The Practice of Adaptive Leadership - Essay Example

ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP INTRODUCTION Young people all over the world indulge in rash and out of control driving and are involved in most car and vehicle crashes. Everywhere the state, parents and community in general are looking for ways to control these young drivers. As per Australian government, the 16 to 20-year-olds account for 7 per cent of all drivers, and are involved in 17 per cent of fatal accidents on road. A 17-year-old P1 license-holder was four times more likely than the average driver to be involved in a fatal crash. (Benson, 2006) Thus the government has come out with tougher licensing laws for P plate drivers. Incidentally, the p-plate drivers are the probationary or provisional drivers who are issued licenses for 18 months for P1 and 2 years for P2. Issues such as driver education, licensing restrictions and speeding-related deaths have frequently been the topic of debate within the general public. By these new laws, the government hopes to curb the rising incidence of young people involved in fatal crashes. Although the step has been welcomed by many, there are some voices which are not happy. This is especially true for the persons most affected by the new laws that is the P1 license holders. They feel that some of the provisions of the law are particularly harsher. It is clear that the situation of P-plate drivers is broad and complex; encompassing many attitudes desires and beliefs. What is required is to consider the leadership issues involved and also to ask whether our actions would be technical or adaptive responses. To determine the leadership challenges involved, what would be required is to analyze the views of provisional drivers on the new regulations, and how they have responded to the implementation of these regulations and also how it affected them. But before doing so, let us take a brief look at the new laws. NEW LAWS The Australian government and the RTA (Road and Transport Authority) has come up with the new laws for p Plate drivers recently. According to these laws – the Probationary drivers have been banned from driving high-powered or turbo charged cars. But there are provisions for driving to work with prior permission or exceptional circumstances. Another point of importance is the restrictions on carrying passengers after suspension. P-plate drivers whose licenses have been suspended will not be allowed to carry more than one passenger for a period of 12 months. Moreover the passenger restrictions will continue even after the license has been reissued. (Benson, 2006) The new laws also require the p plate to be more visible. And they will not be applied to the existing license holders unless they go for reissuing or are caught for suspension – after which they will also be regulated by the new laws. The RTA has promised to review the new laws within 12 months. ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP Many complex problems do not have simple and straightforward solutions. These require higher forms of leadership to solve them. Such complex challenges which are not handled through normal and routine way are known as adaptive leadership challenges. Some complex issues are needed to be dealt in newer ways and require learning and adaptation to new ways of thinking or creative solutions. Such changes require changes in our attitudes, behavior, and values. (Heifetz, 1994). Such challenges need not be answered through authoritative power only. They need more sensitive handling and require cooperation, and participative style of management. Therefore, we can say that leadership is not authoritative always and should be meaningful to change and adapt new relationships, values and aspirations for the benefit of all stakeholders.(Steffen, 2003) Based on this concept let us try to define our problem in an adaptive framework. PROBLEM The problem of rash driving is very complex and is more because of attitudinal and behavioral problems of the young people rather than a simple technical problem of expertise. Of course, the expertise matter is also important. Thus the main issue is a combination of adaptive and technical challenges. Thus we can define our problem as – Challenge involved in reducing the road accidents involving young people holding P1 and P2 licenses and creating awareness amongst this group of drivers regarding the new laws and how it is going to make driving easy and stress free for them. The main adaptive issues involved here will be – Educating the P1/P2 drivers regarding the new laws. Making them aware of their responsibility towards themselves as well as their parents and society in general. Helping them to understand the benefits of following the laws. METHODOLOGY According to Dawson (2002) research methods are the tools to collect data for research. The choice of method is linked to the research questions; therefore it is a paramount to choose the most appropriate and closely related methods in order to collect the relevant data for the research. It could be self-completion questionnaire, structured/unstructured/ or semi- structured interviews or even participant observation. Primary Data Collection : This is the data collected directly from questionnaires and interviews (direct or telephonic). A questionnaire is a research instrument with a set of questions in order to gather information from respondents. The main advantages are that they are easy to handle, do not require as much effort and time from the questioner as verbal or telephone surveys, and often have standardized answers. Also, questionnaires are custom-designed to meet the objectives of a research project, what makes data collection easier and more effective. Interviews – They can be either direct personal interviews or telephonic. Semi-structured or structured interviews will be selected over unstructured interview. Semi- structured or structured interviews will allow more specific information to be gathered, which can be compared and contrasts made. To determine the leadership challenges involved, what would be required is to analyze the views of provisional drivers on the new regulations, and how they have responded to the implementation of these regulations and also how it affected them. Primary data will be collected from interviewing two provisional drivers. There will be no specification on the age of the driver, as long as they hold either a provisional 1 or a provisional 2 license. The Primary Authority in this case is the RTA thus allowing our focus to be on the issues of work avoidance and adaptive problems between provisional drivers and the RTA. The P plate drivers can be P1 or P2 driver license holders since we are focusing on the issues of work avoidances and adoptive problems between P plate holders and RTA, i.e. Primary Authority See Appendix 1 and 2 for the interviews conducted Secondary data collection involves the collection of information from studies that other researchers have done of the subject. The most available sources are books, journals, newspaper articles, magazines, case studies, and media reports, Internet etc. The data will be collected from both Internet (RTA website, journal articles) to gather an understanding of the general feel of the public, and also the media (Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Telegraph, Financial Review) to obtain an understanding of how public opinion has been influenced. ANALYSIS Thus based on the interviews we conducted, we see that the respondent that is the P1 driver is not particularly happy with some of the provisions of the new laws. The P1 driver questioned the applicability of banning them to drive high powered cars. According to her the speeding limit restrictions were also unfair specially if compared to other licensed drivers who are allowed a limit of 10km/hr. Another issue was the restrictions on passenger limits after suspension as this would pose difficulties even when driving with family members. Thus in general, besides the zero alcohol and zero tolerance for mobile phone use while driving , our respondent did not agree with the RTA imposed laws. The other respondent who is a P2 driver did not seem to be very knowledgeable about the new laws and thought that if he drove properly and safely, he will not be required to follow the new licensing laws. Though he did feel that younger drivers should not be pressurized and allowed to drive in a stress free manner. Thus the primary intention of RTA to create awareness seems to be getting partially fulfilled , but because of the non popularity of most of the provisions – we do not think the drivers are going to follow the laws willfully. Though they do understand that these are meant for their safety, they do not agree to the authoritative nature of the laws. LIMITATION : The only limitation is that we have interviewed only 2 people from each group and these may not be sufficient to generalize the issue. The secondary data also focuses on stringent rules and applauds RTA’s initiatives to regulate these young drivers. No one in the media or the authority has taken the viewpoint or the perspective of the P1 and P2 drivers under consideration. CONCLUSIONS Thus we see that although the new laws have generated much controversy, the main issue of P late drivers understanding and following rules is still far from being fulfilled. Since the RTA has chosen to ignore these stakeholders, they do not seem to be in a mood to learn. As per the statistics, up to 2200 young drivers have been caught flouting new P-plate and learner laws since the legislation came into effect on July 1.(Gilmore, 2007) The authorities have also noted that the young p plate drivers are openly flouting these norms and ignoring the restrictions on carrying multiple passengers. Needless to say that above numbers would be considerably higher since not all of the offenders will be caught. So, the only success of RTA is to book more drivers than ever before. The same findings have been reported by NRMA in their survey on young drivers after the new laws were imposed. (NRMA, 2005) PERSONAL LESSONS The adaptive issues are emotional issues and should be handled very delicately and carefully. These involve making people change their habits and ways of doing things. It is not very simple. Even a child resists being disciplined and when we talk of organizations with hundreds of people, the issue become all the more sensitive. Based on the above case study, we can say that the biggest challenge for the adaptive leadership is to manage conflict between the two or multiple parties. As we above that the main mistake was to ignore the voice of the major stakeholders – the P plate drivers – in creating or implementing the new laws. As a result, they have not been very successful in making the drivers more responsible. Another important lesson is to never ever try to impose anything on people without creating adequate awareness about them. The stakeholders should be given sufficient time to react and digest the information. Their fears and questions should be answered before implanting any change. Moreover, explaining things from their point of view helps. REFERENCES Benson, S. (2006), New laws begin the process, The daily telegraph, Accessed from: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20722550-5010184,00.html Gilmore, H. (2007), We're coming after you, police warn P-platers, Sydney morning Herald, Accessed from : http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/were-coming-after-you/2007/07/21/1184560101180.html Heifetz, (1994) Leadership Without Easy Answers. Steffen, D. (2003) Catalyzing Meaningful Change Through Adaptive Leadership, Transformations in Public health, Vol 5, Issue 1 Survey research on young driver restrictions, (2005) Draft report, NRMA Motoring and Services APPENDIX 1 Interview with a 22years old, university student and a P1 holder, female Q: What do you think about the new rules for P-plate holders? A: The restriction for P-plate holder is just ridiculous. I understand that Government tries to improve the road safety and prevent car accidents, but legislated more strict rule is not the way to do it. Q: Can you talk about rules you think that is hard to be accepted? A: Yes, there are pretty much. Ok, first, your P1 licence will be suspended if over speeding. I totally agree that speeding do make many accidents happened. But saying if a person who speeds only over 1km/hr and gets caught, isn’t that weird? Sometimes it is hard to manage for that bit because you are unintentionally to do it but you do notice yourself do not speed over the limit. The rule is unfair compares to those full license drivers with permission for speeding within 10km/hr. In addition, young people have been targeted on because most of them are P plate holders, but there are still numbers of people who have to drive at night for example, taking their kids and wives out in some cases. Doesn’t the rule that P1 holder can not drive with more than one passenger under age 21 during 11pm to 5am deprive of personal liability? It is true that there are some cases that all people die in one car but it is not applied for all people. Placing a plate outside the car is theoretically acceptable, but there are still other considerations. The plates do scrap cars and sometimes they are harder to be seen than placed interiorly. Many people wedge their P or L plates by windscreen wipers or license plates, but plates are often obstructed or hidden. Also, the L plate is made by paper. How can L plate holders practice driving in the rainy days? They need to have driving experiences in different conditions. Moreover, placing plates outside can be easily fall of without notice. Sometimes you get caught by that and try to explain but caps do not accept it, so you get 2 demerits and a $185 fine. I think if the rule can change to say that show the plate visibly will be much useful and reasonable than now it is. I also question about the rule that P plate holders can not drive turbocharged/ supercharged or V8 cars. One of my friend’s parents decided to buy her a car with turbocharged. But they notice P plate holders can not drive the car only if you apply it from RTA with a very good reason. So does that mean her parents have to sell all their cars first and saying that the turbocharged car is the only car they own in order for her daughter to drive and then buy back their cars later? Ridiculous! People who love speeding still will speed; it is not a matter of what types of car they drive. I also doubt about the rule that learner drivers need to hold their learner license for at least 12 months and complete at least 120 hours of supervised driving (including 20 hours of night driving) before they can apply for their P1 license. The new compulsory time is double more than the old one. This rule definitely makes some people to make up their driving log entry. Then Government will have no point to set up this new rule. Q: So far, you talked issues that you think need to be improved. Do you agree any legislation made by Government? A: Yea, some seem not that bad…I guess. Q: what are those you think is not bad? A: I think the rule for you can’t drive while talking on mobile is good. Provisional drivers might not be mature enough to do these two things at one time, although sometime people can’t tell whether you are talking on the phone or listening to the music when you use earphones. The rule of zero blood alcohol concentration is also acceptable. Drink driving happens a lot being a major case of car accidents. APPENDIX 2 Q Are you fully aware of the regulations that are placed on you as a P2 driver? A No. Q If yes, how did you come about knowing this information? A Q If not, what could be done to inform you of them? A Research RTA info. Q If you obtained your license before the new restrictions were put in place in July 2007, please answer the following; otherwise proceed to next question: a. Was the compulsory 50 hours enough to make you feel comfortable behind the wheel? A Yes I think so. b. Were the questions in the log book sufficient to cover all aspects of the learning to drive experience? A Yes c. Is it easy to falsify any of your records in the log book? A Definitely! I lied about 3 quarters of it Q If you obtained your license after the new restrictions were put in place in July 2007, please answer the following: a. Was the compulsory 120 hours enough to make you feel comfortable behind the wheel? A b. Is the addition of 70 hours to the compulsory driving time before you get your licence too much? A c. Instead of the 70 hours, if an educational program was implemented, where you are offered simulated driving experiences, such as hazard perception, would this be more helpful? A Q Do the new regulations affect you in a negative way? A No they don’t affect me in a negative way. I know the road rules and abide by them – harsher penalties act for more of a deterrent for careless drivers so these impacts are positive. However I also think that they haven’t affected me in a negative way because I am a P2 driver and haven’t got many changes to my abilities on the road. Q Do you find that the authorities (such as the police) are enforcing the new regulations fairly? A Yes I do. they seem to be a lot more visible which enforces the regulations in a fairly passive way. Q In general, how do you feel about the views the public hold of P-Platers? A Its not fair. Generally they have the “bloody p-plate drivers” mentality. The public needs to be more accepting and don’t make life more difficult for them. The new experience of driving is stressful enough and doesn’t need any more stress added to it. Read More