Rob Tobey Leadership Portfolio

Leadership Theory that informs my practice of leadership to date: Practice of Management

        Peter Drucker in 1954 made the Management by objectives leadership theory popular in “Practice of Management”. As suggested by the title, this leadership style is based around the focus of setting objective goals.  The purpose of setting goals is to allow everyone a direction to work towards.  These goals should be “SMART” meaning that they are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time specific.  By creating goals that meet this requirement it allows the group to maintain focus on the goals agreed upon.  The steps are as follow for, the superiors and the employees identify what needs to be done, then individual areas of responsibility and expected results are defined.  These goals/objectives become the guide for the work that is to be done for both supervisors and employees.  The employee then becomes self-managed towards the goals that are set.   After the goals are accomplished or the dead line passes evaluations are given out off of contribution to the objective.  This style of leadership can functions either as a personalized set of goals for an organization.  It will function best if the operations are knowledge based, and employees are aware of the work.  As a person trying to use this leadership style you need to be aware that this method requires a lot of self management and one should be aware if you employees are skilled enough to meet the objectives.  The other major limitations this style has are.  It does not address the process; the style allows people to do the work in whatever way they think is fitting to accomplish the objective.  In some cases this can be extremely beneficiary but in other cases some people may find it over whelming.   The second limitation is that you need to make sure everyone is well aware and understands the objective.  This is a problem that can easily be overcome but the company needs to be aware of the communication requirements. 

Ducker, P. F. (1974). Management: Tasks, responsibilities, practices. London: William Heinemann Ltd.

HDF 412 Experiences

1. Through the course of HDF 412 I have learned a lot more about my style of leadership and ways to develop my personal style.   In the first unit that we covered we looked in depth at our personal leadership strength from strength quest.  During this process I realized that I am very much a person who when leading strives for efficiency and finding the path that brings the least resistance.  In the second unit we looked farther into cultural anthropology along with inclusive leadership.  Before taking HDF 412 I never really thought about inclusive leadership I thought it was more of a given and that some social injustice had gone away.  During this section I am now much more aware of invisible advantages that I may have over others and as a leader how I need to work and be an ally to groups that are not in the majority.  Lastly in the final unit we went through crisis management I found this particular unit very interesting because as a leader that means when a crisis comes up you will take action to try and fix it.  In this unit I learned much more about what I can do and how to react in a crisis situation.

2.  a specific skill that I have learned this semester would be from module one when we looked at our strength-quest.  I had taken the strength quest before and not thought that the strengths really meant anything because if you tell someone they are good at it they will agree no matter what.  After taking the strength quest for the second time my scores were for the most part the same.  From seeing this I was able to learn where I need to improve because my style of leadership is the same.  For example being a Arranger I am able to change goals and not become stressed out where others may not be able to handle this.  What I was able to learn was better ways to lead and think about others who need definite plans and focus.