Doctor who?

To finish the background sketching here so we can move on to the things that strike and profoundly affect me, today's subject is the PhD in Organizational Leadership.

I have completed my three years of coursework at Eastern University, have passed comprehensive exams, and am now officially A Candidate For The PhD.  Somehow that sounds better when I put every word in caps.

As an INTJ personality, writing a dissertation is especially challenging.  Why? Well ...

• the I means I don't share what I'm thinking with other people often enough to get constructive feedback before I get too far down a road
• the N means everything is interesting and I have trouble sticking to one topic/concept long enough to research and write 200 pages on it
• the T means I live in my brain, which would seem perfect for a scholarly pursuit such as the PhD ... but I'm in a program dedicated to the practitioner-scholar, so I have to live it and not just think it
• the J means I crave and thrive in structure.  And as anyone who has pursued the PhD can tell you, once your coursework is done, you have no structure other than what you impose yourself.  (See: N for my difficulties with self-imposed structure.)

My topic started as a brand new theory of leadership: the interaction between leader, follower, and organization as a Venn diagram, recognizing that even a subtle and slight change in one results in significant changes to the way the three interact.  And that means that any theory that only discusses the interaction of two of those three components is missing the boat; and it also means that the Bolman-Deal human resources frame is probably the most important of all (hard for an INTJ to say) is because an organization is mostly the sum of the relationships involved.

What did my advisor say when I shared this with him?  Two comments.  "That's a brand-new theory, and very interesting."  "Don't do that for your dissertation; the best dissertation is a done dissertation.  Do one small piece of that theory and save the rest for the book."

Good advice, I think.

So I've settled in on trying to help small community nonprofits (SCNPs) be more effective organizations, specifically in the areas of recruitment, selection, and socialization of employees.  In essence, when the local homeless shelter needs an employee, what are some tools and practices they can employ to make sure they locate, hire, and orient that employee so that both individual and organization are most effective?

In ways only God could figure out, somehow this has dovetailed with AllOne and our service survey (see http://leadingandfollowing.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-is-this-all-about.html) as well as SEED and our need to build an organization (see http://leadingandfollowing.blogspot.com/2011/02/our-next-adventure.html).

So beginning tomorrow, the dialogue begins: I'll be posting reflections, thoughts, and questions for our exchange.  I look forward to your input.