Leadership and System Thinking

A system is “A set of interrelated and interdependent parts arranged in a manner that produces a unified whole” (robbins 2006), and Systems theory is the

With today’s fast moving pace there are many challenges we face that demands more non-linear system thinking instead of cause and effect linear thinking. In The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge stated, “system thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes,” rather than reacting to a specific part or event. System thinking involves shifting from the linear to non-linear thinking and/or the rational to the intuitive or thin-slicing type decisions. System thinking is

In society, there are groups that interact with each other. They may be families, churches, government agencies, or anything in between. Those groups can be defined as systems, and in the systems perspective that is what they are referred to (Hutchison, 2017). In the 1960s, Ludwig von Bertalanffy developed the general systems theory in relation to biology, but it was widely publicized and used for various subjects (Hutchison, 2017). Hutchison (2017) summarized Bertalanffy’s theory by saying, “any element is best understood by considering its interactions with its constituent parts as well as its interactions with larger systems of which it is a part.” (p.

A system is a collection of elements that interact with each other over time to function as a whole. Systems thinking is a combination of the previous four practices: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning to dissect and examine the practices of the organization. I first heard learned about systems thinking five years ago when I started in the Hazelwood School District. Our district had just began our district wide professional development on systems thinking, but then we had a change in our superintendent in late August, just a few weeks after the start of school. With the change in district leadership, came a change in our district focus, and systems thinking was almost immediately abandoned. However, since revisiting it this semester, I can’t help but incorporate it into many of my daily

Systems Thinking – It is the ability to see the 10,000 foot see, and to perceive plans instead of conceptualizing change as isolated events. Systems thinking needs the other four requests to engage a learning relationship to be made sense of it. There must be a standpoint change - from being separated to interconnect to the whole, and from denouncing our issues for something external to an affirmation that how we function, our exercises, can make issues.

Systems thinking is the capacity to see the master plan and to recognize patterns as opposed to conceptualizing change as segregated events. System thinking requires the other four orders to empower a learning organization to be figured it out. Additionally system thinking demonstrates that there is no outside that the reason for your issues at a piece of a solitary system.

This course covered many important topics helpful in understanding learning organizations. This paper will incorporate real-life situations from my organization, The American Red Cross. It will focus on three areas I found to be most helpful and relevant to my experience which is the understanding of systems thinking, growth, and the need to practice reflection.

Systems analysis refers to a problem solving technique where a business or procedure is studied and the goals are identified in order to create information systems to help the business achieve their goal more efficiently and easier. Systems analysts obtain feedback from the system users in various ways e.g. interviews, questionnaires etc. More importantly they find out from the users what their specific requirements are regarding the proposed system and then use the information obtained to formulate requirements for the system, the system is then written ensuring that all the requirements and expectations are met.

A system is a set of interrelated parts. Systems theory assumes that a system must be understood as a whole, rather than in component parts. It is a way of looking at the world where all the objects are interrelated with one another. Many family systems are addressed in the movie Little Miss Sunshine.

Systems ideas is referring to three different types of systems, each created in a different era; general systems theory, ecosystem perspectives and complex systems theory (Healy, 2005). Systems Ideas in social work originated with general systems theory

A large amount of credit is given to Bass 's transformational leadership theory identifies four aspects of

Leadership is an important factor within a business environment and often plays a significant role in achievement of organisational success (Landis, Hill & Harvey 2014). However, leadership is an art, therefore there is no simple formula for effective leadership (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy 2015, p.33) and a leader’s effectiveness can often only be understood in the context of the leader-follower-situation interaction model.

In order for any organization to be successful, they must find effective ways to change systems and policies that are ineffective in creating a successful environment. A system consists of four things, elements, attributes, internal relationships, and the system environment. The systems theory is transdisciplinary study of the abstract organization of phenomena, independent of their substance, type, or spatial or temporal scale of existence (Heylighen & Joslyn, 1992). The study investigates all the principals common to all complex bodies, and the models which can be used to describe them. Von Bertalanffy (1971) was the creator of the “system” concept, he developed this idea as an answer to the limitations of individual disciplines in addressing complex social issues (Mitchell, 2005). The underlining principal of this theory is that an organization consists of multiple, interdependent parts that collectively form more than the sum of their parts. Developed from the systems theory, are three separate theories with the basis of each being the systems theory. The activity theory considers the entire program versus just one single sector, it sees the operation as a whole instead of sub departments, it combines both micro and macro elements of the organization. The chaos theory does not mean a chaotic hectic situation, rather a situation where there appears to be little to no order, there really is a hidden underlying order. The complexity theory is

1. System Thinking: System thinking is nothing but instead of focusing on only one particular issue, we have to analyze and try to understand the entire system on the whole. With this kind of analyzation, we can easily find a solution to the problem as the problems are not confined to only a particular area or time. We might find a solution for a particular issue, somewhere in the whole system by analyzing the entire system completely. We should try to relate the actions and the consequences on the whole as the issues occur at different time levels, not confined to only one particular time level. We have to have knowledge of the relation between different departments of an organization and the relation between them and the functionality between the departments as to how they are related in an organization. We generally focus on only one particular issue rather than seeing the bug picture and that shouldn’t be done. In system thinking we analyze the big picture.

Systems thinking is a method of thinking that looks at the interconnectedness between different elements rather than a linear cause and effect approach and sees patterns of change rather than fixed “snapshots”. In essence it is a view on the “whole picture” (Anderson, R 1994).