NOTEBOOK - New York State Psychological Association

NYSPA Notebook ~ September 2012
A Fellow’s Reflection on the 2011-12 Leadership Institute Project
Daniel Kaplin, MA, CASAC
NYSPA Member Since 2011
This article focuses on our year as leadership
fellows and well as reflects on
different leadership styles. Leadership
refers to the ability to collaborate with
others towards a common goal (Chermers,
1997; Cohen, Lee, & McIlwraith, 2012). Whenever
a person commits to being in a
position of leadership, it comes with both
opportunity and responsibility (Cohen et
al., 2012).
The 2011-12 Leadership Institute Class
The Leadership Institute is no different in
this respect. As fellows, we were provided
the opportunity to be exposed to
NYSPA council, which is responsible for
determining the direction of our profession
in New York State. Moreover, we
had the opportunity to interact and build
relationships with the current leadership
of NYSPA. This is an invaluable
opportunity for those whom wish to
assume leadership positions in the future.
Fellows of the program, are responsible
for developing a product that would
contribute to NYSPA and the field of
psychology. Each fellow is assigned a
mentor, but are encouraged to be as
autonomous as possible.
Our group decided to create a promotional
video that could be disseminated
to politicians, psychology students, and
the layperson to increase awareness
about psychology (Kaplin, 2012). We
utilized the strength of NYSPA, being its
divisions, regional affiliates, and
members, as a source of funding and
representation. We were fortunate
enough to have the following divisions
represented in the video: Academic,
Addictions, Adult Development and
Aging, Clinical, the Division of Race,
Culture and Ethnicity), Early Career
Psychologists, Forensic, Independent
Practice, Psychoanalysis, Public Sector,
School Psychology, Social Issues and the
Division of Women’s issues. We would
like to thank all of the contributors and
supports of the project.
Video’s will be available
October 1, 2012.
As research suggests, the process of
breaking a large task down into smaller
concrete tasks can help eliminate the
problem of planning fallacy (Koole & Spijker,
2000). Being cognizant of this, our team
set the direction of our project at our first
meeting at the 2011 NYSPA Convention,
developed a fundraising campaign in September
2011, started interviewing in
February 2012, started editing in April
2012, and showcased our promotional
video at the June 2012 NYSPA Convention.
In sum, our success was predicated
on the awareness that we had one year
to complete our goals and there was
minimal room for procrastination. NYSPA
will display these full-length videos and
the integrated promotional video on the
NYSPA YouTube channel.
Leadership Styles in Action
Research suggests that there is a strong
association between parenting and
leadership styles (Ferguson, Hagaman, Grice,
& Peng, 2006). There are four types
parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian,
permissive and disengaged
(Baumrind, 1996). I would suggest that a
person could determine their leadership
style, albeit imperfectly, by attending to
their parenting style.
Thus, an authoritative parent, who is very
warm and compassionate, but has high
expectations with their children will
demonstrate a democratic leadership
style (Baumrind, 1996; Ferguson et al., 2006).
An authoritarian parent, who has high
demands, but displays little warmth, will
exhibit an autocratic leadership style
(Baumrind, 1996; Ferguson et al., 2006). Lastly,
a permissive parent, who is very warm,
but has low demands on their child, will
exhibit a laissez faire leadership style
(Baumrind, 1996; Ferguson et al., 2006). My
experience is that the disengaged parent
generally does not seek to be in a
position of leadership.
A core component of the Leadership Institute
is to help fellows develop greater
self-awareness of their leadership style to
put them in a position to assume leadership
positions. This is accomplished by
putting many highly ambitious individuals
together to work on a project. Our group
was extremely diverse and we were
faced with experiences that encouraged
us to balance our leadership style with
the leadership style of our peers. I
believe that the Leadership Institute is
successful in accomplishing its goals as
every member my class took advantage
of the opportunities provided and have
assumed positions within NYSPA and its
regional affiliates.
In conclusion, NYSPA invests considerable
resources into the Leadership Institute to
ensure that it is a meaningful experience
for everyone involved. My observation
was that, self-awareness, collaboration
and effective time management are
crucial elements to successful completion
of the Leadership Institute. I would
suggest that the Leadership Institute is a
wonderful opportunity for an emerging
leader to develop self-awareness,
contribute to the field of psychology, and
become more involved in leadership.
References:
Baumrind, D. (1996). The discipline
controversy revisited. Family Relations, 45(4),
405-414.
Chemers M. (1997) An integrative theory of
leadership. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates Publishers.
Cohen, K. R., Lee, C. M., & McIlwraith, R.
(2012). The psychology of advocacy and the
advocacy of psychology. Canadian Psychology,
53(3), 151-158. doi:10.1037/a0027823
Ferguson, E., Hagaman, J., Grice, J. W., &
Peng, K. (2006). From leadership to
parenthood: The applicability of leadership
styles to parenting styles. Group Dynamics:
Theory, Research, and Practice, 10(1), 43-56.
doi:10.1037/1089-2699.10.1.43
Kaplin, D. (2012, May). The adventures of
being a Leadership Fellow from an experiential
perspective. Clinical Perspectives, 12, 3-4.
Koole, S., & Spijker, M. (2000). Overcoming
the planning fallacy through willpower: Effects
of implementation intentions on actual and
predicted task-completion times. European
Journal of Social Psychology, 30(6), 873-
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