Leadership - Working With Others
ACTIVITY:
What role do you tend to take when working in a group?
If you would like to complete and get feedback on how you work in a team using Belbin please go to: http://www.ecam.nu/belbin.htm
What do you see as your strengths and weaknesses in relation to the role/s you tend to undertake?
What areas for development can you identify?
What action could you take to develop the areas you have identified?
In your placement you may be expected to take on a leadership role, facilitating the students learning experience. It is important that you have an understanding of how you use power, influence and authority.
- Poweris the ability to influence others
- Influence is the process of getting A to do something or think something that B would not have done otherwise
- Authority is the right to use power over the behaviour of others. It is the legitimate power that goes with roles and position.
For example, the supervisor role has a position of power, resource power, expert power and personal power so all in all you are a very powerful person, who can influence greatly students' behaviour by using this authority.
You may also need to demonstrate leadership qualities. Studies of chief executives have concluded that leaders demonstrate the following factors:
- Ability to work with a wide range of people
- Early overall responsibility for important tasks
- Strong achievement goals
- Experience of leading a group
- Wide experience of several functions
What leadership qualities do you exhibit? How do you relate to others and what do you need to improve to become a better leader? The following activity (Clark 2000) will assist you to answer these questions.
ACTIVITY
Some behaviours are essential to high level human relating. The behaviours listed below are essential to relating to others. Rate yourself on these behaviours, using the following scale:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Very Moderately Adequate Moderately Very
Weak Weak Strong Strong
Note: a rating of 5 means that you would consider yourself a resource person (if only minimally so). That is, in a relationship or group, you would be a giver rather than just a receiver.
- ______ Feelings: I am not afraid to deal directly with emotion rather it is my own or others. I allow myself to feel and give expression to what I feel.
- ______ Initiative: In my relationships I act rather than react by going out and contacting others without waiting to be contacted.
- ______ Respect: I express that I am for others even if I do not necessarily approve of what they do.
- ______ Genuineness: I do not hide behind roles or facades. I let others know where I stand.
- ______ Concreteness: I am not vague when I speak to others. I do not beat around the bush in that I deal with concrete experience and behaviour.
- ______ Immediacy: I deal openly and directly with others. I know where I stand with others and they know where they stand with me.
- ______ Empathy: I see the world through the eyes of others by listening to cues, both verbal and nonverbal, and I respond to these cues.
- ______ Confrontation: I challenge others with responsibly and with care. I do not use confrontation to punish.
- ______ Self-disclosure: I let others know the person inside, but I am not exhibitionistic. I am open without being a secret-reveller or secret-searcher.
- ______ Self-exploration: I examine my life style and behaviours and want others to help me to do so. I am open to change.
Scoring
There are no correct or incorrect scores. This assessment simply shows you where you stand in your relations with others. Your goal should be to work on the lowest scorings of the 10 behaviours.
Also, have one or two others rate you so that you can get an outside view of yourself as to whether you are projecting yourself to others as you believe you are.
