A520.3.3.RB Constraint on Innovation.

A520.3.3RB

    Constraints to productivity, innovation and creativity exist everywhere in our lives.  There are so many mental, physical, or spiritual constraints that haunt my work center and its creativity, that sometimes even mundane tasks become difficult.  Innovation is a difficult idea to spark and to energize teams to develop in the military.  I spend most of my time trying to get my troops to think and act differently.  Old adages, axioms, mottos, and ways-of-old often limit creativity and innovation.  The hierarchal micro-society of the military usually place artificial constraints on creativity and restricts "new thinking" through this stereotyping based on past experiences (Whetten, 2010) way of thinking.  This is true in most forms of government even at the city level.  Take for example in the post Katrina reconstruction of New Orleans, city planners where struggling to come up with a unified plan.  They instead turned to the a collective of 9,000 residents to aid in the redesigned.  This plan ultimately provided a positive plan that had the collective buy-in (Cea, 2017).  Even great geniuses and some of the greatest minds that have ever lived have had constraints; take for Johannes Kepler, a brilliant scientist who put his work on hold and become a laughing stock because his mother was accused of witchcraft in the early 1600's (Landauer, 2001).  Kepler's work helped us define how planets orbits work, setting the stage for future Astronomer to develop complex theories we still use today.  His constraint on his creativity was his mother's trial.  

   My constraints and restraints setup obstacles that have been with me for years and years limiting me from solving creative simple and advanced problems.  One of those particular barriers is education; throughout my military career I struggled with the lack of education in the subject or the matter and therefore did not posses the intellect to work through problems.  I believed that the role of the enlisted space operator was too much of a barrier that the military and myself put in the way of innovation.  I believed that I could not be as educated on the satellite, payload or subject as perhaps an officer that had a degree from MIT and therefore could never solve advanced problems in my field.  This was an artificial barrier that I put in place.  This barrier was overcame when I started to gain my education, as I worked through my undergrad program I started to think differently about this barrier.  I started to understand that "education did not make you an intellect."  I started to grasp the idea of a life long learner.  Throughout my first graduate program in Space Sciences, I really started to understand that this barrier is artificial and intellect is not gained from a degree rather develops critical thinking skills.  It is not about the degree but about the journey and the process of creativity that is gained from a graduate degree.  Upon completion of tearing down this barrier I did not feel inferior or equal to the officer instead I felt disappointed that I had learned this lesson earlier in my career.       

References

Cea, J. L., & Rimington, J. (2017, Summer). Creating BREAKOUT innovation.Stanford Social Innovation Review, 15, 32-39.

Landauer, L. B. (2001). Johannes Kepler. In N. Schlager & J. Lauer (Eds.), Science and Its Times (Vol. 3, pp. 375-377). Detroit: Gale.

Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2016). Developing Management Skills (Ninth Edition). Harlow, UK: Pearson Education

A520.2.3 10 minutes a day

Finding peace through 10 minutes of nothing

   What is stress and how can I manage it through mindfulness?  Even trying to define stress and the human identity of the word can be stressful.  Both psychologists and physiologists have trouble defining the word stress, however both communities agree that it can have a negative impact on the body.  Over the past week, I have been over stressed, over taxed, and over worked and needed some help.  This same stress level skyrocketed over the past few years, in part because of the increase in rank and title, as well as every day life.  Doctor Breuning work in Psychology Today "people feel hopeless and defeated (2011)."  While this revelation is not mind blowing and humans have suffered from this since the dawn of man.  As Breuning explains it is how we deal with stress that can literally protect our heart.  

   In an effort to find peace, I have tried everything from eating vegetables, to walking on coals (did not work!), to floating in a therapeutic pods (creeped me out).  None of these things truly helped on a continuous basis.  I have sought mental health professionals even tried homeopathic remedies; while these worked on a temporary basis, my therapist is not always available and sudo science is expensive to try to buy the latest thing.  How can I relive my stress?  

   One thing that has worked well for me is mindfulness.  This 2,000 year old practice is a difficult thing to master, it requires patience and practice.  There are two different styles of mindfulness focused and choiceless closed (Bauer-Wu, 2010).  The focused style accepts that objects, stress, or actions happen.  The style calls for the person to accept that it happens or the object exist, but not doing anything with it; accept it and move one.  Choiceless on the other hand, is difficult to master, this is where the body and mind do not notice anything.  

    For three days in a row I used guided-focused mindfulness for ten minutes a day with the "Calm" app.  This guided mediation helped me focus on my breathing and finding its center of gravity in my process.  What a wonderful result! By spending 10 minutes a day doing nothing but focusing on my breathing helped me feel grounded, providing the clarity I needed that day.  While the practice of mindfulness is difficult for a working Airman while going through another graduate degree program, the ten minutes a day is one of the best practices I have found in many years.  

   References

• Bauer-Wu, S. (2010). Mindfulness meditation. Oncology (Williston Park, N.Y.), 24(10 Suppl), 36.

Breuning, Loretta (2011).  The Danger of Self-Identifying "Stressed. Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-neurochemical-self/201109/the-danger-self-identifying-stressed

• Persson, P. B., & Zakrisson, A. (2016). stress. Acta Physiologica, 216(2), 149-152. doi:10.1111/apha.12641

A520.1.3RB_MosleyHarold

  My purpose of the MSLD program 

   My purpose of continuing my leadership and managerial education is to develop me into a leader that can move both an organization and people.  I opted to take this program because I recognized that I was not as strong of leader, as I believed.  The MSLD program has provided me with a myriad of thought provoking mechanisms on how to critical think about my own deficiencies and strengths.  A fundamental question tends to appear as I move through my education: am I qualified to be a manager, and a leader to move an organization or a project, or people?  Building upon this question into my daily life: am I qualified to make the decision I am about to make?  This simple question is not aimed at the black/white answer do I have the training but rather do I have the trust in myself that I can make the decision (whatever it may be). 

  

At the start of this program, on the very first day I questioned my own definition of critical thinking, Robert Ennis defines critical thinking as "reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do (Nosich, 2012).  Critically thinking on what defines me as a manager and a leader are furthered explored throughout the MSLD program.  Whetten and Cameron (2016) identified five critical areas of self-awareness that help me critical explore my own framework as a leader and a manger.  In my growth and development, it is important that I have a solid framework that is sturdy enough to hold the decision of which I might be asked to make.  Do I have what it takes as a manager to develop a new search engine or to develop a commercial space industry or council an Airman in suicidal distress?    

  

   People around me have started to notice a change.  I tend to take the time to go through inductive reasoning and critical thinking standard to actively apply ethical decision making.  For example, I recently struggled with an Airman that was struggling with a spouse's medical issue.  She was diagnosed with Acute Mountain Sickness, a debilitating sickness for people that live in high altitude bases (that most Airman and families get on arrival).  He struggled at home and work and his supervision jumped to conclusions and did not take extra measures to help.  His performance suffered as did the organization, this is typical of all Airman when getting accumulated to high attitudes.  When I took over as command, I immediately jumped into action by helping the Airman find a job that benefited the organization and the member.  I applied my knowledge, my core values, my ethical decision-making ability, my cognitive style toward my attitude to find an assignment that everyone benefited that was not at high altitude.  While this decision was unpopular amoungst my and his peers, it was the right thing to do.  Now I am faced with the consequences of setting the wrong message for an Airman that needed help.        

 Throughout my leadership growth in the military I have learned how to council Airmen, write appraisals, or manager resources (The Airman handbook, 2015).  However, I need to constantly asses my core and ensure that the decision that I must make is cored around five core aspects.  I need to know where my emotional intellectual levels, my values, my cognitive styles, my attitude toward change, and my self-evaluation (Whetten & Cameron pg 47).  These pillars help build my own pentagon of development providing five cornerstones to hang all other attributes, layers and levels on (pg 49).  

References

Nosich G.M. (2012) Learning to think Things Through; Critical Thinking across the curriculum. (4^th ed) Columbus , Oh Prentice Hall

The Airman's Handbook (2015). Department of the Air Force

Whetten, D.A., & Cameron, K.S. (2016). Developing 

management skills (9th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

A511.9.3 Course Reflections

What is leadership?

                            My basic definition over the past few weeks has not changed much but instead I have added more theories of what are the styles of leadership and there make-ups.  How is leeadership  defined, what does it mean to be a leader? Oxford defines leadership as a "the action of leading a group of people" (Leadership, n.d.). While my time in the military service, I have seen a trend of leadership, those that have "it", those that perceive that they have "it" and finally those that don't have "it." What is "it"? But what does this mean, how is it applied to modern leadership. Winston and Patterson's (2006) describe an in depth constructive definition of leadership that focuses on the influence of the followers and their gifts (strengths/weakness) to move the organization, while Northhouse (2015) it as a process of influence. Eisenhower describe leadership as "the art of getting someone to do something because he wants to it" (Chatham, 2016). A quick search of leadership in the Hunt Library and each time the definition changes only slightly; common themes appear art, influence and motivation.   

                             I believe that leadership is “the behavior of a person to influence and inspire a follower to accomplish an idea of investment, through one’s own commitment and self-actualization.” An old supervisor of mine once said “negative behavior does not move a mountain, but does carve a canyon.” It was not till years later did I learn the hard way what that meant. The behavior of a person can have great influence on the perceived or assigned followers ability to reconcile his/hers own opinion of themselves and the task at hand. Meaning that a single individual’s behavior can motivate me to find ownership in the process through my own lens. That person I will either follow or ignore. Will I be committed to the idea because I have reached the highest point accordingly to Maslow? To illustrate the point, a person (leader) asked (not told) me to develop a new weapon system, because they understood that this is something that I can do (and enjoy) and that their approach angle used would motivate me to reach my own peaks.  This was an exploitation of my reactions to their behaviors.  All the right things are said that drove me to commit myself to the idea.  Sometimes my wife does that to me "honey will you take the trash, or would you like to take the trash out for me." 

                             This is the balance of leadership, push too far and the follower will never move, push to aggressively and the follower will only carve internal dilemmas that not repairable.  This is where this course has helped me understand leadership theories like a follower-lead approach like path-goal theory (Northouse, 2016).  This theory leads the follower and leader to motivated the follower to reach their own commitment to the idea or the project.  My own leadership is directly reflected on my troops in path-goa; what am I doing to help them reach their goal.  I can use this theory in my own definition of leadership.  It was my superiors's and my follower that helped shaped me into who I am today and my behavior that influenced me, did they treat me with respect, and did they understand my strengths and weakness even when I did not; therefore am I orientating my followers the right way.  I intend to use this program to understand to become a better well rounded leader that understand genuine and authentic empathy and sympathy toward their blight and help my followers and subordinated reach their goals.         

                          Leadership is a difficult to understand and more difficult to define. There are hundreds of thousands of articles on how people, scholars and professionals define it.  Northouse has given us a brief synopsis of several theories throughout the past few weeks we have explored several, I intend to use these skills to learn more and to become a better well-rounded leader. There is so many definitions out there that all center on several themes, influence, art and motivation. In my attempt to define leadership in my own way, I found that the behavior of a person can motivate me to reach my own commitment to the idea or the project, and when that is self-sustained I found that I am better follower. 

References

BusinessPundit: 51 ways to define leadership (2016). . Chatham: Newstex. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1824373430?accountid=27203 (Links to an external site.)

Leadership (Def 1) (n.d.) In Merriam Webster Online, Retrieved 11 January, 2016 from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leadership

Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publishing.

Winston, B. E., & Patterson, K. (2006). An Integrative Definition of Leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 1, 6-66.

A511.7.3RB Inner Work for authentic leadership

  What is authentic leadership?  How do followers respect the authorities of those that have it?  Does the the military breed authentic leaders, do we see ourselves as genuine leaders because of stripes or bars tell us we are or is there some other reflection process that makes us good leaders?

  Authentic leadership is a leadership style that "emphasizes sincerity and genuineness (Authentic leadership (2015)."  It establishes that the leaders stay true to their own values and principles.  It involves being open and honest, deciosn-making, mistakes, to both the leader and the followers.  At the very essence it is about being transparent with the follower or authentic (Wood, 2007). 

  The military requires open and honest communication between the leader and the follower.  It exemplifies their demand signal.  Since the formation of organized military thousands of years ago, we have stood by these demands.  This demand has not changed for authentic leaders.  The military in itself trains us to believe that we are good leaders, we go through our lives with new promotions, leading troops, putting on those new stripes or those new officers colors.  We move from gunner to platoon sergeant to a staff job.  We spend twenty years presuming that we are authentic leaders.  I have done this; this however does not mean that I was an authentic leader.

  Authentic leader means that I was genuine to my own values and principles and that I was willingly to accept criticism and feedback.  I was open to new ideas and to my mistakes and reflect and even adapt my own leadership practices.  At my last job I was responsible for the stand up of a new mission area and handpick 25 new troops. This exciting request a new squadron standup and I started four previous squadrons before, so this was not my first time.  As the troops started to arrive one bye one they tested by authentic leadership, some tested me from day one.  They tried to see what the bounds of my own principle would be, how far would I go to defend them, to stand up fro them, to get hem what they needed to get the job done.  What lengths would I go for them? 

 Everyday I called an "Afternoon Huddle" with my senior team to discuss the day, I would ask for feedback honest, and open--the kind of "Let me have it!".  This was a open discussion about anything they needed it could be personal, it could be mission related, it could be secretive, it did not leave the room.  And they would let me have it, with all due respect.  I would reflect on what they had to say, taking notes, jotting things down, even drafting the next days war plans on the board, so I would not make the same mistakes twice.  I listened and made changes, I adapted where I could and where I needed too in order to both be authentic to my principles and to get the mission done.  I was willingly to admit mistakes, I was willingly to discuss and debate, I was not willingly to argue or to fight.  I was willingly to present evidence and counter evidence.  I was willingly to be open and honest and to communicate all requirements.  This required great comprise between myself, the team and the mission.  But at the end of the day the team respected me more for it.  This is authentic leadership.

References

• Authentic leadership. (2015). In J. Mcray (Ed.), Leadership glossary: Essential terms for the 21st century. Santa Barbara, CA: Mission Bell Media. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/mbmlg/authentic_leadership/0

• Wood, G. M. (2007). Authentic leadership: Do we really need another leadership theory?

A511.6.3RB Leader from the Past

A leader from the past

This is an exciting blog.  The blog is a reflection about my past leaders and their positive and sometimes negatives qualities of transformations on me and the society around me.  How can one man or woman change a society in two or three years, is that possible or has the system made this not capable?  Can one officer revolutionize and a create a movement, change a new ocean current toward a specific goal?  Did I work harder for the greater good or harder for the individual out of respect of the officer?

Transformational leadership is a style of leadership that should result in the follower wanting to become the leader, if expertly executed the follower should reach a higher level of performance and the society as a whole benefits (Kendrick, 2011).  It seeks out to increase the followers motivation and performance through a transformation, leader inspires.  They motivate, the leader should be the followers role model as a cross benefit the society as the whole benefits (Transformational leadership, 2015).  However this can be a negative tasnformation as well.

I have had many leaders in the military some good some bad.  A couple of assignments ago I had a leader who could not inspire.  Northouse (2016) describes this as pseudotransfomational leadership (self-consumed, exploitative  power oriented).  He wrongfully thought that he moved the unit and that he inspired me to do great things.  This was not the case, instead he was moving the imagine for his own power and imagine.  He had a negative approach.  He attempted to transform the unit in his imagine.  This backfired at the lower levels and though he was promoted, it cost my morale, my units morale, the mission, and will continue to haunt the unit for many more years.  

One of the most inspirational leaders that I have worked for has been Col Curtis Herdanez.  His leadership after we saw a unit go through a squadron commander get fired, we needed a leader, we needed inspiration, we needed motivation, we needed to find our way out.  An example was during a convoy, I was the commander driving the convoy back from a mission, when the previous commander was relieved of command; during this return to base he drove to meet us and personally escorted us back to base for no other reason but to show us he was on our side and team.  Scraps demonstrated to me, from the get go that he was willing to go the extra mile under all circumstances to support me and my family.  He inspired me to continue going, during on particular field exercise he came outside to work with me and my team in the pouring rain just to help us setup and then bought lunch and dinner for me and the team just to motivate us.  He found out what moved us and why?  He did this not because he had to but because he wanted to.  He knew what motivated me and why.  He tried it is for those reasons why I worked so hard to move the organization and he society change under his command.  His under current was there the entire time it was up to us to figure how to surf it.  I respected and respect him and the rank not just the rank.

References

• Kendrick, J.  (2011). Transformational leadership. Professional Safety, 56(11), 14.

Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership; theory and practice. 7th edition (seventh ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.

• Transformational leadership (2015).

  

A511.5.3RB Mid-Term Reflection

Lead like great conductors

 Over the past few weeks we have examined the different leadership approaches from the academic prespectpective.  We have examined leader-member exhange, path-goal theory, behavioral and situation approaches to leadership.  We have examined the intricacies of each of these applications including the depths of the theories.

This mid-term review is an excellent point of reference as Itay Talgram gives us a role up of different leadership practices in by examining different musical conductors and their style of leadership.  He examined how conductors guide the orchestras in their own way (2009).  in the first case the conductor is using a behavioral country-club style with a slight middle of the road management to relax the orchestra, as describe by Northouse (2016).  Everyone is happy, he is relax, his hands are in his pockets and his body language demonstrates that he is neither feverous nor scared.  He is allowing the stories of everyone around him to be told.  This is very similiar to one of my finest commander I have ever work for she was always relaxed even under intense pressure.  She had trust that we could do our job and trusted us to get the job done and we enjoyed doing it for her.  She allowed for individuality while transforming us into a team.  

The second conductor is controlling described by Talgam, commands his orchestras with situational leadership and controls the dynamic through demand response through direction and coaching.  You can see it in the body language of control and snap of the music.  A person can almost fell the command of the baton as the orchestra is intemdiated by the stroke of the hand.  While the conductor ceterinaly is a great conductor this approach may not work for the exploration of the individual.  It controls the behavior of all the followers without allowing for support of the individual.  I currently have a supervisor who is like this conductor and pushes me and team to his own will and it has broken me down.  He offered very little support and the outcomes have had a negative outcome on my morale while the mission has succeeded.  One can feel the tension in the air when he walks in, we perform for the mission not for the person or the joy of the music.  

An intersting parallel to things we have learned about leadership, this this week is the way Talgam describe's the conductor Carlos Kleiber (Talgam, 2009).  This conductor encompasses the path-goal theory.  During the short presentation we watch the conductor point out the individual of each of the musicians with different guidances approaches, noticing behaviors that work for some but not for all.  We notice his posture and his eye contact, we noticed the conductor letting the individual explore the next layer of music.  Is this not the very idea of path-goal?  In this case, I have rarely seen this used correctly as the ultimate goal of any leader of so many would be to lead like an great conductor and allow the orchestras to play for you not you play for them (a cut scene at the end of the Ted Talk).  The military tends to force the music instead of allowing the music to play.  This type of relationship takes time and effort that very few people are willing to put in.  I hope that through this course I can learn different tools to become a better conductor.      

References

Itay Talgram "Lead like great conductor" (2009) TedTalk. https://www.ted.com/speakers/itay_talgam

Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and Practice 7th ed. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publishing

Vandergrift, R., & Matusitz, J. (2011). Path-goal theory: A successful columbia records story.Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 21(4), 350-362. doi:10.1080/10911359.2011.555651