Leadership Scrapbook Style: Creative portfolio

    leadership coaching and monoturing

    What is a scrapbook?

    -your experiences in the seminars
    -your thoughts while reading and reflecting
    -thoughts and feelings from your learning that you notice have entered your head while working and dealing with organizational issues and problems
    -thoughts and feelings during and after completing exercises, doing your individual and group assignments and so on.
    The scrapbook must be a creative piece and should begin from day 1. You will be asked to submit your journal every so often so keep it up to date.
    Why a leadership scrapbook? As a capstone project towards developing your own philosophy of managing and leading, perhaps via action-guiding principles.
    Several studies in management education, and postgraduate education generally, have provided strong evidence that reflective learning is one of the most critical and powerful components to life long learning (Gustavs and Clegg, 2005). Many studies have shown that when students are asked to keep journals the impact of learning is far greater, richer and rewarding- this is especially so when approached creatively and symbolically [through art for example] (Barry, 1996).
    You are doing a leadership scrapbook because it will facilitate your learning in a way that how you think and what you think is influenced by what you learn. Typically, what you know usually affects what you do. Hence, the journal aims to bridge and the gap between what you think and what you do (i.e. Theory and Practice or the Knowing-Doing Gap), while at the same time developing and improving the knowledge and how it is applied.
    The additional aim of this scrapbook is that you will be using a similar approach to coach and mentor the people you lead. This scrapbook can be adapted in a way that it is used as a group scrapbook in a workplace context. Imagine how powerful such a group scrapbook would be, as people work together on projects and organizational problems.
    A distinctive requirement and focus is for you to include (as a kind of capstone reflection to this subject) a personal philosophyof managing and leading. More specifically this calls for you to develop some “action-guiding” principles that give expression to what you strive to commit to in your decision-making and accountability as a leader and manager (including the roles of coach and mentor). This specific requirement will be discussed and clarified in class but you would be wise to see it as something to aim for throughout the subject – something tangible that will be always a “work-in-progress” for your frequent review and refinement.
    How do I keep and present a leadership scrapbook.
    scrapbook must contain the following:
    ?Date of journal entry (at least once a week)
    ?The first entry should include a short introduction on how you feel about keeping a scrapbook
    ?A description of thoughts and feelings as they happen
    ?Discussions of how you implemented or utilised learnings in practical ways
    ?A collage of relevant newspaper, creative works, proverbs and metaphors, drawings, cartoons, etc that have either caused you to reflect on leadership, or exemplified an issue or topic covered in the class or in your readings and discussions and assignments and self reflective exercises (there are a couple of excerpt of a leadership scrapbook at the end of this document). These creative pieces do not need to be in every entry, don’t force your self to find things – use them as they appear, but try and be perceptive and attuned to what is out there.
    ?A final entry of about 500 words that seeks to synthesize all your entries and bring together all your key learnings
    ?I am not too fussed how you present your journal, you may type it using word (etc), or you can keep an art scrapbook. You can do a combination of both, and print your word documents, cut them up and place them in the scrapbook. Use whatever you are most comfortable with. If you decide to handwrite, however, please be absolutely sure your writing is legible.

    How is a leadership scrapbook assessed?
    There are a number of criteria that are used to assess the scrapbook, some of these are not mutually exclusive, but they are subtly different to each other. These include
    Depth of thinking and reflection (inside knowledge communicated and contemplated intrapersonally) How well does the student demonstrate his take up of new knowledge in the class? Does the student think about how well his existing knowledge is working for him in his everyday practice, and what needs to or has changed in terms of his thinking? Crucially, can this depth of reflection be seen in the student’s personal philosophy and action-guiding principles?.
    Transference (inside knowledge applied outwards) How well does the student show that she is able to integrate the knowledge learned in class and apply it into practice? Does she provide well thought out examples?
    Perceptions and interpretations (outside environments turned inwards) How well does the student demonstrate an ability to read his environment and make sense of it with his newfound knowledge? That is, what signs, symbols, stimuli catches his attention and how is he making sense of these things.
    EQ (managing both the inside affective component and the outside contexts in unison) Part of being more in-tune to one-self is that the student automatically becomes more in-tune to others. How well does the student show she is more reflective and sensitive to her internal feelings and to those coming from the external environment – especially people? Are concerns to avoid causing “unnecessary suffering” (Glasman, 1996) and “undeserved harm” (Kekes, 1990) clearly evident?
    Creativity (the ability to take knowledge and perceive things in new ways) Is the student demonstrating that he is able to think about things in new ways, come up with new ideas and solve problems both internally (intrapersonal) and externally (contextual)?
    Typically the poorer scrapbooks have some or all of the following characteristics.
    ?Illogical, unreflective journal entries that provide no synthesis in learning (it’s just a bunch of entries – unrelated and independent of each other in terms of thinking and reflexivity.
    ?Similarly, creative and practical illustrative example are ambiguous, disengaged and fail to demonstrate reflective learning
    ?The student forgets the scrapbook is about leadership and treats it more as a personal journal. While it is good that you view this task in a personal way, DO NOT forget it must always be reflexive of leadership as practice – this is not a life coaching scrapbook it is a leadership coaching scrapbook
    ?The student tries to write the scrapbook a week (and sometimes) a night before it’s due for submission. Students who do this almost always fail the task. If you miss the odd entry its best to just be honest about it, state it, and continue your entries the following week
    ?The scrapbook provides little or no reflexivity. Rather it is nothing more than a descriptive piece that lists what happened and what was said in class. For example
    o“Today we played the Prisoner’s Dilemma” we were put into groups which I did not like. We were then given instructions to bid. I said I wanted 20, someone said they wanted 30….The lecturer then debriefed and we went home’

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