A.500.3.3.RB_WilsonLindsey_Organizational Leadership as a System

Think about the distinction between seeing the discipline of organizational leadership as a system of thinking vs. seeing organizational leadership as a body of information. What would you say are the key differences between the two?

The Oxford dictionary defines a system as, “a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network; a complex whole.” (English Oxford Living Dictionary, 2017). When I think of a system I think of gears that are interlocked with each other, and by moving one gear there is a cascading effect of the other gears moving as well. To apply this thinking the discipline of organizational leadership, each gear is be a fundamental and powerful concept in which the body of information is reasoned through using the elements of reasoning. As the information gets processed through the elements of reasoning there are still the standards of reasoning and the discipline of organizational leadership that the information must get filtered through. Depending on the outcomes if this critical thinking processes a new fundamental and powerful concept, or gear, gets added to the system thus creating another a more complex and refined system. This system is also an analogy for Nosich’s concept of logic in a field. (Nosich, 2012, p. 94).

 In contrast, looking at organizational leadership as a body of information, it is similar to our discussion of a fact vs. a claim. A body of information is just a set of facts, and as facts they do not leave the information open to question. (Nosich, p. 65). However, by placing the body of information into a system we can synthesize these facts, (which created the discipline in the first place) and by doing so have a much deeper understanding of organizational leadership as a discipline.

How will this understanding change the way you approach your course work?

When I was in high school my church’s youth group went on a mission trip to Mississippi a year after hurricane Katrina to help rebuild homes. I remember that one of the chaperones, (I’ll call him Bob) was an engineering professor and I didn’t like being put on his team because I felt he over analyzed problems verses just fixing them. For example, two other girls and I were installing a bedroom door. However, we noticed that the door frame was too small for the opening. I knew that we needed to put shims between the wall and the door frame but I wasn’t sure how to start the process. When I asked Bob for help with the door we found ourselves in a miniature Abbott and Costello routine. I remember him asking me, “Why do we put the shims around the door frame?” 

      “To make the door fit…” I answered back.

      “How do shims make the door fit?”

      “Because we have to fill up the space so we can secure the door…?”

      “But why?” he kept asking.

Finally, after several rounds of this his daughter who was also on my team finally said, “Dad, we’re hot, we’re tired. Can we just put in the darn door already!?” 

Looking back I can see how Bob was trying to get us to think critically about the situation and to teach us the logic or of building and construction. However, as teenagers from Montana experiencing physical labor in Mississippi’s summer heat we just wanted to be passive students to get the job done so we could find air conditioning.

            By viewing the discipline of organizational leadership as a system of information verses a body of information I will be to taking Bob’s approach to my studies and not only look at the information as a means to an end, but to place the information into the system of thinking described earlier to further my understanding of organizational leadership as a concept. Along with this, I will also use this system to be more critical of information I receive from others. By critical I don’t mean negative, but instead to analyze the logic and thought process that were used to come to a specific conclusion to gain better understanding of their concepts of organizational leadership, and in turn decide if I agree or disagree and why. 

            I can already feel growth in my understanding of organizational leadership as a discipline and its relation to critical thinking. As Nosich described at times I feel that I have a lot more questions than answers as I think through organizational leadership. Sometimes I get frustrated with the fact that I don’t have the average career experience of working in a business and climbing the ladder. I feel that if I had this experience I wouldn’t have had to look up what organizational leadership even means! However, I remind myself that everyone has to start from somewhere, and although I may only have a few gears in my current system they have an ample supply of WD40 and are turning at full speed. 

Nosich, Gerald M. (2012). Learning to Think Things Through: A Guide to Critical Thinking Across Curriculum (4th edition). Boston, MA: Pearson.

System. (2017). English Oxford Living Dictionary.  Retrieved August 27, 2017, from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/system.