Entoto TVET College

Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

ENTOTO TVET COLLEGE

Under

Ethiopian TVET-System

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
SUPPORT SERVICE
Level IV

LEARNING GUIDE

Unit of Competence: DEVELOP TEAMS AND

INDIVIDUALS
Module Title: DEVELOP TEAMS AND
INDIVIDUALS
LG Code: ICT HNS4 08 1110
TTLM Code: ICT HNS4 TTLM 0511

LO 2: Foster individual and organizational growth

Learning Guide Date: 05-2011 Page 1 of 7

First Edition Author: Mule , IT – Entoto TVET College
Entoto TVET College
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

INTRODUCTION Learning Guide

Guided by the tenets of the Facilitator University model, the Student Organization Development
and Administration team promotes student organization experiences that foster
individual/organizational growth and fair, reasonable, educated decisions. To this end we:
Connect with student organizations and advisors on an individual level so that sustainable
relationships are formed.
Educate students and advisors on the benefits, expectations and responsibilities of being a
recognized student organization at A&M.
Support student organizations and advisors by providing information, tools, and resources that
encourage the creation of a safe and productive environment.
Partner with the campus community to facilitate student organization experiences that are
developmental, educational, safe, and successful.

A Vision of Organizational Learning

When we think of leadership within information services organizations, we often focus on the
technology: implementing it and managing it. Since it is logical to assume that getting the work done is
our ultimate goal, a focus on the tasks of work makes sense to us. The constant activity of our daily lives
reinforces the view that getting the work done should be our focus. However, if we truly understand what
the work is about, we immediately understand that most “work” is accomplished through people. It is the
dedication, motivation, knowledge, and skill sets of individuals that make a tremendous difference in the
organization. Marcus Buckingham pointed out in his keynote speech at the EDUCAUSE Annual
Conference in 2004 that the American Management Association’s motto “Getting Work Done through
People” is exactly backwards—our goal really is to “Get People Done through Work.”1

Jim Clemet’s practical leadership and personal growth books, workshops, and team retreats have
helped hundreds of thousands of people worldwide improve personal, team, and organizational
performance. Jim's web site, JimClemmer.com, has over 300 articles and dozens of video clips covering a
broad range of topics on change, organization improvement, self-leadership, and leading others. Sign-up
to receive Jim's popular monthly newsletter, and follow his leadership blog. Jim's international best-
sellers include The VIP Strategy, Firing on All Cylinders, and Pathways to Performance, Growing the
Distance, The Leader's Digest and Moose on the Table. His latest book is growing @ the Speed of
Change.

Learning Guide Date: 05-2011 Page 2 of 7

First Edition Author: Mule , IT – Entoto TVET College
Entoto TVET College
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

Information Sheet 1 Foster individual and organizational growth

What is foster?
Foster is the temporary placement of children outside of their own homes. It occurs because of abuse,
neglect, or other family problems. When possible, the Department of Children and Family Services and
other agencies work with families to reunite them. When that's not possible, measures are taken to get the
children adopted -- or prepared for independent life.

The five elements to foster leadership

Introduction
What is required to provoke and sustain organizational development in an increasingly complex
and challenging environment? Organizations are trying a wide variety of formulas to succeed, such as the
diversification of products and markets, outsourcing, business process reengineering, the strategic use of
technology, and, the development of a unique and competent workforce. Today’s organizations need
leaders to help them succeed in an ever changing and complex environment. This literature review,
examines how to transform --if that is possible, ordinary individuals into visionary, ethical, and
courageous leaders.

1) Developing a “leadership mindset”

Most authors consider that a personal transformation is required to become an effective leader.
Koestenbaum (1991) mentions that “Leadership requires a change in how you act, preceded by a
conversion-like transformation in how you think” (p. 6). Furthermore, he sustains that leadership cannot
be taught, no school, professor or coach can teach you how to be a good leader; leadership has to be
learned by own experience. Koestenbaum proposes the development of a “leadership mindset” which
implies thinking big and new, realism to see things as they are, strong ethical values, and courage to make
decisions and to accept responsibility of own actions and inactions.

2) Exercising humanistic and ethical values

The quantitative analysis of leadership characteristics conducted by the Corporate Leadership
Council (2001) revealed ten top values and behaviors to effective leadership: “honesty and integrity,
communication of expectations, recognition and value achievement, adaptation to changing
circumstances, inspiring others, putting the right people in the right roles at the right time, passion to
succeed, identify and articulate long-term vision for the future, persuade and encourage others to move in
desired direction, and accept responsibility for successes and failures” (p. 10b). Furthermore, the study
identified two interesting findings; the first revealed that current leadership teams lack the ability to see
the big picture, thus, losing sight of the future. The second is a call for attention for human resources; the
approximately 8,000 leaders that participated in the study reported that their organizations commonly
failed to provide them with the training programs required to develop key leadership skills.

3) Understanding people’s motivations and engaging collaboration and commitment

Learning Guide Date: 05-2011 Page 3 of 7
First Edition Author: Mule , IT – Entoto TVET College
Entoto TVET College
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

Strobe (1996) considers that leaders must understand people’s inner motivations and engage them
with the use of personal compacts that are the reciprocal obligations and commitments made by
employees and organizations. Personal compacts could be classified in three dimensions: formal
dimension, which relates to the understanding of functions and responsibilities, the psychological
dimension, which addresses elements of mutual expectation and reciprocal commitment, and the social
dimension which relates to the alignment of stated values and mission and the company’s practices and
management’s attitudes towards them.

4) Managing uncertainty, paradoxes, and resistance

Is the future intriguing and threatening for you? For most of the people it is, but not for leaders,
leaders need to effectively manage uncertainty, paradoxes, and natural resistances from people. Handy in
the Age of Unreason (1989, 1990) keenly observes that leaders delight with the unknown, and have the
ability to identify new opportunities, and create new paradigms.
The relationship between leadership and change is intrinsic. Leaders provoke changes and assist
the creation of new conditions. According to Moss Kanter, Stein & Jick (1992), “Deliberate change is a
matter of grabbing hold of some aspect of the motion and steering it in a particular direction that will be
perceived by key players as a new method of operating or as a reason to reorient one’s relationship and
responsibility to the organization itself, while creating conditions that facilitate and assists that
reorientation” (p. 10). Mc Laghan (2001, 2002) reinforces the notion that leaders must be active learners
to effectively guide their teams into the new ventures, joggling their own personal change challenges.

5) Understanding how change occurs and how to sustain changes

Kanter, Stein & Jick (1992) emphasize the need for leaders to understand and manage change in
organizations. The authors describe how difficult is to find practical examples of focused, innovative, and
flexible organizations, since change is not so easy to understand, and difficult to replicate successful
change initiatives. Kanter at all, emphasize the need for leaders to address the following five barriers to
change: (i) the difficulty to make changes stick, (ii) the limitations of managerial action in making
change, (iii) the attempts to carry out programmatic continuing change through isolated single efforts, (iv)
the lack of resources to implement change, and (v) the uniqueness of change initiatives (there is no recipe
for successful change, some change initiatives are successful and others fail).

Conclusions
Since ancient times, leaders have played a strategic role helping individuals, groups and
organizations to transform, adapt to new conditions, and break traditional paradigms. With an
increasingly faster pace of change in today’s environment, people are more prepared to adapt to new
situations, nevertheless, adaptation is no longer the key for achieving success. We are living in the age of
knowledge, characterized by faster changes, where the value of an organization is not given by their
assets, but by their capacity to create and deliver innovative products and services. Organizations, as an
effort to improve and maintain their position in the market implement a wide variety of change initiatives:
diversification of markets and products, new technology, business process reengineering, outsourcing,
among others, but there’s one key initiative that remains as a constant since ancient times; the need to
attract, retain and develop visionary, courageous and ethical leaders. There are fashions that fade with the
time, flavors of the month, but there’s something that remains constant: the search for leadership. The
characteristics of leadership remain the same as of ancient times, a great vision which implies the ability
to see what others do not see, the courage to pursue higher goals, humanistic and ethical values, ability to
understand people’s motivations, and how change occurs, and competence to manage uncertainty,
paradoxes and natural resistance. Today’s organizations face new challenges, and leadership provides
solutions to solve today’s complex problems to take advantage of new developments and create
competitive advantages. Only the organizations that effectively implement plans to attract, retain and
Learning Guide Date: 05-2011 Page 4 of 7
First Edition Author: Mule , IT – Entoto TVET College
Entoto TVET College
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

develop new leaders will provoke and sustain organizational development. Those organizations will be
leading the era of knowledge.
How to transform into a leader?
Is a leader born or can a leader be formed? That question has been debated for centuries, and still,
there is no agreement. While some authors consider that leadership is a born trait, there are others who
think that leadership skills can be developed. If this is true, what conditions/elements foster the
development of leaders?
Organizational growth
Organization development definition is not very difficult. It is simply a planned effort to increase the
organization's effectiveness and capability. Organizational development brings changes to the attitudes,
values and beliefs of organization, so that people can adapt to new technologies and challenges of the
business. OD includes both inventions and innovations along with the involvement of major stakeholders
and people in the organization in the process of growth and development.

The other definition for organizational development is when two or more people function together to
achieve a common goal i.e. success as defined by the key performance indicators of the organization.
Organizational development (OD) is the long range effort to solve the problems in the workplace.

It can also be defined as the process in which the organization develops the capability and capacity of
individual workers and managers most effectively and efficiently to provide mission work that can be
sustained in the long term. This definition connects OD with the mission and vision dreamed by the
founders. It is a complex strategy that brings changes in each and every aspect of the organization. OD is
the process which is designed to produce the particular kind of end result.

Elements of an Organizational Learning Infrastructure

This chapter outlines the experience of Information Services at the University of Kansas (KU), which
includes IT units and libraries, in building an organizational Learning infrastructure as a basis for
continuous organizational development. Many Organizations have adopted organizational effectiveness
efforts (for example, Team management, facilitation, workflow improvement) without completely
realizing The OD research foundation underlying these activities. At KU, we set out
Leadership for Organizational Development
To advance organizational learning, Information Services established an OD community of practice
in 2001. Thirteen interested administrators, faculty, and staffroom throughout Information Services units
and from the KU Department of Human Resources Professional Development unit (KUHRPD, the
official campus-wide OD unit) met to discuss the possible formation of such a group and its
purpose(s).After exploration, Information Services leadership and the group decided on a dual purpose: to
create and nurture a group of facilitators for use within Information Services and KU, and to explore and
build capacity for understanding and applying OD concepts, practices, and tools within Information
Services and KU. The group became known as the Information Services Organizational Development
Group (OD Group). Now more than four years old, the OD Group has grown to approximately 30
members. It meets several times a year in facilitated discussions led by volunteers.

From the group or with expert outside presenters. Some of the subjects explored
Learning Guide Date: 05-2011 Page 5 of 7
First Edition Author: Mule , IT – Entoto TVET College
Entoto TVET College
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

By the group include:

 Facilitation
 Use of 360˚ feedback
 Generational differences in the workplace
 Models for managing change
 How to create a culture of assessment
 Appreciative inquiry
 Time and project management
 Organizational values (and how to elicit and use them)
 Positive psychology in the workplace

Learning Guide Date: 05-2011 Page 6 of 7

First Edition Author: Mule , IT – Entoto TVET College
Entoto TVET College
Training, Teaching and Learning Materials Development

Self-Check 1 Written Test

Name:_________________________________ Date:_________________

Instruction: Answer all the questions listed below, if you have some difficulty doing this
self check, feels free to ask your teacher for clarifications.

1. What is foster?
2. List five elements to foster leadership.
3. ----------- is not very difficult. It is simply a planned effort to increase the organization's
effectiveness and capability.
4. List Some of the subjects explored by the group include:

You must able to get 8points to be competent otherwise you’ll take another test

Learning Guide Date: 05-2011 Page 7 of 7

First Edition Author: Mule , IT – Entoto TVET College