in future research.

Criticisms

Authentic leadership is still in the formative stages of development, and a number of questions still need to be addressed about the theory. First, the concepts and ideas presented in George’s practical approach are not fully substantiated. While the practical approach is interesting and offers insight on authentic leadership, it is not built on a broad empirical base, nor has it been tested for validity. Without research support, the ideas set forth in the practical approach should be treated cautiously as explanations of the authentic leadership process.

Second, the moral component of authentic leadership is not fully explained. Whereas authentic leadership implies that leaders are motivated by higher-order end values such as justice and community, the way that these values function to influence authentic leadership is not clear. For example, how are a leader’s values related to a leader’s self-awareness? Or, what is the path or underlying process through which moral values affect other components of authentic leadership? In its present form, authentic leadership does not offer thorough answers to these questions.

Authentic Leadership Questionnaire

Third, researchers have questioned whether positive psychological capacities should be included as components of authentic leadership. Although there is an interest in the social sciences to study positive human potential and the best of the human condition (Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003), the rationale for including positive psychological capacities as an inherent part of authentic leadership has not been clearly explained by researchers. In addition, some have argued that the inclusion of positive leader capacities in authentic leadership broadens the construct of authentic leadership too much and makes it difficult to measure (Cooper et al., 2005). At this point in the development of research on authentic leadership, the role of positive psychological capacities in authentic leadership theory needs further clarification.

Finally, it is not clear how authentic leadership results in positive organizational outcomes. Given that it is a new area of research, it is not unexpected that there are few data on outcomes, but these data are necessary to substantiate the value of the theory. Although authentic leadership is intuitively appealing on the surface, questions remain about whether this approach is effective, in what contexts it is effective, and whether authentic leadership results in productive outcomes. Relatedly, it is also not clear in the research whether authentic leadership is sufficient to achieve organizational goals. For example, can an authentic leader who is disorganized and lacking in technical competence be an effective leader? Authenticity is important and valuable to good leadership, but how authenticity relates to effective leadership is unknown. Clearly, future research should be conducted to explore how authentic leadership is related to organizational outcomes.

Application

Because authentic leadership is still in the early phase of its development, there has been little research on strategies that people can use to develop or enhance authentic leadership behaviors. While there are prescriptions set forth in the practical approach, there is little evidence-based research on whether these prescriptions or how-to strategies actually increase authentic leadership behavior.

Teaching Authentic Leadership

In spite of the lack of intervention research, there are common themes from the authentic leadership literature that may be applicable to organizational or practice settings. One theme common to all of the formulations of authentic leadership is that people have the capacity to learn to be authentic leaders. In their original work on authentic leadership, Luthans and Avolio (2003) constructed a model of authentic leadership development. Conceptualizing it as a lifelong learning process, they argued that authentic leadership is a process that can be developed over time. This suggests that human resource departments may be able to foster authentic leadership behaviors in employees who move into leadership positions.

Another theme that can be applied to organizations is the overriding goal of authentic leaders to try to do the “right” thing, to be honest with themselves and others, and to work for the common good. Authentic leadership can have a positive impact in organizations. For example, Cianci, Hannah, Roberts, and Tsakumis (2014) investigated the impact of authentic leadership on followers’ morality. Based on the responses of 118 MBA students, they found that authentic leaders significantly inhibited followers from making unethical choices in the face of temptation. Authentic leadership appears to be a critical contextual factor that morally strengthens followers. Cianci et al. suggest that the four components of authentic leadership (i.e., self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency) should be developed in organizational leadership to increase ethical organizational behavior.

Last, authentic leadership is shaped and reformed by critical life events that act as triggers to growth and greater authenticity. Being sensitive to these events and using them as springboards to growth may be relevant to many people who are interested in becoming leaders who are more authentic.

Case Studies

The following section provides three case studies (Cases 9.1, 9.2, and 9.3) of individuals who demonstrate authentic leadership. The first case is about Sally Helgesen, author of The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership (1990). The second case is about Greg Mortenson and how his mission to promote schools and peace in Pakistan and Afghanistan came under fire when he was accused of lying and financial impropriety. The final case is about Betty Ford, former First Lady of the United States, and her work in the areas of breast cancer awareness and substance abuse treatment. At the end of each of the cases, questions are provided to help you analyze the case using ideas from authentic leadership.

Case 9.1

Am I Really a Leader?

Sally Helgesen was born in the small Midwestern town of Saint Cloud, Minnesota. Her mother was a housewife who later taught English, and her father was a college professor of speech. After attending a local state college, where she majored in English and comparative religion, Sally spread her wings and moved to New York, inspired by the classic film Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Sally found work as a writer, first in advertising and then as an assistant to a columnist at the then-influential Village Voice. She contributed freelance articles to magazines such as Harper’s, Glamour, Vogue, Fortune, and Inside Sports. She also returned to school, completing a degree in classics at Hunter College and taking language courses at the city graduate center in preparation for a PhD in comparative religion. She envisioned herself as a college professor, but also enjoyed freelancing. She felt a strong dichotomy within her, part quiet scholar and part footloose dreamer. The conflict bothered her, and she wondered how she would resolve it. Choosing to be a writer—actually declaring herself to be one—seemed scary, grandiose, and fraudulent.

Then one day, while walking on a New York side street in the rain, Sally saw an adventuresome black cat running beside her. It reminded her of Holly Golightly’s cat in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, an emblem in the movie for Holly’s dreamy temperament and rootlessness. It made her realize how much the freedom and independence offered by her “temporary” career as a writer suited her temperament. Sally told the cat she was a writer—she’d never been able to say the words before—and decided she was going to commit to full-time writing, at least for a time. When she saw the opportunity to cover a prominent murder trial in Fort Worth, Texas, she took it.

While covering the trial, Sally became intrigued with the culture of Texas, and decided she wanted to write a book on the role of independent oil producers in shaping the region. Doing so required a huge expenditure of time and money, and for almost a year Sally lived out of the trunk of her car, staying with friends in remote regions all over Texas. It was lonely and hard and exhilarating, but Sally was determined to see the project through. When the book, Wildcatters (1981), was published, it achieved little recognition, but Sally felt an enormous increase in confidence and commitment as a result of having finished the book. It strengthened her conviction that, for better or worse, she was a writer.

Sally moved back to New York and continued to write articles and search around for another book. She also began writing speeches for the CEO at a Fortune 500 company. She loved the work, and particularly enjoyed being an observer of office politics, even though she did not perceive herself to be a part of them. Sally viewed her role as being an “outsider looking in,” an observer of the culture. She sometimes felt like an actor in a play about an office, but this detachment made her feel professional rather than fraudulent.

As a speechwriter, Sally spent a lot of time interviewing people in the companies she worked for. Doing so made her realize that men and women often approach their work in fundamentally different ways. She also became convinced that many of the skills and attitudes women brought to their work were increasingly appropriate for the ways in which organizations were changing, and that women had certain advantages as a result. She also noticed that the unique perspectives of women were seldom valued by CEOs or other organizational leaders, who could have benefited if they had better understood and been more attentive to what women had to offer.

These observations inspired Sally to write another book. In 1988, she signed a contract with a major publisher to write a book on what women had to contribute to organizations. Until then, almost everything written about women at work focused on how they needed to change and adapt. Sally felt strongly that if women were encouraged to emphasize the negative, they would miss a historic opportunity to help lead organizations in a time of change. The time was right for this message, and The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership (1990) became very successful, topping a number of best-seller charts and remaining steadily in print for nearly 20 years. The book’s prominence resulted in numerous speaking and consulting opportunities, and Sally began traveling the world delivering seminars and working with a variety of clients.

This acclaim and visibility were somewhat daunting to Sally. While she recognized the value of her book, she also knew that she was not a social scientist with a body of theoretical data on women’s issues. She saw herself as an author rather than an expert, and the old questions about fraudulence that she had dealt with in her early years in New York began to reassert themselves in a different form. Was she really being authentic? Could she take on the mantle of leadership and all it entailed? In short, she wondered if she could be the leader that people seemed to expect.

The path Sally took to answer these questions was simply to present herself for who she was. She was Sally Helgesen, an outsider looking in, a skilled and imaginative observer of current issues. For Sally, the path to leadership did not manifest itself in a step-by-step process. Sally’s leadership began with her own journey of finding herself and accepting her personal authenticity. Through this self-awareness, she grew to trust her own expertise as a writer with a keen eye for current trends in organizational life.

Sally continues to be an internationally recognized consultant and speaker on contemporary issues, and has published five books. She remains uncertain about whether she will finish her degree in comparative religion and become a college professor, but always keeps in mind the career of I. F. Stone, an influential political writer in the 1950s and 1960s who went back to school and got an advanced degree in classics at the age of 75.

Questions

1. Learning about one’s self is an essential step in becoming an authentic leader. What role did self-awareness play in Sally Helgesen’s story of leadership?

2. How would you describe the authenticity of Sally Helgesen’s leadership?

3. At the end of the case, Sally Helgesen is described as taking on the “mantle of leadership.” Was this important for her leadership? How is taking on the mantle of leadership related to a leader’s authenticity? Does every leader reach a point in his or her career where embracing the leadership role is essential?

Case 9.2

A Leader Under Fire

(The previous edition of this book includes a case study outlining Greg Mortenson’s creation of the Central Asia Institute and highlighting his authentic leadership qualities in more detail. For an additional perspective on Mortenson, you can access the original case study at  www.sagepub.com/northouse6e .)

By 2011, there were few people who had never heard of Greg Mortenson. He was the subject of two best-selling books, Three Cups of Tea (2006, with David O. Relin) and Stones Into Schools (2009), which told how the former emergency trauma room nurse had become a hero who built schools in rural areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

His story was phenomenal: Lost and sick after attempting to scale K2, Greg was nursed back to health by the villagers of remote Korphe, Afghanistan. Greg promised to build the village a school, a monumental effort that took him three years as he learned to raise money, navigate the foreign culture, and build a bridge above a 60-foot-deep chasm. His success led him to create the Central Asia Institute (CAI), a nonprofit organization that “empowers communities of Central Asia through literacy and education, especially for girls, promotes peace through education, and conveys the importance of these activities globally.” By 2011, the CAI had successfully established or supported more than 170 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and helped to educate more than 68,000 students (CAI, 2011a).

Greg’s story seemed too good to be true. In April 2011, television news show 60 Minutes and author Jon Krakauer alleged that it was. 60 Minutes accused Greg of misusing money and benefitting excessively from the CAI. The show’s reporter visited schools the CAI had built overseas and claimed that he could not find six of the schools and that others were abandoned. The show featured an interview with Krakauer, who claimed Greg had fabricated parts of his best-selling book, Three Cups of Tea. When 60 Minutes approached Greg for comment at a book signing, he refused to talk to the program.

The next day, Krakauer (Into Thin Air [1997] and Under the Banner of Heaven [2003]) published a short online book, Three Cups of Deceit (2011), in which he claimed Greg lied many times in Three Cups of Tea, starting with his initial tale of being in Korphe.

Greg and the CAI were caught in a firestorm of media and public scrutiny. An investigation into the alleged financial improprieties was launched by Montana’s attorney general (the CAI is based in Bozeman), and two Montana legislators filed a $5 million class action lawsuit claiming Greg fooled 4 million people into buying his books.

Greg withdrew from the public eye. The day the 60 Minutes program aired, he posted a letter on the CAI website saying he stood by his books and claiming the news show “paints a distorted picture using inaccurate information, innuendo and a microscopic focus on one year’s (2009) IRS 990 financial, and a few points in the book Three Cups of Tea that occurred almost 18 years ago” (CAI, 2011b). Many criticized the organization’s founder for not more aggressively defending himself.

What many people did not know, however, was that two days before the 60 Minutes segment appeared, Greg had been diagnosed with a hole and a large aneurysm in his heart and was scheduled for open-heart surgery in the next few months. Meanwhile, the CAI worked to ensure its transparency by posting its tax returns and a master list of projects and their status. The report documented 210 schools, with 17 of those receiving “full support” from the CAI, which includes teachers’ salaries, supplies, books, and furniture and monitoring by CAI contractors (Flandro, 2011).

The attorney general investigation concluded in 2012 and determined that Greg as well as CAI board members had mismanaged the CAI, and that Greg had personally profited from it. In a settlement, Greg agreed to pay $1 million to the CAI for expenses he incurred that were deemed as personal. The attorney general’s conclusions did not address the allegations that Mortenson fabricated parts of his book. While he continues to be a CAI employee, Greg is not allowed to have any financial oversight for the organization or sit on its board of directors (Flandro, 2012).

Despite the controversy and subsequent finding of wrongdoing, former CAI board member Andrew Marcus hopes the public will consider what Greg and the organization have accomplished.

“It’s hard to imagine anyone who’s done more for education in that part of the world,” Marcus has said. “It took a real human being to do that” (Flandro, 2011).

Questions

1. Would you describe Greg Mortenson as an authentic leader? Explain your answer.

2. In the chapter, we discussed moral reasoning and transparency as components of authentic leadership. Do you think Greg exhibited these components as part his leadership?

3. How was Greg’s response to the allegations against him characteristic of an authentic leader?

4. How did the outcome of the investigation affect the authenticity of Greg Mortenson’s leadership?

Case 9.3

The Reluctant First Lady

Betty Ford admits that August 9, 1974, the day her husband was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States, was “the saddest day of my life” (Ford, 1978, p. 1).

Elizabeth Bloomer Ford was many things—a former professional dancer and dance teacher, the mother of four nearly grown children, the wife of 13-term U.S. Congressman Gerald “Jerry” R. Ford who was looking forward to their retirement—but she never saw being the country’s First Lady as her destiny.

As she held the Bible her husband’s hand rested on while he took the oath of office, Betty began a journey in which she would become many more things: a breast cancer survivor, an outspoken advocate of women’s rights, a recovering alcoholic and addict, and cofounder and president of the Betty Ford Center, a nonprofit treatment center for substance abuse.

The Fords’ path to the White House began in October 1973, when Jerry was tapped to replace then-U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew who had resigned. After only 9 months in that role, Jerry became the U.S. President after Richard M. Nixon left office amidst the Watergate scandal.

In her first days as the First Lady, Betty became known for her openness and candor. At the time, women were actively fighting for equal rights in the workplace and in society. Less than half of American women were employed outside the home, and women’s earnings were only 38% of their male counterparts’ (Spraggins, 2005). Betty raised a number of eyebrows in her first press conference, when she spoke out in support of abortion rights, women in politics, and the Equal Rights Amendment.

Betty hadn’t even been in the White House a month when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She again broke with social conventions and spoke openly about the diagnosis and treatment for a disease that was not widely discussed in public. With her cooperation, Newsweek magazine printed a complete account of her surgery and treatment, which included a radical mastectomy. This openness helped raise awareness of breast cancer screening and treatment options and created an atmosphere of support and comfort for other women fighting the disease.

“Lying in the hospital, thinking of all those women going for cancer checkups because of me, I’d come to recognize more clearly the power of the woman in the White House,” she said in her first autobiography, The Times of My Life. “Not my power, but the power of the position, a power which could be used to help” (Ford, 1978, p. 194).

After her recuperation, Betty made good use of that newfound power. She openly supported and lobbied for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, a bill that would ensure that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex” (Francis, 2009).

In an interview with 60 Minutes, Betty drew the ire of many conservatives when she candidly shared her views on the provocative issues of abortion rights, premarital sex, and marijuana use. After the interview aired, public opinion of Betty plummeted, but her popularity quickly rebounded, and within months her approval rating had climbed to 75%.

At the same time, Betty was busy with the duties of First Lady, entertaining dignitaries and heads of state from countries across the globe. In 1975 she began actively campaigning for her husband for the 1976 presidential election, inspiring buttons that read “Vote for Betty’s Husband.” Ford lost the election to Jimmy Carter and, because he was suffering from laryngitis, Betty stepped into the spotlight to read Jerry’s concession speech to the country, congratulating Carter on his victory. Betty’s time as First Lady ended in January 1977, and the Fords retired to Rancho Mirage, California, and Vail, Colorado.

A little more than a year later, at the age of 60, Betty began another personal battle: overcoming alcoholism and an addiction to prescription medicine. Betty had a 14-year dependence on painkillers for chronic neck spasms, arthritis, and a pinched nerve, but refused to admit she was addicted to alcohol. After checking into the Long Beach Naval Hospital’s Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Service, she found the strength to face her demons and, again, went public with her struggles.

“I have found that I am not only addicted to the medications I’ve been taking for my arthritis, but also to alcohol,” she wrote in a statement released to the public. “I expect this treatment and fellowship to be a solution for my problems and I embrace it not only for me but for all the others who are here to participate” (Ford, 1978, p. 285).

Betty Ford found recovering from addiction was particularly daunting at a time when most treatment centers were geared toward treating men. “The female alcoholic has more emotional problems, more health problems, more parenting problems, makes more suicide attempts, than the alcoholic man,” Betty explained in her second autobiography, Betty, a Glad Awakening (Ford, 1987, p. 129).

For this reason, Betty helped to establish the nonprofit Betty Ford Center in 1982 in Rancho Mirage. The center splits its space equally between male and female patients, but the treatment is gender specific with programs for the entire family system affected by addiction. The center’s success has attracted celebrities as well as everyday people including middle-class moms, executives, college students, and laborers. Betty’s activism in the field of recovery earned her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 and the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1999.

Speaking at an alumni reunion of Betty Ford Center patients, Betty said, “I’m really proud of this center. And I’m really grateful for my own recovery, because with my recovery, I was able to help some other people come forward and address their own addictions. And I don’t think there’s anything as wonderful in life as being able to help someone else” (Ford, 1987, p. 217).

Questions

1. How would you describe Betty Ford’s leadership? In what ways could her leadership be described as authentic?

2. How did critical life events play a role in the development of her leadership?

3. Is there a clear moral dimension to Betty Ford’s leadership? In what way is her leadership about serving the common good? Discuss.

4. As we discussed in the chapter, self-awareness and transparency are associated with authentic leadership. How does Betty Ford exhibit these qualities?

Leadership Instrument

Although still in its early phases of development, the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ) was created by Walumbwa and associates (2008) to explore and validate the assumptions of authentic leadership. It is a 16-item instrument that measures four factors of authentic leadership: self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency. Based on samples in China, Kenya, and the United States, Walumbwa and associates validated the dimensions of the instrument and found it positively related to outcomes such as organizational citizenship, organizational commitment, and satisfaction with supervisor and performance. To obtain this instrument, contact Mind Garden, Inc., in Menlo Park, California, or visit www.mindgarden.com.

In this section, we provide an authentic leadership self-assessment to help you determine your own level of authentic leadership. This questionnaire will help you understand how authentic leadership is measured and provide you with your own scores on items that characterize authentic leadership. The questionnaire includes 16 questions that assess the four major components of authentic leadership discussed earlier in this chapter: self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency. Your results on this self-assessment questionnaire will give you information about your level of authentic leadership on these underlying dimensions of authentic leadership. This questionnaire is intended for practical applications to help you understand the complexities of authentic leadership. It is not designed for research purposes.

Authentic Leadership Self-Assessment Questionnaire

Instructions: This questionnaire contains items about different dimensions of authentic leadership. There are no right or wrong responses, so please answer honestly. Use the following scale when responding to each statement by writing the number from the scale below that you feel most accurately characterizes your response to the statement.

Scoring

1. Sum the responses on items 1, 5, 9, and 13 (self-awareness).

2. Sum the responses on items 2, 6, 10, and 14 (internalized moral perspective).

3. Sum the responses on items 3, 7, 11, and 15 (balanced processing).

4. Sum the responses on items 4, 8, 12, and 16 (relational transparency).

Total Scores

Self-Awareness: ______

Internalized Moral Perspective: _____

Balanced Processing: _____

Relational Transparency: _____

Scoring Interpretation

This self-assessment questionnaire is designed to measure your authentic leadership by assessing four components of the process: self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency. By comparing your scores on each of these components, you can determine which are your stronger and which are your weaker components in each category. You can interpret your authentic leadership scores using the following guideline: high = 16–20 and low = 15 and below. Scores in the upper range indicate stronger authentic leadership, whereas scores in the lower range indicate weaker authentic leadership.

Summary

As a result of leadership failures in the public and private sectors, authentic leadership is emerging in response to societal demands for genuine, trustworthy, and good leadership. Authentic leadership describes leadership that is transparent, morally grounded, and responsive to people’s needs and values. Even though authentic leadership is still in the early stages of development, the study of authentic leadership is timely and worthwhile, offering hope to people who long for true leadership.

Although there is no single accepted definition of authentic leadership, it can be conceptualized intrapersonally, developmentally, and interpersonally. The intrapersonal perspective focuses on the leader and the leader’s knowledge, self-regulation, and self-concept. The interpersonal perspective claims that authentic leadership is a collective process, created by leaders and followers together. The developmental perspective emphasizes major components of authentic leadership that develop over a lifetime and are triggered by major life events.

The practical approach to authentic leadership provides basic “how to” steps to become an authentic leader. George’s approach (2003) identifies five basic dimensions of authentic leadership and the corresponding behavioral characteristics individuals need to develop to become authentic leaders.

In the social science literature, a theoretical approach to authentic leadership is emerging. Drawing from the fields of leadership, positive organizational scholarship, and ethics, researchers have identified four major components of authentic leadership: self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency.

In addition, researchers have found that authentic leadership is influenced by a leader’s positive psychological capacities, moral reasoning, and critical life events.

Authentic leadership has several positive features. First, it provides an answer to people who are searching for good and sound leadership in an uncertain world. Second, authentic leadership is prescriptive and provides a great deal of information about how leaders can learn to become authentic. Third, it has an explicit moral dimension that asserts that leaders need to do what is “right” and “good” for their followers and society. Fourth, it is framed as a process that is developed by leaders over time rather than as a fixed trait. Last, authentic leadership can be measured with a theory-based instrument.

There are also negative features to authentic leadership. First, the ideas set forth in the practical approach need to be treated cautiously because they have not been fully substantiated by research. Second, the moral component of authentic leadership is not fully explained. For example, it does not describe how values such as justice and community are related to authentic leadership. Third, the rationale for including positive psychological capacities as an inherent part of a model of authentic leadership has not been fully explicated. Finally, there is a lack of evidence regarding the effectiveness of authentic leadership and how it is related to positive organizational outcomes.

In summary, authentic leadership is a new and exciting area of research, which holds a great deal of promise. As more research is conducted on authentic leadership, a clearer picture will emerge about the true nature of the process and the assumptions and principles that it encompasses.

Sharpen your skills with SAGE edge at  edge.sagepub.com/northouse7e

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   BOOK EXCERPT: REFLECTIVE MANAGEMENT

Reflective Management

Hearron, P. F., & Hildebrand, V. P. (2011). Management of child development centers (7th ed., pp. 61–79). Boston, MA: Pearson.

   BOOK EXCERPT: REFLECTIVE MANAGEMENT info below

CHAPTER 4 Reflective Management: Personal and Professional Self-Awareness

4.  Ever since coming to work at Rainbow Center, Tanya had admired the grace and efficiency with which Jeralyn handled the myriad demands of the director’s job. She always seemed to have time for a smile and a bit of friendly conversation with staff or family members, even on days when a major report was due and the 3-year-olds clogged the sink in their classroom trying to wash all the sand-table toys. When Tanya wondered aloud whether she would be able to do the same, Jeralyn shared one of the things she had learned at a stress management workshop sponsored by the local resource and referral agency. “It’s a matter of figuring out what’s really important,” she said, “and not letting all the little things distract you from that. For me, people matter more than paperwork and plumbing. My relationships with staff and families are what makes this work worthwhile for me. I deliberately plan my day so that I have time for that as well as some protected time to handle the report. And,” she laughed, “I make sure I have the phone number of a good plumber on speed dial!”

As you learned in the previous chapter, administrators of children’s programs draw on a complex, continually evolving body of knowledge in at least three areas: child development, family ecosystems, and management. A solid understanding of current thinking in each of these areas is a necessary, but not sufficient, element of your preparation for the manager’s role. Effective management is not a question of learning a few “right” techniques and simply applying them. As you have seen, there is no agreed-upon right answer! Furthermore, managing always involves human interactions, whether the facility managed produces computer parts or a human service such as the care and education of young children. This makes managing a complex undertaking, requiring professional judgment and the ability to think on one’s feet.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

Personal and professional self-awareness is listed as the first of 10 management competencies needed by program administrators in programs seeking accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Components include understanding principles of adult development, self-knowledge regarding beliefs and values, ability to apply a code of ethics, and “the ability to be a reflective practitioner and apply a repertoire of techniques to improve the level of personal fulfillment and professional job satisfaction” (NAEYC,  2007 ). Personal and professional self-awareness can be compared to what Peter Senge, a prominent authority on organizational management, calls “personal mastery,” people’s ability to keep clearly in mind and continually refine what is most important to them with an accurate assessment of where they are in relation to that vision. He adds:

5.  But personal mastery is not something you possess. It is a process. It is a lifelong discipline. People with a high level of personal mastery are acutely aware of their ignorance, their incompetence, their growth areas. And they are deeply self-confident. Paradoxical? Only for those who do not see that “the journey is the reward” (2006, pp. 131–133)

Managers must absorb a great deal of information from the “experts” as well as from the situation at hand, and they must be able to select and apply that information in the way that makes most sense to them at the time. They observe what happens, and what they learn from experience becomes part of their knowledge base for future decisions. This entire process of looking back and making sense of your experience is called reflection. Another term for reflection is critical thinking. It is an activity essential to any type of learning beyond simple rote memorization. In the “Decisions, Decisions” segments that appear in each chapter, this textbook asks you to engage in reflection—to think about what you are reading in the context of your own experience and to apply your thinking to some new situation.

Seibert and Daudelin ( 1999 ) traced the history of reflection in education back to the Greek philosopher Socrates and argued for its application to management theory and practice. They distinguished between two types of reflection, believing that successful managers must use both types, and offered suggestions for enhancing each. Active reflection occurs in the situation, “on the fly in the midst of challenging experiences.” All managers engage in active reflection—that is, they ask themselves questions about what is happening, what they should do, and what might happen as a result. They answer their own questions by interpreting what they observe. Managers can enhance this active reflection process by becoming more aware of it. They can listen to themselves and try to generate more probing questions, always remembering that their interpretations of situations are not necessarily final. They should find ways to capture the ideas that occur to them in the heat of the action and use spare moments throughout the day to mull over current problems (pp. 206–207).

Managers, like children, need time to pause and reflect about what they are doing.

In proactive reflection, managers take time away to reflect on their experience, often after completing a particular task or project. They review what happened, compare it to their other experiences, formulate explanations, and make plans for what they might do differently another time (p. 148). Community reflection is a particular type of proactive reflection in which a group of managers approaches similar questions under the guidance of a facilitator. Some managers report that they not only learn more through this collaborative approach, but also develop feelings of greater closeness with their colleagues (p. 205).

KNOWING YOURSELF

Seibert and Daudelin ( 1999 , p. 18) pointed out that the Latin root of the word reflection is reflectere, which means to bend back. And, as you read in the preceding section, managers do “bend back” in their thinking as they review what has happened and formulate new ideas. Another, perhaps more common, association with the word reflection is the image that looks back at you from mirrors or other shiny surfaces. Managers look into metaphorical mirrors to acquire self-reflective knowledge, which is an understanding of one’s purpose or mission and of one’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to that purpose. Brown and Manning ( 2000 , pp. 84–85) considered self-reflective knowledge one of four types of core knowledge for directors of children’s programs. Common sense tells you that you must have a strong sense of who you are and what you believe, as well as the humility to acknowledge what you do not know, if you are to be credible and effective in a leadership role. The “mirrors” that managers of child development programs use are self-assessment tools; feedback from colleagues, employees, and families; and self-reflection within a context of professional knowledge.

WHAT WILL BE YOUR MANAGEMENT STYLE?

Recall that  chapter 3  presented an overview of three paradigms, or conceptual models of management. If you have some work experience, you have probably already witnessed the application of at least one of these models. Some managers use concepts of cost and increased efficiency. They analyze jobs and figure out the “best way” for the job to be done and expect that the job should be done that way. These are often called classical managers. In another approach, the manager recognizes that the way workers feel about their jobs, both individually and as a group, has profound effects on job outcome. The people-oriented approach (classified as “behavioral” by management theorists) gives employees more independence and helps them take more responsibility and develop maturity in their jobs. In the third approach, based on a systems theory of organizations, a manager strives to understand the “big picture” and help all the parts work together so that the organization as a whole can adapt to changing situations within the larger environment.

In addition to reflecting your ideas about organizations and human nature, your management style will be influenced by aspects of your personality, such as power orientation, ways of dealing with conflict, reaction to stress, and psychological type (Benfari,  1999 ).

Power and Conflict

You might think of power, for example, as based on fear of punishment or a desire for reward. You might see it as based on respect for either the position itself or the expertise of the individual holding that position. Or you might see power as something based on subordinates’ personal admiration and affection for the person in authority (Zeece,  1998 ). Your basic approach when confronted with conflict can range from avoiding a fight by capitulating or pretending the issue doesn’t exist to defending your position at all costs. In between these two extremes, you might seek a solution in which both parties settle for something less than they wanted, or ideally, collaborate to find a solution that satisfies everyone and may even be better than what either had imagined.

Stress

Your reaction to stress can vary from time to time, just as it varies from that of other individuals. One manager may need predictability and stability while another thrives on the challenges of opening new programs and juggling special fund-raising activities, all while handling the day-to-day operations of a center. The second manager, in fact, may become bored without the added stimulation, yet an illness or family crisis could change that picture quite suddenly. In other words, stress can be viewed as an interaction between external conditions or events, your perceptions of those conditions, and your inner reserves for dealing with them. Chronic stress overload leads to burnout or the inability to function—in work or in life in general.

Emotional labor is a term coined by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild ( 1983 ) to describe the psychological effort involved in controlling the expression of one’s emotions on the job. Waiters, for example, are generally expected to display a friendly attitude toward customers; nurses are expected to show caring and concern. Displaying the desired emotion regardless of how one really feels is called “surface acting,” in contrast to “deep acting,” which is attempting to alter one’s genuine feelings to match the expectations of the job. Consistent demands for either type of acting can be draining and stressful. However, a third type of emotional labor, expressing one’s naturally felt emotions, can have a positive effect if the emotions displayed are consistent with one’s identity and core values.

It is easy to see that emotional labor is obviously a significant factor in work with young children. Caregivers are expected to display patience, affection, and enthusiasm toward children. When they actually feel these things, their work is joyful and fulfilling. If they are only going through the motions (surface acting) or struggling to feel what they don’t (deep acting), exhaustion and burnout can result (Cox,  2009 ). Emotional labor is also performed by managers who use it to influence the feelings of employees, expressing pleasure in a job well done or disapproval and firmness when needed. “Leading with emotional labor” (Humphrey, Pollack, & Hawver,  2008 ) has the same potential for either exhaustion or fulfillment. Putting on a front, particularly surface acting, takes a toll, whereas skillful use of deep acting and expression of genuine emotion can increase feelings of satisfaction and enjoyment for both managers and employees.

One cautionary note reflects the fact that managers, more than their subordinates, are likely to identify so strongly with their role that the emotional labor involved with expressing genuine feelings begins to consume all their energy (Humphrey et al., p. 153). The key is to recognize signs of overstress in yourself and take action before burnout sets in. Your goal is to thrive, not merely survive. In order to do that you will need to distinguish between the essential and the trivial and let go of the expectation that you can be all things to all people (Bloom,  2008 ). Although it may seem contradictory, delving more deeply into your work can be as effective at preventing burnout as letting go. Linda Yaven, who teaches in the Graduate Design Program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, was inspired by documentation she witnessed in the preschools and infant–toddler centers of Reggio Emilia and began applying the concept to her own work with adults. Over the next 4 years she taught—and learned along with her students—how to use photographs, drawings, and written records to make their learning visible. She writes, “The fact that I looked forward to coming to class each day did not go unnoticed by me. There are teachers in Reggio who have been teaching there for decades without burnout. I had glimmers while there what that might be about” (Yaven, 2005, p. 10).

In addition to reducing and managing your own stress, you will want to help your staff do the same. Burnout due to stress is one of the factors contributing to high rates of turnover among child care personnel (Hale-Jinks, Knopf, & Kemple ( 2006 ).  Figure 4.1  lists symptoms of burnout and offers suggestions for reducing and/or dealing with stress.

FIGURE 4.1 Recognizing and coping with stress.

Source: From Professional Life Stress Scale, by David Fontana. Retrieved July 4, 2005, from  http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/ FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/stress-t.htm ; and How to fight and conquer stress by Rose Medical Center, Denver. Retrieved July 4, 2005, from  http://www.rosemed.com/healthcontent.asp?page=/hic/stress/index .

DECISIONS, DECISIONS …

Look at list of symptoms of stress in  Figure 4.1 . Do any of them describe your own feelings and attitudes toward your job or schoolwork? If so, think about which of the suggestions for reducing stress you might be able to apply. Choose two or more suggestions from the list of suggestions for strengthening your ability to deal with stress and make a plan to put them into practice.

PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPE

Psychological type refers to a concept introduced by Carl Jung in the 1920s that became the basis for a widely used instrument developed by Isabel Briggs Myers in the 1940s. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) seeks to determine an individual’s basic preferences in four areas, each identified by a particular letter: (E) extraversion or focus on the outer world versus (I) introversion; (S) sensing or focus on information versus (N) intuition or focus on interpretation; (T) thinking versus (F) feeling; and (J) judging or decisiveness versus (P) perceiving or postponing judgment. These preferences interact to create 16 possible combinations or personality types, each designated by a four-letter code. Individuals characterized as INTJ, for example, lean toward the inner world, interpret rather than accept information at face value, rely on thought and logic, and would rather settle on a solution than keep matters open (Myers & Briggs Foundation website,  http://www.myersbriggs.org ).

No single type is superior to another, and in fact it is desirable to have many types represented within an organization because the strengths of each will complement the others. Even though when interviewing candidates for a job opening you are likely to feel most in tune with those most like yourself, it is probably wiser to look for the person who can provide balance. Beyond the hiring phase, understanding variations in personality types can help you think about adjusting the ways you interact with individuals in your organization. For example, although you may prefer a logical approach, your well-articulated arguments are likely to be ineffective if addressed to someone who focuses more on feelings (Khanagov,  2007 ).

LEADERSHIP STYLES

As you recall from  chapter 3 , management is defined as the process that coordinates individual efforts toward achieving goals, allocates resources effectively, and serves needs. Leadership is one of the five functions of management, defined by DuBrin ( 2000 , p. 232) as “the ability to inspire confidence and support among the people who are needed to achieve organizational goals.” In other words, leadership is the human element of management. The subtle distinctions between management and leadership are discussed in greater detail in  chapter 16 . For now, it is probably safe to assume that when people refer to someone’s style of management, they are often thinking about that person’s leadership style.

DuBrin identified three leadership styles ( 2000 , pp. 244–245). His categories may be familiar if you have read about parenting styles in your child development classes. Autocratic leaders hold most of the authority in their organizations and focus on getting the job done rather than on people’s feelings. At the opposite extreme, the free-rein leader relinquishes authority to the group, expecting its members to figure out the best way to accomplish a given task. Steering a middle course between these two styles, participative leaders involve group members in decision making; however, not all such leaders involve group members to the same degree. At the level of least group involvement, consultative leaders merely seek the group’s opinions before making the final decision themselves. Consensus leaders facilitate discussion to arrive at some level of agreement or consensus among all group members and base decisions on that. Democratic leaders listen to everyone’s ideas and let the group vote on the final decision. Note that in a consensus decision, discussion continues until everyone can agree on an issue, at least to some extent. In democratic decisions, everyone listens to the discussion, but in the end, the majority rules. Xavier ( 2005 ) characterizes effective managers as those who can navigate a path between these extremes, tapping the resources and expertise of all their staff members, but always accepting responsibility for making the hard decisions needed to keep the organization going. We will revisit the concept of leadership in greater depth in  chapter 16 .

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Xavier ( 2005 ) argues further that successful managers not only adapt well to change and avoid crucial errors, but also exercise high degrees of emotional intelligence, a concept that has been popularized by Daniel Goleman ( 1995 ) and a prerequisite for effectively performing the emotional labor discussed earlier in this chapter. Emotional intelligence includes four areas of competence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

Self-Awareness

In essence, self-aware individuals know themselves. Their confidence in their abilities stems from realistic notions of their strengths and weaknesses. They recognize their feelings and understand how those feelings might color their perceptions and judgments.

As a manager of a child development program, you need to realize that you don’t have all the answers, that human development is complex, and that our understanding is in a constant state of flux. This is partly because new discoveries mean there is more to learn, and partly because the more we learn, the more we realize that what appeared simple and straightforward is actually subtle and complicated. Knowing you are fallible and do not have all of the answers should not paralyze or discourage you, however; instead, it should motivate you to study and challenge your ideas about what is best for children.

As you struggle with a shoestring budget and the mundane daily realities of lost mittens or clogged toilets, you may at times feel overwhelmed by feelings of discouragement and frustration. Self-awareness means recognizing these emotions as temporary states rather than objective assessments of the situation. Today’s catastrophe may well become the kernel of a hilarious story in weeks to come.

Self-Management

Recognizing your feelings is a foundation for the next component of emotional intelligence, which is to manage those feelings. This means keeping things in perspective rather than indulging in emotional extremes in reaction to circumstances. It also means being able to rise above one’s personal feelings for the good of a common goal rather than venting frustrations on those around you. You need patience, or emotional self-control, to encourage children, families, and staff members to strive to learn when you are tempted to provide ready-made, but perhaps inadequate, solutions to problems. If you have patience, you do not expect instant results from children, families, staff, or yourself.

Managing your feelings means maintaining a positive outlook in the face of adversity and summoning the energy to tackle a job even though you are tired. It means standing up for what you believe rather than taking the path of least resistance. You can accommodate families’ needs, for example, without allowing yourself or your program to be taken advantage of. Clearly formulated policies, discussed with each family on enrollment, help you avoid unwanted situations: for example, parents who decide to do a few errands on their way to pick up their children and arrive late, causing tired staff members to be even later than usual in getting home to their own children. Setting fees at a level that allows you to pay staff a living wage requires no apology—although it may require some effort to help families who cannot afford the rates locate financial assistance. These are simply examples of healthy assertiveness, without which you are less able to fulfill your mission of service.

Managing your emotions will be easier if you remember that your own energy requires replenishment from time to time. A healthy diet, exercise, time with family and friends, hobbies, and outside interests all help you give your best. The trick is to give your best when you are at work and then leave that work behind at the end of each day. Remember that although your work is important, it is not the only important thing in your life.

Social Awareness

In addition to understanding and managing their own feelings, effective managers understand and care about the feelings of others. They derive satisfaction from helping others, and they are sensitive to the complex nature of human relationships.

People who work in child development centers are entrusted with the task of helping parents nurture and educate their children. They are expected to love and care for these children as though they were their own beloved offspring. As manager, you are expected to care about each individual; work to allay conflict; and maintain an atmosphere of peace, love, security, trust, and respect. To accomplish this enormous task, you need the professional dedication to view your work as more than “just a job.”

Socially aware managers recognize that institutions should serve people—never use them. Their ultimate goal is to strengthen children and their families. Their role is to supplement, never supplant, the care that families give their children. Because families are often in desperate need of child care, they can be vulnerable to programs that assume unwarranted power over them. Professional ethics demand that you avoid this possibility. Following are examples of how a program takes advantage of its power over people who need its services:

5. • Demanding that children arrive by 9:00 A.M. or be turned away even though a parent must take another child to school several blocks away and cannot get back to the center before 9:30.

6. • Requiring attendance at parent meetings as a condition of enrollment but failing to take parents’ work schedules into account when arranging meetings.

7. • Expecting all of the children at the center to participate in a holiday-themed celebration when not all of the families celebrate that particular holiday.

Parents, already pressured by their multiple roles, scarcely need the extra pressure of unrealistic demands from the child development center.

Relationship Management

This aspect of emotional intelligence includes what are commonly called “people skills”: inspiring, motivating, and convincing others; bringing out the best in people; getting them to work together; and helping them work through disagreements.

Given the sheer number of people and the myriad complex relationships involved in a child development program, it’s easy to see how crucial this aspect of emotional intelligence is to a manager’s success. It is the manager who communicates the program’s vision to families and staff and who works out strategies for attaining that vision. These strategies can include planning dynamic professional development activities for staff or helping families understand and accept rate increases needed to prevent staff turnover. When inevitable conflicts or disagreements arise—with families or among staff members—the manager must help the parties hear one another and arrive at satisfactory solutions. All this may seem to require superhuman qualities, but relationship management also involves reaching out for help from policy and advisory boards, staff members, outside consultants, families, community members, and the children themselves, recognizing that all of them are potential sources of new ideas and creative solutions to the challenges faced.

STAGES OF PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

In  chapter 3 , you learned that child development programs are complex systems. They are part of a highly interrelated social structure at the same time that they themselves comprise many interrelated entities. You also read about Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development, which views the individual as gradually gaining greater understanding and influence over increasingly wider spheres or embedded systems. Infants have a mighty impact on the family microsystem even as they struggle to master their tiny world. As an example at the other end of the developmental continuum, mature adults have an understanding of how social institutions (or the exosystem) influence their lives, and they are capable of interacting effectively with those institutions. VanderVen ( 2000 ) applies systems and human ecology theory to create a five-phase model of early childhood administrators’ professional development.

Novice Phase

The Novice Phase applies to entry-level practitioners, such as teachers’ aides with very limited administrative responsibilities, who work directly with children in the classroom with little or no formal training. Thus, their focus is confined to the microsystem, and they have little understanding of, or influence on, the larger system.

Initial Phase

Practitioners in the Initial Phase still have very limited administrative duties and remain focused on what happens in the classroom microsystem; however, they are beginning to acquire and apply knowledge from the wider sphere of the early childhood profession.

Informed Phase

An administrator in the Informed Phase is likely to hold a 2- or 4-year degree and to have been promoted to an administrative position as a reward for teaching performance—although with little formal preparation for the new role. A key quality marking this phase is a move away from a narrow classroom focus to a growing appreciation for the many influences on human development.

Complex Phase

Practitioners in the Complex Phase may continue working directly with children, modeling higher levels of expertise for teachers, or they may have moved completely into an administrative role. As they enter this phase, their focus begins to move from the classroom microsystem to their program’s interactions with the families and community they serve (i.e., Bronfenbrenner’s mesosystem). With increasing experience, these administrators gain an even wider perspective. They appreciate how things such as welfare, employment, and the education system (part of the exosystem) impact children, families, and their centers and become more proactive. Whereas a professional at an earlier phase might have bemoaned the lack of funds to provide adequate salaries for staff, an administrator in the complex phase might write to legislators and the media, informing them of the problem and arguing for higher child-care subsidies.

Influential Phase

With sufficient experience, and a capacity for reflective thought, administrators arrive at the Influential Phase. This phase is marked by an understanding of the complex overarching system of values that shape society (i.e., Bronfenbrenner’s macrosystem). The influential administrator has a vision and the ability to translate that vision into a reality that both embodies ideals and transmits those ideals to succeeding generations of children and families.

The general pattern, then, is that administrators move from a narrow to a successively wider frame of reference as they progress through the phases of career development. You might compare the novice director to someone who has just taken up the hobby of hunting for morel mushrooms. He walks through the woods, eyes glued to the ground, searching in vain for even one of the delicacies. A more seasoned mushroom hunter takes a broader view and, knowing that morels grow particularly well in the soil of old apple orchards, scans the landscape for clusters of apple trees before concentrating his search. As his skills become more complex, he might consult county maps and real estate records to locate old farmsteads where old orchards are likely to be found. At the Influential Phase, he might join a group that advocates for the preservation of old farmland.

DECISION MAKING

Decision making is the central activity of the manager of any organization. It is a mental activity that may require hours of sitting at your desk reading relevant materials, making calculations or drawings, and developing draft copies of plans until the best possible plans have finally evolved. In some ways, decision making is a lonely activity. It certainly requires time. To some of your staff, who are busy getting things done, it may seem like loafing—after all, you are just sitting there at your desk with a pencil in your hand. When the right decision is made and the right direction is taken, things look rosy. On the other hand, conditions may be gloomy if the wrong decision is made and the wrong direction taken. Dissonance frequently occurs as decisions are made. Your task is to reduce dissonance to a minimum and guide it toward constructive change. Each of the basic functions of management—planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and monitoring and controlling—requires decision making.

Decision Types

DuBrin ( 2000 , p. 114) describes two types of decisions. Programmed decisions are those that are made so frequently that they become routine and involve simply following prescribed procedures. For example, managers of those programs with established admission policies need not agonize over which family on the waiting list should be offered the next opening; they simply apply the procedures in place. In contrast, nonprogrammed decisions are made when new or more complicated situations arise. What should a manager do, for instance, when a highly competent teacher, with a long history of excellent performance, suddenly begins missing work or treating children inappropriately? Before answering this question, the manager needs more information about the reasons for the sudden change. The manager also must know what options might realistically be considered available in a climate of acute teacher shortage. And, perhaps most important, the manager may have to use creative or original thinking to make this nonprogrammed decision.

The more programmed decisions you face, the easier your job as manager. You can increase the proportion of programmed decisions by establishing ground rules or general principles that apply in all similar cases. Recall the discussion of reflection and use proactive reflection to generate the ground rules or principles. Take some time to look back on an experience and learn from it what can be applied to future situations.

Consider the following problem confronting the director of a small, two-classroom center. Although she had hired sufficient staff to maintain appropriate adult–child ratios, as well as “extra” help to cover for absences, the system was stretched beyond its limits when several people happened to be out at the same time. In addition to unplanned absences because of illness or family emergencies, the director had to plan for coverage when staff took well-deserved vacation days. Approving the requests for vacation time case by case was a nonprogrammed decision. The director had to think through every request and consider all other planned or unplanned absences that might occur on the requested days, what might happen to staff morale if requests were denied, and issues of fairness in deciding whose request took priority. After several experiences of active reflection (while coping with days when both lead teachers were on vacation and a substitute called in sick), the director stepped back to think about things, to use proactive reflection. In fact, she and the teachers used community reflection to arrive at a general principle that shifted the decision of approving or denying requests for time off from the nonprogrammed to the programmed realm. They decided that the two lead teachers could not take the same days off, nor could the lead and the associate teachers in one classroom take the same day. Following this decision, the staff simply had to consult one another before requesting approval for time off, and the director no longer had to spend undue time trying to decide whether to grant the approval.

Perhaps you are thinking that this sounds like a lot of trouble to go through for an apparently simple problem. You might think the director could have simply decreed the policy from the beginning. In the realm of human relations, however, nothing is as simple as it might seem. One of your challenges as a manager is to know which decisions can be programmed or routine and which should be nonprogrammed or handled creatively. In the interest of saving your time—and your sanity—handle as many decisions as possible with established procedures. However, an organization can become rigid, stifling creativity and growth, with too many established procedures. The refrain “But we always do it this way” has killed countless good ideas in the brainstorming stage and discouraged budding innovators who may have had a better way in mind. To make matters trickier, new developments can occur in an issue that seems routine and has always been treated as a programmed decision. Suppose, for instance, that the lead teachers in the previous example found themselves in conflict because both, for very good reasons, wanted the same day off. All of a sudden, the director’s nice, neat procedure no longer works, and the group is confronted with a nonprogrammed decision. More community reflection at this point might lead to a new, more encompassing guiding principle. Instead of asking teachers to coordinate their vacation days, the teachers and director could decide that teachers must come up with the way to resolve conflicts over scheduling. This principle might then become applicable to other conflicts between staff, further reducing pressures on the director.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS …

A parent of a child in your center has just lost her job and cannot make the required monthly fee payment. As manager of the center, you explain that you can allow a 1-week grace period before discontinuing care. Is this a programmed or nonprogrammed decision? Can it be classified as either? Is it preferable to treat it as one type or the other?

Interrelated Decisions

Decisions are often interrelated in complex ways.

CHAIN PATTERN.

One pattern of decision making is called a chain pattern, characterized by a straight line, each decision being dependent on the preceding choice (Paolucci, Hall, & Axinn,  1977 , pp. 108–109). The chain can stop and recommence at any point. An example of chain-pattern decisions in a child development center might be as follows:

5. • Decision 1: The policy board decides to organize a child-care center.

6. • Decision 2: The board members decide the first year to enroll only 3- and 4-year-old children.

7. • Decision 3: They decide to establish a 4- and 5-year-old group the next year from the previous year’s enrollees and continue the first classroom by enrolling 2½- and 3-year-olds.

8. • Decision 4: The following year, they decide to add a new group for kindergarten children who need a place to go before or after their half-day of regular school.

Each decision is based on the experience gained from the preceding decision.

CENTRAL–SATELLITE PATTERN

In the central–satellite type of decision making, a central decision is followed by several satellite decisions that are dependent on the central decision (Paolucci et al.,  1977 , pp. 106–108). For example, in a center, a board policy decision to start an infant care unit is a central decision. Then, numerous satellite decisions follow, such as housing, equipping, staffing, and organizing the unit. If the central decision is different, the satellite decisions likewise change.

One might conceptualize several central decisions as being strung together in a chain, with all decisions being related to the overall goals of the center. The satellite decisions for each central decision may relate only minimally to those of the other central decisions. For example, is providing only one type of service more cost-effective or efficient than providing several services? Also, are the expanded services consistent with the central goal of the center?

The Decision Process

Five steps make up the decision process:

1. 1. Identifying the problem

2. 2. Developing alternatives

3. 3. Analyzing alternatives

4. 4. Making the final decision

5. 5. Implementing the decision and following up to determine effectiveness

IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM

Just as decisions can be categorized by type, so too can problems be categorized as to when they arise. Type 1, routine problems, arise because of a breakdown in something that should be regular or routine. Type 2, nonroutine problems, arise when things are less structured and, thus, less predictable. When a problem arises, you can quickly determine whether it is a type 1 or type 2. With the routine type, such as having problems with deliveries, the problem might arise repeatedly, perhaps every day. Immediate attention to the sequence of events heads off trouble. At times, stopgap measures must be taken, but routine is desired and is the goal.

The nonroutine problems often have elements that can be programmed or made routine in advance. For example, the problem in the preceding example is 240 children who must have food at noon. This problem can be foreseen to some extent, making the solutions somewhat routine, though stress producing nonetheless.

DEVELOPING ALTERNATIVES

Possible alternative solutions can be determined by stimulating the creative thinking of everyone involved. Staff members can be very helpful with generating alternatives if a climate of trust exists such that their creativity can emerge. One way is to brainstorm among the staff for alternatives—even seemingly impossible alternatives are recorded and valued as a contribution. Any idea may have usable elements or stimulate thinking that leads to better ideas. Avoid premature evaluation. As manager, you can offer several alternatives, showing that you trust the process.

Information is essential to developing alternatives. Your staff has information accumulated through years of experience. Various readily available publications have relevant information. Sometimes you may wish to bring in consultants or contact a consultant for specific information. For example, information on children’s diets can come from a dietitian. You can obtain information about employee insurance by getting bids from a number of companies and by questioning other child development center managers regarding their solutions to the problem. Information gathering generally has a cost, in time or money, that the organization must bear if the best possible decision is to be made.

ANALYZING ALTERNATIVES

In a group discussion, allow each staff member to state the pros and cons of the various alternatives. By consensus, you can begin to erase some from the list that are not right for your situation at this time. Listen carefully to staff members and value each one’s contribution. The goal is to be as rational or objective as possible. One common method of analyzing alternatives, referred to by the acronym SWOT, is to list four elements:

1. 1. Strengths: resources available or readily accessible to carry out the proposed alternative

1. 2. Weaknesses: resources required to carry out the alternative but which your program lacks

1. 3. Opportunities: what your program stands to gain if the alternative is implemented

1. 4. Threats: potential costs or roadblocks associated with the alternative

This method should help you compare alternatives based on whether the potential benefits of each outweighs the potential costs.

MAKING THE FINAL DECISION

Soon, only a few alternatives remain, and these can be voted on or decided by consensus. Improved decisions result when staff members have a voice, particularly in person-centered organizations such as child development centers. Normally, a problem has many aspects, and talking things over helps the manager gain perspective on the problem. Obviously, there is very little substance to the decision-making process if only a single alternative is considered.

IMPLEMENTING THE DECISION

A decision is not truly made until it is put into practice. Only by actually implementing your decision will you be able to receive the feedback you need to evaluate its quality and the effectiveness of your decision making process.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS …

Sunshine Child Development Center serves children ages 2–1/2 through 6 years. Several of the children enrolled have siblings younger than 2–1/2. A group of parents has approached the director, requesting that the center expand its service to younger children. They argue that it is impractical to have children in two different centers and that, furthermore, if they have to find another center for their younger children, they will be reluctant to change when the children are old enough to attend Sunshine Center. Use the SWOT chart in  Figure 4.2 . to brainstorm the pros and cons of this proposal. Add your own ideas to each segment of the chart and then discuss with your classmates to make a decision about what the center should do.

Rationality in Decision Making

Decision making in a human services organization, such as a child development center, is rational in some respects and extrarational in other respects. Rational decision making is considered to be objective, logical, based on hard data, and useful for technical decisions. For example, concerning the center’s physical plant maintenance, you decide on the floor covering, the quality of paint, or a parking lot covering based on objective criteria such as the cost of installation, the cost of its upkeep, and its predicted longevity. These are all technical decisions.

Extrarational decisions require judgment or wisdom in addition to available objective facts. Extrarational decisions are often social decisions. Paolucci et al. ( 1977 ) said that social decision making occurs when there is a conflict in values, goals, or roles. Social decisions occur frequently in children’s classrooms as the values, goals, and roles of parents, teachers, and children become integrated into the human service that is child care. Teachers use social decision making repeatedly during each day as they mediate the interaction between children.

FIGURE 4.2 Example of SWOT analysis

Sunshine Child Development Center serves children ages 2–1/2 through 6 years. Several of the children enrolled have siblings younger than 2–1/2. A group of these parents has approached the director, requesting that the center expand its service to younger children.

Ethical Decisions

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) developed a code of ethics to help guide early childhood professionals in their interactions with children and families. Recognizing that the manager’s responsibilities encompass more people and relationships than those of the classroom teacher, a working group developed a supplement to the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct for administrators (NAEYC,  2006 ). The Code of Ethical Conduct and the Supplement for administrators are included in Appendix A and Appendix B of this textbook. Both the original code and the supplement were developed by members of the early childhood profession and consist of a set of basic ideals and principles regarding responsibilities to children, families, colleagues, and society.

Rational decision making requires considering information from many sources and being open to other points of view.

Some situations are relatively easy to resolve because they represent ethical responsibilities that are clearly mandated within the code; others are more complex and pose ethical dilemmas or conflicts between two or more basic principles. Not all ethical problems are ethical dilemmas, however. For example, a parent might demand that a caregiver use spanking to control a child’s behavior. The caregiver has an ethical responsibility rather than a dilemma when dealing with this demand because the Code clearly states that early childhood educators should “create and maintain safe and healthy settings that foster children’s social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development and that respect their dignity and their contributions” (Code of Ethical Conduct, Ideal 1–1-5). The center follows a fundamental principle of using positive guidance techniques with children; furthermore it must comply with state licensing regulations that prohibit all forms of corporal punishment.

Suppose, however, that instead of asking you to spank the child, the parent insists that every day at pickup time you provide her with a detailed report of every incident of the child’s “misbehavior” that has occurred that day. She says that she wants to follow up with her own discipline at home that evening. Your policy, which is explained in your center handbook, is to handle misbehavior when it occurs. In the event that typical positive guidance techniques prove ineffective and the child’s behavior escalates, you would request a private meeting with the parents rather than discuss the issue in front of the child or other parents.

This constitutes an ethical dilemma. As noted earlier, you have an ethical responsibility to “create and maintain safe and healthy settings that foster children’s social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development and that respect their dignity and their contributions” (Code of Ethical Conduct, Ideal I-1.5). On the other hand, you also have responsibility to acknowledge families’ child-rearing values and their right to make decisions for their child (Ideal I-2.6) Ethical dilemmas seldom have one right solution and can be resolved only by careful reflection and discussion that involves all parties. Ideally, the parties find a way to sustain the spirit of both ideals or principles; if not, they have to decide which takes precedence.

In the example given, the parents might lack information about other, more effective, methods of getting their child to “behave.” They might view the center’s positive guidance techniques as spoiling the child. In an honest and open discussion, you may be able to explain that your goal is for the reunion between children and their parents to be a joyful time, not an occasion for recriminations or fear of reprisal. You can also explain that consequences for “misbehavior” meted out hours after the infraction has occurred are likely to be ineffective because young children live in the here and now. If there were an easy answer, however, this would not be dilemma, defined as a problem for which there seem to be two or more equally unsatisfactory solutions, a “catch-22.” When faced with such predicaments, people sometimes speak of choosing the lesser of two evils. In this example, if you and the parents cannot come to some agreement, it may be necessary to “agree to disagree,” and the family may decide to withdraw the child. Whatever the final outcome, the thoughtful manager realizes that ethical decisions like this are complex, requiring the consideration of several competing ideals and principles.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS …

Use the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct and the Supplement for Early Childhood Program Administrators (in Appendix A and B of this textbook) to think through two possible alternatives for the dilemma described: rejecting or complying with the parent’s request for a daily report of the child’s misbehavior. Divide the class into two groups and have each group develop a rationale for one of the alternatives, noting which ideals and principles might be support either position. Share the rationales with the entire class and try to arrive at a consensus about the best course of action.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Time is a valuable, nonrenewable resource. Managing this resource carefully is essential if you are to achieve the goals set forth in your plans. If you are moving up in the ranks from a teaching position, you may have difficulty delegating some of the responsibility and may tend to do things that your teachers or other staff can do for themselves. You must learn to let others do their share of the work and to leave your time for the managerial and leadership functions that are now your responsibility. Effective time management is one of the most important tools for giving you a sense of control and thus reducing stress.

Effective managers use a variety of time management tools to plan ahead and avoid crises.

Prioritizing Tasks

Management expert Stephen Covey ( 1989 ) said that the essence of time management is to “organize and execute around priorities.” He suggests that managers determine priorities using the criteria of importance and urgency:

1. 1. Activities that are both important and urgent

1. 2. Activities that are important but not urgent

1. 3. Activities that are urgent but not important

1. 4. Activities that are neither urgent nor important (p. 101)

As a center manager, you may find yourself constantly dealing with crises of minor importance unless you manage to allocate significant amounts of your time to activities that, in Covey’s language, belong to the “second quadrant”—that is, they are important but not urgent. Planning your center’s public relations strategy, for example, may seem insignificant compared to a broken water pipe, but neglecting the planning may lead to larger problems, such as declining enrollment.

Using these criteria, you might decide to take the time to recruit and train a volunteer to do routine tasks such as sorting mail, knowing that your investment will pay off in many hours saved later on. Even tasks that qualify as both important and urgent can be delegated if you have selected your staff wisely and explain the task carefully. A staff member, for example, can keep children’s time records and generate invoices or send reminders to parents, freeing you to work on a feasibility study for a new infant–-toddler component. Activities that may seem unimportant, such as having lunch with key board members or individual staff members, can promote valuable relationships and help your organization develop a clear, unified vision. Knowing your priorities helps you decide which activities to tackle, which to delegate, and which to put off for another time as you face your weekly or daily “to-do” list.

Following such a system is easier said than done. There will be interruptions and distractions as you attempt to concentrate on your high-priority tasks. Inevitably, some interruptions will come from outside—perhaps a staff member requesting your immediate assistance with a crisis. Delegating specific responsibilities to key staff members will help minimize those external distractions if you make it clear that you have confidence in their ability to handle the job. Often, however, distractions come from within yourself as worries about how much you have to do, or ideas about how you will do it, crowd your mind. You may have set aside a precious hour to write a grant proposal, but find yourself fretting about a licensing visit next week or filled with creative ideas for a staff development activity—all admittedly important concerns. As your mind races from one to the other, though, the hour slips by with no progress on any front. One method for gaining control of such internal distractions is to jot down intruding thoughts when they occur in the middle of an important task and set them aside. Knowing that you’ve captured an idea for consideration at a later time can free your mind to work on the task at hand. Accomplishing what you set out to do instead of spinning your wheels will go a long way toward reducing your stress.

Finally, put a picture of your family or other reminder of your life outside work on your desk so that you remember to get things accomplished efficiently in order to have time for them. To be fresh and inspirational as a manager requires that you spend some time in a pursuit that revitalizes your psychic energy. Time is a precious, nonrenewable resource. Use it wisely and guard it appropriately.

Technology Toolkit

Technology has made it possible to streamline the task of maintaining your “to-do” list with electronic systems for tracking appointments. One is probably included with your computer’s software programs, and you can find several online by entering “digital calendar” into a search engine. You may have to create an account to use the feature, but there is no charge. Regularly recurring appointments or due dates for reports are filled in with a click of the mouse, you can view appointments and reminders for the day, week, or month, and you can select your desired time frame for receiving reminders via email or pop-up announcements. Exporting your appointment calendar to a mobile phone or personal digital assistant (PDA, also called a hand-held computer) will allow you to keep track of your appointments and task list from any location.

Conclusion

This chapter described the role of reflection in your personal and professional development as an early childhood administrator. Active and proactive reflection are the means by which managers learn from experience. Self-reflective knowledge, an awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses, is essential when managing groups of people. Management style reflects both your basic beliefs about people and organizations and personal factors, such as psychological type and emotional intelligence. Management styles vary in their emphasis on accomplishing tasks vs. motivating people and in the degree to which subordinates are involved in decision making. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development and the ecosystems theory are useful for conceptualizing the professional development of early childhood managers as their awareness and influence expand beyond the classroom to society at large. See  Figure 4.3  for a self-examination of your personal and professional self-awareness. This chapter outlined the steps of the decision-making process, a central activity of management, with special attention to ethical decisions. The material focused on the core competency of personal and professional self-awareness as the foundation for all of the other competencies required for effective management. You now turn your attention outside yourself to the management of the human and nonhuman resources that comprise the child development program.

Questions for Review

1.

Define the following terms:

1. a.active reflection

1. b.proactive reflection

1. c.ethical dilemma

1. d.classical manager

1. e.participative manager

1. f.emotional intelligence

2.

List the steps in the decision-making process and give an example using all of the steps.

3.

Define and give examples of programmed and nonprogrammed decisions.

4.

Divide a sheet of paper into four sections. Label the top left section “urgent/important,” label the top right section “not urgent/important,” label the bottom left section “urgent/not important,” and label the bottom right section “not urgent/not important.” Think back over your activities during the past 24 hours and write each in the appropriate section. What conclusions can you draw about your time management effectiveness?

FIGURE 4.3 Self-examination of personal and professional self-awareness

Professional Portfolio

1. 1. Select a tool to use to assess your strengths and weaknesses as a manager or potential manager of an early childhood program. (Your instructor may give you some suggestions, or you can consult the Resources for Further Study at the end of this chapter.) After completing your self-assessment, develop a plan for capitalizing on one or more of your strengths and a plan for addressing at least one of your weaknesses. Include the specific strategies you will use and develop a timeline for completion. For example, if you have a weakness in the area of budgeting and finances, you might attend a workshop on financial management by a specific date. If relating to families is a strength for you, you might capitalize on this skill by looking for ways to involve families at a deeper level in your program. Your strategy might be to conduct a focus group seeking families’ input on the issue.

1. 2. Make a list of several time-management strategies and describe how you will use each in your role as an early childhood administrator. Examples might include creating a daily to-do list, prioritizing tasks and using your peak energy times to focus on the most important, or using a computer program (e.g., Google Calendar) to track appointments and tasks.

Resources for Further Study

PRINT

Bruno, H. E. (2008). Leading on purpose: Emotionally intelligent early childhood administration. New York: McGraw Hill.

Carter, M., & Curtis, D. (1998). The visionary director: A handbook for dreaming, organizing, and improvising your center. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.

Taking stock: Tools and strategies for evaluating programs, directors, teachers, and children CD Book. (2008).

Websites

SOCIETY FOR ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

http://www.solonline.org

Website of the Center for Organizational Learning, founded at MIT in 1991 by Peter Senge with a mission of fostering collaboration among members (individuals and institutions) to create organizations worthy of the commitment of their employees and communities. Includes detailed description of “five disciplines of organizational learning” as well as links to articles and interviews with Peter Senge.

MYERS & BRIGGS FOUNDATION

http://www.myersbriggs.org

Website of the Myers & Briggs Foundation; provides extensive information about the purpose, development, and uses of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, with explicit cautions that the instrument must be administered and interpreted by a qualified professional in order to obtain valid results.

6 SECONDS

http://6seconds.org

Website of a nonprofit California corporation founded in 1997 to promote the role of emotional intelligence in schools and organizations; contains more than 175 articles as well as links to other resources regarding Emotional Intelligence.

Discovering Your Authentic Leadership (HBR Bestseller)

George, B., Sims, P., McLean, A. N., & Mayer, D. (2007, February). Discovering your authentic leadership. Harvard Business Review, 85(2), 129–138.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence

Big Think.com [Big Think]. (2012, April 23). Daniel Goleman introduces emotional intelligence [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7m9eNoB3NU

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