Demonstrating Effective Leadership Category Racism - Essay Example

Demonstrating Effective Leadership Category Racism Racism is the category selected for the study with two cases, Weekend Racist and Hate Speech in Confidential Course Evaluation being the chosen cases for this study. The reason for the selection of racism for the case study is due to the important role it has played in American History and is a vice that exists in America. Constitutional racism forms exist in United States and manifest in jobs, housing, educational discrimination, segmentation in the labor market, among other areas showing the need to understand and study racism to evaluate critically ways of eradicating the vice in daily life. Racism is important to my field of study as it allows identification of the avenues through which racism is demonstrated, understanding of the reasons behind the actions of individuals who participate in racism, and the psychology behind racism. WEEKEND RACIST Case study 1 Angie is the leader in the case where she is being informed via email that an employee, Carl who is the postal clerk is a racist. The issue in the case is that Lisa has photographs of Carl depicting him in paramilitary regalia that identifies to Nazi and photographs of lynching, confederate flags, and cross burnings leading to the decision that she is a racist. The cause of the issue is the weekend participation of Carl in wearing and attending meetings in Nazi regalia and associating with them, which has come to the knowledge of Lisa who has sent the photographs to Angie. Angie managed the situation well in the case through informing Carl that there are repercussions of the practice of participating in meetings or groupings that relate to racism. She informs Carl that he could be fired, which will aid in reducing the chances of racism at the workplace (Murray-García, 2014). HATE SPEECH IN CONFIDENTIAL COURSE EVALUATIONS Case Study 2 Penny Barret, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts is the leader in this case where the issue is a hate speech note has been written in anonymous evaluation forms of Professor Becker by a student. The issue in the case is the presence of racism at Dean of the College of Liberal Arts as demonstrated by hate speech remarks in anonymous professor evaluation forms. He managed the situation well through implementation of formal actions through which racism can be reduced or eliminated at the college (Larsen, 2013). The commitments made by Penny Barret include ensuring the existence of the policy against hate speech and that the policy supersedes anonymity by students who posts racist messages ensuring the presence of actions to investigate the matter and take action. The commonalities in the two cases is that the two cases show the presence of racism at the workplace despite the fact that there is an indirect relation in both cases where through association Carl is referred to as a racist while a student anonymously uses a racist remark on Professor Becker. The other commonality of that the perpetrators of the racism practices will be faced by repercussions for their actions aimed at ensuring chances of racism will decline following the actions (Murray-García, 2014). Carl is informed that he could be fired for his actions and information is to be relayed to the agency administrator for action while in the second case investigations are opened to find the hate speech perpetrator for action to be duly taken. The other commonality is the seriousness generated by the racist actions as represented by the adequate detail and response taken by the leaders in the two cases to ensure the perpetrators of racist actions are dealt with for better workplaces ethic and ensure lack of racism. Penny Barret is well placed at building relationships in his organization compared to Angie. This is demonstrated in the manner in which he communicates his disappointment and response to the racism remarks that is made against Professor Becker. Compared to Angie, he is willing o get to every possible length including hiring investigators while Angie does not even have a possible way of action at the end of the case when she goes to meet the agency administrator. Penny Barret communicates with Professor Becker in a reassuring and respectful manner increasing his ability to build good relations in his organization. Angie has difficulty in building relations within her organization due to lack of good communication skills and how she faces Carl referred to as a racist. This results in the escalation of the situation and Carl walking out on her, since she uses threatening language instead of taking the time to convey effectively the message in a respectful manner. From the manner in which the two leaders deal with a situation in their organization, a deduction on their ability to create and maintain strong relations between them and other leaders in the public service. Angie will have a high difficulty in building and maintaining strong relations between herself and other public service leaders owing to her lack of good communication skills, inadequate ability to maintain dialogue, and a reaction based problem solving skill that affect her relationship with others from the onset. On the other hand, Penny Barret will have a high likelihood of building and maintaining strong relationships with other public service leaders owing to his consideration of other people’s feelings, the need to make peace and ensure justice even in a tough situation, good communication skills, and effective decision-making skills as evidenced in the above case study. Angie’s communication is not clear and leaves a lot to be desired resulting in a breakdown in the communication process especially when dealing with an emotive issue as racism. She has stereotypical believes in dealing with the issue and does not come to the conversation table with an open mind. Angie has some implicit bias in the communication that subconsciously affects her communication with Carl showing low performance on how well she performs in written and verbal communication. Penny Barret performs better in a clear and concise manner of communication where he conveys his belief on the issue implicitly. Penny has no implicit bias despite having different racial backgrounds with Professor Becker and other unconscious discrimination methods in the communication process. Communication played a major role in the two cases were a breakdown in communication between Carl and Angie resulting in lack of a common ground between her and Carl on the issue of racism. If the communication process was excellent, they would have discussed differences and resolve them amicably. Communication efficiency in the second case resulted in reaching a common ground on the issue of racism between Professor Becker and Penny Barret due to effective and concise communication process. Angie does not manage professional responsibilities and priorities well through lack of well defined criteria of charting a way out of an emotive problem. She calls Carl and as for the explanation of the photographs that depict him as a racist instead of checking the guidelines on racism on the policies at the agency. She then takes her time learning of the strategies to implement them in a manner that will augment efficiency and cooperation between employees rather than wishing one of them is fired as shown by Lisa in the case study. This way she could have mended the relationship between Carl and Lisa but since her priorities and professionalism is lacking, she does not meticulously deal with the issue. Penny Barret’s management of professional responsibilities and priorities is effective in keeping the employee’s satisfied and aimed at ensuring confidence is maintained on the Dean College of Liberal Arts. Despite there being a highly charged Professor Becker, who asks for restitution after he was a subject of anonymous hate speech by a student, Barret takes the issue with all seriousness it deserves through instituting legal investigations to unravel the culprit. This is beyond the policy of the organization for anonymous reviews as he believes that racism has no part in his organization, showing that his priorities of ensuring professionalism is maintained at all terms comes first to every other policy or guideline at the college. The manner in which he communicates this information to Professor Becker is with understanding and reassurance of the need to take measure to find the culprit and bring the culprit to book. Confidence in his employees and being there for them, as depicted in the case shows that Penny respects his professionalism at all terms learning to success and efficiency in his professional responsibilities and priorities. In summary, the lessons available for leaders in their respective public service roles include the need to have good communication skills at the work place in order to be in a position to manage issues like racism in a better organized manner leaving each person satisfied. The other lesson is the need to maintain dialogue and persuasion when devoting their time to solving emotive issues for better work places. Further, they also learn the importance of training employees on dealing with diversity and implementing policies that govern racism at the workplace as a measure of ensuring work place racism and other anti-diversity mechanisms are reduced or eliminated among employees and within institutions. This is well demonstrated by the actions taken by Penny Barret to prevent recurring of racism from students through hiring investigators to find the culprit and ensure justice is served. Public service officers also learn that racism and other anti-diversity mechanisms are present at all organizations and should be ready and willing to take any conceivable measure to weed the vice out at the earliest opportunity before it becomes a thorn in the flesh. An example is the differences between Carl and Angie that may not be easily resolved owing to their different perceptions of racism and its impacts on them job performance and attitudes towards each other. References Larsen, S. E., Nye, C. D., Ormerod, A. J., Ziebro, M., & Siebert, J. E. (2013). Do actions speak louder than words? A comparison of three organizational practices for reducing racial/ethnic harassment and discrimination.Military Psychology, 25(6), 602-614. Murray-García, J. L., Harrell, S., García, J. A., Gizzi, E., & Simms-Mackey, P. (2014). Dialogue as skill: Training a health professions workforce that can talk about race and racism. American Journal Of Orthopsychiatry, 84(5), 590-596. Read More