Social Work Leadership Analysis

This article focused on what leadership is like in social work, how the role of leadership can influence policy and shape professional futures, and how individual social workers can become leader and how to demonstrate leadership. It starts off by talking about how social work has not only been less proactive but more reluctant than other professions to take on leadership roles. It concentrates on two forms of leadership in the social work profession; transactional leadership and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership has an emphasis on exchanges between leaders and followers. Transformational leadership stresses the importance of promoting organizational change and focuses on the future instead on the right now (McDonald, 2009).

This article also spotlights five major tactics for social work leaders. The first is taking what the system give you; meaning a good leader must understand the ambiguities and uncertainties of the field, have a good sense of what is possible, and grasp

unexpected opportunities even when the outcome is uncertain. The second is asking more for and settling for less, which means one must ask for more than they are willing to settle for from people higher up and from their coworkers. Third is maintaining ambiguity keeping ideas and actions to one’s self makes it difficult for other to figure out what they can do to help or in response. Fourth is to try five things to get one thing, this relates closely to the second one, leaders must have multiple strategies to get something done and expect that most might fall but a few will succeed. Finally the fifth one is networking with other groups who have no other coalitions (McDonald, 2009).
Other Readings
For the most part this article was dead on with what social work program has taught me, especially in Advanced Practice Three.

When the article was talking about transformational leaders and how they are the ones who inspire and motivate followers to work towards particular goals reminded me how to motivate people for your cause and pretty much the whole Democracy book, Switch book, and Zastrow book. Farther down in the article it talked about making sure goals should be mutual and leaders should look at the big picture and not be bogged down by the short-term task, which again reminded me of the books I mentioned about and the ethics book we just read. Finally another concept we talk about in almost every class that was also in this article was that as social workers we should reflect on current methods of treatment and strategies but also be open to new forms of treatments. That we should understand our field, what resources we have, and what works best for each

client.
What I will use
I will use the five major tactics that was suggested in this article. These also reminded me of things we talked about in class from our readings but I think simplified it in a way I can easily remember. One taking what the system gives me, two asking for more and settling for less, three maintaining ambiguity, four trying five things to get one, and five networking with others who have no collation. The article ended with “successful leadership is not a quick fix” (McDonald, 2009) and that is something we always talk about with change so I will also take that from this article.

Question/Concern
The only thing that stood out and that I found was odd was when it talked about how social work has been less proactive and more reluctant in taking on leadership because some people see it as going against our values. I feel like in our program we put a lot of emphasis on leadership and knowing our strengths to use them to be a good leader. So it just makes me wonder if that is not common in other programs. Otherwise I found this to be a very good article.