Leadership Styles

After going back through “Critical Thinking” and “The Essential Guide to Group Communication,” I have decided to further explore the different kinds of leadership styles. First a quick recap. Authoritarian is one persons leads the group and makes decisions without any input from its members. Consultative leaders take the members input and makes a decision. This kind of leader usually doesn’t have enough information to make a decision on their own, that is why they turn to a group. In a participative group, one person guides the other members and has very little to do with making a decision. The last style is laissez-faire. This style has little to no leadership. Now on to the research. On http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadstl.html there are 3 different styles. It lists authoritarian, participative, and delegative/free reign. The last one is the same as laissez-faire except the website makes it sounds better than the book does. In our text it says it “has been consistently found to be the least satisfying and effective management style.” It also mentions that the leader is hard to find when a problem comes up. According to the website, “the leader allows the employees to make the decisions. However, the leader is still responsible for the decisions that are made. This is used when employees are able to analyze the situation and determine what needs to be done and how to do it.” It also mentions “this is a style to be used when you fully trust and confidence in the people below you.” I really like how it says that because if more groups or workplaces used a delegative style, their employees would learn to take more responsibility and feel like they have a say in what goes on. After reading what was on the website, I do not see the laissez-faire style as bad as the books makes it seem to be.

Group Assignment

I thought both group assignments were useful. Our mission for the second project was to research an organization and I learned a lot about my groups organization. We picked the Red Cross and I thought they mostly offered money and supplies to areas of natural disaster. They do a lot more! They have blood donation centers, they help all over the world even when there is not a disaster, and offer health education programs. They also reach out to the entertainment industry which I thought was pretty cool. They provide props for sets like posters and even vans. The other part of the entertainment outreach program is their celebrity cabinet. It is a bunch of celebrities that volunteer for a year then the cabinet changes. I thought my group communicated with each other very well. We all had each other’s schedule and helped answer any questions that came up. I think we all feel more comfortable with each other after the first project.

2 Things I Learned

The first thing that I learned this week from Chapter 8 was that general claims are usually bad. If you look at the cats and dogs example on page 159, it sounds valid. I tried to guess what it would be after reading the first example and I got it wrong. Then I learned that you have to take into consideration what “some” means and that “all the dogs that like cats are abhorred by the cats as too wimpy” could happen. The second thing I learned was the diagram of an argument. I learn with pictures so this definitely helped. It helps me understand the examples given in the book and why they are or are not valid. I do have trouble putting the right premise completely in the middle though. For the barking example on page 165 I started with mammals in the middle rather than on the outside.

Tutorial

I am more of a visual learner so I really liked how all the tutorials mapped everything out. I like how the claim is in one box then reasons and objections in separate boxes are linked to it. The different colors and shapes were also useful. They made it clear which boxes were contentions or objections.  When arguments became more complicated the mapping was still simple. In tutorial 3, when things like co-premises, and objections and reasons came up for the same argument, the visual was still easy to read.  One part that did get confusing though was how to map strange bedfellows and stranded co-premises. With strange bedfellows both reasons were in green so the X did not make sense. Then I figured out they should not be connected because if a co-premise comes up, it would be linked to the reason. In 3.6 of the tutorial, a similar thing happened with a co-premise having its own box making it seem like a reason.

Chapter 7

Something I learned from chapter 7 was that there can be an argument within an argument, a mini-argument. You get one of these when you “knock off an objection.” In the argument about getting another dog, the mini-argument would be the last 3 answers because they are knocking off the 3 objections right before. This new argument makes me wonder if the whole argument can be valid or strong if the mini-argument is weak or invalid. It would probably make the whole argument a bad one because one of the premises would be false or dubious. Another thing I learned was the difference between direct and indirect refutation. With direct refutation you show a premise is dubious the argument is not valid or strong, and a false conclusion. Indirect has to do with reducing to the absurd. In this case a bunch of the claims are bad because of their conclusion.

Chapter 6

The first thing I learned about in chapter six was compound claims. It makes complete sense.  In the lawn mower example, you have two claims but since you are only going to end up getting one its compound. Just like a compound word. You have two words put together but word count does not say “2” it says “1.” After that came a lot of terms that started with the letter “c” that I got all mixed up. What I did get a hold of was the slippery slope argument. It is easy to notice this type of argument because it is a bad argument; it goes on and on with a bunch of conditionals and at least one of them is false. The two examples in the book were also simple. This concept is also easy to understand because it does not have another side to it, like conditional claim and contradictory of a conditional.

Intersting Concept

My interesting concept for this week is the summary box on page 90. I think it is really well written on why we should reject of accept a claim. More specifically, why we should accept a claim when “it is being made by a reputable authority whom we can trust as an expert about this kind of claim and who has no motive to mislead.” The “expert” and “motive” parts are what have changed the way I think when someone is trying to tell me something. For example, if I want to buy a car and I have narrowed it down to a CR-Z and a Prius, would I trust the opinion of my dad and brother? Before reading this chapter, I would believe them in an instant, but know I would have to think about it. Both cars are hybrids are both dad and brother have experience with owning and driving one. My brother is a mechanic so he has a leg up on maintenance and technical specs. That makes him the expert. When it comes to motive, I do not think my dad would care which car I got. My brother on the other hand would probably say something in favor of the CR-Z because of its better looks since he would be the one working on it and driving it on occasion. I have to be careful about not being too gullible now.

Internet Ad

Random ad I got from Bing. I have never heard of Charmone or worn their shoes so I have no personal experience with the brand. At the bottom, it says their shoes are not just good looking but also comfortable. The shoes pictures looks ok but I don’t know about the comfortable part.  Since I don’t know if that claim is true or false due to my lack of experience, I am going to suspend judgement until I try a pair on. According to the summary box on page 90, I can’t accept or reject the ad.  No experience eliminates the first three. Under “other sources” nobody has ever told me about their experience, so it throws out the first two. That leaves “the claim is put forward in a reputable journal or reference” and “is in a media source that’s usually reliable and has no obvious motive to mislead, and the original source is named.” I got it off the internet, which has reliable and non reliable sources. Bing put the ad up and I don’t see why they would mislead me. I would still use the site if I did or didn’t get a pair of does. The original source is Charmone. I guess I’ll be trying on a pair this weekend.