Transformative Leadership
Being a leader is complex and multifaceted, often requiring extensive people skills and a willingness for continuous professional and personal growth. These skills and willingness are over and above employing and having awareness of an abundance of practical frameworks or tools to use in varying situations. A leader with interdisciplinary knowledge renders better outcomes, leading to more impactful interactions and initiatives, and transforming organizations. Transformative leaders value diversity and inclusion and welcome varying options; they create safe, supportive working environments that lead to more satisfied, more invested, employees, thus enabling better outcomes as employees feel empowered to own their roles.
The curated artifacts in this Transformative Leadership section highlight three MAIS program writings that showcase examples of a transformative leadership practice that centres on self-reflection, strategic thinking, and employing a holistic lens.
Artifact 1:
MAIS644: Adult Education, Community Leadership, and the Crisis of Democracy
Communication was a dominant theme throughout the MAIS644 (Adult Education, Community Leadership, and the Crisis of Democracy) course. Further, a key takeaway of the course was how transformative leadership lays the foundation for organizations to capitalize on strong communication to foster a learning society. Similarly to interdisciplinarity, communication is multi-faceted and can cultivate diverse points of view.
Leading a successful transformative change depends on a leader’s ability to utilize conversational tactics. Building a rich, dynamic, and evolving leadership practice relies on situational awareness, relevancy, learning, and self-reflection while remaining open, honest, transparent, and authentic. This artifact discusses three readings that support an evolving leadership practice by leaning into personal and professional growth through self-reflection and learning.
Artifact 2:
MAIS640: Grounded Theory, Exploration, and Beyond
New leaders, those who have shifted into a leadership position from a staff position, are often unprepared for the shift. Even those who assert they’re fully ready for the career shift find unexpected benefits and challenges. This artifact discusses the emerging theory that there is a commonality across skillsets and behaviours required by individuals who have transitioned into leadership irrespective of experiences, supporting this theory through research that outlines the skill mix and core competencies a new leader needs to enable a successful transition.
Like the supporting research in this artifact outlining knowledge that new leaders should have, the interdisciplinary knowledge gained through the MA-IS program has enabled me to be a better leader. The learning stemming from the work, organization, and leadership focus area of the program helped me further my understanding of how people can impact situational components, how political structures can create a dynamic external environment, and how to identify synchronicities across business functions. All of these have allowed me to hone my leadership practice, helping to ground my reputation as a dependable trustworthy source of knowledge amongst my peers and employees. Transitioning into leadership is a complex career step that has many variables, this artifact highlights, through an emerging theory, the minimum set of interpersonal and professional skills that can make the career transition easier.
Artifact 3:
GOVN500: Governance and Leadership
Today’s leaders must think beyond their sphere of influence, understanding how strategic decisions impact those in and out of their organization. Interdisciplinary knowledge allows leaders to step back and look holistically at a situation, helping to identify conflicting concepts or assumptions, plus areas of overlap or strength. Holistic and strategic thinking in leadership is an art and isn’t readily used in my experience. In my leadership practice, looking at the ‘bigger picture’ or attempting to understand the collective whole of an issue, theory, practice, or situation has been a successful approach; for example, in project management, looking across disciplines holistically has allowed me to actively identify risks and mitigation strategies based on the situational context and the players involved. This artifact discusses the impact of leadership big-picture thinking on globalization in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors; it outlines the challenges and the necessary leadership values, skills, and competencies to identify appropriate mitigation strategies.
