Blog 9

The definition that Dollarhide and Saginak (2012) give about leadership provides people with a solid belief of what someone must do to be a leader.  However, I think that someone cannot be a leader without having others believe you are a leader in some way.  One can influence an activity in efforts towards goal achievement, but that does not make them a leader.  I think that leaders are made based on what the society has created.  For this I like to follow the power bases that French and Raven (1959) have created.  I feel that someone becomes a leader based on what role they have been accepted into but they must also have one of the power bases.  Looking at all the leaders in my life, I have found that they at least have some kind of power.  Now I do not want to bash the definition that is provided in the text, but I feel that leaders are created based off of what others have mandated for that particular person.  We as people have created everything in our society and I believe that we create the leaders that are in our society because if we do not see someone as a leader, then they are not a leader.

Looking at the Mason and McMahon (2009) article on leadership practices of school counselors, I found it to be very interesting but everything made sense.  They looked at lots of different school counselors, young and old, and found that older school counselors felt that they were leaders within the school while the younger ones did not.  When reading the article, I thought that the authors were really shocked that the younger school counselors did not feel that they were leaders within the school.  From my point of view, I would think that the authors shouldn’t feel that way because young school counselors are still learning the ropes of the school.  They also have other school counselors that have been there for many years which can make it hard for the younger ones to be main leaders within the school.  Yes ,they are leaders in the school but because they are new they do not feel 100% the leaders of the school.  I think the data that Mason and McMahon (2009) found sounds accurate and I also think that teaching leadership skills in graduate school is a great idea so that young school counselors feel more prepared as leaders when they enter into the job market.  

Dollarhide, C.T., & Saginak, K.A. (2012). Comprehensive school counseling programs (2^nd Ed.). New York: Pearson

Mason, E. C., & McMahon, G. (2009). Leadership practices of school counselors. Professional school counseling, 13, 107-115.