I had a great conversation with Anita tonight. We discussed my interest in follower-to-follower influence as it intersects with courage and possible higher ed or leadership, or some other aspect. I'm excited to explore this more!

I have recently fallen head over heels with twitter. I'm a big fan. Snoop Dog is one of my tweets. Fo shizzle~!

So on Sunday Raymond and I leave for a cruise. It is our own little celebration of our 24 year wedding anniversary. Long story short:  one of my co-workers has been coming to work sick as a dog. Finally she went to the doctor and he ordered her home for 3 days because she was highly contagious. So, when I began to run a low grade fever, I was sure I would eventually spend time in the Texas Prison system because all I wanted to do was harm her for making me sick just days before my big cruise.  So, last night and the night before I took Nyquil in order to address my fever and such. Well, last night I was kinda loopy from it and I accidentally put the puppy out in the FRONT yard and left him all night. There is no fence in the front and he's a bit anti-social. THANK GOODNESS he did not run away nor get hit by a car! However, I think he's said some pretty ugly things about me and my "drug" use!  No Nyquil for me tonight!

Hire Leo? For Real-o?

I never cease to be amazed that people can make a living doing things like "analyzing your blog" for you!

I have a list of blogs I read daily and one of them utilizes a site called Zen Habits a good deal. Today I was reading on the site and say "hire Leo" as a link.  I clicked and this is what it said:

http://zenhabits.net/hire-leo/

You can hire me to:

Hire Leo as a consultant:

• For your blog - Leo will do a detailed analysis of your blog, with recommendations to improve your readership and content, and help to implement the recommendations. Leo is a Top 25 Blogger (according to TIME magazine) with 100,000 subscribers and 2 million pageviews a month — he’s considered an expert in the field.
• For your business - Leo is a leading productivity expert and the owner of several small businesses. He can help improve efficiency, productivity, leanness and marketing in your business, making it more profitable in a short time.
• For personal development - Leo is not only a top personal development author and expert, he’s implemented many positive changes in his own life. See his story for more info. He can help you implement transformative changes in your life.

Leo will take on only one client per month at a fee of $1,000, for any of the above services. In addition, he does speaking engagements and interviews.

Maybe I should add a "hire me" link to my site!  For $1000 per month I will happily tell people what I think of them!

Didn't Like May Be Too Strong

In my April 7 post, I stated that I did not enjoy the book Followership. In reflecting on my statement I actually have talked about the book a good bit so I must have enjoyed it to some extent. What I think seemed to be the issue is that historical stance of the book just didn't resonate as strongly since one of my top 10 strengths is futuristic.

I have had lots of ideas since I read the book in thinking about follower-to-follower influence and how that influence may intersect with conflict, courage, and a strengths-based philosophy.

When I worked at Baylor, one thing I took for granted and frankly did not even recognize, was the level of courage displayed by the leaders. I saw many, many demonstrations of courageous discussions that allowed individuals to explore their strengths, even if those strengths did not align with their job, or to switch jobs because of strengths, or to simply have a discussion to let someone know they were missing the mark.

I learned valuable skills at simply speaking the truth in love to others. In my current job there is a significant lack of courage to have such conversations. Individuals are allowed to simply exists because leaders do not have the care, love, or courage to simply talk to them. There is one of my peers who isn't thriving and hasn't been happy for about 15 years. The leadership prides themselves on not having given the man a merit increase in 10 years because he isn't doing his job.  How about having the guts to tell him what the expectations are and then discuss ways to make it happen. Maybe he's not missing the mark intentionally, maybe he doesn't know where the mark is!  Knowing my work environment it is easy to not know the mark. The only reason I am successful is because I'm well-versed in my area and the research of the Student Affairs profession, I have Big 12 experience, and have 16 years of direct experience. I simply do my thing regardless of the leadership's odd whims and thus far, it has served me well to "stay the course" and hold my values of student learning and engagement.

Being in these two very different environments has afforded me the opportunity to observe what I believe was the appropriate use of courage and now the lack of use of courage. In thinking about Baylor I have to wonder if the strengths-based philosophy provided a context and vocabulary for having conversations that seemed healthy and productive?

In my current environment there seems to be a strong avoidance of conflict. Would a strengths-based philosophy ease the visceral responses in conflict? 

This proves fascinating to me and maybe this is where I will explore for the future!

Creswell, Chapter 11

One of my biggest fears in going into Qualitative was "how would I know which approach to take"?  What if I used the wrong approach?  As we went around the class and each person described what he or she was wanting to study Alex was quickly able to identify "that's a grounded theory" or "that will be a phenomenological study."   

As I sat there my mind was spinning because I thought about how each of the five approaches had a fit with some elements from every person's desired study. I thought "I can see how that could be a narrative" or "I can see how that would be an ethnography."  Then I read more of Creswell and realized "silly Elizabeth there are clearly defined boundaries for each approach and thinking you can see elements of them all in each situation is just being a rookie."

Now I finish Creswell and realize I was right- Creswell basically said dude, if you can stick with one of the five approaches, that'd rock but oh well, go for it! Generally you have to just dig down into what it is you want to convey:  is it one person's story?  is it how several people experienced something? Does a theory need modifying?  Once you know what it is you really want to explore-then you can figure out which approach to take and then the outline falls more easily into place.

Following

In the Leading Change class I recently read the book by Kellerman (2008), Followership. Frankly I didn't enjoy the book, but the concept of understanding followers, followership, and the follower-to-follower relationship intrigues me. I knew, at the beginning of my doctoral work, I wanted to explore leadership-however something never felt right. I just couldn't find the niche. Leadership is such a complex yet deeply researched area....so I have just continued to keep my antenna up for options.

Then along came this book and I realized there are some intersections I really resonate with:  follower-to-follower influence intersecting with strengths; follower-to-follower influence intersecting with courage; follower-to follower influence with conflict; and the intersection of all three.

With my phenomenological study of the individuals who experienced a strengths-based philosophy I believe I'm making a step in the right direction to understand a bit more....

I'm pretty excited about delving into these areas and learning about them. This could truly be the dissertation future!