Clint Gault's Reflections

 What? As someone still young and early on in their career, how can you provide feedback and ideas to someone who has a lifetime of experience over you and potentially knows much more than you? What happens when you constantly make suggestions and get shut down by your leaders? Should you continue to look for new ways to innovate and make improvements in your workplace or be content with the status quo that is presented to you by those around you? So What? Providing feedback is essential to the growth and well-being of not only an organization but both leaders and followers as well.  Ira Chaleff  argues that it requires a large amount of courage to challenge our leaders in the pursuit of a common purpose. When we don't provide feedback to our leaders it deteriorates our relationship and continues to hurt the common purpose. If a leader doesn't want to be challenged or be given feedback, they can be perceived as a bad leader . On the other hand, there is a time and place t...

    What?      Growing up influential in my life have always told me to be a leader and stand out from the crowd. On the other hand though what is wrong with wanting to be a follower? I think to be a great leader, first you must understand the importance and necessity of followers in the leader-follower relationship. Having been in both leadership and follower positions ranging from school, sport, or business, I have viewed many different characteristics and traits from each side. So What?         When thinking of what it means to be an effective follower, a few traits and characteristics are mentioned across many different organizations including self-management, credibility, and commitment . According to Ward , followers are not so different from leaders in that they both need self-motivation and responsibility of their work. Active followers are not a yes man who do anything their leader tells them to do blindly. An active or empower...

What? How can we make ourselves more resilient to changes and challenges in our everyday lives along with our career development?  In Chapter 13 of Jaqueline Novogratz's Manifesto for a Moral Revolution, she discusses the importance of allowing ourselves to embrace the struggle in our processes. Learning to embrace the struggle allows us to not only be able to tackle difficulties more efficiently in the future but makes us savor our successes even more than what we would if we didn't work hard for those successes. How can we use past failures and barriers and turn those experiences to better ourselves and our teams to a future that is filled with more success? So What? Novogratz (2020) believes that we as humans are growing a new sense of awareness of our interdependence which causes us to reimagine the way we try to live by a new set of guiding principles. Even when there is a tragedy or struggle, there is a certain beauty that endures through all of it and a certain beauty th...

 What? How can we make others feel they are welcomed and that their work is appreciated by those around them? How can we reward and value others in ways that are typically used in today's society while building their character and skills to become the best version of themselves? Chapter eleven of Manifesto for a moral revolution  by Jacqueline Novogratz describes how we should be accountable to accompany each other and acknowledge the work that we provide for others.  So What? Accompaniment means to "live and walk" alongside those who you serve. This means a person has the willingness to meet someone and make them feel valued and guide them to be a better person themselves (Novogratz, 2020). The main aspect of accompaniment is to provide support for someone but expect nothing in return while also focusing on improving them and not making the journey about yourself and your capabilities. Novogratz (2020) continues by saying that today as a society we are more focused on ma...

 What? What makes an environment that is fair and just to all people? Self-identification and developing an idea of yourself and your culture makes you have a better understanding of others' cultures which can create an atmosphere of dignity and respect for others that are dissimilar to you. This creates not only self-respect for our own identity and culture but should create dignity, respect, and an understanding of others and their cultures. When you have created a balance of self-respect and respect for others, that is maintained through humility (Hannum, 2010). No culture is perfect and no culture is worthless so it is important to practice cultural humility and respect. So What? Dignity is the ability to experience a sense of one's self-worth while also being principled about respecting the equal worth of other lives. Whereas with self, respect without respecting others becomes arrogance, and respect for others without self-respect can become humiliation (Hannum, 2010). Re...

What?      How did the COVID pandemic affect our ability to manage and lead our teams through times of crisis? Well, a group of doctors and researchers from the University of Bern in Switzerland detailed their experience and findings on how the pandemic challenged their overall status quo. Pandemics challenge how operations are normally carried out which includes communication, and quality of work, and can impose additional stress on their environment. When pandemics or times of crisis happen, leadership needs to be able to reflect on previous mistakes in these scenarios so they can improve leadership practices and operations So What?      Pandemics challenge how operations are normally carried out which includes communication, and quality of work, and can impose additional stress on their environment. Pandemics also present a unique opportunity for leadership as they can help them analyze how effective and ready their teams are for challenges that they may...