Leadership

 
 
The iceberg is melting (Kotter.J and Rathgeber.H), a great book about a penguin colony in Antarctica. The penguins’ shelter was formed around the iceberg that had stood for many years. One of the character penguins Fred discovers a problem with the iceberg. He feared the danger of it melting. Fred somewhat isolating from others and felt like whom he could tell no one takes him seriously. Fred formed allies’ with one of the council leaders named Alice. She influences the others to consider the possibilities that the iceberg may be melting soon.

The leaders of the colony had to create ideas to figure a solution to the problem. Suddenly, a great idea came about in the sky as a seagull was flying by. Fred thought they could fix the problem by moving their home to another iceberg location. They started to prepare for the move by sending out the team of scouts, they had to come to a decision of the team members. The scouts went before the whole colony to scope out an area that would be safe and had an area that had plenty opportunities for fishing. These trips were long and exhausting.

  The colony previous had a ritual of each family providing food for their children in the colony and shared with no one. However, this changed due to the children of the colony wanted to form a team to help out. Buddy was in charge of this team; he created by asking his parents to allow him to work catching food for the scouts upon their return. Buddy and other young penguins providing all the food the scouts needed when they returned from their journey.

 This was a challenging change; in the end of the story the penguins succeeded their move. This fable illustrates what I learned my class, changing is difficult not so much of the changes but the losses during the processes of change causes the difficulties. The story illustrates how no one leader can do a job alone, but a group of members joined can get the job done by incorporating thier ideas, skills, expertise and taking risks.

 
 
The class completed it final game of Village, and the White team won the game. The last activities of the game were based on conflict resolutions. The game players consisted of four teams representing colors, blue, red, white, and green. Three categories of goals:  empires, well being, and civilization. These categories represented culture values. The teams occasionally received certain challenges, and occasionally had to choose to go to war or not. To win the game the first team that reaches their objective won by accumulating resource cards that follow their original plan.

The groups started off with 4 different teams against each other to succeed in winning. In the final event of the game the 4 groups merged into 2 different groups the blue and green, and white and red had merged together. During the merging the teams were starting too dissociated with each other as group members. Some members what to changed the original plans, others had their own individual plan. One member wanted to go to war with any group, he didn’t care which one he just wanted to war for no apparent reason.  We learned in class were the Authors of our textbook (Heifetz, Grashow, and Linksy), The Practice of Adaptive leadership. “Leading from the balcony”, allows individuals to view themselves and others as they go to the top and see what really going on in the room.

In the discussion from the top, there were mass emotions in the room. Some students felt that they were totally ignored, isolated, and others didn’t care anymore because emotions was high and avoidance was illustrated in some members. I learned that avoidance style of conflict is sometime appropriate depending on the heat of the situation. I also learned that conflict is good; it requires tolerating a lot of hostility. “Orchestrating conflict is a discipline. It requires seeing the process as a necessary step in the journey toward a better future,”  Heifetz, Grashow, and Linksy.
 
In class a meeting took place that involved the discussion of changing the due date on the syllables for our web page assignment to be extended until a later date.  One of the students took the floor and open up the discussion presenting the favorable due date over the original due date. There were approximately thirteen to fifteen of us in the room. Upon my entry in the classroom one student who was neutral to the change and another student totally in opposition of the change. She shared that changing the due date will affect her ability to procrastinate and she rather have the date stay the same because the longer she have the longer she procrastinates,  and she rather get it completed now according to the original due date.  The rest of the students were quiet in the class, or wasn’t expressing their opinions except the student that was neutral in the beginning. She now agrees with the student of opposition because that is how she really felt in the beginning. She stated that “I’m a procrastinator, and I rather keep the due date at its original date”.

The discussion continued for about ten minutes between the parties of the initiator student and the two students that were opposed to the change. There where brief comments from other students but the three parties were definitely in debate about proving their points of the topic.  The initiating student was trying to form allies by discussing the pros that could play an important role to her request. The opposed students continued in their statements to their justifications of keeping the due date the same. Finally, the professor took the floor and introduced the class topic for that day which tied in perfectly with the meeting we had about changing the date. We learned about the Abilene Paradox, when groups take action that contradicts what all or most of the group members really want to do.

In our meeting the group of students where actively involved in the Abilene Paradox. The student that was neutral about the change in the beginning didn’t express what she really wanted until the student that was opposed to the change shared her justifications. I was one of the quiet students and their where many of us. I cannot justify the reasoning of others for not speaking up about what they wanted in reference to the change. I really didn’t care if the change happened or not because at the end of the quarter in every course what’s due will be due, and I know I have to complete it. I really felt it was no big deal.  I learned,   perhaps I should’ve shared my opinion to the group members in class according to the Abilene Paradox because others could’ve felt like me, or they could’ve been waiting to respond in reference with the majority of the group; who really knows why for sure others were silent in the group but the expression of one’s opinion may have helped the overall results of members getting what they really wanted.
 
During class I observed other classmates sharing about their opinions per assignments, lectures, readings, class exercises, and the professor style. The thoughts were reference to the traditional way of following a syllabus, lectures, and assignments in contrast to the nontraditional way which is demonstrated in my class. I listen to various classmates share their thoughts and comments. In my opinion what I observed was an excellent example of adaptive leadership living in disequilibrium. The classmates shared about their feelings of frustrations, excitement and happiness of the nontraditional way of operating versus the traditional way of operating.  I noticed for some of the students they enjoyed the nontraditional way of actively not following a structured syllabus and for others they were excited about coming to class to participate in the village tribal games. I heard the statement of “I ‘am learning a lot”, practicing the nontraditional way. There was a comment made that the nontraditional way allows us as students to “think outside the box “and this maybe be out of the norm for some students. Lastly, there was the presence of silence from students and I was a member of this group. It really doesn’t matter which student participated in sharing their ideas or actively listening. There were plenty of energies swirling in the classroom. The key point I ‘m making is every student was involved in adaptive leadership during that discussion.  In any organization leaders are confronted with challenges. I learned that when practicing adaptive leadership, distinctive skills and insights are necessary to deal with a  mass of energies. I will apply distinctive skills and insights by managing myself in the environment and by helping others to tolerate the discomfort they’re experiencing. This will benefit me by allowing me to keep the temperature within the productive zone of disequilibrium (PZD), and not arrive at a point of explosion while living in the disequilibrium.                                                                                                                                                       

 
 
I learned about successful adaptation and how it preserves the majority of the old DNA (knowing that modern humans' DNA is only 2 percent different from th DNA of hman ancestors). Successful adaptation discards some of tge DNA that no longer works or rearranges the DNA for best Adaptation.
 
In other words leaders focuses on how things worked in the past versus what will work in the present to get the best results of adapting.I think the process of successful adaptation will help me build on my past experiences in the future;by applying the use of wisdom from my prior experiences and ancestors. This will allow me to make changes in my values,competencies, and strategic orientations that should endure in organizations.


Furthermore, I will figure out what to conserve from past practices, what to discard from past practices, and find new ways that build from the best of the past. I think the process of sucessful adaptation will help me in the future to build from the past by applying the use of wisdom from my prior ancestors. This also will allow my mind to be open to  make changes in my values, competencies, and strategic orientation to adapt successful throught difficult challenges. Furthermore, I will figure out what to conserve from past practices, what to discard from past practices; find new ways that builds from the best of the past, and help create the best of the future in leadership.  

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    I think in order to be an effective leader, I need to help inspire others to achieving. 

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