Leadership Model

       Robert G. Hoglund

The author is the President of Bob Hoglund, Inc. and is a Senior Faculty Member of The William Glasser Institute.

Counseling
 

While traditional counseling does not go on in the workplace, there are times when workers approach their managers with personal problems.  A manager knows that their employees are not exempt from the normal personal relationship, financial or other problems away from work.  The manager does their best to help guide the worker to assist help from a reliable source, such as an Employee Assistance Program.

Coaching Conference
 

The worker’s and the leader’s agenda and objectives are both considered.  The objective is to work together to plan a mutual resolution of the problem and/or issue.  Whether the problem is leadership, systemic or worker performance, the leader starts with the worker’s (self) evaluation of a situation.  The discussion may lead to suggestions for improving a process and/or the desire to improve.  The Coaching role includes being supportive, encouraging, questioning and helping to formulate achievable goals, objectives, plans, etc.

Administrating Conferences
 

This approach is taken only when someone is consistently not performing to expectations or following appropriate policies, procedures and/or guidelines.  The worker must evaluate (and understand) the consequences of continuing to produce less than quality work.  Consistent dereliction of duties, safety, harassment and security breeches are examples of offenses that would lead to Administrating Conferences and/or termination.

Background:
 

Psychiatrist William Glasser (1990) writes and talks about the psychology of effective management practices and distinguishes between lead and boss management.  Many of his ideas are adapted and synthesized from W. Edwards Deming’s Fourteen Points of Management.  To further clarify his thoughts, Glasser defined two distinct roles of the manager when talking to employees.  He describes them as counseling and Administrating.  He states that in “counseling” the counselor has no agenda, other than to help the client.  In “Administrating” the supervisor has an agenda to help the worker, but may have an agenda of his/her own.  For example, a certain amount of work must be produced by a certain time.  These concepts seem very straightforward until Glasser adds the component “we must eliminate all coercion in the workplace”. 

To further clarify the differences in these roles, I developed the Leadership Model, which adds the component of Coaching Conferencing.   This is the role that most supervisors are really charged with in their jobs.  It includes persuading and leading workers to believe in the core values of a business.

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Application for Counseling:

The Leadership Model would be applied to those situations that are non-private-practice issues.  The most common application would be court-mandated treatment, such as Drug & Alcohol Programs or Domestic Violence Programs.  The change in this diagram is from Coaching to Conferencing.  The goal would be to focus as closely to the client’s agenda as possible, but non-compliance to rules, guidelines. Laws and court orders would require the counselor to move into Conferencing and Administrating.

Application for Education:

Educators are, by nature of the job, hired with an agenda of promoting education, safety, etc.  Therefore, very little real counseling, where the student’s agenda is the only one concerned, goes on in a school.  The vast majority of the time Conferencing occurs.  These conferences can be academic, behavioral or both.  As in the other application of the Leadership Model, the goal is to stay as close to the student’s agenda as possible.

References:    
 

Crawford, Bodine & Hoglund.  The School for Quality Learning. Urbana, IL: Research Press 1993
 

Glasser, William M.D. The Quality School. New York: HarperCollins 1990.

Hoglund, Robert Administration and Management. International Journal of Reality Therapy Spring 2000.