My Reflective Portfolio for Module 1

During my first module in the Roehampton university master's program I got a plenty of
knowledge about Leadership. The module has the title "Learning and Leading in a Dynamic Era"
where many questions about leadership in today's business environment have been studied. My
journey during this module went through 5 units and one last unit no. 6 where I do my final
project. I will go now through each unit and try to write my own reflective journal for what I got
from the unit and how it affected or can affect me and my life story.


Unit 1 : The Meaning of Leadership
In this unit I started my journey of leadership growth. I started the unit by reading about reflective
practice and reflective learning.
Boud (2001) explained that we need to write reflective journals for multiple reasons, as we may want to
capture the experience, record an event, explore our feelings or make sense of our knowledge. He
mentioned the different views we can see it from, where it can be viewed as a form of self-expression, a
record of events, or a form of therapy. In addition to those from Boud, Moon (1999a, pp. 188194)
mentioned additional reasons for writing journals for example:
To deepen the quality of learning, in the form of critical thinking or developing a questioning attitude
To enable learners to understand their own learning process
To increase active involvement in learning and personal ownership of learning
To enhance professional practice or the professional self in practice
To enhance the personal valuing of the self towards self-empowerment
To enhance creativity by making better use of intuitive understanding
To free-up writing and the representation of learning
To provide an alternative `voice for those not good at expressing themselves
To foster reflective and creative interaction in a group
Boud, Keogh, and Walker (1985) have described reflection as those intellectual and affective activities
in which individuals engage to explore their experiences in order to lead to new understandings and
appreciations (p. 19).
As Boud mentioned, "Reflection involves taking the unprocessed, raw material of experience and engaging with it as a
way to make sense of what has occurred",(Boud 2001).
Boud explained the different models of reflection where he mentioned that the most familiar approach for
reflection were developed by late Donald Schn in his books on the reflective practitioner (Schn, 1983,
1987) where he emphasized on the fact that all effective practitioners are able to reflect on their ongoing
experience and learn from it and he calls this approach reflection-in-action.
Boud and his colleagues (Boud, Keogh, and Walker, 1985; Boud and Walker, 1990, 1998) developed a model for
learning from experience; he described the main feature of the model as following:
- Learning is always grounded in prior experience.
- Any attempt to promote new learning must take into account the old experience.
- Links must be made between old experience and the new knowledge or experience.
- Past experience directly affects the decision of what is important or not.
- Learning from experience is active learning , where learners' goals affect their participation

Boud explained the occasions of reflection, where it can happen during Anticipation of Events, in the Midst
of Action or After Events. After events reflection needs both "Return to Experience" and "Attending to
Feeling".
Boud explained the Inhibiting Reflection, where the conditions and environment as well as who is the
reader, affects the produced reflection. He emphasized that reflective activities should be distinguished
from those graded.

As been pointed out by (Brockbank, Mcgill & Beech, 2002, pp. 15), Organizational learning is essential
for survival as 'Learning is at the heart of a company's ability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment'
(Prokesch 1997).
(Pettigrew and Whipp, 1993) Identified variables which differentiates organizations capable of managing
change to be: environmental assessment, leading change , linking strategic and operational change ,
seeing human resources as assets and liabilities and achieving coherence.
Salaman (1995) argued that his analysis of six factors of learning could contribute to an ability to manage

The Learning Organization has been defined as "an organization which facilitates the learning of all its
members and continuously transforms itself" (Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 1991).

Salaman (1995) has argued, in order to transform into a learning organization, typically major cultural,
structural and systems change is necessary. And to make such transformation would be problematic as
been pointed out by Argyris (1986) that many organizations have established routines and norms that
reinforce non-learning. These norms focus on defense, control and the avoidance of (potentially creative)
conflict and risk-taking. The book argues that "reflective learning offers an alternative that is both
achievable and able to engage with the social complexities discussed by Argyris and Salaman"
(Brockbank et al., 2002, pp.16).

So we can come with the conclusion that organization ability to learn determines its ability to manage
change. And although transformation to learning organization is difficult, reflective learning can provide
the solution to the social difficulties. To make it happen the organization is recommended to use small
groups where managers can influence them put them on the learning track even if the organization as a
whole is not a learning organization.

How we can make learning reflective?
As Brockbank et al. (2002, pp.18-21) answered there are set of requirements needed to make the learning
a reflective one.
To summarize these requirements: learning should be active experience, learner has to use his old
knowledge and experience and match with the new knowledge, within a social context learner should
create his own path for development, learner should get the opportunity to change his learning method to
be reflective as it is not something he born with, reflective learning should enrich the learner total set of
knowledge, learning should be 2 way mode and should use dialogue.
The learning dialogue is essential for the transformative and reflective learning (Brockbank et al., 2002,
pp.22). Reflective dialogue is different than internal dialogue as it gives rise to 'assumptions, beliefs,
perceptions and ways of construing and acting on experience' (Weil and Mcgill, 1989, p. 247).
At the center of reflective dialogue there are: doing, feeling and thinking. These three axes are the main
domains for learning. Following are the needed skills for different level of reflective dialogues
(Brockbank et al., 2002, pp. 26-28):
1. Dialogue for improvement
2. Dialogue for transformation
3. Dialogue for reflecting on the learning process.

Learner's reflection tells how much transformation or achievement he got.


Denis, Langley & Rouleau (2010) examined organization leadership in the context of ambiguous
authority relationships .they focused on three empirical case studies in health care organizations and
examined leadership as a practical activity focusing particularly on its dynamic, collective, situated, and
dialectical nature. They used qualitative and longitudinal research methods using multiple sources of
information including among other methods direct interviews with board members, managers, employees
and CEOs.
Denis et al. concluded the following criteria of leadership:

Leadership as Dynamic: Leadership actions at one time can change the potential for effective
leadership later
Leadership as collective: Leadership depends critically on a constellation of co-leaders who play
complementary roles
Leadership as Situated: Leadership is manifest in the micro-activities of leaders in interaction with
others in specific contexts
Leadership as Dialectic: Practices that seem to be effective often have a downside. (Denis et al. ,
2010, pp.73)


Leaders should consider themselves as part of the internal network of the organization. They shouldn't
consider themselves as outside force or authority or that they have full control over the organization, this
leads to the importance of creating a functional group of leaders .To achieve this prospective it needs
more humility from the leaders. Leaders shouldn't consider themselves as a cornerstone of the
organization and should know that leaders are transient and they may leave their positions if they think it
will be better for their organizations. Using the modern tools of sophisticated systems of management has
its positive and negative sequences, so leaders should pay attention to the proper way for its usage. (Denis
et al., pp.84-85)

According to (William et al., 2011) authentic leaders create lasting values. They lead with tier hearts and
minds. They have long-term relationships and have self-discipline to get result.
How can one be an authentic leader? William et al. answered this question in their research, where they
emphasized the fact that authentic leadership emerges from the life story. You do not have to be born with
specific characteristics or traits of a leader. To be authentic leader you need to:
- be yourself don't imitate anyone else
- Learn from your life story
- understand yourself and work hard to develop yourself
- Practice your values and principles
- Build your support team
- Balance your extrinsic and intrinsic motivations
- Empower people to lead
All the time behave as what you really are.
Managerial work has set of characteristics and activities. Yukl (2002, pp. 21-27) listed some of these
activities and common criteria. Below is a summary of these characteristics:
- Pace of work is not steady.
- Type of work is not fixed and scattered
- Many of the activities are reactive
- Interactions often Involve peers and outsiders
- Oral communication is a very common interaction
- Decisions have a political, emotional dimension and usually are disordered.
- Usually major decisions are result of many small actions or incremental decisions.
- Important decisions require the support and authorization of many different people at different
positions and subunits.
- Most planning is informal and adaptive

Yukl (2002, pp. 41-46) listed a set of guidelines for effective managerial leadership, I think it is important
to mention some of these points here:
- Understand reasons for demands and constraints
- Expand the range of available choices ( define the job in different ways)
- Determine what you want to accomplish
- Analyze how you use your time
- Plan daily and weekly activities
- Avoid unnecessary activities
- Conquer procrastination ( divide complex tasks into smaller parts, tackle complex task first before
the daily stream of demands)
- Make time for reflective planning
- Schedule periodic strategy sessions with subordinates
- start an improvement project.



Bibliography
Argyris, C. 1986. Strategy, change, and defensive routines. Boston: Pitman.
Boud, D. 2001. Using journal writing to enhance reflective practice. New directions for adult and continuing
education, 2001 (90), pp. 9--18.
Boud, D. and Walker, D. 1998. Promoting reflection in professional courses: The challenge of context. Studies in
higher education, 23 (2), pp. 191--206.
Boud, D. and Walker, D. 1990. Making the most of experience. Studies in Continuing Education, 12 (2), pp. 61--
80.
Boud, D., Keogh, R. and Walker, D. 1985. Reflection, turning experience into learning. London: Kogan Page.
Brockbank, A., Mcgill, I. and Beech, N. 2002. Reflective learning in practice. Aldershot, Hants, England: Gower.
Denis, J., Langley, A. and Rouleau, L. 2010. The practice of leadership in the messy world of organizations.
Leadership, 6 (1), pp. 67--88.
Moon, J. 1999. Reflection in learning & professional development. London: Kogan Page.
Pedler, M., Burgoyne, J. and Boydell, T. 1991. The learning company. London: McGraw-Hill.
Pettigrew, A. M. and Whipp, R. 1993. Managing change for competitive success. Oxford, OX, UK: B. Blackwell.
Prokesch, S. E. 1997. Unleashing the Power of Learning. An Interview with British Petroleum's John Browne.
Harvard Business Review, 75 (5), pp. 146--68.
Salaman, G. 1995. Managing. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Schn, D. A. 1983. The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books.
Schn, D. A. 1987. Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Weil, S. W. and Mcgill, I. 1989. Diversity in experiential learning. [Guildford, England]: Society for Research into
Higher Education.
William, W., Peter, S., Andrew, N., David, M., Diana, M. and Others. 2011. Discovering Your Authentic
Leadership.
Yukl, G. A. 2002. Leadership in organizations. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.


Unit 2 : The Learning Leader
Allio (2009) argued that all leadership books are based only on five hypotheses:
- Good leaders have good character: although character is important but it's not sufficient. The
leader needs to be skillful and to act with integrity; otherwise he will be scoundrel, impostor or a
fool person.
- Theres no best way to lead: There's no standard approach for leading. How to lead effectively
will depend on the specific circumstances around your organization.
- Leaders must collaborate: Good leader will cooperate with others and actually he needs to
cooperate. But at the same time he will manage others not to go beyond cooperation boundaries to
the exploitation area. Where some of the stakeholders consume more resources just for the sake of
their cooperation.
- Adaptability makes longevity possible: Good leader can manage and push for successful change.
The world is changing and turned to be more dynamic than before. Only that organization able to
change can survive for long time.
- Leaders are self-made: "Individuals evolve into leaders as they experiment with alternative
approaches to new challenges and slowly integrate the successful approaches into a personal
leadership style and strategy", Allio (2009, pp.9).


Personally, I believe that communication and influencing skills are main characteristics of the good
leader. That's why I put a goal for myself to improve my communication skills. Based on this preference I
found (Gallagher, 2007) very interesting and it added a considerable value to my personal development
plan. Gallagher point out that people biologically programmed to react to threats and that's why people
dont like to be corrected because they consider this as threat. So to give a corrective feedback we need to
remove the threat out of it. Garry offered a strength-based feedback model that allows giving the
criticizing feedback without getting defensive. He calls it CANDID approach.

As Gallagher stated, this process aims to remove the emotional sting out, so the conversation will be more
cooperative.

Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth (Burns, 1978).
Although, leadership was regarded as an inherent ability to inuence others by controlling the behavior of
other members of a group, leadership styles have evolved and extended beyond inuence, to include
motivation and enabling of others to help achieve organizational goals (Jogulu, 2010, pp. 706).
"Different cultures maintain different sets of norms and beliefs towards leadership styles because they
reect different concepts of how reality should be viewed and practiced", (Jogulu, 2010, pp. 716).

Based on the culture it may be accepted and preferred by followers to have transactional leader while in
other culture it may be not preferred nor accepted to follow that model where followers may seek to find a
transformational leader to follow. So there is big linkage between culture and the ideal model of
leadership (Jogulu, 2010).

As been noted out by Livingston (2003, pp. 97--106) Pygmalion effect refers to "the notion that the way
One person treats another can, for better or worse, be transforming". If a manager traits his subordinates
as they were of high performance and doing great they will do great and productivity is likely to be
excellent, and vice versa. It looks like subordinates obey their leader for what they expect out of them.
Also manager's expectation out from their subordinates reflect how look to themselves. If a manager is
unskilled, his subordinates will have distorted image of themselves as human beings and their expectation
as well as their performance will be low. But if a manager is skillful and has high expectations, his
subordinates' self-confidence will grow; their expectation and performance will go high. "More often than
one realizes, the manager is Pygmalion ", (Livingston, 2003, pp. 106).

Bibliography
Allio, R. J. 2009. Leadership--the five big ideas. Strategy & Leadership, 37 (2), pp. 4--12.
Burns, J. M. 1978. Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.
Caldwell, C. and Dixon, R. D. 2010. Love, forgiveness, and trust: Critical values of the modern leader. Journal of
Business Ethics, 93 (1), pp. 91--101.
Gallagher, R. 2007. How to Give Strength-Based Feedback. [e-book] Point of Contact Group.
http://www.howtotellanyoneanything.com/StrengthBasedFeedback_white_paper.pdf [Accessed: 16 Apr
2014].
House, R., Hanges, P., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. and Gupta, V. 2004. Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The
GLOBE Study of 62 Societies, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks.
Jogulu, U. D. 2010. Culturally-linked leadership styles. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 31 (8),
pp. 705--719.
Livingston, J. S. 2003. Pygmalion in management. Harvard business review, 81 (1), pp. 97--106.
Rosette, A. S. and Tost, L. P. 2010. Agentic women and communal leadership: How role prescriptions confer
advantage to top women leaders. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95 (2), p. 221.


Unit 3 : Learning from Transformational Experiences

"Authentic transformational leadership must rest on a moral foundation of legitimate values. The opposite
is inauthentic or pseudo-transformational leadership, that of leaders who consciously or unconsciously act
in bad faith", (Sartre, 1992; Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999, pp. 184).
As been pointed out by (Cascio, 1995), in today's modern world, transformational leadership has become
a necessity. "Organizations require transformational leadership to bring out . . . in followers . . . their
creativity, imagination, and best efforts", (Cascio, 1995, p. 930).

True leader appear during hard times. He never surrender in the difficult situation, however he can learn
from it and use it for his benefits. At the end he comes out stronger from such difficult experience. While
such circumstances may destroy normal people, true leader can turn the negative experience into a
success story and to find the opportunity to learn and improve through it. Usually difficult stories create
premium and true leaders. (Bennis and Thomas, 2002, pp. 39-45; Collins, 2005, pp. 136-146)

In their article (Thomas and Bendoly, 2009) analyzed the impact of leadership styles on project
performance. Their research concluded that a project manager may apply leadership styles and tactics in
the real project management activities. The research data even showed that project managers as leaders
need to clearly demonstrate a dominant approach during critical incident interventions. The approach
style and tactics may differ (Thomas and Bendoly, 2009, pp. 70-80) (I think based on the project type,
stakeholders' nature, project circumstances and the current culture).


Bibliography
Bass, B. M. and Steidlmeier, P. 1999. Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior. The
leadership quarterly, 10 (2), pp. 181-217.
Bennis, W. and Thomas. 2002. Crucibles of Leadership. Harvard Business Review, 80 pp. 39--45.
Cascio, W. F. 1995. Whither industrial and organizational psychology in a changing world of work?. American
psychologist, 50 (11), p. 928.
Collins, J. 2005. Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve. Harvard Business Review, 83
pp. 136-146.
Margolis, J. D. and Stoltz, P. G. 2010. How to bounce back from adversity. Harvard business review, 88 (1-2), pp.
86-92.
Thomas, D. and Bendoly, E. 2009. Limits to effective leadership style and tactics in critical incident interventions.
Project Management Journal, 40 (2), pp. 70-80.


Unit 4 : Values, Principles and Goals

Research shows that employees conform to the ethical values of their leaders (Schminke et al., 2002;
Brown and Mitchell, 2010). Furthermore, leaders who are perceived as ethically positive influence
productive employee work behavior (Mayer et al., 2009; Brown and Mitchell, 2010) and negatively
influence counterproductive work behavior (Brown & Trevino, 2006; Mayer et al., 2009; Brown and
Mitchell, 2010).

Ethical leadership can be seen from two perspectives: normative and descriptive. Normative perspective
is concerned with individual ideal behavior within workplace environment. Normative perspective is a
philosophy oriented perspective. While social perspective "attempts to understand how people perceive
ethical leadership and investigates the antecedents, outcomes, and potential boundary conditions of those
perceptions"(Brown, 2010, pp. 584). Social perspective is rooted in disciplines such as psychology,
sociology, and organization science. (Brown, 2010)
Research revealed that ethical leaders were best described along two related dimensions: moral person and moral
manager. The moral person dimension refers to the qualities of the ethical leader as a person. The moral manager
dimension refers to how the leader uses the tools of the position of leadership to promote ethical conduct at work
(Trevio et al., 2000, 2003; Brown, 2010)

Effects of ethical leadership have been explained both by learning theory (Bandura, 1977, 1986) and
social exchange theory (Blau, 1964).
According to principles of reciprocity in social exchange theory (Blau, 1964; Gouldner, 1960),
individuals feel grateful and to their ethical leader and tend return the same kind of behavior of good
work and they dont participate in destructive work.( Brown, 2010)
In the light of the learning theory (Bandura, 1977, 1986), employees learn the accepted behavior by
watching relevant social role models in this case their leader. (Brown, 2010)

Based on (Brown, 2010; Bandura, 1977, 1986; Blau, 1964; Gouldner, 1960) we can conclude that
employees will follow their ethical leader and will exchange the same ethical behavior back to him and to
their organization, and in the same time they will learn the ethical behavior from ethical their leader
considering him as a social role model and they will the ethical behavior automatically embedded into
their personalities .In the contrary, employees will exchange the unethical behavior -as they can- with
their unethical leader and with their organization, in the same time they will learn the unethical behavior
from their unethical leader considering him as a social role model and they will the unethical behavior
automatically embedded into their personalities.

Can a good company become a great company, if so, how? To answer this question Jim Collins worked
with his research team composed of 22 research associates working in groups of four to six groups from
1996 to 2000 on a study involved a wide range of both qualitative and quantitative analyses (Collins,
2005). Collins pointed out that a company to move from good to great needs multiple factors to complete
the transformation. These factors are a level 5 leader plus other factors; actually the level 5 leadership
enables the implementation of the other factors. Collins pointed out that the transformation will never
ever happen without the level 5 leadership. Level 5 leader can be made , but only that leader who born
with the level 5 seeds can be made a level 5 leader, so he is made but not everyone can be made into a
level 5 leader. Level 5 leader is made by his own life story, he has to be authentic humble and with iron
well for the level 5 manufacturing process to succeed. Level 5 leaders always blame themselves for bad
things and credit others for good things.(Collins, 2005)

Doran (1981, pp. 35--36) pointed out that expectation should be written in the S.M.A.R.T. way, where it
stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound.
Bibliography

Bandura, A. 1977. Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. 1986. Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Blau, P. M. 1964. Exchange and power in social life. New York: J. Wiley.
Brown, M. E. and Mitchell, M. S. 2010. Ethical and unethical leadership. Business Ethics Quarterly, 20 (4), pp.
583--616.
Brown, M. E. and Trevino, L. K. 2006. Socialized charismatic leadership, values congruence, and deviance in work
groups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91 (4), p. 954.
Collins, J. 2005. Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve. Harvard Business Review, 83
pp. 136--146.
Doran, G. T. 1981. 'There's a S.M.AR.T. Way to Write Management's Goals and Objectives. Management Review,
70 pp. 35--36.
Gouldner, A. W. 1960. The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement. American sociological review, pp. 161--
178.
Mayer, D. M., Kuenzi, M., Greenbaum, R., Bardes, M. and Salvador, R. 2009. How low does ethical leadership
now? Test of a trickle-down model. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108 pp. 1--13.
Schminke, M., Wells, D., Peyrefitte, J. and Sebora, T. C. 2002. Leadership and Ethics in Work Groups A
Longitudinal Assessment. Group & Organization Management, 27 (2), pp. 272--293.
Trevino, L. K. 1986. Ethical decision making in organizations: A person-situation interactionist model. Academy of
management Review, 11 (3), pp. 601--617.
Trevino, L. K., Brown, M. and Hartman, L. P. 2003. A qualitative investigation of perceived executive ethical
leadership: Perceptions from inside and outside the executive suite. Human Relations, 56 (1), pp. 5--37.
Trevino, L. K., Hartman, L. P. and Brown, M. 2000. Moral Person and Moral Manager: HOW EXECUTIVES
DEVELOP A REPUTATION FOR ETHICAL LEADERSHIP. California Management Review, 42 (4).




Unit 5 : Putting Your Goals into Action
Lencioni (2002) pointed out that values statements used by most corporates, are bland, toothless, or just
plain dishonest .Executives usually think they're cool statements and if not they're not good they are
harmless, But actually, they're often highly destructive. Empty and poorly implemented values statements
can poison the company culture. Coming up with strong and authentic values are really difficult and
requires very hard work that's why most companies would prefer not to bother, but the result of having
authentic and solid values can make a transformational change through the whole organization which
deserve that difficulty. Leader has to know the different types of values as most CEOs mix between them.
There are four types of values: core, aspirational, permission-to-play and accidental. Values are difficult
to follow as they are difficult to build but at the end If you're not willing to accept the pain real values
incur, don't bother going to the trouble of formulating a values statement. Lencioni (2002)

As been pointed by Collins (1999) most great companies have a big, hairy, audacious goal which he calls
BHAGs. A good BHAG should have long time frame ten to thirty years or more, it should be clear and
easy to grasp and it connects to the core values and purpose of the organization.
The organization to achieve its BHAGs it needs to utilities a powerful managerial tool, Collins call it the
"catalytic mechanism" where objectives and performance are linked by. The catalytic mechanism can be a
policy or a strategy which push the organization to achieve its BHAGs but it has to produce the desired
results in unpredictable ways.
In addition to being unpredictable in nature the catalytic mechanism has these characteristics: It has to
distribute the power for the benefit of the overall system, it has a sharp set of teeth, attracts the right
people and ejects viruses and produce an ongoing and lasting effects.
"BHAGs a company's wildest dreams. Catalytic mechanism are their foundations. Build them
both"(Collins, 1999,pp. 82).


Bibliography
Collins, J., 1999. Turning goals into results: The power of catalytic mechanisms. Harvard Business Review, 77,
pp.70--84.
Lencioni, P., 2002. Make your values mean something. Harvard business review, 80(7), pp.113--117.




Summary

By completing my reflective journal entries I got my first experience doing a reflection in this way. I learnt how to
do citation and got the real experience of writing what I got from my reading in an academic style. Although it was
a mistake to postpone writing this journal till unit 6 as I used to write my reflective journals using paper and pen,
But I think this is the most beneficial method to do reflection. By reflecting one emphasis on what was beneficial
and make it more information more persistent and easy to remember. In my next module I will start writing the
reflective journal since day 1 to be sure I get the most benefits from the module and to be more familiarized by the
academic writing.
Ahmad Zaher,