Leadership Foster Parents: \'Realism-Quality\' Approaches to Leadership

Leadership

Foster parents:

'Realism-quality' approaches to leadership in the real world of social services

I have described myself as a 'realism-quality' leader who believes on the need to be task specific. I try to set realistic goals that are achievable and conceivable for my subordinates. This type of leadership is very useful when dealing with some of the challenges that arise in the context of a nonprofit organization that focuses on children in foster care. Very often, parents are initially not prepared for the difficulties that may arise when coping with a child with severe behavioral, emotional, or psychological issues.

One example of a 'realistic' approach that I had to take was when a foster mother assumed the care of a child but was not able to take full control over the situation and left the child's care for part of the day to her adult daughter, who frequently arrived home from work before her mother. When they became aware of this situation, my superiors were extremely upset, because the younger woman had not received the required training for foster mothers. According to the rules, all primary caregivers must proceed through the foster training program. This could have resulted in an unfortunate situation, because the original foster mother seemed to be willing and able to provide a good home, and it would have been tragic to have taken the child out of the home for a technical reason, causing great distress to the fostered child as well as the family. Instead, the adult daughter was given a short training session.

This approach is emblematic of my practical style. Instead of fighting the rules, and complaining that it was silly to require every member of the household to complete a training program, even if they were the child's primary caregiver for only a few hours a day, I tried to create a compromise that realized the ultimate goal of the organization to serve children in need. The end result was a 'win win' for everyone. The child was able to remain in the home. The adult daughter did not feel as if she had to take substantial time away from work to complete an entire training program. The foster mother was able to continue to participate in the program.

Our ability at the agency to create a positive resolution also shows the strength of a collaborative cultural style. "Collaborative conflict cultures are characterized by conflict management norms for active, cooperative discussion of conflict (Gelfand et al., 2008: 2). During this dispute, there was not a great deal of jockeying for power. I tried to focus on the objective of helping the child, rather than of the unfairness of red tape or side issues that were not within my capacity to change.