OGL 200 Paper 7

For the following questions, be sure to connect to the reading material in your book. This is a writing
assignment, so answers should be written in complete and coherent sentences and paragraphs. Answers
in the A range will refer to the text and fully explain how the concepts learned in the text apply to the
question.

Part A: Short essay questions

1. Name and describe three potential problems that can arise in mentor/protégée
relationships. 


Three potential problems that can arise from mentor/protégée relationships are:

1.) The mentor engaging in manipulative behavior (Hackman, 2013, p. 380). This can include

sabotaging the work of the protégée, taking credit for their work, deceiving them, abusing their

power, and neglecting or distancing themselves from the protégée (Hackman, 2013, p. 380).

2.) There is a possibility of mismatched personalities, value systems, or work styles that can cause

problems (Hackman, 2013, p. 380). This could cause friction between the mentor and the protégée

and disrupt the benefit of having this relationship in the first place. A protégée would see less

benefit from this relationship if the two people weren’t able to connect and work together

cohesively.

3.) Protégées may take advantage of the mentor and not provide assistance when needed or violate

confidences (Hackman, 2013, p. 380). This is detrimental for both the mentor and the protégée.

The mentor may become frustrated by the lack of trust in the relationship and terminate the

relationship altogether. Additionally, the protégée could experience negative consequences for

taking advantage of the relationship.

2. Which type(s) of developmental job opportunities have you had? How did these
experiences help you develop as a leader or follower? 


Twice in my working experience I have experienced job transitions, or “moving from one position

to another…where job responsibilities are unfamiliar” (Hackman, 2013, p. 383).

 When I was first hired at a preschool, I was hired on as an assistant teacher. My job role in this

position was solely to aid the teacher as needed. Mostly this included completing menial tasks such as

cleaning, making copies of documents, and watching over the children while the lead teacher was

engaged in one-on-one activities with children. After working at the preschool for less than a year I

was promoted to a lead teaching position. In this position I was required to plan curriculum, which

was completely foreign to me. I had zero experience writing or planning activities for a group,

especially in terms of meeting educational goals. I also had to plan parent teacher conferences which

included performing social, emotional, behavioral, and academic evaluations. This was also something

in which I was inexperienced. The new skills I needed to perform successfully as a lead teacher were

developed slowly over time by taking early childhood education courses at a local college, and by

attending training courses at the preschool.

The second job transition I experienced was being promoted at my current workplace from a

barista to a shift supervisor. As a barista I was responsible for floor level tasks such as beverage

preparation, customer service, cleaning tasks and minimal cash handling. Once I was promoted to a

shift supervisor, my responsibilities intensified immensely. Now as a supervisor I am responsible for

upper level cash handling, inventory counts, keeping track of labor and sales, delegating job roles

during shifts, running breaks, issuing refunds, and handling complicated customer inquiries. Most of

these tasks were foreign to before I promoted. I had never been responsible for upper level cash

handling and inventory counts in any of my other jobs. New skills that I needed to learn for this

position were taught through training courses, other experiences supervisors, and practice.

Part B: Leadership Activity Journal: Reflecting on your leadership skills

1. Take the Continuous Learner Self-Assessment on page 377 of your book.

a. Report on your responses
1.) I am open to feedback. While I used to be defensive when receiving feedback, I

have learned to open and accepting of it now understanding that it is almost

always useful and productive to respond positively to it.

 2.) While I used to care significantly about my performance compared to others, I

only moderately compare myself to others these days; mostly for the purpose of

improving my performance if someone has a better wat of doing something than

me.

3.) I think about job performance every day.

4.) Occasionally I will go out of my way to get information about how well I am doing;

mostly if I’m concerned that I’m not doing well. Otherwise I take it as it comes.

5.) I look for feedback about my performance infrequently. Occasionally I will ask

others for feedback. Other times I evaluate myself compared to others who do

well.

6.) I rarely ask my manager about our organizations information. Usually I look it up

in a manual or through our online resources.

7.) I constantly set development goals for myself.

8.) I volunteer for job assignments as they interest me.

9.) I don’t think about my career progress, per se. I think more about my career

effectiveness.

10.) If become dissatisfied with my career progress, I take steps to change careers or

directions, but only after some time.

Overall, I consider myself a moderate continuous learner. At times I am complacent

with my performance or job role, at other times I am interested in learning more or

improving. I become particularly concerned with improving if I feel I am not meeting

performance standards or if someone excels at something more than myself. If I run into

a problem where I am unsure of the answer, I am likely to ask questions or do research. I

consider myself to be continuously working on personal development, rather than

continuously learning about a job role.

b. Reflect on what these responses reveal about your leadership development
behaviors and their effectiveness

Hackman mentions that “one way to become a more perceptive student of

leadership is to keep current with leadership research” (2013, p.376). While in the past I

did not concern myself with continuous leadership development, I have recently developed

a more keen interest in it. Even though I was a leader of sorts as a preschool teacher, I

almost never considered myself a leader, only a teacher. Now that I am a leader of adults,

and I can see my direct impact on the people I work with, I have become more enthusiastic

about leadership research. I have purchased leadership books such as “The 7 Habits of

Highly Effective People” and “The Oz Principle”. Enrolling in a leadership degree program

has already required massive amounts of reflection on my leadership skills, and has

encouraged me to do additional research on leadership communication. Hackman

mentions “the fact that how we lead…can’t be separated from who we are…means that we

need to pay close attention to the inner dimension of leader development” (2013, p. 390).

He makes it clear that continuous learning and development as a leader is imperative.

Continually striving to learn and better myself as a leader will only improve my

effectiveness in a team environment.

c. Describe how you can build on your strengths and address any weaknesses.

Thankfully in a leadership degree program over the next couple of years I will be

forced to continue leadership development and learning. After I graduate, though, I will

have to make a more conscious effort to practice learning and development. As I’ve seen

how vital it is already, my goal will be to continue to read new literature, attend new

trainings and research leadership development and techniques as I move forward as a

leader.
Part C: Course Reflection

Reflect on your learning over the course of this class. Your reflection should be at least two
pages long and in 12 point font. You may also discuss the materials directly and how they
contributed to your learning.
For full points you must discuss:
1. Your self-assessments throughout the course
2. Planet Jockey & The Case of the Missing Cutlery
3. The Hackman & Johnson Text
4. The New York Times in Leadership
5. Any changes that occurred in your leadership styles over the semester and why.
6. How you plan to continue using what you’ve learned for your own personal development.

Reflection:

While my interest in leadership development has only recently been ignited, this course has

intensified my desire to continue to improve my skills. Many of the assignments required self-

reflection and evaluating my current skills as a leader. Though I may have reflected superficially on

my own accord, the prompted reflections have caused me to evaluate skills that I may not have

otherwise. Additionally, the reading assignments gave insight on how to improve those skills and NYT

articles help me understand learned leadership theories and skills in real life. Apart from reading and

writing assignments, the interactive game Planet Jockey introduced the concept of buoyancy and

allowed me to use critical thinking to practice my learned skills. The Case of the Missing Cutlery

offered detailed insight into the buoyancy concept and helped to clarify my understanding of it.

Overall, the combined experiences of reading, reflection and the interactive game provided a well-

rounded scope of leadership communication and techniques.

In the wise words of Michael Hackman and Craig Johnson, “if you want to become an effective

leader, you will need to be proactive, taking responsibility for your development” (2013, p. 374).

Without introspection, there can be no development (those are my wise words). The leadership

concepts and the self-evaluations have gone hand-in-hand towards my developing as a leader

throughout this course. Through learning about various leadership concepts, I was able to apply them

in self-assessments and evaluate my effectiveness with those skills. Completing assessments such as
the Leadership Communication Style Preference Inventory (authoritarian, democratic, or laissez-

faire) and the Communication Style Inventory (expressive, conventional, or strategic) has helped me

to reflect on the way I communicate with others and how effective it is. It caused to me to re-evaluate

my approach to communication and to evaluate how others give and receive communication.

Understanding my communication styles and how they apply to leadership gave me insight on how I

affect others and their responses to me through communication. Learning about the different types of

leadership helped me to understand my own style and to be aware of other positive, or even negative,

styles of leadership. Learning that transformational leaders have a greater success in inspiring,

motivating and connecting followers to a vision (Hackman, 2013, p. 100-128) has given me a goal to

strive towards. My understanding of groups, motivation and influences has been influenced by our

text and offered valuable insight into effective techniques that I was previously unaware of. While our

text and the assessments offered education and reflection on leadership concepts and skills, the NYT

articles offered another perspective: applications in real life.

Learning about leadership through our textbook has provided formal education through

definitions, examples and explanations. The online New York Times articles, however, have provided

a present-day, real life application of that education. I appreciate deeply that the NYT articles were a

required part of our course. I don’t normally read the newspaper or research educational articles, so

having access to this website has opened a world of insight to me. Not only did I enjoy reading the

various leadership articles on the website, I valued the application of leadership that they provided in

real life. These articles opened a door to the literal world by including anecdotes from events around

the globe. Reflecting on leadership in real life through these articles has caused me to examine

leadership in a new light: it is everywhere; not only in political leaders, management roles and

corporate executives, but in technology, schools, and everyday life. As Hackman mentions first thing

in our book, “Leadership is everywhere” (2013, p. 2). Reading these articles has truly opened my eyes

to that. In addition to relating leadership to real life through the NYT, both Planet Jockey and The Case

of the Missing Cutlery offered real life application as well.

 The concept of buoyancy was my absolute favorite part of this course, and The Case of the Missing

Cutlery was my favorite piece of literature. While one can learn the definition of buoyancy and read a

variety of brief explanations about it in a textbook, (in my opinion) nothing provides a greater depth

of understanding than application to real life. Planet Jockey provided the opportunity for “real-life”

decision making through simulations of real scenarios. Though his program is set up as “game”, the

explanations of correct and incorrect answers, as well as how the decision related to buoyancy made

it much more than that. Kevin Allen brought the concept of buoyancy from The Case of the Missing

Cutlery to life. My main goal as a leader is to connect and build trust with my co-workers in order to

be able to inspire and motivate them to meet goals, or to float, because the people I’ve inspired

believe I should (Allen, 2014, p. 17). Kevin Allen demonstrated the power of buoyant leader by

working with his team, as a member of the team, to solve the case of the missing cutlery. I admired his

ability to connect with his people and inspire them to work to solve a problem. This is the type of

leader I hope to become. The Case of the Missing Cutlery is something I will read again and again.

Throughout the course, as I learned new concepts, techniques and skills, I applied them to real life.

After gleaning an understanding of leadership, I was able to observe myself objectively as a leader and

implement tactics to improve my leadership. While there is a long road ahead of me in terms of

becoming a transformational, buoyant, and effective leader, the pieces from this course have offered

me a great start. I have gained so much insight and understanding to what it means to be a great

leader that future knowledge, learning and development have a hearty foundation to build on. My goal

is to continue to apply and learn new leadership skills to improve my effectiveness as leader, and to

motivate and inspire my team to meet goals and create change.

References:

Allen, K. (2014). The case of the missing cutlery: a leadership course for the rising star. Brookline, MA:

Bibliomotion.

Hackman, M., & Johnson, C. (2013). Leadership: A Communication Perspective Long Grove, IL:

Waveland Press.

SSO | Planet Jockey. (2016). Level 1: How To Create A High Performing Team. Retrieved March 20,

2017, from https://play.eigames.com/game/4#