weather, snow, sun, and changeable conditions Part 4

Part four of my leadership evaluation.

This is the final part to my four part analysis of my leadership style. This section of my blog will look at motivation and arousal and how it can affect a group in a situation.  The situations are: a snowy, cold, and windy day walking up An Garbanach , in comparison to a sunny warm day leading a group up mount Snowdon in wales.

When the weather turns you can find it very hard to concentrate on taking bearings and general map work, a map can be hard to use in very wet and windy conditions. The group possibly feel like it is a battle for every step, so their motivation drops. Due to the environment and the conditions there are lots of external stimuli such as high wind and driving rain, their arousal levels are quite high if they are not able to focus on the task. To keep motivation high and arousal at a level where catastrophe is avoided, you as a leader you need several methods to keep the group in motion. These methods are as follows (depending on the group) you can play a game as you go along, you could sing a song, you can do short sharp legs/points to keep people on their toes so they are thinking of the task at hand and lastly just to make the time fun and enjoyable by any means necessary.

As a leader you need to be able to cope in any situation your group can throw at you, whether it is a bout of low motivation, or somebody stressing out because they are lost. To do this you need to be able to have a basic understanding of psychology and have the ability to relate it to the situation. Or you could rely on your previous experience if you have some. 

The scenarios i have selected are two events that have had an impact on my leading and when i have been led and seen how others lead. The time when my group conquered mount snowdon was inspirational as all the members had a drive to get to the top  to see the view which was incredible. It was an awesome experience to see the group so happy and have that fire which fulled them to succeed.

The other scenario is when we went up an garbanach in scotland, the conditions were not the best to walk in as the weather turned very quickly as we went up. but despite of that the myself and the group had a very enjoyable experience this is all down to the leadership that was put into place to counteract these factors. This is an event that I can draw knowledge from and improve my own leadership, and implement new tactics when I need too.

Through this reflective process i have learnt a lot about my leading style and how i can improve and what i can leave out. This has been the final part in my four part leadership exploration, so sadly i press post for the last time. But watch this space for a new blog topic soon.

Part three, An exped to remember.

 Welcome to my 3rd post on leadership styles,

This post will explore the Autocratic style of leadership, is it always a good thing? Ok this is the situation, we had just started our second day of expedition, with only one injury (a slightly bruised shin caused by falling in the river). We got to top of the ridge, and didn’t really know where we were (because we took a shortcut after missing the path). But we knew what to look for to get to our next point. A lake with a prominent path following down the valley.

The first style of leadership demonstrated in this situation was the democratic style, where everyone was making the decisions as we went along as a group. This did not work as there were too many voices to say where to go next. There might have been a drop in motivation at this point as everyone was suggesting possible routes and no one was taking account of the other peoples view point.

When the prominent path was spotted, the decision was made to take the route (autocratically) but is this the best way?,  there were no prominent dangers to the group. possibly a democratic style or a guided style could have worked just as well. How do leaders know when to choose the right method of leading? experience is key. One way to develop experience is to shadow an already competent leader in their line of work, or get out and get some practice leading small groups to build confidence and leadership skills.
The comfort zone is a big part of which style you use to lead your group. Do you learn well within your comfort zone or out of it? that's the question. I learn best when there is a challenge presented. But I need to take into account the rest of the group, and if their happy inside or out of their comfort zone. I teach best when inside of my comfort zone or under a little pressure.

 it is down the individual and the individuals background and their personality to where they learn in their comfort zone and can sometimes be worked out by certain personality’s if they are an introvert or extrovert, this determines their style of learning and where they learn best in the comfort zone, even then it is tailored to the individual and the situation.

Extroverted types prefer heighted arousal which fits in with (Yerks and Dodsen 1908) theory of the inverted u.  Whereas introverts are more stimulated by activity as they react to less in normal day life.  So introverts are more drawn towards extreme sports as this is a vent of stimulation. Contradicting this an extrovert may be more withdrawn from extreme sports as they in normal life are more outgoing. So they don’t need a vent for stimulation.  

So to adopt the required leading style you need to account for whether the group are mainly extrovert or introvert as this can have a big effect on group dynamics as the roles from normal life to extreme sports completely contradict each other.

 

reflection of snowdon part 2

Following on form the last post which talked about leadership styles, in this post I’m going to talk about motivation.

With motivation, you can look at different areas such as adrenaline and anxiety; I’ll try and keep it brief but informative.

When looking at motivation there are two areas, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. I'll give an example of each, in relation to the day when we ascended Snowdon; one intrinsic motivator was personal gain. And one external motivator was the weather which was excellent. So I personally wanted a view from the top.

The main motivational area for the group was to get to the top of the mountain, As an instructor I was trying to include everyone to avoid social loafing, (Bandura)I did this by giving everyone different legs to lead, one aspect where I could have made it better was communication with the group, for example get the group to chat amongst themselves and that way it wasn’t the whole “Heads down, hood up” not that it would have been the case as the weather was exceptional for that time of year.  This was one thing that I didn’t do. To  make the whole experience better I could have stopped every now and again to point out specific interesting points such as any mountain plans only found in that area or pointed out any interesting wildlife such as birds deer. Etc.  

In terms of combating anxiety as the instructor there were a few points where the group looked a bit uneasy, especially when the wind was gusting quite strongly, In handling this I incorporated a democratic approach to let the group decide what was best and come up with ideas to handle the situation.  In doing this I made sure everyone was happy to continue and that everyone was feeling ok. As an instructor I should have more emphasis on enthusiasm as a happy group is more inclined to have less anxiety.

In regards to handling adrenaline there are many different approaches, as adrenaline tends to push people further out of their comfort zone and into the realms of exploration and peak performance (Simon priest)

 

With adrenaline comes risk because it pushes you beyond your limit thus pushing you past you competency.  Thus confirming the Adventure Paradigm Shift by Simon Priest. The trick to managing adrenaline and risk and competence is to analyse the group fist,  go too far and you end up in the devastation and disaster and thus inducing a possible fatality situation, but in the other hand you could not induce enough risk, so your group would not be learning anything, so the best area to operate dependant of the group would be the peak adventure, this is the optimal zone of functioning, where the participants and the instructor wold get the most out of the experience. In reflection of my leadership styles of motivation, character is key and if you have a positive character and appearance this influences the group decisions thus involving the group a lot more thus giving them a more enjoyable time on the mountain.

reflection on snowdon. part 1

Looking at my leadership styles which I put into place when I was leading groups up in Snowdon, I am going to critically analyse my style and look at what I'm going to do better for next time.

In this section I'm going to look at my leadership style and what style I used and why and which would work better for next time. I used an autocratic style of leadership, which has its advantages and disadvantages on the hill side, I took full responsibly and control of the whole group at point rather than letting the group make the decisions, looking back I should have used a democratic style of leadership thus sharing the responsibly of the leader as the group was good enough to have pulled it off. In my leadership I used a few different styles of coaching and leadership depending on the situations, at times where I needed all the control such as when we were ascending heather terrace on Tryfan I used a command style of leadership where I could have used a reciprocal style of leadership or the problem solving style. B. Woods (1998) states that depending on the situation depends on the style of leadership used. In using the command style of leading you would avoid "social loafing" (Bandura)

There are a few aspects of my leadership I could have done a lot better in, one of them confidence. As if you’re a leader you need to instil confidence in your group, so if you take a wrong turn or take a bad bearing, don't admit it, and just say you meant to do it.

Looking at my style of leading and different theory’s that emulate it, one of which is banduras social learning theory,  to avoid social loafing I used aspect four of banduras theory which is motivation.

One point where my leadership style was stretched and tested when leading on heather terrace I led from the front  where in hindsight I should have lead from the rear and put a confident person in the front, thus negating social loafing and people dropping behind.  You could also include arousal, in this situation if someone is placed under a stressful situation, they could experience the catastrophe theory, (Fazey and Harvey) or they could experience the inverted U theory (Yerkes and Dodson ) or if they have had lots of external stimuli they could experience the Drive theory (hull). This is all dependant on the group and weather the group is full of adrenaline and are highly motivated.

With my instructing of the Heather terrace assent there are many different things I could have done better, such as using a more authoritarian approach rather than a lazie fair approach when it came to communication, this would fill the group with lots more confidence and make them have a drive to do better. Over all there are many different ways you can look at my approach to leading, there are many way to make it better and to improve it as you can only learn if you make mistakes and rectify them.

what im going to work on and improve this year.

Personal check list of what I'm going to improve on as an instructor.



This year I'm  going to working on a few key areas, which i am currently lacking in.

•  Fitness, no use having good navigation (not saying that i do) if you not hill fit.

• Navigation, this can be improved by just getting my head into the map more.

• Group skills, the main key area I need work. this can be achieved by just getting out in the Hill with small groups.

Hopefully by the end of this academic year i will have enough skills to be able to partake in my ML training.

Welcome

welcome to my blog,

I am an outdoor education student in my second year, and this is my blog which will, give you an insight on how and instuctor percives how the group is run.