This is the seventh instalment of my public reflection on the Social Leadership 100 Days. This section looks at Days 60 to 69 which are focused on authority and the role it plays in social leadership.

60 – A helping hand

Goodwill is a way of creating informal power / authority. This day asks us to think about the support we get. My line manager in the Faculty of Business & Law is very supportive in what I do, as are my peer Associate Lecturers and Practise Tutors. Overall I find the broader OU community very supportive and helpful.

61 – Who are you inspired to help?

Generally I am really inspired to help all OU students and colleagues. I am particularly inspired to help those who are really struggling with their studies or are studying under very difficult conditions (physical & mental). An example would be the students who are in secure environments (prisons & hospitals ). The OU does a really great job of helping these people and it does transform their lives.

62 – Formal Power Alone

This day was really challenging. The task seems simple “List five things that you can only achieve through formal authority”. I am not sure anything can be done with just formal power. Most requests and “orders” require some form of social element. People connection is critical in every situation. A possible exception, and not relevant to my situation, is the military or police, where rank and established protocols have an impact. Whilst we have formal hierarchy at the OU, if a leader needs to use “formal” power then I do not think they are being a great leader!

63 – Social Power Alone

This day follows on from the previous one and gets us to consider what can be achieved through social power alone. Fundamentally everything gets done by social influence. 82 Years ago Dale Carnegie wrote “How to win friends and influence people“. The ideas in that book, written a long time ago, are still relevant now. All change is done by a mixture social and formal authority, but I believe the social is significantly more powerful.

 

64 – Failure

This day asks us to reflect on when social authority fails. My initial reaction was that I see social authority failing when people overstep their mandate or push their ideas onto others without dialogue or try and remain “in power / control” of their ideas. I have not seen so much of this at the OU though.

65 – An action day

This day asks us to explore our social authority be talking to others. Was mega hectic at the time and so did not do this day :-( , but I did do an image:

 

66 – Context

This was one of the more interesting days of this section of 100 Days. It asks us to consider when is our social authority high or low in terms of context. For me one of the key things I notice is that my social authority tends to be higher when A) I have worked with people over time, so they know my style, way of working and the value I can bring and B) They hand a good understanding of my background: career path, qualifications and skills. I recognise that I tend not to “oversell” myself and so my authority tends to come from A, rather than B. I am still reflecting on if that is a good thing.

67 – Relationship vs Transaction

This day asks us to reflect on is we are more in the transactional versus relationship space regarding activities. I personally struggle a bit with “relationship” ones. Not that I do not have any, but the pace of work and life mean I often do not pay as much attention to the relationships I have around me. I also recognise that my introversion may have an impact. One of the things that reflecting on this days questions has made me do, is become more aware of the need (mine and others) to be more relationship based. This should, as the book suggests, raise my power.

68 – Amplification

A simple day today. The day asked what are five things that cause stories to be amplified. My answers were:

  1. Authenticity
  2. Groundedness
  3. Universality
  4. Believability
  5. Positiveness (future forward)

69 – Authenticity

This day challenged us to think about people with varying levels of authenticity. On reflection, I am not sure there are levels. I think you either are authentic or you are not. When I posted this answer over on twitter, many people wrote back saying they agreed. Sos this final day of “Authenticity” reflections, was shorter than I expected.

 

MORE TO COME SOON!