Individual Reflective Essay
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Leadership and Facilitation
Traditionally, leadership was associated with authority, control, hierarchy and compliance. In recent times, there has been a strong shift from this notion. There has been a swift move towards participative leadership that is focused on empowerment and commitment. The heart of this shift has been the drift in the localization of power on the leaders to being shared largely by all group members. Shared power facilitates joint control. Leaders originally used to single-handedly manage a team and make all decisions independently. The code was- the leader to instruct alone and the tasks to be carried by those below the leaders. Revolution in leadership and management has led to the realization that real leadership involves working with your team, combing talents, applying various perspectives and cultures of every person’s background to the advantage of the whole team and integration of ideas to achieve quality results through collaboration, coaching and consultation. This style of leadership leads to happiness, productivity, sense of pride and belonging and is assured of success for the team. This is the facilitative approach of leadership.
Facilitative leadership has been my style of management and leadership for a long time now. As a leader, I am always forced to make tough decisions that need conceptual and technical skills. This is not an easy task. It needs a lot of brainstorming, critical thinking and great decision making. Applying facilitation makes me focus on building the capacity of each individual to enable them accomplish tasks on the own, now and in the future. I have to ensure that the group learns together and have the same goal of becoming better in the future. Effective facilitation comprises of processes and tools that maximize collective intelligence of every person in the group. This is used to determine the right course of action to take and build a template or framework for implementing the decisions made. Facilitation has often been associated with individuals leading workshops, doing most of the planning and coaching, but has now been seen to encompass consultation and collaboration with other members
A leader has to be visionary and can lead the team to achieve that vision. As a facilitator, I have to bring all the team members together to develop that vision, and then lead the group towards achieving the vision.To learn the fundamentals of facilitative leadership, I have to focus on developing and emphasizing of the basic, innate skills that are essential to bring the best in my team. As a good leader, I try to talk, direct and listen to my team’s ideas and perspectives. Listening helps to summarize, analyze, reflect, paraphrase and question the ideas and use them to move forward and make better, informed decisions. It is important to participate and involve myself in the tasks and ideas that we set to implement in my group. This boosts morale and makes the members never to lose faith in me or perceive me to be bossy or inconsiderate.
A facilitative leader has to participate in planning, discussing and executing ideas and tasks with the team. I believe that constructive criticism is crucial but positive reinforcement and encouragement often proves to be even more important. Recognizing work that is well done helps push the members to be better by boosting their urge to contribute and participate. It is critical as a leader to help your team to collaborate opinions, ideas and perspectives towards achieving set goals. I am often faced with conflicts regarding collaboration; having great conflict management mechanisms comes in handy in these circumstances. Leadership dictates one to be innovative; conceptual skills need variant and newer ideas daily. Having the stimulation to invent solutions makes me a better facilitative leader.
The art of facilitation and leadership requires the right kind of communication to launch collaboration, creativity and idea generation. Whenever I have to indulge my team members with ideas, I have to begin with the end in mind. I have to be clear about the purpose and objectives of any activity that we participate in. I have to do my homework, research on the agenda so that I have a clear framework for the process. This is a show of competence and direction. All the members have to listen to the others’ opinions and understand that the group’s collective wisdom is better than any single person. I always make it clear that listening does not necessarily imply agreement. Listening keeps the door open to fresh ideas and points of view. As a leader, I emphasize on everyone’s involvement and show the importance of diversity and open communication. At times, it is important to let another person lead a meeting! Surprisingly, this has often helped me check the emotional barometer gauging all participants’ concerns, fears, perceptions and expectations. With this newer and wider perspective, I am able to clarify, summarize and test for consensus while keeping the eye on the clock to ensure objectives are met.
Authenticity is the greatest hallmark of facilitation and leadership. The essence of facilitation in leadership in today’s organizations has been acknowledged and deemed important. As a facilitative leader, I make connections and help others make meaning out of it. This style helps me provide directions without totally taking the reins or imposing my rule on my team members. I am always concerned with what my group discusses and help decide on how to actually conduct discussions. This helps me balance managing content and process. Using this style, the leader invites disclosure and feedback that helps surface unacknowledged thoughts, beliefs and patterns. With that, it is easy to focus on building the group to accomplish more on its own for a long time. Most facilitative leaders operate from a position of restraint to maximize others’ contributions. This helps to avoid the heroic leader syndrome.
Improving my facilitative leadership skills helps my team to become more successful. This is evident in consensual understanding and making of higher quality decisions that will influence the success of projects. This approach helps break through stalemates and deadlocks because it is flexible. The improved working relationships of the members make the group to be more impactful. This style also helps save time and increase personal effectiveness. However, on the demerits, I often have had challenges using this style because sometimes the decision making process can be chaotic due to many participants involved. This requires group facilitation skills to deal with the chaos.
Conclusively, age, gender, diversity and mental health have a large impact in facilitation and leadership. The diversity in the way people think and reason often influences their perspective, ideas and opinions. As a leader, it is my duty to sieve through and determine the best decision for my team after allowing collaboration and teamwork. These variables make a facilitative leader to be on toes and make better decisions that will positively affect the team. The tools, methods and theory behind facilitative leadership are something that I share with people daily, and I want to learn more about them.
References
Chen, Z., Zhou, G., & Wang, S. (2018). Facilitative leadership and China’s new role in the world. Chinese Political Science Review, 3(1), 10-27.
Forester, J. F. (2017). Planning in the face of conflict: The surprising possibilities of facilitative leadership. Routledge.
Hord, S. M. (1992). Facilitative Leadership: The Imperative for Change.
Stamevski, V., Stankovska, A., & Stamevska, E. (2018). Facilitative leadership. Economics and Management, 14(1), 214-221.
