Honestly, I thought both of these readings were dry and somewhat boring. I think they had a lot of good information though. After reading the second article, I was confused about the interaction between different types of observation and leadership in small scale societies. After thinking about it a little more about the topics, I came to the conclusion that in order to evaluate the effectiveness of leadership in SSSs and subsequently LSSs, one must know how to observe those societies. I did not know that there were so many different kinds of observation and how informal some of them are. I don’t really think about how I am observing the world when I am going about my life.
I thought it was interesting how in the first article it talks about naturalistic observation. I interpreted this as just being aware of what is going on around you. The phrase naturalistic observation sounds so formal but it really just means paying attention to the world. Its interesting to think about how we are always observing even if we don’t think we are. I would be interested to know what the most used form of observation is in the leadership studies world. I think it would be mostly retrospective case studies but I think there is a lot to be learned by studying what is going on right now also so Im not sure.
I found the naturalistic observation fairly interesting as we can observe situations occurring, but we are inevitably leaving detail or specifics out. Thus, our memory of certain events is formed by our view of society and by our own impressions.
I only found the Stern & Kalof reading to be dry and boring. But I agree it did have a lot of good information though. The only thing that intrigued me was also the naturalistic observation. I didn’t really realize or be aware of how I observe the world around me.