| Abstract [eng] |
Leadership is vitally important in social life when trying to solve the problems of social service recipients. One of its most innovative models in today's social work is adaptive leadership. By practicing it, ways of how to solve social problems are found, so that people themselves can actively participate in the changes of their lives. So far, very little research has been conducted in Lithuania related to the topic of leadership in social work. The qualitative study was conducted to find out about the expression of leadership in the practice of social workers. The study started with two pilot (observation) studies. The empirical study conducted by the researcher was through interviewing sixteen social workers face to face and it aimed at analysing how they see leadership in their practice as well the practice of their colleagues. The obtained research data was analyzed by coding them in the Maxqda 2020 program. The resulting codes were interpreted based on the elements of adaptive leadership theory. In this case the technical, technical – adaptive and adaptive challenges of social workers were analyzed, as well as their solution system, leadership manifestations in the context of formal and informal power, the system of septic competences and their links with adaptive work. The results of the research showed how social workers express their leadership in the context of adaptive leadership. The main findings of the study are that there are circumstances that arise and hinder the expression of social workers' initiatives when solving the problems of social service recipients based on their views. Also, most of them take relatively little adaptive leadership, only the manifestations of its elements can be observed in terms of competencies and adaptive work model. |
