According to many scholars, cultural responsiveness should play the pivotal role to precipitate the progress of underperforming groups in diverse settings (Giroux, 1992; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Banks 2000; Zepeda, 2005). In other words, responsive leaders should use diversity as a resource to benefit from, rather than a barrier that hinders the learning process (Aceves and Orosco, 2014:7). In this project, I will try to highlight the most impressive evidence-based practices that will confine my plan to build the required cultural responsive leadership capacity. These practices are as follows: 1: Building a shared vision As an educator, I need to build a learning community that encompasses the whole efforts and directs them effectively. This community needs to be led through a shared vision. According to Johnson (2006), cultural responsive leaders should take the responsibility of achieving the shared vision and goals. A vision is the mental image for the school or any organization. It borders the comprehensive long and short-term objectives of the organization (MĂŠndez-Morse, 1993). It serves as "a signpost pointing the way for all who need to understand what the organization is and where it intends to go" (Nanus, 1992). Similar to administrators, educators need to identify their vision about their roles to improve the students’ performance (Bellon & Beaudry, 1992; Boles & Troen, 1992; Murphy, Everston, & Radnofsky, 1991; Wasley, 1991). This may impose certain changes in the curriculum or any applied instructional methods inside the classrooms. According to Johnson (2006), to conduct and agree upon a shared vision, educators shall go through four stages. These stages are: 1- Clarify the purpose and direction of your school 2- Include the most impressive people 3- Analyze and consider the future major changes 4- Reach a written and agreed upon vision statement. 2: Creating strong relationships Consequently, as a leader of learning, I will choose to start with an essential practice that is considered a cornerstone in assisting my team members to meet the expectations and achieve our goals as a community of learning. This practice is relationship building. According to Madhlangobe (2009:143), the best performance of students in their schools depends on experiencing strong relationships. He adds that building relationship is a broad concept that encompasses “empathizing with
others, decreasing anxiety among students, reducing anxiety among teachers, respecting others, inspiring responsibility and commitment in others, using humor, being approachable, using students ‘testimonies, demonstrating compassion and being democratic”. Keeping good relations with my team members will boost our leadership capacity and hence will protect our community from any probable misconceptions that may happen due to differences in culture, ethnic, gender, language or any other factors. 3: Communicating High Expectations One paramount practice that need to be fostered by me as an effective leader of learning, is communicating high expectations to my team members. According to so many educators, communicating high expectations affect positively on the relationship between the teacher and his or her learners (The Knowledge Loom, 2008). Teachers are able to motivate their students and raise their self-confidence if they keep providing abundant positive feedback along with on-task activities that challenge their students’ potentials. As an educator, I need to emphasize that learning is a demanding but in the same time a rewarding process. As a result, students will be able to organize their learning tasks and try to improve their skills to reach the instructional goals effectively. In summary, communicating frequent high expectations will help nurture an atmosphere of mutual respect and rapport between our students and us as practitioners. Accordingly, this will lead to achieving the desired goals for both teachers and students and eventually the whole community.
4: Identifying and reducing one’s Biases Identifying and reducing one’s Biases is a normal consequent after the abovementioned practices. If we are unconscious of our own biases, we will not be able to build good relations with our community members, nor will we communicate high expectations about them. According to Carroll (2010), even if someone is not aware of his biases, they will appear unintentionally. Educators need to bring as many cultural activities in their educational settings as they can, especially, the cultures of their teachers and students. This will promote and foster a sense of comfort and security to both students and teachers. On the other hand, individuals
always realize the biases of others and behave upon them. As a leader, if you assume that someone of your staff, because he or she belongs to any diversity, is not good at any certain skill, he or she will exert no efforts to be good at this skill. Undoubtedly, we are to check our biases in order to be capable of conveying our message effectively. Indisputably, this will promote forming the effective leadership capacity that we seek as practitioners. 5: Creating a cross-cultural communication Educators should thoroughly explore students’ cultural backgrounds to be able to create a cross-cultural communication (Sheets and Gay, 1996, cited in The Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, 2008). The Metropolitan Center for Urban Education (2008) adds that teachers are to take the ownership of creating a cross-cultural communication with their students. Educators and especially teachers are not expected to fulfill the requirements of this inter-cultural communications successfully, unless they receive the same efforts and appreciation from us, as responsive leaders. A leader of learning should be able to have sufficient information about his or her team members’ diversity in order to have an overview about their expected performance, ethics and communication styles. Yet, this should not lead to forming stereotypes. In addition, educators need to examine their behaviors and routines to make sure if they are fair to every team member or not. Achieving the needed cultural responsiveness in educational arena leans primarily on a successful proactive leader who is always ready to collaborate and communicate effectively with his or her team members. According to Hourcade and Bauwens (2003), maintaining effective interpersonal skills with peers is a great challenge that educators have to master competently. Trying to step forward in establishing this collaborative environment with my team members, I have asked both of them to take the DIRT Temperament Survey (Hart and Robinson, 2010). Such analysis will help me organize a repertoire of well-chosen communication and collaboration strategies that will guarantee the effective communication and collaboration amongst the whole team members. The first team member, Mr. Sameer has been indicated as a Thinker with a score of eight, an Influencer with a score of seven, a Doer with a score of six and a Relater with a score of three. While the second team member, Mr. Ahmad, has been indicated as a Thinker with a score of ten, a Doer with a score of six, an Influencer with a core of five and a Relater with a core of three.
As denoted by Conderman, Johnston-Rodriguez and Hartman (2009), identifying your style, and that of your teammates, is an essential step that helps appreciate and value each other in order diminish the unnecessary problems. Having the previous results of my team members on board along with mine, as an Influencer with a score of nine and a Doer with a score of eight, I have to select suitable collaboration and communication styles that fit our styles. According to Briggs and Myers (1980), thinkers like to organize their information orderly to make sense to them. They are able to succeed when they build on previous information (1980). That means they like clear directions while collaborating with other teammates. This highlights the necessary of communicating in written documents and circulars that are detailed and containing direct missions. In addition, they like to be appreciated for their efforts and they honor responsibility (Miscisin, 2001), so I need to delegate some of my tasks to them when collaborating with them. Moreover, forming smaller team works that have certain projects and initiatives will promote their sense of belonging and will make them feel proud of their contributions to the organization. They need to be considered as reliable members who are able to manage and operate upon detailed analysis for each situation. On the other hand, my style as Influencer embeds different features in my personality. I like to initiate projects and activities and leave them for my team members to operate them while monitoring their performance through agreed upon key performance indicators. I do not like to go in deep details about every single operation in my department. I just have to make sure that they still on the right direction to achieve our shared vision and purpose. This difference in styles between us as team members is a great opportunity for forming a dynamic team that has a variety of different capabilities that will enable us to excel in achieving our goals as one team. Consequently, identifying and agreeing upon certain communication strategies will precipitate achieving these shared goals effectively. Firstly, we will work on scheduling weekly meetings with formal minutes. In these meetings, we will discuss our tasks deliberately and define our short operational weekly tasks. Secondly, my team members will be directed to deliver periodical reports about team performance. These reports will be discussed in a monthly basis to inform the whole team about the team progress and the advancement towards our milestones. However, these communication strategies will be operative if they are confined with effective collaboration strategies. According to Hart and Robinson, to avoid conflict and tension when treating with thinkers, as influencer, (a) I need to give much interest to details and avoid quick decisions as much as I can. In addition, thinkers like to work slowly to ensure accurate interventions. While as influencer, I tend to move to the next step and explore any new opportunities to benefit from, this means that (b) I should inform them earlier with
their performance goals and tasks and avoid urging them to be in a hurry (2010). Sustaining all these strategies will guarantee the advancement towards our shared vision and strengthen our relations as one team. We will realize that we have to synergize with each other to reach our goals or even exceed them. We will identify our biases and try to reduce them by time. According to Hass (2012), command and control are not any more the effective way of leading teams; it is all about “collaboration, consensus, empowerment, confidence, and leadership”. In addition, Garmston (2013:133) has stated that conviviality conceals many tensions and disputes inside the educational arena. Having the two views on board, leaders realize the importance of updating their practical approaches if they plan to exceed the expectations. Yet, this depends primarily on defining the basic style of each member in order to reach a comprehensive combination that will drive the performance cycle successfully. Being “Influencer” motivates me to integrate with both team members effectively. According to Hart and Robinson (2010), thinkers are reluctant and need many evidences to make decisions. While influencers are intuitive and they are quick in making decisions. For avoiding tension, I need to increase my attention to details and never take thoughtless decisions. Thinkers are good listeners; this guarantees a good integration with me. As Influencer, I like to remind my team with the significant role they play in their community. On the other hand, when being stressed, Thinkers tend to avoid and never clear their situations openly, while Influencers tend to attack and express their ideas powerfully. Actually, this reflects the balance and integration we may achieve if we distribute the tasks according to our areas of power and capabilities. Managing conflict is a paramount skill that should be mastered by a team leader. Discontented member will not only stop working, but also they will hinder the progress towards achieving goals. Successful leader should select suitable interventions that help manage these conflicts skillfully. Johnson and Johnson (1991) have highlighted some steps that will assist in managing conflicts between team members. They are as follows:
1: Always Define What You Want
We should always take ownership of delivering your ideas and thoughts directly in order to reach a compromise that works for the sake of the whole group not only yours. Team members should consider negotiating their needs to reach a win-win situation rather than achieving individual needs. 2: Talk About Your Emotions Emotions should be discussed openly and freely to be understood and then resolved. Every member should have the responsibility to deliver his feelings to the whole members. It is not expected that other members will understand your inner feelings unless you disclose them. 3: Exchange Basic Motives to Your Feelings about of the Conflict Each team member should have a common understanding why each team member has his stance in the conflict. In this step, team members should stress on the common goal and the effective ways they should use to reach their expectations rather than individual preferences. 4: Put Yourself in Other’s Shoes In this stage, a team member will try to understand the conflict from his team members’ perspectives. They all should try to see the other sides of the conflict. It is useful here for each member to restate his understanding of different point of views that he or she has discussed with other members. 5: Develop Choices for Common Gain Team members should here try to generate as many solutions to the problem as they can. It is worthy to mention that each member has to be creative in finding mutual gain to satisfy all the team. 6: Agree Upon a Clever Agreement When reaching an agreement that is accepted by the whole team members and have the same positive and negative effects on them all, then the team has reached a clever agreement. Relationship building is a culturally responsive practice that will be highly promoted when managing conflicts effectively. This will also result in communicating high expectations about the team performance. Moreover, leaders have to pay much attention to the process by which any decision is made. Many people suffer a lot when working in groups even if they were highly performing
individually. McKeown denotes that “Success in team-based decision-making is built on the mundane� .He continues to define this mundane in a three-step cycle for decision-making (McKeown, 2014). These steps are as follows: 1: Data According to McKeown (2014), high-performing teams rely on data when making their decisions rather than depending on listening to complaints or telling stories about what is happening inside the offices. Responsive leaders should depend on figures and facts when starting to make their decisions. Information and statistics clear the picture and envision it. This will help me, as a leader, to get rid of my biases and prioritize the goals and objectives according to the organization’s favor, not my own. Insisting on this step will transfer to my team members gradually and urge them to explore data thoroughly to reach my expectations. Consequently, this will be spread across the organization as a culture and thus my colleagues will start believe in data and stop believing in biases and personal point of views. Such culture will build good relations amongst the team members. 2: Debate Debate is key factor of having a work of a good quality. Skilled teams will debate these data and analyze it to reach a decision. They process this debate objectively and for the good of the whole team. Sustaining the debate objectively will guarantee the involvement in cross-cultural communication between the team members. Gradually, they will respect their diversity and benefit from it. 3: Decide or defer At this stage, the team should avoid taking too much time debating the data. They have to realize the prominent time to make the needed decisions. One main factor that helps the team reach their decisions is that thy have to settle certain time by which they have to make their decisions. Sticking to this time will help reach the decisions effectively. It is worthy here to mention that having a shared vision will precipitate reaching these decisions smoothly with the end in minds. The team here is cultivating the fruitfulness of his successful collaboration; this will lead to sticking to higher expectations.
Motivation is an important tool that is often under-utilized by managers in today's workplace (Bessell, Dicks, Wysocki, and Kepner, 2012). As it was stated before that both of my team member are Thinkers (Hart and Robinson, 2010). They tend to be motivated if they succeed in producing efforts and contributions of high quality. They feel proud when being right in their decisions. Working in a safe environment that offers them the opportunity to go into long details and analysis to reach the desired conclusions and achieving their goals is highly estimated by Thinkers. As an Influencer, I am always motivated through recognition and approval (Hart and Robinson, 2010). This may indicate some differences between my team members and me. Sturman and Ford (2011) have denoted several strategies that will help pave the way to motivate my team members. I have picked some strategies that will match the types of my team members. They are as follows: 1- The Power of Goals and Expectancy The authors here highlight the importance of creating challenging objectives in the workplace. They denote that these challenging goals are better than doing easy ones or even asking your staff to exert their best. As stated above, thinkers are motivated by being right. I believe creating their momentums through these inspiring settings will raise their motivation level. It is unquestionable that setting challenging yet achievable goals leads to a high level of performance. In addition, if these goals are tightly related to our shared vision, motivation amongst team members will reach its utmost. 2- Making the Job Interesting Although Thinker are results-motivated, they remain human. They need to feel interested while achieving their responsibilities. The following steps are highlighted by the authors to help remain this interest. a- Draw a comprehensive professional program for developing your staff personally and professionally. People always like to increase their experience in their areas of interest. Helping your staff achieving this experience will assist in building good relationships with them and increase their loyalty and motivation to work harder to exceed the expectations. b- Treat your staff with respect. Companies offering an atmosphere of trust and autonomy lead professionalism in their workplaces effectively. This respect will result in providing a secure atmosphere amongst the whole staff and thus reducing biases and stereotypes amongst them.
Furthermore, Richard E. Clark has denoted additional motivational processes that will fit and go for my team members as Thinkers. I tried to pick the most interesting processes from his article. They are as follows: 1- Create a positive emotional environment at work Although Thinkers tend to give less interest to emotions in the work settings, they still need certain amount of these positive atmospheres that guarantees achieving their goals professionally. It is not necessary for every team member to feel happy in order to accomplish his tasks, but, at least, they should not be extremely unhappy with their work issues. This emotional environment will help me as a leader to communicate cross-cultural communications with my team. When they feel satisfied and respected, they will be ready for such communications. 2- Correcting social loafing through individual assessment Thinkers value their contributions and like the fruitfulness of their efforts. This kind of team members encourage other members to feel comfortable even when doing nothing to their teams. This may result in some conflicts or at least lack of motivation to the Thinkers while working in teams. While assessing the contributions and task of each member individually, social loafing will consequently disappear (Clark & Estes, 2002). In addition, correcting this social loafing will prevent forming kind of stereotypes or biases amongst team members. When all members realizes that their colleagues have equal portion of tasks to accomplish, they will be motivated to accomplish tasks and get involved into across-cultural communication. This will maximize the benefits they will gain as one team from each other and maintain a good relationship amongst themselves to reach the expectations of their organization and thus reach their shared vision.
To sustain the effectiveness of the above-mentioned strategies, a responsive leader shall realize that he or she will pass definitely through a continuous change cycle. This change will act as the fuel for building the culturally responsive practices a team will apply to achieve his goals and accomplish his tasks successfully. However, not every exerted efforts will lead to a successful change story (Kotter, 1995). This is why Kotter (1996) has stated his 8-step process for leading the change process effectively. , Since this change has to be executed through individuals, leaders have to give a big deal of interest to nurturing the culture of interest amongst the team members in their workplaces. I tried to pick
the most effective change principles that will help activate my plan for building culturally responsive leadership capacity according to my team members’ temperament. These practices are as follows: 1: Start a sense of urgency Realizing the importance of change is very crucial for achieving the required improvement. This step looks like creating the momentum for change amongst the team members. As stated above that my colleagues, according to Hart and Robinson (2010), are both Thinker, they prefer to act through examining details and considering the past results. Accordingly, as a leader, I need to go back to our department results and benchmark it with our targets. I need to investigate the reasons for these results and compare them to our long-term goals. My team members in this case will realize the importance of living this sense of urgency. They will start moving forward towards achieving these goals. This urgency will help build good relations between them. Thus, they will identify their biases and try to get rid of them for the sake of introducing a performance of a high quality standard (Hart and Robinson, 2010). 2: Build a clear vision Actually, creating a shared vision is one of my major culturally responsive leadership practices that I have already stated above in this project. Kotter (1995) denotes that developing a future vision will precipitate achieving a successful transformation. Especially after getting good relations amongst the team members, they should be able to envision their way to be more focused on specific practices and activities that will make the vision actual (Kotter International, 2015). Since Thinkers are always thorough and focus on details before making their decisions (Hart and Robinson, 2010), a clear vision will help them understand why they do certain tasks and decisions (Mind Tools, 2011). They will push the cycle to see the change happening in order to achieve this shared vision. Yet, I have to highlight here that it is my turn, as a responsive leader, to succeed in delivering and communicating this vision very skillfully. This requires the existence of good relations and the absence of biases and stereotypes. Consequently, thi will help the team members adapt themselves to the required adjustments in order to communicate, collaborate and reach the required norms of excellence efficiently. 3: Include changes into the culture Standardizing your performance is a precious goal. Through this step, Kotter tries to figure out the way of forming these standards through a sense of organization. In
addition, Thinkers people search for quality, this theme of institutionalizing change will satisfy this need to them. They will validate how this change help improve the performance and attitudes of the whole organization. This will help me impose standards for excellence and monitoring system amongst the whole team members. In this step, tem members will see the recipe of change as a culture and way of work in their organization. Mastering the above-mentioned strategies will energize me with a repertoire of tools and mechanisms that will precipitate the immersion of my colleagues into the process of promoting a culturally responsive skillfulness in order for fostering a learning community. Agreeing upon the five culturally responsive leadership practices will act as the cornerstone of our plan. They will guide and control our strategic interventions in the future to reach our shared objectives and long-term goals. Moreover, using the DIRT analysis have drawn my attention to a remarkable benefit. It is that my turn as a team leader is to lead the change and search for prominent tools to involve all my team members in this process of change. According to Dutton and Duncan (1987), the momentum for change depends on the extent of effort and dedication the top-level of management promise to foster. In other words, change starts with leaders and executed through a whole team. Besides, change cycle will pass through many types of collaboration, conflict, lack of motivation and finally success. Through this plan, suitable practices have been targeted and selected to match my team members’ personality types. They will be engaged in a continuous improvement process gradually. In the wake of this increasing interest in how diversity plays an essential role in our educational settings, leaders of learning should have a plan that guarantees the sustainability of their role as agents of change. According to Mc Connell (2015), any change is not successful unless it is sustained and advocated by the whole stakeholders. Therefore, a great attention should be paid to the main five practices I have implemented in my plan. I have to stick to them and spell them out frequently until they turn to adopted values by the whole team members. In addition, I need to adopt a comprehensive policy of monitoring and controlling in order to gauge our performance and adjust this performance according to certain standards of excellence. Then, I need to have a policy of celebration and recognition upon every achieved objective or milestone. Finally, a process of reviewing and improving our performance as a team has to be conducted regularly to maintain our strengths and improve our areas for grow.
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