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Writer's pictureZubia Mughal

Parsing the Leadership Theories


Lussier and Achua (2016) give a "preview" of the organization of our studies when they discuss the Levels of Analysis of Leadership Theory: Individual, Group (Team), Organizational. In fact, we will have a module that focuses on each! (Module 1: Individuals as Leaders, Module 2: Team Leadership, and Module 3 Organizational Leadership).

1) Briefly discuss the interrelationships among the levels of leadership.

Leadership is a shared process in an organization. The Leader, Follower and the Influence all collectively work to achieve the shared objectives through various change processes. The roles of a leader, follower and the direction of influence are not fixed to one individual in an organization. One can lead in a group and be a follower in another group or an organization and vice versa. The effective organizational leadership depends on the right roles being assumed by the right individuals at the right time!



Three levels of leaderships exist in an organization:

  1. Individual: dyadic process of influence

  2. Group: group process of influence

  3. Organization: organization process of influence

Individuals or people are the bottom line of an organization. Successful individual performance leads to successful group and ultimately organizational performance. This really points to the fact that the collective leadership of the organization is able to inspire individuals to believe in its objectives and credibility and agree to work together (through knowledge, skills, attitude upgrade) to bring about the desired changes. This is perhaps a hypothetical view of an organizational leadership, something that is hard to achieve but a great vision to aspire to by the top-level leaders.

It is possible that groups become sources of influence in an organization. High performing groups can inspire other groups to achieve similarly – for individual recognition, personal satisfaction or achievement of goals. However, low performing groups can create a negative leadership influence and adversely affect the achievement of other groups, thus bringing down the overall performance of an organization.

When an organization at large fails to correspond positively to its leadership, performances at group as well as individual levels are negatively affected.

These interesting interrelationships enable us to work towards developing effective leadership skills and applying the right skills for the right situation.

My personal stance on evaluating the leadership effectiveness, rationale and reason behind performance failures: In order to conduct an organization/group/individual effectiveness/failure analysis, we can evaluate the managerial skills of individuals and groups for their:

  • Technical skills

  • Interpersonal skills

  • Decision making skills

The next step in evaluating failures is to determine the leadership styles demonstrated by individuals and groups according to their situations.

Waters & Oliveira (2014) say: "The Next Generation CTE Leaders will need to be well-versed in not only traditional CTE delivery models, but also in the knowledge and skills that promote a positive and effective working relationship with the entire education community." Here's how I see this statement in terms of the managerial skills of an effective CTE Leader:

  • Technical skills: knowledge and skills that promote a positive and effective working relationship

  • Interpersonal skills: with the entire education community

  • Decision making skills: traditional CTE delivery models

2) Using an organization, you work at (or have worked at) give examples of how the successful performance at one level has impacted or encouraged the successful performance at another level?

I cannot help think about the pandemic situation we faced as an organization (Carthage College) this year. We put together a task force called BOLT (Blended Online Learning and Teaching) Team. This team was made of six members only. Each member was responsible for managing their own role and responsibilities. Each member was a unique expert and was a leader when influencing others with their knowledge management and EBM skills. The entire team was responsible for disaster management. The entire team had only one goal: train and support faculty to teach using the available technology tools in minimum amount of time to create effective remote learning experiences for students. The entire team had love for students and concern for struggling faculty and support for the college to keep running.

I was one member/individual of this group. I remember we were nothing short of “fire-fighters” for the college. We didn’t care about the hours, the effort or working during our paid leaves. I strongly believe this was all due to the positive impact we had on each other. As Maxwell (2012) would say, we were collectively a Pinnacle Leadership! And we would not have been successful without each other.

My own performance depended on others. This fact was acutely felt and everyone made sure they worked and delivered on time.

The success of BOLT lead to the success of different departments at Carthage.

3) Being respectful of people/places, using an organization you work at (or have worked at) give examples of how challenging performance at one level has impacted or challenged the successful performance at another level?

Another great example was the successful leadership exhibited by the Equity and Diversity group. Their values and policies were revised based on the negative cultural impact by the pandemic. They developed a fun training program and managed it well. The success of this group lead to the success of individual faculty members (when they demonstrated equity and inclusion in their teaching) and their departments.

Rewinding the role of the Equity and Diversity group at Carthage before the unfortunate cultural biases witnessed in Wisconsin, was not influential on its faculty and students. They needed to do a better job in spreading anti-racial awareness and zero tolerance to bullying on campus. Following the racism-related events, Carthage experienced a surge of racist offences. In short, there was failure in performance of the organization towards exercising tolerance and inclusion. This failure was blamed on the Equity and Diversity group. The leader of the group updated her knowledge and developed a Carthage-customized training that empowered all stakeholders – improving tolerance and inclusiveness.

Works Cited

Waters, Paul, & Oliveira, Michelle. (2014). Investing in CTE leadership.(career and technical education). Techniques - Association for Career and Technical Education, 89(6), 10.

Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2016). Leadership: Theory, application, and skill development. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

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