Empowerment

Empowerment is an interesting concept in leadership because it basically states that in order to be a good leader, one has to train other people to be a good leader.  This logic seems a little contradictory, and it can be, as history has shown many powerful people who raised followers that eventually became more powerful than themselves.  As with anything else, balance is the key-a good balance between leading and empowering provides the ultimate state of leadership.

One of the central tenets of empowerment is trust.  According to what we learned in class, trust is a cycle-empowering followers with trust increases trust in management, and so on.  I can see how this is a reasonable argument, especially in my own life experiences.  As someone who has volunteered in many different situations, my favorite is the summer music camp in my hometown where I have worked every summer for the past five years.  It is here where I have by far the most responsibility, since I not only help the director run the camp with logistical tasks but actually mentor and teach the students as well.  With all these comes a lot of trust, as the director has enough faith in me to entrust so much responsibility to me.  By being so important I not only feel better as a person, but I am able to do more of what I want to, such as actually working with and teaching campers, because I am trusted to do so.

However, as previously stated, balance is very important because I feel that too much empowerment can end very badly.  I had to work recently on a research paper with a partner, which personally I hate because it is so much more efficient for one person to put together an essay, even if it is more work-two people rarely can just throw together two chunks of work and call it a successful essay.  However, in this case I had to work with a partner, and we did just that-we split up the essay into chunks for piecing together and editing at a later date.  Unfortunately, during editing I discovered that my partner's contribution was nowhere near adequate, as it contained significantly less information, it was not written as well structurally, and some of it was flat out wrong.  As a result I wrote most of the paper because much of my partner's work had to be rewritten.  In this case, trusting my partner to write freely did not end well.

Trust is essential in developing good leadership because it is so cyclical.  However, it still requires a balance for it to work efficiently; as my life experiences show, empowerment can work two ways, with very different results.

Ethics

This week in class we discussed ethics, a term just as ambiguous and difficult to define as leadership itself.  Like "leadership", the problem with "ethics" is that it is a term that is largely dependent on peoples' personal views and beliefs.  However, for the purposes of the class (and this discussion) ethics will be judged by Kitchner's 5 Ethical Principles, which is a guideline of five conditions that can be used to determine the ethical validity of something.  I have never analyzed parts of my life in such a way before, but doing so is really quite interesting.

I will be honest and admit that I have written papers that fall somewhere along the range of plagiarism.  It is a fact of life-everyone does it at some point.  Yet, what seems an obviously unethical action falls somewhere more in the gray region according to Kitchner's model.  It is obvious that plagiarizing fails faithfulness and justice-it defeats the purpose of building trust between the student and teacher, and arguably most important it is not fair to other students.  However, it does not really fail the other tests either.  For example, while plagiarizing does not benefit the group, it certainly does no harm either.  It also does not restrict choice-students can choose to do the right thing or not, and teachers have the option of designing assignments to make them harder to plagiarize.

On the other hand, what might seem like an ethical decision may actually not be.  Recently there was a debate in my hometown concerning the last remaining mobile home park in town.  Due to skyrocketing real estate prices and wealth my hometown has created a general plan envisioning a near-utopian city which included replacing the mobile home park with (another) upscale shopping center, effectively erasing the last available option for low-income residents.  I was active in trying to save the mobile home park, which to me was very obviously the right thing to do.  Yet, according to Kitchner that was a debatable action, since the mobile home park is an obstacle to the development of the city into a nice place for everyone, and it removed freedom of choice since the landowner would not be allowed to sell the mobile home park at all and the city would not be able to move forward with its plans.

Upon analyzing some of my past actions it is interesting to see that what is assumed to be ethical is not always, and vice versa.  It is not always possible to fit all five of Kitchner's principles definitively, and as a result many things actually fall into a "gray area" in which ethics can be hotly debated.  I suppose that that is one downfall of Kitchner's model, considering that no model is perfect.

Social Justice

This past week the class discussed a concept known as "white privilege", a socially-taboo subject infamous for stirring uneasy feelings and uncomfortable glances.  Much of the discussion was focused on why it is bad, how it can be fixed, what people can do about it, etc.  However, one of the things that came up in class was that "it isn't bad, it just is", an idea that I agree with wholeheartedly.

White privilege is the idea that because Caucasians live in a society where they are the dominant race, they have societal advantages because society is designed to benefit them and the expense of other races.  This is present in many situations, such as unequal pay scales in the job market, over-representation in politics, and more relatable educations, among other things.  Indeed, this is present everywhere, including my own parents who have had difficulty with job interviews.  As horrible as it may sound, I do not think this is a particularly pressing issue that needs to be dealt with.  For starters, as discussed in class, this system is not the product of a group of white people plotting against every other race-it is simply the society that developed from certain influences, and it just happens to be the society in which we live right now.  More importantly, I think the system is a logical and inevitable part of life that, even if we tried, cannot be changed.  The way that certain societies develop can be attributed to a variety of factors, including the race of people who founded that society, and it makes logical sense for a. the dominant race to be privileged (privilege and dominance being associated for this purpose) and b. the dominant race to develop their own society around themselves.  To me this is just common sense.  For example, in American society I am an immigrant, a minority, and of course I would be at a disadvantage if I did not know the language, societal norms, or anything else.  In China, I am part of the societal majority, where I can go places labelled in my language, eat food to my liking, and converse easily with other people that look like me.  Yet, the notion of there being "Asian privilege" or "yellow privilege" is absurd.

I think that privilege in general is relative to the society, because it makes sense that each society would be designed to benefit its respective dominant race.  It is only in the United States that the idea of racial privilege would be regarded as such a pressing issue because there are so many races competing against one another.  Personally, I can accept this as a fact of life because it is the way society is designed.

Culture

Culture is a broad term-some people might define it as a group's beliefs, others might say it is what is accepted as appropriate within a particular society, and the list goes on and on.  An intangible term like culture is, like leadership, difficult to define because it is so general.  However, for the purposes of this post, I am going to go ahead and define it exactly that way-broadly.  To me, culture can simply be stated as all of the social aspects that define a group of people, and that way the definition includes nearly everything someone could think of.  Regardless of the exact definition, culture generally includes the terms "social", "group", and "characteristics", but by extension the definition itself raises a problem with what we covered in class.

This week in class we discussed inclusivity and its relation to culture, specifically terms such as privilege and majority/minority.  One major theme we discussed was the importance of blending cultures and making everything more inclusive, but personally I actually disagree.  By accepted definition, culture is what socially defines a group of people, in various terms including art, food, social norms, etc.  But then, isn't cultural inclusivity regressive?  If culture itself is specifically what socially characterizes a group of people, then to me integrating culture could be a bad thing if it gets to the point where people lose their sense of identity.  Everyone wants their own sense of belonging, which is part of what culture provides.  However, inclusivity is all about combining elements of different cultures, peoples, etc.  What is to stop it from getting to the point where everything has been combined?  By that point, there would not be "a culture", there would only be "the culture".

This is already present in many cases, my own life being a striking example.  Being Chinese, actually born in China, and immigrating to the United States at the age of 3 means that I literally grew up in two cultures.  I think I turned out pretty well, being able to participate in both without integrating either-my house used almost only Chinese, while I led an average American life at school.  Unfortunately, I also see many Asians who have been so integrated into American culture that aside from their faces, a stranger would never know that they were a different race.  More examples-the Native Americans were notoriously (and forcibly) integrated into "white culture", which continues to this day.  Elsewhere in the world, many other western countries are widely known for large minorities that have integrated into the mainstream culture.  All of these situations have presented a common, acknowledged effect-resentment.

I am certainly not speaking out against inclusion, because the flip side to my argument means that everyone is so intolerant of everyone else that eventually we humans would probably kill each other and die off as a species.  However, I think it is important that everyone retains their own culture, because for many people with culture comes a sense of identity and belonging.  When cultures are integrated with others, inevitably many things become lost, and if left unchecked could lead to unfortunate situations.

Groups

I have never thought about what makes a group a group until recently, when we discussed the subject in class.  There is a lot more to discuss than I would have imagined, such as the variety of forces that keep a group together.  After discussing the information in class, I find that I agree wholeheartedly, as I have many experiences to draw upon which fit the group definitions presented in class perfectly.

The main concept discussed that keeps a group together is cohesion, which is the sense that everyone in the group wants to be, and stays, together.  The idea is that everyone is mutually attracted to each other and a common goal, and sticks together no matter what.  I have definitely experienced this, most memorably in my extensive (and most recent) years in marching band, where the demand to perform is incredible, competition is fierce, and tensions run high after hours of physical exertion.  I think to some people it might appear ridiculous to put so much time, effort, and physical work into something but the group mentality accounts for it.  This particular group is a great example of all of the characteristics of a group we discussed in class.  For starters, collective efficacy is very high largely because of a tremendous sense of pride in being widely recognized as a really good band.  As a result, many people are attracted to the group, and those who are in it stick very close with one another, especially when tensions run high during practice or after a bad performance.  As a member, I have experienced all of this and would characterize the band as the best, most cohesive group I have ever been in.

On the other hand, I have also seen groups that do not work effectively, which was due to a lack of cohesion in many cases.  Unfortunately, the Blue Chip leadership program is one example that comes to mind.  As in every case, an organization is just not the right group for some people, and for some of my friends Blue Chip just does not have anything to offer.  For example, there is the belief that the program does not accomplish much (and not important, by extension), and as a result for some people there is no sense of togetherness and team because they simply do not care enough.  While this is not accurate for a majority of the group, the people for whom this is true contribute to a low efficacy in this case.

I think the descriptions of a group-attraction, unity, etc-discussed in class are spot on.  From personal experience, I feel like the characteristics of a good group are really accurately presented.  The flip side is that bad groups don't fit some of the descriptions, and I find that to be true as well.  A good group really does fit the description, and a bad group does not.

Mission vs Vision

This past week we talked about one's personal mission and vision, which are apparently (much to my surprise) two completely different things.  While they do share similarities, a mission statement and a vision statement are not supposed to be the same thing.  For example, fast food giant McDonalds' mission statement is "to be our customers' favorite place and way to eat", whereas their vision is "to be the world's best quick-service restaurant experience".  Personally I find the combination of both to be redundant because I would think that they are similar to the point of being exactly that, especially in this case.

At first glance, the difference between mission and vision appears to be distinct.  According to the Mission Statement and Vision Statement papers from class, the mission represents an organization's core values, whereas the vision is where the organization expects to be in the future.  This is reasonable enough, but I think that the mission statement should actually include the vision, rendering the latter redundant.  For starters, by definition, reaching a certain milestone in the future is a mission.  I was president of my high school's Chinese Culture Club for two years, and our (unwritten) mission was to actively pursue new member recruitment while engaging existing members in enriching activities, because we wanted to expand our club to include as many people as possible.  Thus, we summed up mission and vision nicely because it shows what that club is about while looking to and planning for the future.  In addition, we envisioned a club with many members encompassing a significant portion of the school, in which everyone participated in educational and fun activities.  As a result, it became our mission to develop so that we could realize this vision.  Doesn't separating the two instead of combining them seem a little pointless when they go so well together?

Continuing with the first example, McDonalds' defined mission and vision statements could also be combined into one, more efficient sentence.  Their vision is to be the best fast food restaurant in the world; wouldn't you think that if they were the best, they would be customers' favorite?  This is self explanatory to me, and it's covered separately in their mission statement.  In fact, the only difference between the two is that their mission is also to be their customers' favorite way to eat.  I would not think that most peoples' favorite way to eat is fast food, and that is an entirely different argument.  However, without it the mission and vision could be combined into one.

I understand what the mission and vision is, and by definition they seem distinct.  However, in practice I feel like they could be combined into a more efficient sentence since I would reason that each should include the other.  The two separate statements are redundant and slightly confusing as well.

Process Theory

This week's leadership theory was process theory, which basically states that leadership is not just one person doing something for some reason.  Instead, leadership is a series of steps that involves both the leader and the followers, both of whom have important parts.  So far, with all of the definitions of leadership that we have discussed, I think this one is the best because it is the most sensible and general-it fits well with any situation.  

Instead of specifically stating one characteristic that fits leadership, process theory just describes the different components of a large system, and leadership is the entire process.  For example, one model of process theory is the relational leadership model, which states that the process is the relationship between various characteristics of leadership.  Specifically, in any leadership scenario there is a purpose, which is related to including all people involved, empowering others, and acting in an ethical way, which is related to the process as a whole.  As a result, process theory becomes a lot more broad than any other definition we have discussed in class, because it defines leadership by several related characteristics instead of one.  This is also why I think process theory is the best definition.  Since it is so general, I feel like it would fit almost any situation, whereas many other definitions only fit certain cases and can be disproved.  Technically, process theory can't be disproved because it is a relationship between characteristics and not characterized by one definitive trait.

In addition to being the most reliable definition, I think process theory is also the most practical in practice.  It seems like it should be common sense but it is logical for leadership to be a process.  I don't think leadership can be defined by one thing, like genetic traits or the specific situation.  I think any leadership situation can be described as a process that includes participation by both leader and follower.  Politics are a good example of this-ideally, politicians have a clear purpose that they involve their audience with, they have to empower their followers with good decisions (and vice versa-the people decide who they want to empower to make decisions for them), and above all, they have to act in an ethical manner.  Ideally, it is obvious that this process is good leadership, and as is all too often today, bad leadership/politicians are characterized by a lack of one or more of these steps in the process.  The process doesn't have to be characterized by big, important leadership either-just today I was working with a group to decide on several songs to sing for a project.  I, being the leader, was wise to include everyone, allow everyone to pick their own song (but speak up if I thought it was a bad idea), and continuously emphasize the goal of getting the songs set when the group got off track.  In hindsight, I think process theory would be a perfect definition of the leadership that went on in my group.

Behavioral and Situational Theories

By now, we've covered a few more leadership theories in addition to the earliest trait theory-among these are behavioral theory and situational theory.  Basically, behavioral theory is the opposite of what trait theory was-instead of leadership being innate (being born with leadership traits), leadership is now defined by a pre-determined set of behaviors that may or may not be innate but can definitely be learned like any other behavior. On the other hand, situational theory states that what is acceptably defined as leadership can change depending on the context.  For example, it may be more appropriate to define leadership by trait theory in one situation and behavior in another.  Personally, I feel like situational theory is a blend of both the trait and behavior theories that incorporates the best of both, which essentially makes each theory individually useless.  If it's possible to combine two theories into a new one because they are both right on some aspects, then logically there is no point to each individual theory since the new one simply encompasses aspects of both.

As we have discussed in class, there are both pros and cons to the trait theory and behavioral theory.  Long story short, the pros of each are possible explanations for the way leadership works, but the cons of each are that both are too rigid in their definitions.  Neither theory allows for change or extenuating circumstances.  For example, trait theory states that leadership capabilities are beyond the control of the leader-they either have them or they don't, while behavioral theory states that leadership is only defined by the behaviors that leaders exhibit, and thus anyone can be a leader by copying those behaviors.  From these opposing definitions, neither  allows any room for compromise.  However, situational theory basically states that depending on the context, many theories could be incorporated, including both trait theory and behavioral theory.  This makes more sense to me, since it makes sense logically that different circumstances might require different definitions of leadership.  For example, any leader that is not male, tall, and physically strong (such as the renowned mayor of my hometown) disproves trait theory.  Likewise, in societies where only certain "types" of people-certain gender, race, etc-are found in leadership positions, behavioral theory does not apply because simply emulating the behavior does not guarantee leadership.  Examples of this include many countries that appear regularly on the news (mostly in the Middle East/Africa), where the high prevalence of male politicians show that cultural norm and not behavior dictates who is a leader.

I think that situational theory sums up various definitions of leadership nicely in that it accommodates for a variety of possible scenarios.  It basically admits that there is not always one right definition of leadership, but instead suggests that leadership changes as the context changes.

Great Man & Trait Theories

As we have discussed in class, the trait theory of leadership is among the earliest of theories on leadership.  Thus, it makes sense that as leadership has progressed, so too have the theories behind it, and as a result many more ideas have largely taken the place of trait theory.  However, I find it interesting that trait theory seems to be making a small comeback, based on discussions in class.  To me this seems slightly counter-intuitive because it makes sense for ideas to develop along with the development of society.  Ideas are usually disproved or replaced by better ones, and generally society as a whole doesn't revert to previous ideas that have more modern replacements.  This does not mean that previous ideas can't be good though, and in this case I think that trait leadership has some merit and makes sense, although there are obvious problems too.

Scientifically, trait theory isn't very logical because there isn't any proof or testable data behind it.  While it says that people with predisposed genetic traits are more or less able to be leaders, there is no way of proving or testing that statement.  The other problem with the theory is the obvious counterexamples that essentially disprove it.  For example, according to trait theory, leaders including teachers (who have tremendous responsibility over children of various ages) should be tall, male, and physically adept, but that doesn't prevent people like my psychology professor-who is short, female, of minimal physical ability by her own account, and incidentally also one of the better teachers I currently have-from teaching successfully.  As an additional side note, it depends on the specific position, but none of the supposed leader traits are extremely important for someone to be a great teacher.

The upside of trait theory is that while it can't be applied to every situation, there are many situations in which it seems to be blatantly true.  People in leadership positions within politics or the military do actually tend to be  tall, male, and physically adept.  Even people such as the local physical trainers at the recreation center mostly fit the bill, which is understandable because in this case the traits that supposedly allow them to be good leaders are also necessary for them to act as leaders, or at least beneficial.

From these examples that are either in my world or directly related to me, it's obvious that trait theory can't be taken word for word.  I understand its resurgence in society because in certain cases it makes sense, and it's obviously seen.  However, there are many counterexamples that basically disproves trait theory as a definitive statement.  Perhaps a better statement would be to say that in certain situations or in certain environments, traits such as gender, physical size, etc can define a leader.

History of Leadership

Leadership, unsurprisingly, has changed over time, just as the rest of the world has.  Also unsurprising is that leadership seems to have changed alongside of history, corresponding directly with certain events and time eras. This makes sense, since leadership often involves people that are at the heads of society, and when a changing society forces those who run it to change, then physical leadership will probably change too.  This is present throughout history-I think a major shift in power such as the American Revolution is a particularly good example since it is usually the result of a changing society in general.  In this case, the movement within society away from absolute rule and towards representative rule resulted in an obvious change in leadership, since absolute leaders were no longer accepted in society.  Leadership now meant more fairness and equality, and leaders were forced to change their tactics.  In addition, it could also be argued that this change relates directly to the timeline of history-gradually emerging shifts in leadership since the revolution has shaped the world today, in which leadership is definitely characterized differently than it generally would have been a few centuries ago.  Thus, I think it makes sense to see the relation between leadership developing alongside of history.

There's a saying that change is always progressive and for the better; however, I don't subscribe to this theory.  In fact, I think the opposite is particularly visible as far as leadership is concerned.  Certainly, as society has progressed, so has leadership, but that doesn't necessarily mean that what we have now is good/better than before.  To me this is very evident in politics.  I think it's better to discard what society has to say about the subject and examine it with one's own eyes, but even ignoring all of the stereotypes spewed out by the mainstream media and society's current cultural disgust with politics in general, it's easy to find shortcomings.  My single greatest issue is what I view as a shift from doing into debating.  I see that over a period of a few centuries, society has developed from one in which few hold power, to one in which many hold power.  Granted this is debatable, but I think it makes sense-in the current setting of democracy and extensive civil rights, the average citizen holds more power than most wield.  There are so many more people involved with the decision-making process, so many things have to be considered, and even more people get involved along the way.  No one person (or even a small group of people, for that matter) is able to wield extensive power above anyone else, and when people occasionally try to, an immediate uproar follows (any scandal involving police, a politician, etc abusing their power is a great example).  What I see as the result is a society in which it takes forever to get things done-essentially, less doing, and more talking.  Of course, the opposite can be argued as well, and I am certainly not advocating for absolute power such as monarchies.  I only wish to point out that as society has grown and involved more of its citizens, so has leadership.  I don't think leadership is the strong, central power concept anymore, and now features many more people than was probably ever conceived maybe five hundred years ago.  What I view as the unfortunate side effect is the current state of American politics.

Definitions of Leadership

"What is your definition of leadership?"  A difficult question if I ever heard one-you might as well ask me what the meaning of life is.  I hate such seemingly rhetorical questions, because it's impossible to come up with a single correct answer.  Many have certainly tried, but as I found out in class last week, those definitions changed drastically in a matter of years.  Which one is right?  The answer-quite possibly none of them, but it's just as likely that all of them are right too.  I wouldn't be able to pick one out-who am I to judge, after all?  However, I did have to come up with my own definition of leadership, and eventually I decided that leadership is the ability to oversee, support, and be supported by a group of people working towards a common goal.  At least it was easier than picking an existing definition.


I should explain my exact meaning.  When I think of leaders (people), all of the obvious choices run through my head-Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, the Dalai Lama, etc.  What do all these people (and many more) have in common?  They all represented a group of people with common interests, hopes, and goals.  MLK lead African-Americans on the path to greater civil rights, Ronald Reagan was elected by the people of the United States to lead the country, and the Dalai Lama advocates for a group of like-minded, spirituality-based Tibetans.  All were heads of a very large group of people, guiding them towards common interests.  Thus, my definition of being a leader is people who are able to do exactly that.


However, being a leader is not quite the same thing as leadership in general.  I want to distinguish between people who actually do so and people who only have the ability-having the ability does not make one a leader.  While that trait is great and admirable, I don't think a leader is a leader unless they are recognized as such.  As bad as it sounds, I think it follows logic-without recognition, one can say he is anything he wants to be, and he'll be both right and wrong.  If you ask me, my definitions are as follows-leadership is the physical act of leading, while leaders are people who act on the act of leading.


Looking back on the first day of class, I now find that my definition is very similar to that from the 1930s-"Leadership is a process in which the activities of many are organized to move in a specific direction by one".  This definition is closest with mine in that it emphasizes the process-the act of guiding, nurturing, and leading-rather than influence or relationships, as is present in definitions from other decades.  I think this revelation is kind of interesting-maybe I'm just old fashioned?  But then again, as I've said before, I don't think there's one single correct definition.