Leadership and Management—A Personal Perspective
Last week, you began exploring the similarities and differences of leadership and management roles and the contributions these roles make to an organization’s functioning. Social workers need to be aware of these similarities and differences in order to determine which management or leadership skills are most appropriate in a given position or situation.
This week, you have focused on the influence of external factors on an organization’s functioning with a special focus on their impact on the leadership of social workers in supervisory roles.
As you have explored leadership and management roles, skills, and behaviors, you may have become aware of how these align, or do not align, with your personal skills, strengths, and interests. You may also have begun to consider how external factors might influence you if you were to assume a leadership or management role in social work.
For this Assignment, you assess your strengths and areas for growth in order to determine what aspects of leadership and management are a good “fit” with your personality, leadership style, and relevant skills. You also address how external factors might influence you as you serve in a leadership or management role.
Assignment (4–5 paragraphs): Complete the following:
· Assess your strengths and areas for growth with regard to both the leadership and management roles based on what you understand about these roles so far. Be sure to address whether your skills and interests align better with the leadership or management role.
· Identify at least one area of growth in either of these roles you would like to further develop and explain why.
· Identify two significant external factors that might influence your work if you served in a leadership or management role in social work. Explain why these external factors are significant and how they might affect your work as a leader or manager.
Below is what we did last week
WEEK ONE
Discussion: Leadership and Management: What Is the Difference?
Leadership and management in social agencies are about starting things up, getting them done, and keeping them moving.
—Armand Lauffer
Leadership and management are two terms that are used interchangeably but represent different roles that have different functions. Understanding the differences and similarities is essential for social work administrators as they develop leadership strategies within organizations. Understanding the functions associated with leadership and management roles can influence how social workers supervise and work with colleagues in administrative practice. As you prepare for this Discussion, consider how your understanding of leadership and management roles might affect you when you assume a supervisory position.
Post an analysis of the similarities and differences of leadership and management roles as they relate to human services organizations. Include how your understanding of these roles may affect you as you assume a supervisory position.
WEEK ONE
Assignment: Human Services Organizations as Systems
Social workers use the person-in-environment approach to understand the relationship between individuals and their physical and social environments. This ecological perspective is a framework that is based on concepts associated with systems theory. Systems theory guides social workers when they assess how factors in the environment such as school, work, culture, and social policy impact the individual. Although social workers commonly use the systems approach to focus on the individual, they may apply this approach to human services organizations as well. Human services organizations exist within the context of the social, economic, and political environments, and any type of change in one aspect of the environment will influence the organization’s internal and external functioning.
For this Assignment, consider how administrators of human services organizations may apply systems theory in their work. Also, consider what you have discovered about the roles of leadership and management and how these contribute to an organization’s overall functioning.
Assignment
Post (2–3 pages in APA format): Explain how systems theory can help administrators understand the relationships between human services organizations and their environments. Provide specific examples of ways administrators might apply systems theory to their work. Finally, explain how leadership and management roles within human services organizations contribute to their overall functioning.
Discussion: External Factors Impacting an Organization
Last week, you explored how systems theory and the ecological perspective emphasize the interaction between a human services organization and its environment. Any change in one part of the system effects change in another part of the system. Because organizations are not immune to their environment, local, national, and global events affect them.
Social workers in administrative roles must be able to identify and analyze the external factors that affect the function of the human services organizations for which they work. Though you may apply leadership and management skills as you assume an administrative position, you may also be able to repurpose many of the assessment skills you use in clinical practice for macro social work. Just as you gather information about a client and develop strategies for treatment at a micro level, so too, at a macro level, you gather and analyze information about a situation or program and identify appropriate strategies that will support positive organizational functioning.
For this Discussion, you address the Phoenix House case study in the Social Work Case Studies: Concentration Year text.
By Day 3
Post by Day 3 an analysis of the supervisor’s role in the Phoenix House case study and identify leadership skills that might help the supervisor resolve the issue. Identify which aspect of this situation would be most challenging for you if you were the supervisor. Finally, explain how you would use leadership skills to proceed if you were the supervisor.
