leadership- lecture notes

7/27/2019 Leadership- Lecture Notes

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Early Childhood Development Leadership and Team Dynamics

Qualities of a Good Leader

1. Leaders are trustworthy2. Leaders are self aware and insightful3. Leaders love to learn, grow and expand4. Leaders have high self-worth and high self-esteem5. Leaders are excited about life6. Leaders fix problems and find solutions7. Leaders are innovative8.

Leaders refuse to gossip9. Leaders are committed to the task at hand

10.Leaders exercise self control

To exercise good leadership means:

i. To accept and clarify feelings of another without threatii. To aid the groups insight into its feelings and attitudesiii.

To recognize and interpret forces operating in a groupiv. To sense the development of tension

v. To state all sides of a controversy fairly and objectivelyvi. To recognize and articulate themes noticed in discussionvii. To summarize group discussionsviii. To coordinate the questions and steps of a group needs to consider in

order to reach a decision

ix. To encourage others to gain experience in and learn skills of leadershipx. To allow group members to have input in setting objectives

Basic Principles of Leadership


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When people decide to respect you as a leader, they observe what you do so they

can know who you really are.

People then use this observation to tell if you are an honourable and trusted

leader, or a self-serving person who misuses authority.

A good leader has an honourable character that selflessly serves his/her

organization. In your employees eyes, your leadership is everything. Your

activities affect the organizations objectives and their well-being.

A respected leader concentrates on three key areas:

1. Be - what he/she is, i.e. beliefs and values

2. Know - what he/she knows, i.e. job, tasks, human nature

3. Do - what he/she does, i.e. implement, motivate, and provide direction

What makes a person want to follow a leader? People want to be guided by people

they respect and who have a clear sense of direction. To gain respect, they must

be ethical. A sense of direction is achieved by conveying a strong vision of the

future.

The Three Most Important Keys of Leadership:

Studies have shown that trust and confidence in top leadership is the single mostreliable predictor of employee satisfaction in an organization.

Effective communication by leadership in three critical areas is the key to

winning organizational trust and confidence, and involves:


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1. Helping employees understand the companys overall business strategy.

2. Helping employees understand how they contribute to achieving key business

objectives.

3. Sharing information with employees on both how the company is doing and howan employees own division or department is doing relative to strategic business

objectives.

Basically, you must be trustworthy and you have to be able to communicate a

vision of where you are going.

The 10 Principles of Leadership

1. Know yourself and seek self-improvement. In order to know yourself, you

have to understand your be, know, and do attributes. This is possible by

continually strengthening your attributes by reading and self-study.

2. Be technically proficient. As a leader, you must know your job and have a solid

familiarity with your employees jobs.

3. Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions. Search for ways

to guide your organization to new heights. And when things go wrong, do not

blame others.

4. Make sound and timely decisions. Use good problem solving, decision-

making, and planning tools.

5. Set the example. Be a good role model for you employees. They will believe

what they see not what they hear.

6. Know your people and look out for their well-being. Know human nature and

the importance of sincerely caring for your workers.

7. Keep your people informed. Know how to communicate with your people,

seniors, and other key people within the organization.

8. Develop a sense of accountability, ownership and responsibility in your

people. These traits will help them carry out their professional responsibilities.


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9. Ensure that tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished.

Communication is the key to this responsibility.

10. Train your people as a team. By developing team spirit, you will be able to

employ your organization, department, section, etc. to its fullest capabilities.

The Process of Great Leadership

1. Inspire a shared visionNext, share you vision in words that can be

understood by your followers.

2. Challenge the processFirst, find a process that you believe needs to beimproved the most.

3. Enable others to act - Give them the tools, authority and methods to solve

problems themselves.

4. Model the wayWhen the process gets tough, get your hands dirty. A boss

tells others what to do; a leader shows it can be done.

Encourage the heartShare the glory with your followers heart, keep the

pains in your heart.

The Challenges You May Face as a New Leader within an Early Childhood

Facility


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1. People do not naturally want to be led by you.It may come as a shock, but no one is particularly interested in working for

YOU. A promotion and a title might bestow grudging tolerance and even a

little bit of deference, but never credibility or true respect. First, prove your

credibility and then earn their respect.

2. Everyone has an agendathey just dont always share it.

New leaders like to believe that everyone looks at business challenges,

department objectives and initiatives from the same perspectivetheirs.

Learn to truly pay attention to your associates, in order to understand their

unique agendas, motivations, interests, and ambitions.

3. The personal problems of your associates will become your problemsif you let them (and sometimes you cant help it).

New Managers, and even experienced ones, attract their teams personal

problems like flowers attract bees. You will find yourself on the receiving

end of peoples challenges in their personal lives, with their health, their

finances, their romances, their children, and just about every other dilemma

that humans encounter.

Learn to keep the focus on business but remember to be a human being.

4. Your instinct says Do it because Im the boss. Your instinct is

wrong.

Because I said so is best left for yourparenting chores and checked at the

door when you enter the office. Success comes when you realize that you

are not the subject.

5. It takes time to learn and internalize the parable of The Scorpion

and the Frog.

Recognize that people do not change their nature.

6. We all have weaknesses; dont make them your focal point.

Its not your responsibility to fix the flaws of your associates. Learn to

leverage peoples strengths and develop teams where the members have

complementary skills, and you will succeed beyond your wildest dreams.
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7. The key to leading people is obvious. Too bad no one will tell you

what it is.

Well, Art willthe answer is Respect. Its all about treating people withrespect.

8. The most important part of your job is probably not in your job

description.

Creating an effective work environment is your real job.

9. Beware of over-investing your time and energy with the wrong

people.Every manager will at some point get to deal with a brilliant problem child

employeewith outstanding technical skills but fatal flaws when it comes to

people skills. These employees lack the emotional intelligence to recognize

their aberrant behaviors, and therefore rarely if ever change. When dealing

these employees, be fair and be decisive.

10. You are responsible for your teams results.Its your name on the door and you are accountable. Its not pleasant to feel the

cold hand of reality slapping you across the face, but then again, its real life.

leadership- lecture notes

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