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EMA E856 B069500X Sibylle Newman September 9th 2015
EMA E856
‘Leadership activity’
By Sibylle Newman
Implementation of a holistic
teaching approach at an Early
Intervention Center
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EMA E856 B069500X Sibylle Newman September 9th 2015
B069500X
Part 1 Project Description
My leadership activity took place at an early intervention center (EIC); one of eight
programs implemented by a not-for-profit organization supporting children living in crisis
in Hanoi, Vietnam. The EIC offers street children aged 6 to 12 a safe place to spend the
day, a meal, games to play (BDCF, 2014) and a team of eight social workers (SW) to
talk to and who teach them ‘life skills’.
Prior to this activity I had conducted an assessment of the same EIC, working as an
external education consultant, and working in parallel to an external specialist in
development who was conducting an assessment of the whole organization. These
assessments created an impetus for change, with a desire to enhance the effectiveness
of the programs. To help implement this change, I was requested to develop a more
holistic teaching approach (HTA) for the EIC team and to help improve its effectiveness.
During the activity I mainly collaborated with the EIC Coordinator. Meanwhile, a new
Head of Programs was hired to develop a strategic plan for all programs, including the
EIC. I worked as part of a leadership team consisting of two new members (myself and
another western woman) and two Vietnamese women who had been working in the
organization for many years.
My terms of reference, agreed with the CEO prior to the appointment of a Head of
Programs, was to develop a ‘holistic teaching approach’ (HTA) manual appropriate to
the needs of the EIC, and to build capacity within the EIC team, which was composed of
six social workers, enabling them to apply the HTA and, as a result, increase the
effectiveness of the program.
An HTA was chosen based on its compatibility with the organizational culture and its
strong values and high ethics which prioritize the wellbeing of children (The OU b).
My organizational objective and success criteria (SC) were:
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EMA E856 B069500X Sibylle Newman September 9th 2015
1. To have a written manual about HTA to support teaching ‘life skills’
SC #1 The HTA manual is completed for the EIC team capacity training in
March
SC #2 The manual is used as a teaching reference after the training
2. The EIC team uses the HTA in their practice
SC #3 The EIC team applies the HTA in every aspect of their daily
activities at the EIC center in April
My personal objectives and success criteria (SC) were:
1. To improve my motivational skills
SC #1 The EIC team participates actively in the discussion during
training
SC #2 Positive feedback from the EIC team is provided about my
motivational skills
2. To lessen my Westerner or dominant communication style with the Vietnamese
staff
SC #4 The EIC team talks and discusses the HTA directly with me
during and after the training
SC #5 Feedback about my communication skills are provided during and
after the training
The methods of collection:
1. The written manual (Appendix A )
Proof it is ready
2. Training notes (Appendix B)
To evaluate the SW’ interactions with me
3. Observation notes (Appendix B)
To evaluate the degree of implementation of the HTA in practice.
To evaluate if the SW interact personally with me
To evaluate to what degree the manual is being used
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EMA E856 B069500X Sibylle Newman September 9th 2015
4. The questionnaire (Appendix C)
To collect comments about my motivational and my communication
skills.
Changes
1. I removed one organizational success criteria because my tutor pointed out
that it was a process not a measure: ‘the staff is learning how to adjust their
daily activity’.
2. I removed the word ‘revising’ from the organizational objective #2 because no
previous written document existed so it was not possible to revise anything.
3. I removed the SC about the EIC team applying the HTA immediately after the
training as a measure of my motivational skill. I had assumed that application
of the HTA demonstrated motivation, but since the material was ‘ready to use’
this was not the case.
4. I combined two SC which measured my communication skills into one which
looks at feedback given during and after the training together.
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Part 2 Project Evaluation
The purpose of my leadership activity was to develop a holistic teaching approach
(HTA) manual which caters to the needs of the early intervention center (EIC), and to
build capacity within the EIC team in order to enhance the effectiveness of their
teaching (Hickman, 2012).
My overall evaluation
I feel that my leadership activity did help improve the quality of practice at the EIC and
this is supported by my post training evaluation. The training improved the EIC teaching
approach which in turn enhanced the children’s achievements (The OU a).
Additionally, my leadership style was effective in motivating the EIC team and the
management team, and created social capital (Spillane et al., 2012) among the two
teams.
Finally, I gained confidence in my ability to work with a team from a different culture and
I developed a greater understanding of how my role is affected by contextual factors
(Wallace and Tomlinson, 2012).
Evaluation of objectives
Organizational Objective 1
To create a manual about ‘holistic teaching approach’ (HTA) to support the teaching of
‘life skills’
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There were some limitations in the EIC’s ability to use the manual; however it added
value to the EIC program and the organization because it helped to support the EIC
team at the training sessions.
Organizational Success Criterion 1
The HTA manual is completed for the EIC team capacity training in March
i. I met the criterion by creating the training manual on time and this enhanced my
confidence as a leader who is able to meet deadlines.
Evidence: Appendix A with the first page of the manual
ii. The manual added value to the program as it was their first written document
containing teaching on ‘life skills’.
Evidence: See appendix B, final comment from a SW about the training
“…INSTRUMENTS TEACHING PREPARED WELL LIKE MANUAL AND USEFUL….”
iii. A hard copy of the manual was given to each SW at the training which gave them
a sense of power and control. The SW were very happy to write their own
comments in it, and to take the manual home was a big deal, which was
unexpected.
Evidence: Appendix C, notes from the training
SW3: “I CAN WRITE NOTES IN IT WHICH HELPS ME SO MUCH TO MAKE THE INFORMATION
RELEVANT TO ME BECAUSE THE TEACHING IS DIFFICULT AND I CAN TAKE IT HOME AND IT IS
THE FIRST TIME I HAVE TEACHING MATERIAL TO BE MINE.’
iv. However, the effectiveness of the manual was limited because too many new
concepts were included. I did not anticipate the amount of material I had to
include.
Evidence: Appendix C, notes from the meetings with the program manager
PM: “WE DO NOT HAVE ANY DOCUMENTS OR RECORDS FROM THE PREVIOUS MONTHS, WE MAY HAVE
SOME INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT THE LAST FEW LESSONS WERE ABOUT”
As a result, to implement a new teaching approach certain basic information about
planning a lesson and developing a curriculum was required, in addition to the HTA.
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Organizational Success Criterion 2
The manual is used as a teaching reference after the training
i. Use of the manual was only a partial success. With hindsight, given the quantity
of new information in the manual, it was unreasonable to expect the social
workers to be able to use it fully. However its partial use is still contributing the
improvement of the EIC.
Evidence: In appendix C, the notes from the observations, it is seen that the
teaching approach has improved and the SW are more aware of their practice.
On the other hand, many comments in appendix B are concerned with the use of
the theories and the template which makes me uncertain of the level of success
in using the manual.
ii. The manual was written in English and I am still waiting for an offer to do a
Vietnamese translation. The language issue is limiting the effectiveness of the
manual.
Evidence: In appendix B the comments from the program manager demonstrate
the limited level of English amongst the SW. Furthermore, she has the highest
level of English in the group. At the first meeting, I asked the EIC team to what
degree they understood me. See the appendix C for notes from the meeting.
The SW were better able to follow my instructions during the training due to the
interpreter clarifying the content of the manual in Vietnamese.
The translation of all the training information enhanced the human capital of the EIC
team as they learn new skills. However, the lack of prior knowledge about curriculum,
lesson planning and child development impacted the degree to which the SW were able
to understand the content of the manual.
Organizational Objective 2
The EIC team uses the HTA in their practice
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EMA E856 B069500X Sibylle Newman September 9th 2015
Organizational Success Criterion 3
The EIC team implements the HTA in every aspect of their daily activities at the EIC in
April.
i. The EIC team was able to implement 2/3 of the HTA learned at the training
Evidence: Post training observations see appendix C
ii. What the SW were able to implement was well done and effective, however the
concept of child participation is not implemented at all.
Evidence: See notes from observations
The partial implementation is effective as some data is systematically collected (Ryan
and Feller, 2012). However, the EIC team is not able to develop new ‘life skills’ and
apply the HTA.
No allowance for further training has been granted by the upper management. The lack
of leadership among the EIC team also impacts the effectiveness of the HTA
implementation.
My personal objectives
Personal Objective 1
To improve my motivational skills
Personal Success Criterion 1
The EIC team participates actively in the discussion during training.
i. The SW made comments during the training that enhanced the quality of
discussion and helped illustrate the content of the training
Evidence: Appendix C, notes from training
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ii. The role playing was the most successful aspect of the training as SW did
participate while giggling and laughing.
Evidence: Appendix C. My notes from the training mention the following:
“I AM SO HAPPY THE ROLE PLAYING IS A GREAT SUCCESS AND EVERYONE IS HAVING THE TIME OF
THEIR LIFE. I FEEL AS THEY ARE ENJOYING THE ACTIVITIES WHEN THEY ARE THE ACTORS.”
iii. I divided the SW into groups which created a little competition the groups
about who would have the best scenario and who would be first to present it.
Evidence: Appendix C. My notes from training say:
“THE GROUPS ARE USING THEIR LEARNING FROM THE TRAINING TO ARGUE ABOUT WHAT MAKES THEIR
SCENARIO THE BEST ONE. THIS CREATED LOT OF SMILING AND JOKING WHILE DISCUSSING THE HTA.
ALSO, THEY ALL WANTED TO BE THE FIRST ONE OR THE NEXT ONE TO PRESENT THEIR SCENARIO.”
Personal Success Criterion 2:
Positive feedback from the EIC team is provided about my motivational skills
i. The feedback about my motivational skills from the questionnaire given to the
SW was very positive and enthusiastic.
Evidence: See appendix B, the questionnaire
ii. The SW asked for more training to take place.
Evidence: Appendix A, comments from training
Personal Objective 2
To lessen my dominant or ‘Westerner’ communication style with the Vietnamese staff
Personal Success Criterion 3
The SW talk and discuss the new teaching approach directly with me during and after
the training
This objective I believe was partially successful.
i. I was not able to talk to every SW due to time limitations after the training.
Evidence: Appendix C, training notes
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ii. The communication between me and the SW seemed easy and relaxed
during the training.
Evidence: Appendix C, training notes
iii. The SW asked many questions about the HTA during my post training
observations.
Evidence: See notes from observations
I believe that the limited number (two) of social workers I talked to only gives a partial
measurement of my success criteria.
Personal Success Criterion 4:
The EIC team shares comments about my communication skills after the training
i. All feedback about my communication skills was positive and constructive.
Evidence: Appendix B, in the last question the comment was:
“THE TRAINER SPOKE CLEARLY, EASY TO UNDERSTAND”
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Part 3 Critical analysis
Context
The first contextual factor that I believe had a critical impact on my leadership activity
was the relationship and consequent trust (The OU b) built up between the CEO and
myself during our previous collaborations and maintained throughout this activity (The
OU d). The trust the CEO had in me was based on my educational expertise which
Bottery (2003) calls a ‘role trust’ (p. 246). This trust enabled me to have full autonomy
(The OU c) over the content of the written manual and made it possible to create it on
time for the training, which was a success criterion for one of my organizational
objectives.
Furthermore, another benefit of our previous collaboration was my knowledge of the
organization’s values and beliefs (The OU b), and of its structure. As a result, the
content of the manual was aligned with the organizational culture. Since this mirrored
my approach it was easy to incorporate it into the HTA manual and training and it further
enhanced the pedagogical approach of the EIC (Mayrowetz, 2008, p. 426).
Finally, the previous collaborations (The OU c) developed social capital, or as Bottery
(2003) explains, a form of ‘social glue’ (p. 246). The term social capital refers to the
positive actions of members of a group, or in this case collaborators, which in turn
enhance practice (Spillane at al. 2012, p. 136). Also, my awareness of the
organization’s values and culture was under consideration when I developed the HTA
manual, one of my organizational objectives. As a result, the content of the manual was
aligned with the organizational cultures and values (The O U b) of the EIC.
While I was concentrating on my personal objective to improve my communication skills
and not take a dominant role towards the Vietnamese staff, I missed the fact that our
professional backgrounds had some stark differences. As Close and Wainwright (2010,
p. 445) emphasize, the norms and expectations which come from our different
experiences can create misunderstandings. I expected the EIC team to have guidelines,
a curriculum and some systematic data collected from the previous teaching, but this
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was not in the standard procedure or culture of the organization (The OU c). As a result,
I adapted the content of the training to build basic knowledge and create human capital
amongst the EIC team. Rather than building my curriculum upon their previous
knowledge I had to create the basic knowledge from scratch. This later affected my
organizational objective regarding the implementation of the HTA.
An external factor made the timing of the leadership activity challenging. ‘TET holiday’
as the Vietnamese call it, better known as ‘Chinese New Year’, made the realization of
the manual uncertain and threatened to delay the first training (The OU b). The social
pressure of the holiday among local Vietnamese people was a surprise and I had to put
into place a ‘forming’ process as Tuckman and Jensen (1977) call. This required me to
use higher tolerance and patience than I normally convey in order to act in a culturally
sensitive way (Dimmock and Walker, 2000).
The celebration lasted a month during which doing business was unwelcome. This
affected my actions, especially my leadership style. I had to stop the action, be patient
and collaborate in due time which for me, being a ‘shaper’ type of leader (Belbin, 2000)
was difficult. However, the outcome of the training was a big success and promoted
creativity among the participants (see appendix A).
To achieve my personal objective to improve my communication skills and not take a
dominant role with the Vietnamese staff, I paid close attention to the cultural differences.
I discovered that I was probably more culturally sensitive than I had anticipated as no
issues related to cultural inappropriateness which impacted my leadership were
observed.
Where the communication was less effective, it was considered that our professional
backgrounds were affecting the cultural conversation (The OU e). As Close and
Wainwright (2010) emphasize, the norms and expectations coming from our different
expertise were not aligned. As previously described, I had expected the EIC team to
have guidelines and/or a curriculum and that data would have been systematically
collected from the previous teaching. This was not culturally appropriate within the
norms of the EIC team – it wasn’t an area where they had any knowledge or
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experience. So the additional material required in the training and manual affected my
organizational objective for the EIC team to implement the HTA.
As a result, I adapted the content of the training to be able to expand the human capital
(The OU d) on curriculum development prior to focusing on my organizational objective
to have the EIC team apply a new teaching approach.
A key external factor which impacted all of my personal and organizational objectives
was the societal expectations of how teaching should be approached. In Vietnam, the
traditional teaching approach where the teacher talks to children without having children
participate (Salomon, 2000, p. 352) is still prevalent at all levels of the educational
system and the EIC team expected me to apply it. Their expectations reflected normal
societal culture and impacted their ability to use the manual, to implement the HTA and
probably affected their motivation in the long term.
So, giving the SW their own manual and telling them to illustrate it further with their own
comments and their own scenarios created a sense of social capital among the group
(The OU c). The SW were actively looking for the best scenarios to illustrate their
manual and as a result using critical thinking.
As it was the first time the SW were given their own manual, it gave them a sense of
empowerment and autonomy (The OU f). In the organizational structure they are used
to, only the coordinator of the team is given a copy, not all team members, so without
that hierarchical approach the SW were given a sense of social capital (Spillane et al.
2012, p.70).
Leadership
As I was given full autonomy over the content of the manual and the structure of the
training I decided to follow the model of leadership practice given by Kouses and
Posner (2015) and took the following steps.
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First, I decided to model the way and create an inspiring vision about the HTA in
practice which I aligned with Fullan (2001)’s moral purpose to create a positive impact. I
challenged the EIC team to join the process to enable them to act (Kouses and Posner,
2015). While this process was successful during the training, its limitations came when
the EIC team was not able to apply the HTA on their own.
This happened due to two reasons: one being the societal expectations; the other the
leadership style of the previous CEO.
While the new CEO, who came into office only two months previously, was still trying to
establish her management style, the previous CEO was a ‘messiah’ type of leader
(Western, 2012, p. 18). His style did fit well with the cultural expectations, and while he
did not earn the amount of money that Western refers to he was able to bring major
social changes among the community. As expected by Western (2012) he had some
controller attributes (p.19). His way of doing things was successful as salvation was
expected; many children rescued and assisted were in desperate situations where a
leader who could focus on the task and action was needed (The OU g).
As a result, most of the organizational staff has had to act as ‘followers’, and arriving in
this context I became to some extent a ‘therapist’ (Western, 2012, p. 18). This discourse
was actually helpful in contributing to the success of one of my organizational objectives
and both my personal objectives.
In fact, to build the EIC team capacity I had to focus on the SW’s emotional awareness
(Begley, 2012, p. 54) in order to make the learning more efficient and personal which
helped them to understand what holistic meant right away. At the end of each exercise
the EIC team were giggling and smiling at the different scenarios and most of them
were volunteering to be the next actors (Close and Wainwright, 2010) even before I was
able to call anyone out (p. 436).
On the other hand, my attempt to apply a distributive style, which I prefer, was limited
and may have been too much to handle as so much information was also being
introduced for the first time (Johnson et al. 2012).
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Reflecting on Lumby (2009)’s argument, there is the possibility that my distributed
leadership hindered the process of my activity (p.310), as the EIC team may not yet be
ready to follow that discourse (The O.U. h). The EIC team did not need a distributed
style of leadership to feel valued, there are just happy to be doing what someone tells
them to do (Moos, 2012 p. 26). My democratic attributes impacted the most on the EIC
team (Held et al., 2012). While their involvement in decision-making was limited to
telling me what new ‘life skills’ they wanted to learn more about, the EIC team and I
shared the same moral and ethical perspective on the purpose of our contribution to the
organization (Begley, 2012, p.38).
Teamwork
The greatest impact of my leadership activity on EIC’s teamwork was my ability to
motivate and build their capacity, enabling them to implement the new HTA which
enhanced their practice and promoted greater achievement from the EIC children.
The tool I used to achieve my personal objective and motivate the EIC team had the
unexpected outcome of developing a feeling of community amongst the EIC team. Prior
to my leadership activity, the EIC team was used to working individually without team
discussion or collaboration, even though they were all working towards the same goals
(Held et al., 2012p. 12). The change happened during the training, when each SW was
asked to develop a different approach and to reflect on the impact and value of their
personal style The OU a). This helped them realize that the ‘one size fits all’ approach
was not always appropriate (Muijs et al., 2010, p. 7), and that applying different
approaches enhanced communication amongst the team and improved its performance
and made the work more interesting (Ryan and Feller, 2012, p. 75).
Furthermore, the EIC gained confidence in their own personal ways of thinking, and
realized that thinking creatively (Dimmock et al., 2010) was a positive thing when
applying the HTA (appendix C). As a result, the team started to explore a more
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collective leadership style (Lumby, 2009) by sharing their own ideas about lesson plan
activities and matching the relevance of these ideas with the HTA (p.315).
This enabled the forming stage that Tuckman and Jensen (1977) believe is necessary
for the team to exchange some personal perspective. It happened naturally as the EIC
team already had a strong moral commitment towards the children learning ‘life skills’
(Lumby, 2009, p. 336) and the SWs realized their own personal style could align with
the organizational values.
Additionally, the different scenarios explored by each group during role playing informed
the others and created awareness that different thinking was welcome and informative
for others (Pont and Hopkins, 2012). At this point of the activity, which Tuckman and
Jensen (1977) call ‘norming’ the SW were motivated and felt they could handle the
responsibility to successfully apply the HTA in their practice. During my observations at
the EIC, the HTA was being implemented using the material from the training. On the
other hand, the instruction was prescriptive and lacked creativity and no child
participation was being put into action (The OU f).
The difficulty in encouraging a more genuine participation of the EIC team was hindered
by two major issues:
At the performing phase of the activity, when the EIC team had to transfer their
motivation into action and create new and personalized lesson plans, including the HTA,
they lacked competency and asked for a more prescriptive solution and to develop extra
training where I would tell them what to do more precisely (The OU f).
I realized that the capacity of the EIC team was limited due to “the collective
programming of the mind” that Hofstede (cited in Dimmock and Walker, 2000, p. 308)
talked about. As Dimmock and Walker (2000) further explained, some cultures,
particularly in some Asian societies such as Vietnam, prioritize and prefer a ‘generative
approached’ of teaching, and replicate ideas coming from somewhere else (p. 333). So,
although the team was motivated and the SWs were excited to discover their own
creative leadership styles, their instinct was to go back to adapting my ideas rather than
creating and implementing their own.
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Additionally, the cultural differences in managing these expectations created some
disappointment for the upper management, who thought that more autonomy (The OU
b) would be welcome amongst the EIC team.
As a result, I felt like I was failing them and the upper management felt their actions
were culturally inappropriate and that their capacity was low. Also, I don’t know how this
affected the EIC team but they may have thought that I was letting them down as I gave
no further guidance!
The real issue affecting the provision of further training to promote: further use of the
HTA manual further; the implementation of the HTA in practice (2 organizational
objectives); and keep the IEC team motivated (personal objective) is the shifting context
(The OU c) in the upper management team. The CEO was appointed two months prior
to my activity beginning and the Head of Programs a month later, creating uncertainty
about strategic planning and timing (The OU d).
The process of change for the EIC team has been limited but rapid, which Balogun and
Haley (2008) define as ‘reconstruction’ (The OU g). While for the top management
team, who see an ‘adaptation’ taking place gradually with a little implementation at a
time (The OU g), change is happening slowly. The upper management is concerned
about: conserving the monoculture of the organization to avoid subcultures developing;
avoiding ambiguity about the organizational values; and developing a sustainable
organizational vision (The OU h)
For the EIC team the goals for the change are simple and straight forward, as Hinde
(2002) argues (p.5). They are small in scale and rational: HTA training takes place; their
teaching methods become more effective; the children learn better ‘life skills’. However
for the upper management the changes are more complex. For Petterson et al. (O.U.f)
this is not a conflict, as both teams want to achieve higher learning for the children, and
it is normal for organizations to have multiples realities, held by subgroups inside the
organization which to some extent are competing with one another (The OU f).
In this case, the EIC team wants more training right away while the management team
wants to wait and come up with a strategic plan instead. In this organization the shared
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goal is the same, which is the opposite of what Petterson et al. (The O.U f) believe
(which is that different realities cannot have the same agreed upon goal). Fullan (2001)
also believes that change is a process where multiple realities are employed and
clarification between the two teams is needed for them to exchange their realities, which
in this organization will not happen as the EIC team will be taught what to do rather than
being fully consulted.
Organizational effectiveness
The first positive impact of my leadership activity on the organization’s effectiveness,
and more specifically in the early intervention center (EIC), was the result of the
network, the CEO of the organization and I had developed (The OU b). This network
was based on my educational expertise, a resource () the organization was interested to
acquire in order to improve the effectiveness of the EIC program (The OU f). In fact, the
EIC was able to improve their capacity through training, and they started systematically
recording information the upper management team wanted to use for strategic planning
(The OU d).
As a result, these trainings improved the social capital of the EIC and the upper
management team, because now that more specific and detailed information could be
shared, the accountability of the EIC team increased (. The training material instructed
the EIC team on how to develop lesson plans which could help the upper management
to assess where more intervention was needed. As a result, this new consistency
enabled the two teams to share information more effectively, even if both teams had
interest in different levels of strategic development. Finally, the content of the manual, in
the long term, enables the organization to record data systematically. Until the training,
the planning in what would be taught was always last minute and was only recorded
sporadically. Now with the templates made available to everyone, the structure of the
organization can be enhanced.
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Another effective tool created as a result of my activity, was the manual written for the
EIC team training. The manual was the first written document that encompassed ‘life
skills’, holistic teaching approach, and the needs of children in the EIC program while
also aligning with the organizational beliefs and values (The OU. 2.5). One hard copy of
the manual was distributed to all members of the EIC team and from the comments
shared with me, it gave them a sense of accountability (The O U) and power which is
unusual for them to have at their level in the hierarchy, because usually distribution of
materials is only done at the upper level of the hierarchy.
Another aspect of my leadership activity that impacted organizational effectiveness was
my ability to motivate the EIC team to become the community leaders they thought they
should be. By reflecting on what certain concepts meant, SWs realized that using their
own teaching styles and ideas was more effective than applying the same model for
every lesson. This gave them an autonomy they are not used to having, and the ideas
for lesson planning that were developed at the training were diverse. For the first time,
they realized that they did not have to say what someone else was telling to say
(Mcbeath, 2012 OU) but that their own ideas could be better.
However, this democratic style of teaching conflicts with the Vietnamese societal culture
where education is still an autocracy (Begley). Here, in Vietnam the leaders or teachers
are expected to make the students learn by heart entire concepts by endless repetition
while the teachers conduct a monologue (Salomon and VU, 2007, p. 347).
While a lot of pressure was put on the training to enhance educational effectiveness, I
explored the SW’s emotional intelligence (EI) to improve their capacity to understand
the holistic approach (Held and Mckimm, OU, 2012) which focused some of its learning
on self-awareness and empathy (Goleman, p. 53). The self awareness was concerned
with performances, role playing, which would affect the SW’s emotions and improve
participation by making the learning personal, and explained how our empathy can
shape our interpretations and also our learning. This exercise reinforced the HTA and
the organizational values. While the comments after the training (see appendix) were
positive, in the observations I conducted afterward, this was the least applied concept I
was able to observe. On one hand, this could be considered the least effective aspect of
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my personal objectives, but on the other, I believe that this new knowledge opened the
EIC mind (The O U, 2014) and that, over time, this new concept will become effective.
Conclusion
Finally, the new concepts the EIC team explored created an urgency and a willingness
to further their knowledge about the new HTA. While the EIC team have not developed
a guiding coalition yet, it does not mean one will not be developed, and if extra training
takes place it will be the priority. This is because a vision of what the EIC’s teaching
could be has been established. Implementing that vision has just been delayed by the
lack of training. While many obstacles remain, the EIC staff felt empowered by the
training and the way I communicated with them and encouraged them to participate
(see appendix). So, according to Kotter (2014), although too many elements were
missing for real change to be instituted, I know that within the organization people have
the motivation and desire to reach their goals, and I am confident that this leadership
activity has had an impact on the EIC team as well as the organization.
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EMA E856 B069500X Sibylle Newman September 9th 2015
Part 4
Reflecting on the leadership
activity
When I started my leadership activity and learned for the first time about the different
types of leadership theories, I enjoyed pointing out which ones I thought suited me and
which ones I preferred in theory (Western, 2012, p.18). Today, after reflecting upon my
leadership activity, I realized that my leadership style is not steady, but it varies and
changes depending on the contextual factors (The OU a) and consequently can alter
my role (The OU b). When I was at meetings with the upper management team I was
more of a follower; meanwhile when I was conducting the EIC training the social
workers were the followers. Furthermore, this new awareness helped me to recognize
that I had the tendency to disregard group dynamics (The OU e). I am now aware that I
must take into consideration the different dynamics that already exist between people to
examine what leadership approach might work best. For that reason, Belbin’s (2014)
‘team roles’ theory has been a useful tool for me to reflect on my role within a group.
Belbin’s framework (2014) explained the strengths and weaknesses of the different
types of leadership roles and this analysis helped me to identify the role I should take
when working with the EIC and the upper management team. As a result, I believe I
have become a better leader. However, my capacity to effectively use Belbin’s
framework is limited since my ability to read and assess people quickly is weak (Verlage
et al., 2012). On a positive note, the theory has helped me identify this weakness and I
will use the knowledge to build my capacity in future settings and new collaborations.
The forum activities
I enjoyed the diversity of the forum postings and I found the range of contexts where
module material was being applied very interesting and useful. These diverse contexts
stretched my thinking and expanded my learning, particularly when commenting on
other students’ postings as I had to think about what would be a useful insight for the
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other students. I found it difficult to assess whether these comments were useful to the
other students.
On the other hand, the comments received about my activity were limited and I did not
find them to be particularly helpful. They were all related to cultural differences related
to standards and expectations (The OU b). My perspective, living and working in an
international setting with people from many cultures, is attuned to cultural difference.
Therefore, a comment such as the one from Ian: “maybe the standards are culturally
different” (Alexander, 2014) was not particularly helpful. However, I believe that
comment could have been useful in a local setting where it was not such a prominent
issue.
Since reflection on cultural difference was one of my personal objectives I feel I would
have benefitted from more insightful forum conversation on this topic. My cultural
concerns were related to my communication skills with the Vietnamese staff, but I
quickly realized that my leadership approach was indeed culturally sensitive. The
communication issues that I observed were related to the lack of clarification rather than
cultural approach (Dimmock, 2000, p.200).
On the other hand, the diversity of backgrounds amongst the students participating in
the forum made me realize that I had enjoyed working as a foreigner in the EIC setting,
and it reinforced my willingness to work outside of academic settings in the future. I
really enjoy the challenges that working in a different culture brings and my setting will
change every five years or so when I move to a new country. The exciting part for me is
having to re-evaluate all of my references, principles, expectations and subject
knowledge each time I move.
One comment that I really valued was from Adenola Onasanya who reinforced how
lucky I was to work for an organization which values and prioritizes the well being of
each individual child rather than the entire organization’s achievements. Some other
organizations focus on how many children they have helped rather than the quality of
services. Adenola is right, I was lucky to be working in an organisation with such ethics
and moral purpose.
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Other aspects of your work on
E856
Overall, the course was extremely instructive and well suited to me since I didn’t have a
lot of previous knowledge on the subject. However, there was one theorist, Fullan, who
seemed most relevant to me and I feel I will frequently use this theorist as a reference in
the future. Fullan’s processes helped me reflect upon my own assumptions and I
believe they helped me to become a better leader as I now understand that clarifying
what everybody in the team thinks is important. When I ensured that clarifications were
part of each process and stage of my activities, the next step was always easier to
achieve. Once the EIC team had clarified that no record of previous teaching was been
kept, I had a clearer understanding of what the content of the manual and the training
should be.
Also, Fullan’s point about disagreement and pressure being helpful and necessary
helped me to convey to the team that the holistic teaching approach was indeed
culturally sensitive to social expectations and to their organizational values. I had to
explain that the HTA would only be useful and relevant if the EIC team raised their
expectations, and that the delivery of this new approach would improve their practice.
While I was working on my communication skills, I was trying not to be too dominant,
but at some point there was a chance that not putting enough pressure on the program
manager could jeopardise the effectiveness of the teaching at the EIC.
Finally, I made additional use of Fullan’s theories when external factors such as the TET
holiday or the internal shift of upper managers reduced the opportunity to conduct more
capacity building. My first instinct as a ‘shaper’ type of leader was to feel like my activity
was a failure, however I now understand that more time is needed to make the change
effective and that it was not realistic to expect sustainable implementation in the short
period of time I had dedicated to my leadership activity.
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My influence on other colleagues
To develop a sense of trust (Wallace) at the beginning of the training, and make the
holistic aspect of the new teaching approach more relevant, I confided personal aspects
of my upbringing with the team. To their surprise, I was not sharing a fairy tale, but a
story some could relate to. Emotional intelligence was an effective tool in creating a
more relaxed and personal setting than the team was used to, and it made them feel
more comfortable with me, their teacher. This eased the autocratic atmosphere that is
typical in Vietnamese teaching settings, where teachers are considered to have a high
and unquestionable status.
During the follow on role playing activity, the scenarios being acted were more personal
and included a personal touch. It felt as though the SWs were using their emotions to
help them to form relationships and the lessons were more real and effective for the
children. I reinforced the importance of how a more emotional or personal approach can
help them reach out to the children at the center who come from extreme life situations
which can be difficult to cope with.
However, during my post-training observations this emotional approach was not being
implemented. It is difficult concept to fully implement, which the EIC team understands.
It will require more group practice before they will be able to let their emotions show in
their teaching. On the other hand, the relationship between me and the EIC team was
much more personal during the observations than I had anticipated.
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