Wednesday, June 29, 2016

DFS Week 7 Reaction

I have worked about 9 hours so far this week.

I met with Jason this week to discuss our next steps. We have completed the interviews and now need to start the analysis. The biggest questions we have now is (1) what gaps and needs exist, and (2) what do we do next? I see this tying into a lot of our readings, in particular my choice book Turnaround Leadership for Higher Education. It talks about the need to identify what are the issues, but then one of the big themes of the book is that there needs to be integrators.  These are people that address the “how” in ideas, within universities. In my field study, we are not working with universities, but rather kindergarten through 12th grade. The idea still holds strong. Integrators would combat the paralysis that is seen among leadership in implemented the different strategies that have been talked about for years. One of the problems we have seen is the need to have a better understanding of what the issues are. Speaking in public health terms, I see that a good needs assessment would be so valuable in many of the different programs/division areas. Many of the decisions made seems to be made based on how it has always been done rather than the reality of the situation. This brings me to another theme about needing to make decisions and implement programs based on evidence-based data rather than anecdotes. (Fullan & Scott, 2009)

I think the analysis will bring about some characteristics on being a good leader that is successful in implementing good organizational change. I am thinking that next week and for my final paper, I will have a bit more to expand on, but the themes on leadership I have seen thus far are:
  1. Leaders need to operate from a place of good data.
  2. Leaders should support their team, partners, and stakeholders by using a variety of customized resources.
  3. Leaders should support their team so they can individually be successful, which will achieve the end goal.
  4. Leaders need to have a way to base their evaluations and assessments of their efforts (back to that data again!).
Fullan, M., & Scott, G. (2009). Turnaround leadership for higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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