leadership at work
Leadership is action, not position.
-Donald H. McGannon
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I believe that in order to be a competent and empathic leader, you must gain significant knowledge and experience by working in the front lines of social work. It is possible to be a leader in a front line position and to emanate the true meaning of leadership in day to day practice, regardless of your role or job description.
A significant learning from the MSW program has been that many of the skills developed in working directly with clients, such as developing relationships, role modelling, managing conflict and being in a position of power and authority and transferrable to a leadership position. I am mindful of this in my day to day practice in terms of being purposeful in my actions and being reflective in how I may use theses skills one day in a leadership position.
I have also observed the leadership in my work environment and differing styles and approaches to leadership. It seems that in a child welfare and governmental environment, there are many situations wherein a transactional leadership approach is needed due to the need to resolve crises and emergency situations in an efficient and consistent manner. Although there are times when being transformational and inspirational are possible, flexibility and good timing are needed in order to be able to be responsive to the immediacy of various situations.
Please find below a link to a Social Policy Paper, which was written with my fellow student Sherry Ricketts. Writing this paper enabled me to connect my day to day practice with related policy. It provided me with the opportunity to critique existing policies that impact the clients we work with on a day to day basis in Child and Family Services. I also participated in a research project entitled: Child Welfare Practice: A Social Justice Perspective. It was with regards to how front line child welfare workers perceive social justice. This provided me with the opportunity to reflect on my own beliefs around social justice and its role in my day to day work with clients. It helped me to establish my own definition of social justice, which includes providing youth with equal opportunities to be successful as adults, which you will see reflected in my social policy paper.