Leadership and Advocacy Plan

Leadership Theories

There are a number of theories of leadership that can be applied to my own personal development plan in counselling. I first look to servant leadership as a unique approach to leadership, wherein it is emphasized that the effect leader is one who facilitates greatness in others. The concept of servant leadership was developed by Robert Greenleaf in the 1970s, and emphasizes the leader doing whatever is needed in order to ensure that everybody else can be at his or her absolute best (Greenleaf, 1977). Servant leaders are always the ones who are searching, listening and watching, so that they can learn about their organizations, the environment in which their organizations exist, and the people within their organizations. The servant leader then can make a determination about what is needed for the organization to thrive in that environment, but recognizes that one leader cannot succeed on his or her own. The best leaders, therefore, empower the people around them, and give those people what they need to drive the organization towards success.

Servant leadership is a powerful leadership paradigm because it highlights the moral aspect of leadership. Many leaders are charismatic, and derive power from that, but charisma and the ability to inspire followers are value-neutral traits. Servant leadership introduces and reinforces the idea that the leader also needs to be moral, and to inspire moral leadership in others. Thus, the servant leader is not just one who can inspire, and not just one with accepted leadership traits, but one who makes the people around him or her better, and who drives the organization to better things (Graham, 1991).

In the grand scope of leadership theory, servant leadership is something of an outlier. More traditional leadership theory typically focuses either on traits or on behaviors. One of the paradigms holds that a key difference is between transactional and transformational leadership, where the former emphasizes high levels of performance on routine tasks, while the latter emphasizes the transformation of some aspect of the organization. In counseling, while each situation is unique, the reality is that the organization is not being transformed -- the key to success is to have everybody within the organization performing at a high level as a matter of course. So transactional leadership theory is something that can be applied to the field of counseling. It is also worth noting that transformational leadership is ultimately ill-defined in terms of how one would go about implementing it (Yukl, 1999). Everybody wishes to be seen as a charismatic or transformational leader, because that is where the leadership rock stars are usually found, but the reality is that such concepts are ill-formed, difficult to apply, and not necessarily something that everybody is capable of. Transactional leadership, emphasizing everyday excellence, is a better theoretical fit with counseling.

Leader-member exchange theory (LMX) helps to explain how leadership works. The nature of communications between the leader and followers -- what is said, when, how often, and whether or not the communication is in-person or not -- matters in terms of the effect that leaders have on their followers (Howell & Hall, 1999). Thus, whatever style of leadership a person has, their exchanges will tend to be reflected in the performance of the followers. The style of leadership most appropriate for a situation is typically affected by the nature of the situation itself. Counseling is interesting in that each day is different, but overall organizations tend to be conservative, changing little year over year. That points to transactional leadership -- the ability to get followers to perform at a high level every day, despite the differences that each day has with respect to the clients and tasks to be performed. Performing a non-routine job at a high level involves the leader being able to distill the job down to key elements -- and these can be techniques or they can be attitudinal elements -- and ensuring that their followers are adhering to these. In other words, if a counseling leader can ensure that counselors are ready to work, compassionate, and highly knowledgeable every day, then they will likely have a sustainably high performance no matter what challenge the individual day throws at them.

It is not difficult to see how this manifests in counselor education. Counselors require leaders, not managers because there is no meaningful way that a leader can provide strict oversight into task performance; tasks are too discrete in this field. Thus, critical to the success of counselors is to ensure that they are trained and educated to a high level to begin with. Then, they will be at the very least, equipped to enjoy success on a daily basis in their job performance. So the counselor leader can apply this thinking to both the education and leadership components of counseling, by ensuring that each counselor or student has a high level of knowledge about professional standards, that they have the background information needed to manage even the most difficult situations, and that they have a high level of preparedness. Knowing what the professional standards are, knowing how to perform to those standards, and having the tools available to do so are all key success factors in counseling.

The latter point -- having the resources needed to succeed -- is also an element of servant leadership. A leader in counseling should be able and willing to provide the counselors with the resources -- educational, financial and emotional -- to perform their duties to a high level each and every day. If the leader provides these things, then they have done what they can to ensure performance. This points to a leadership style that incorporates elements of both servant leadership and transactional leadership, which is fine because these two theories are not mutually exclusive.

Self-Analysis

I believe that I am a natural servant leader. My interest in the counseling profession actually stems from my desire to help, and specifically to help by giving people the tools that they need to help themselves. That is the essence of servant leadership, and it is what attracted me to counseling in the first place. I have many of the traits and skills associated with servant leaders, in that I listen well, I want to help, I have genuine compassion and sympathy, I am supportive of others, and I am also quite patient and willing to work with people to help them through their problems. All of these contribute to the servant leadership environment.

Where I may be deficient in terms of servant leadership reflects back to what Graham (1991) wrote about having those inspirational capabilities. I have the moral dimension of what Graham wrote, to be sure, with a strong moral compass, but at the same time Graham emphasized that servant leaders can have a charismatic element in order to help inspire. While Yukl (1999) makes a valid point about charismatic leadership being notoriously tough to pin down, I think of it as something to the effect of you provide the kind of strong support that makes people want to work harder for you, knowing how hard you work for them. I deliver in that respect, even if I lack for fiery speeches and other so-called charismatic elements.

In terms of being able to be an effective transactional leader, I feel that I have many of the necessary tools. I am cerebral and analytical in nature, which means that I have the ability to analyze a situation, and determine what it needed in order to make that situation work. If somebody seems to be missing something in their work, I will be able to figure that out and work with them. These are both elements of both transactional and servant leadership. I am able to deliver consistent, and consistently high levels of day-to-day performance. I can coach and teach others to do the same, and in that respect have great mentorship qualities.

Situational leadership is a theory that leadership styles can be flexible, responding to different situations differently. This is reasonably easy for an analytical person to apply to practice, in that each situation is evaluated and the analytical leader can distinguish subtle differences between situations that are otherwise similar, and adapt an approach based on those subtle distinctions (Graeff, 1997). In that respect, I recognize that sometimes the leadership approach needs to change depending on the situation. So there are times when I recognize that the ability to inspire - or just generally to respond more acutely to emotional stimulus -- matters in counseling. Certainly as a leader it is sometimes valuable to portray a less analytic and detached manner, and that is something that I feel I can add to my leadership skills inventory. Links have been found between transformational leadership and emotional intelligence, for example (Barling, Slater & Kelloway, 2000).

Thus, I would like to add to my emotional intelligence, as I feel this would allow me to be more adaptable with respect to my leadership style, and therefore better equipped to lead in all situations. There are times when counselors go through crises, and that requires a different response that simply analyzing and educating. There is very much an emotional connection that counselors have with their job, and I feel that there are definitely times when being able to respond better to that would make me a more effective leader and educator in the field. So this is an area where I would like to improve, because I feel that I will be more effective overall if I am able to take such steps, and add to my leadership skills inventory in this way.

Professional Development Plan for Leadership and Advocacy

One of the aspects of leadership in a given field is that the leader takes more some different roles than one might have when one is starting out. Advocacy is one of those roles, a link that has been written about for a number of different professions (Boyle, Beardsley & Hayes, 2004). To be an advocate requires not only a high level of formal knowledge about the profession and the issues that people in the profession face, but being able to apply that knowledge to lobbying, social interactions and other situations. Advocacy is, inherently, a communications skill. We know that advocacy requires a wide variety of communications skills (Guo & Saxton, 2014), but direct personal communication from leaders in the field is definitely one of those. So advocacy should naturally be incorporated into my personal leadership development plan.

As part of my two-year leadership development plan, I propose to join relevant professional associations, and use those memberships to gain insight into the different advocacy issues at hand. Further, I can make contacts within the associations, building my network of key people within the industry. That will allow not only for me to participate in the external advocacy that goes on with lobbying and that sort of thing, but it can also allow me to advocate within the industry for my own organization and its interests.

There are some specific things that I can do to develop my advocacy for counseling. I am aware that there are ongoing lobbying efforts from some of the different industry associations. One thing that I can do within the next six months is to take the time to familiarize myself with these current efforts, and the issues that surround them. I feel that within six months I can develop fluency with the issues and the policy positions that the industry associations are taking. I can then, in the 6-12-month time frame, be able to make a contribution to these advocacy efforts. Some of the possible ways that this can be done are through participation in a lobbying day, writing a letter in support of one of the association's positions to my representative, or contributing my own thoughts and experiences to the lobbying effort. These are not mutually exclusive ideas, so it is quite reasonable that I can do more than one of these within the time frame that I have outlined. For example, writing a letter need not be complicated. Most associations will have form letters that are used for specific issues, and I can add my own personal touch or experience to this, in order to make the form letter resonate a little better with the representative. I can also take the time to learn if my representative has a position on the issue in question, and make a determination about what approach might be most convincing. So there are a few really good opportunities to educate myself and take more of a leadership position within the counseling field, and contribute to the betterment of all. This is the sort of activity that reflects positively back on the people with whom I work. I can, for example, once I am aware of the issues communicate with them, get their feedback on the issue, and use that to help make stronger communications. In this sense the advocacy role ends up being to act as a go-between between the people who are working on the front lines, and the policy makers up on high.

There are several different organizations as well, that I can work with. Some examples are the ACA, the ASCA, the AMHCA and the CSI. These are all good options, and I can join more than one if that makes sense. It might be best to start with choosing one organisation to join in the first year, and simply contribute to their advocacy efforts. Then, if this seems to have been productive, and if it seems that it will be productive to further my advocacy efforts, I can join a second organization for the second year of this plan. In that second year, I would expect that I will have more shape and structure to my advocacy contributions than I will in the first year, as my exposure to the issues and the people involved will allow me to fulfill a role that at this point I may not even be aware of -- and this will likely be the case.

There are also things that I can do in the very short-term, in addition to getting the ball rolling on lobbying. For example, I can volunteer at a social service agency. There are many in my area that help people ranging from at risk women and children to addiction recovery to transition from prison to issues with people with mental health problems, or transitioning veterans back into society. I would likely opt the latter if possible, to work with helping those who have served our country but are having trouble returning from active duty. I feel that this would be an exceptional way to repay them for their service, and would show a lot of leadership on my part that would resonate with the people in my office. I know that when veterans have post-traumatic stress disorder, or have suffered other combat-related distresses, reintegration can be difficult, and lead to other problems down the road. I feel that what I should do is identify an appropriate agency to help such individuals and find out if there is anything that I can contribute to their efforts. I believe a three-month time frame is not only sufficient, but would enable me to help our returning veterans over the holiday season, which may be difficult in situations where they might not have the support structures that they need.

If such a thing is not possible, I would investigate other opportunities that might be available. There are many groups that help people, and I know with the holidays coming up there could be a lot of opportunities to help others. I think that I should be able to have something in place so that I can help by the time the Thanksgiving holiday comes around. I could potentially also contact Chi Sigma Iota to see if they are doing anything. There are many ways to contribute, so I just need to set a time frame, lining something up by the end of October for example, to make those initial contacts and find the right opportunity to help others that fits with my needs.

Advocacy Models

Fielder (2000) recommends developing specific advocacy competencies in order to be able to help others. Given that helping others is a key element of servant leadership, it seems evidence that learning about the different types of advocacy and fostering the skills to allow one to be a skilled advocate, play an important role in leadership success. There are a number of different advocacy models that describe the different ways that people can advocate. Some of these are self-advocacy, social support advocacy, interpersonal advocacy and legal advocacy (Alper, Schloss & Schloss, 1995). Self, or individual advocacy, is a model that means that as a counselor, I have to be aware of my role, what I can contribute, and to ensure that I am able to do this to the best of my ability. I need to be aware of what I can bring to a situation where I am representing the profession as a whole, and its issues. This form of advocacy is perhaps best reflected in the idea that an individual can reflect their own experiences and values into those of the group as a whole. There are legitimate and valuable contributions that I can make to shaping how industry groups lobby and how the major issues within the industry are conceptualized. The limitation of this form of advocacy is that it is focused on the self, whereas other forms of advocacy are perhaps broader in scope.

Another advocacy model is interpersonal, wherein the advocate interacts with other people, seeking to inform or persuade them. This can be lobbying, but it may also simply be telling the story so that people everywhere understand the critical issues. This is an important form of advocacy for an organizational leader in particular, because the leader has to advocate to the followers, but also to those people who are higher up in the organization as well. Part of interpersonal advocacy with clients is to listen to their needs and their stories, because this will allow you to understand what you can do, how you can help (Sullivan, 1991). Thus, interpersonal advocacy is a skill that incorporates elements of servant leadership, of listening, of emotional intelligence and also analysis. This is a high-end skill, being able to understand someone's problem and then determine how to help, but then to also make linkages between individual cases and macro-level issues that need to be dealt with at the lobbying level. There is a certain amount of experience that goes into that

Another advocacy model that is applicable to my counseling profession is legal advocacy. This is where the lobbying comes into play. The legal environment can at times characterize, frame or even constrain the ability of counselors to help their clients. Understanding the legal environment is important simply for job performance, but the leader will wish to exert influence over the legal environment, so that this environment is more conducive to the performance of counselling. Where there are gaps in this environment, it is a valuable leadership skill to identify the links between the legal environment, and job performance, and then to make recommendations to change things. Often, however, legal advocacy may simply be a matter of helping a client navigate some of the complexities of the legal system.