ICLD 2.9 Reflective Leadership: Discussion Board

4 Comments

• I thought the analogy of team roles was an interesting way to define things. I’m not even a sports person, but it really brought to life the different roles within a team. Everyone knows the coaches job: provide influence, direction, and mentorship. The score keeper I felt was important. The instructor talked about yearly reviews and I’ve always been a proponent to giving consistent feedback regularly rather than once or twice a year. It does little to tell someone, “hey for the last year you’ve done X and it doesn’t meet standards”. Well, if it’s important enough to mention then, it should have been important enough to address far sooner. I think at minimum monthly check-ins with someone from the leadership team is essential to building the team to be the best it can be and having no surprises about issues/concerns along the way. It will help build trust and respect and fosters an improvement mentality rather than a discipline based one. The waterboy was also a great addition to the analogy because being a servant leader is important to keeping a motivated team that’s committed to you as a leader and your vision.

  Obviously all of these roles apply to leaders. Leaders should be living out each one of these roles to have a successful team. But I think the one thing that wasn’t mentioned was the team captain. This is a vital role in every organization. It’s a role with no supervisory authority, but has such value. They are like a mini everything. They do pieces of all the roles, they keep people on track, the encourage, they motivate, they clarify rules, they meet needs of their team mates, and they still are a main player in the game. They’re the assistant coach so to speak and help leaders make their vision come to life.

• A reflective leader has to take a step back and view themselves as one too. What can I do to better my team and myself? How can help make others stronger and work on our weakness together to become one strong unit.

• To become a reflective leader an individual has to understand their organization, become self-aware as well as know their members. A reflective leader understand the policies of the agency and has the ability to make changes to meet the goals as well as think outside of the box and stand up for changes that need to be made to better the unit or agency. They also have the ability to understand their strengths and weakness and recognize when they need to make changes. This individual is strong enough to admit when they are wrong or if someone else has a better idea then they do. A reflective leader is in tune with each of their members. They know what makes them operate, their strengths and weaknesses. This member spends more time and effort on building relationships instead of the bottom line. A reflective leader has to function in all four areas; emotional intelligence, vision of the organization, organization and team building roles, or they won’t be a reflective leader (Nash, 2017).
  Reference
  Nash, R. (2017). Reflective leadership. 2.8, Week # 8. National Command and Staff College. Retrieved from https://cloud.scorm.com/content/courses/
  NAGVXPB5E6/ReflectiveLeadership8fcb9cb8-2f4b-484d-873e-77a7415b6ac8/3/index_lms.html

  • I think knowing your personnel is super important to being a good leader. You have to be able to reflect on peoples strengths and weaknesses, develop their skills to be the best they can do, and motivate them to be the best for the greater good.

    But, reflective leaders have to look at themselves before they can look at others though. They need to make sure they’re leading by example and have the proper emotional intelligence to be an effective leader. They also need to develop a clear picture of their faults, character, and behavior and improve as much as possible.