CHAPTER 5 THE FIVE COMPONENTS
OF LEADERSHIP
by ROBERT M. MCMANUS
and GAMA PERRUCI
5 :: THE FIVE COMPONENTS
OF LEADERSHIP
by ROBERT M. MCMANUS and GAMA PERRUCI
The following is excerpted from Any individual who aspires to become better at an endeavor must first acquire a certain
Understanding Leadership: An Arts level of knowledge related to it.1 While we may be eager to move into action, as John W.
and Humanities Perspective Gardner reminds us, “The first step [to leadership] is not action; the first step is
by Robert M. McManus and understanding. The first question is how to think about leadership.”2 The first order of
Gama Perruci. business in a book that is designed to help the reader become a better leader is to
simplify language. This chapter offers a simple structure that will help readers make
©2015 Taylor and Francis Group. sense of leadership in what we call The Five Components of Leadership Model.3
All rights reserved.
In our book, Understanding Leadership: An Arts and Humanities Perspective, we
Purchase a copy HERE . examine how some of the great philosophers, authors and artists can help inform our
understanding of leadership. Studying leadership through the arts and the
1 The chapter is modified from R. M. humanities helps to meet various needs of the contemporary student of leadership.
McManus and G. Perruci, Understanding First, it provides for the development of the type of multidimensional thinking that is
Leadership: An Arts and Humanities necessary for understanding and problem solving in a complex world. Second, it
Perspective, London: Routledge, 2015, helps the student of leadership to find meaning and purpose for their own lives as
p. 5-39, 252-3. they learn to lead themselves as well as others. We hope that the reader of our book
seeks not only to use the lessons learned herein as “equipment for leading,” but also
2 J. W. Gardner, On Leadership, New York: to use them as “equipment for living” throughout their life.4
Free Press, 1990, p. xiv.
In this chapter, we analyze the oil-on-canvas painting, “Washington Crossing the
3 The Five Components of Leadership was Delaware” (1851). This famous artwork by the German-born artist, Emanuel Leutze
originally referred to as the “McDonough (1816-1868), captures the moment when the Continental Army and the militia are
Model” in reference to the setting where crossing the Delaware River in order to confront the Hessian garrison in Trenton,
we first developed and refined it, The New Jersey, on December 25, 1776.5 The painting is grand in scale and is designed
Bernard P. McDonough Center for to serve as a patriotic and inspirational piece. We can derive several insights about
Leadership and Business at Marietta leadership from this piece of art by connecting the historical context and the images
College, Ohio. The authors doff their hats portrayed in the painting.
to J. T. Wren and M. J. Swatez who helped
form their thinking. See Wren and The painting depicts a surprise attack in the middle of the winter. After several failures
Swatez’s article “The Historical and in the summer and fall, the Continental Army was ready to take a break for the winter
Contemporary Contexts of Leadership: season. Morale was low. Faced with the grim prospect of another season of defeats in
A Conceptual Model” in The Leader’s the spring, General George Washington developed a bold plan – to surprise the German
Companion: Insights on Leadership Through mercenary forces in Trenton in order to shift the momentum of the Revolutionary War.
the Ages, J. T. Wren, editor, New York: The They entered New Jersey in the middle of the night on Christmas day and then
Free Press, 1995, pp. 245-252. marched nine miles to defeat the Hessians. On the morning of December 26, the
Patriots quickly overwhelmed their opponents and took the town.
4 The term “equipment for living” is
attributed to rhetorician Kenneth Burke. This heroic act became a turning point in the revolution. The capture of Trenton had
See K. Burke, “Literature as Equipment no intrinsic strategic value for the war effort. Its true significance laid in the symbolic
for Living” in The Philosophy of Literary effect that it had on the Continental Army. It lifted morale among the troops and
Form 3rd edition, Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press, pp. 293-304.
5 For a historical account of this key event
in the American Revolution, D. H. Fischer,
Washington’s Crossing, Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press, 2006.
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Figure 12
Emanuel Gottlieb Luetze
(1816-1868),
“Washington Crossing the
Delaware,” 1851
Oil on canvas, 837.5 x 647.7 cm
Gift of John Stewart Kennedy,
1897 (97.34)
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York NY, USA
Photo credit:
Image copyright
© Metropolitan Museum of Art
Image source:
Art Resource, New York
Robert M. McManus rekindled the vision of independence and victory against the British. As morale
increased, so did the number of new recruits who joined the cause.
is the McCoy Associate
Professor of Leadership Studies As we examine the painting, we have to suspend judgment of the historical
and Communication at the inaccuracies in order to fully appreciate the artifact. If the artist had tried to be
McDonough Leadership Center historically accurate, he would have had difficulty showing the boats crossing on a
at Marietta College in Ohio. He rainy night in the dead of the winter, with no light source. Instead, we see bright
co-edited Leading in Complex colors and a glow in the background. Amid the ice chunks, the small patch of land to
Worlds (Jossey-Bass) and has the left, and the flotilla in the background, our eyes are drawn to the forefront where
served as the Chair of the we see the “flagship” with General Washington, the American flag, and his crew.
Leadership Education MIG for
the International Leadership Leutze was very intentional in his placement of every individual in the flagship. The
Association. variety of crew members suggests the diverse ethnic and socioeconomic composition
of the rebellious colonies. The main boat can be divided into three groups. In the
Gama Perruci front, we see three crew members – including Prince Whipple (an African American
freed slave who participated in the Revolutionary War) and a Scot rowing. A
is the Dean of the McDonough steersman in the very front, wearing a raccoon skin cap, uses a long pole to move the
Leadership Center at Marietta ice blocks out of the way. In the back of the boat, we see five figures: an oarsman in
College in Ohio. He also serves red; another in green, suggestive of Native American heritage; a head bandaged sick
as a consultant for The New York soldier; a farmer; and an officer holding his hat against the wind.
Times (nytimesinleadership.com)
and leadership session facilitator The center of attention belongs to the general, the flag held by a militiaman, and the
for Dartmouth College’s young James Monroe, another Founding Father of the United States. They capture our
Rockefeller Center for Public
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6 Ibid. attention as a glow in the background frame their position of importance. In the
background, on the left side in the sky, one sees a faint star. Considering that the
7 For examples see J. Man, The Leadership attacking flotilla started their journey on December 25, the parallels are clear, as one
Secrets of Genghis Khan, London: observer notes – “Washington and his men move toward the light of hope, guided by the
Transword Digital, 2010; and W. Roberts. morning star – which, given the Christmas connection, suggests the Star of Bethlehem.”6
The Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun,
New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2007. What can this painting teach us about leadership? It clearly shows a common image
of leadership – a courageous leader in charge. So powerful is this image that at times
8 Our fascination with Washington’s we use the words “leader” and “leadership” interchangeably. For instance, we often
leadership skills has garnered him a hear references to the leadership in an organization – meaning, those with decision-
remarkable list of recent books on this making powers. We make a direct association between those in positions of authority
topic, including: M. J. Flynn and S. E. and the word “leadership.”
Griffin, Washington & Napoleon: Leadership
in the Age of Revolution, Dulles, VA: We quite often adopt this connection between positional power and leadership when
Potomac Books, 2012; G. M. Carbone, we talk about leadership. We play “leadership roles” in our communities and
Washington: Lessons in Leadership, New organizations and see ourselves as leaders; therefore, we are engaged in leadership.
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010; R. A related image that we often find in the popular media – and it is clearly depicted in
Brookhister, George Washington on this painting – is the connection between leadership and traits commonly associated
Leadership Reprint Edition, New York: Basic with successful leaders: courage, passion, vision.
Books, 2009; S. McDowell, Apostle of
Liberty: The World-Changing Leadership of In a way, Leutze’s painting represents a longing for this type of courageous
George Washington, Nashville, TN: leadership as exemplified in the General’s daring attack. Washington not only
Cumberland House Publishing, 2007; and exhibited heroic leadership but he also got his followers to work with him to achieve
J. C. Rees and Spignesi, George an incredible feat. Biographies and memoirs often reinforce these images of
Washington’s Leadership Lessons, extraordinary leadership. We find inspiration in reading about leaders’ heroic
Hoboken, NJ: Wiley: 2007. leadership as models to be emulated. Even the ruthless warriors Genghis Khan and
Attila the Hun have yielded “leadership secrets” to the modern leader.7 When
studying these famous lives, we hope somehow to catch motivational glimpses of
greatness. Every year, dozens of books are published expounding practical leadership
“lessons” that can be derived from studying great leaders’ lives and actions – the
titles related to George Washington are a good example.8
Leutze did not disguise his focus on Washington (including the glow of light around
him) as the central figure of the painting. There is no question who the leader is in this
painting. Whenever we have travelled outside the United States and introduced this
image to a non-American audience that is unaware of Washington and his role in the
December 1776 surprise attack, he is quickly identified as the leader. We seem to make
a natural assumption that leaders are the most important figure in leadership. After all,
the very word leadership suggests the higher status of those in position of authority.
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Leutze’s painting reinforces this image. The enormous size of the painting can be taken
as an expression of the grandeur of the task before the Continental Army. However, it
also represents the placement of General Washington on a pedestal. The way it is
displayed, as well as the central focus on Washington in the painting, one has to look
up to see the general. In a way, this is representative of how we tend to view leaders in
a Western context – larger-than-life figures to be emulated and revered.
The painting creates a clear image of leadership that resonates in most Western
countries – the leader as a hero figure, endowed with superior powers, calm under
pressure, resolute. These are all the qualities that we associate with successful
leaders. Despite the hostile environment, the calm hero inspires followers to work
hard and remain focused on the task at hand. At the same time, followers are
relegated to an inferior (subordinate) position – bringing about the successful
implementation of the leader’s vision.
If we imagine the boat as an organization, clearly the leader has set the goal, and he
is standing tall, facing it. However, who is doing the “work,” according to this
painting? While the lighting in the painting makes them less visible compared to the
flag and the general, the followers seem to be doing the brunt of the work associated
with achieving this common goal. They are rowing, moving the ice chunks to the side,
and carrying the flag.
Aside from the battle they are about to face, there is an ultimate goal depicted in this
painting – independence (as represented through the flag). Again, the glow surrounds
both the flag and the leader, as if the two are intimately connected. The message that the
painter conveys, therefore, is that the leader is closely associated with the ultimate goal.
The followers – below both the leader and the flag – play a supportive role, helping the
leader achieve this ultimate goal. That seems to be the recurring image of leadership
in Western societies – a larger-than-life leader, standing tall, and guiding hard-working
followers, who deeply believe in the leader’s vision, but do not receive the same level of
recognition. In reality, the title of this painting is misleading. Washington was not the
only one who crossed the Delaware River on that boat that cold night.
“Great leaders” can teach us much about the nature of leadership. As a complex human
phenomenon, however, leadership can be viewed as a process made up of individual
components each contributing to the whole picture. Rather than putting the spotlight on
the leader – as in Leutze’s painting of Washington – we seek in this chapter to widen the
“glow” to encompass the whole landscape, including the other shipmates, the frigid
waters of the Delaware River and the battle that they are all getting ready to face.
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9 For examples see R. Riggio, I. Chaleff, J. When we look at leadership as a process instead of simply the heroic ability of
Lipman-Blumen, eds. The Art of leaders, other components become equally important in our understanding of how
Followership: How Great Followers Create leadership works. Therefore, we offer a working definition of leadership based on five
Great Leaders and Organizations, San components: leaders, followers, goal, environmental context, and cultural context.
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008; B. There is no denying that leaders play an essential role in leadership. They often
Kellerman, Followership: How Followers provide the energy and vision that guide followers’ actions. Leaders, however, come
are Creating Change and Changing Leaders, in many different forms.
Boston: Harvard Business School Press,
2008; and I. Chaleff The Courageous The image of the larger-than-life leader – as illustrated in Leutze’s painting – often
Follower: Standing Up To and For Our discourages people from taking on the leader role. We need to demystify this role and
Leaders, 3rd edn., San Francisco: describe other ways for leaders to contribute to the leadership process. The first step
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009 in demystifying the image of the leader is to conceptualize leadership as a separate
category that exists beyond the leader.
One of the ways to demystify the image of the leader as synonymous with leadership
is to take a closer look at the role the followers play in the leadership process. After
all, it makes little sense to talk about leaders without considering their followers. In
Leutze’s painting, the followers are portrayed as subordinates – below the leader and
outside the spotlight. In reality, we live in a very different environment. The 21st
century has witnessed the rise of “followership” as a major consideration in our
understanding of leadership. Followers are now empowered by education,
technology, and new means of communication, which allows them to play an active
role in negotiating their space in the leadership process. While we have not seen any
institutions developing Followership Studies programs, we have seen new books on
how to be a better follower. 9 We have come a long way when followers are perceived
as equally important as leaders in our conceptualization of leadership. How would
Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware” painting have looked like if painted
from the followers’ perspective?
We need to recognize the power and influence of followers in the relationship. After
all, the followers carried muskets in Leutze’s painting. Being a follower does not
mean being powerless and disengaged from the process. Rather, the leader-follower
roles are constantly being renegotiated again and again. Leaders cannot assume that
followers will be passive bystanders in an organization – or even a country.
Followers are partners in the pursuit of the third component of leadership in our
model – the Goal. In the painting, Leutze is presenting the goal of America’s
independence from England. We often assume that leaders shape the goals of an
organization. True, leaders do have more power to set the agenda, but the followers
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also influence how far leaders can push. Followers shape the legitimacy of goals
through their acceptance or rejection of a leader’s vision. Followers also often have
aspirations that leaders cannot ignore. Divided followers also can have a disastrous
impact on the attainment of goals.
The relationship between leaders and followers in pursuit of a goal (or goals) does
not take place in a vacuum. Leadership is essentially situational – and that is what
complicates matters. What works in one situation does not ensure success in
another. If it did, we would be able to develop a leadership “field manual” for you with
the formula for success. After memorizing the formula you would be prepared for any
circumstance. If only the real world could be that simple.
Leaders who are effective in one situation find themselves trounced in another. In
studying leadership as a process, we must understand the organizational and historic
forces that are shaping decision-making. General Washington’s daring attack was
based on the premise that the Hessians would be caught off guard because of the
Christmas festivities. There was also the expectation that all sides in the fighting had
retired into their respective encampments in order to face the rigors of winter. The
element of surprise not only included the time of day, but also the season when the
attack took place. General Washington, in this case, took advantage of the context in
order to regain the momentum in the Revolutionary War.
Finally, just as leadership cannot be divorced from context, we cannot discount the
importance of values and norms in shaping the leaders’ and followers’ worldviews.
We often see leadership books that tout the “ten steps” to successful leadership.
When delving into the details, we find recommendations that fail to consider a
leader’s cultural background. Leaders and followers are socialized into specific
cultural norms. The very depiction of the general standing, as opposed to rowing
along with everyone else, is part of a cultural assumption that leaders are somehow
“separate from” or even “better than” their followers.
Once these five components (leaders, followers, goal, environmental context, cultural
context) are taken into consideration, a simple definition of leadership emerges
(Figure 1.2.):
Leadership is the process by which leaders and followers develop a relationship and
work together toward a goal (or goals) within an environmental context shaped by
cultural values and norms.
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Figure 1.2
What we offer here is a way to understand the whole picture of leadership as the first
step in becoming better leaders ourselves. Ultimately, the value of this book will be
found in your ability to connect the insights of the following pages with your own
experience. By raising your awareness of how leadership works, we hope you will
become a better leader and follower, better able to navigate difficult situations,
anticipate cross-cultural challenges, and learn to apply the concepts you encounter
to further develop your understanding of leadership.
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CHAPTER 6 BEING A VIRTUAL LEADER
by NITA CHERRY
Nita Cherry 6 :: BEING A VIRTUAL LEADER
is Professor of Leadership at by NITA CHERRY
Swinburne University of
Technology in Melbourne, So many of the things that human beings do — in nearly every area of life and work
Australia. She has over 40 years — are being re-thought, re-negotiated, or adjusted. Leadership work is no exception:
of experience as senior executive, in organizations that never close, in groups and communities that exist across time
management consultant, and space, where people all over the world are constantly connected through social
director, psychologist, educator, media, the work of leadership is changing. It is being enacted in ways that are
and researcher. Nita’s most continually shifting and adapting. And all of us are caught up in this, in our
recent book is Energising organizations and communities, as workers and as private citizens.
Leadership (2015). Her major
area of interest is sustainable There has never been a time in human history when individuals, groups, and nations have
leadership under conditions of been on the receiving end of so many acts of leadership. Some of these acts of leadership
opportunity, pressure and are accidental and unintended, spontaneous bursts of activity or even the work of
uncertainty. unthinking amateurs. Whether these acts are intended or not, whether or not they are
acknowledged and owned, they can be very powerful. We all see images and hear words
that were not aimed at us, but which still move us to do things that have real impacts, for
ourselves and for others. Other acts of leadership are quite the opposite. They are very
calculated, carefully targeted, and professionally crafted. They are deliberately designed
to capture our attention and recruit our energy and commitment.
I suggest that the work of professional leaders is to intentionally try to influence the
way human beings constructively deploy their energies. Professional leadership work
involves making a choice to get involved and taking responsibility for acts of
leadership, whether they turn out well or not.
THE FUNDAMENTAL WORK OF LEADERSHIP IS ENGAGEMENT WITH ENERGY
People bring lots of different energies to their work and lives: intellectual, emotional,
imaginative and creative, physical, and spiritual energies. Together, they are the
power houses of human effort. But unlike other kinds of energies, human energies
can’t be accessed by simply flicking a switch or turning on a tap. They have to be
attracted and mobilized. They have to be negotiated, and often need to be focused
and aligned. Energies certainly need to be nurtured and refreshed when hard things
need to be done or projects take a long time. When it comes to organizational
settings, leadership work also involves challenging and trying to change the things
that block or waste these precious human energies.
Seen in this way, the work of leadership is to make it as easy as possible for people
to commit and connect their energies to the goals of their groups, organizations, and
communities. It is also about helping people to sustain their energies in the face of
serious challenges and dilemmas.
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A lot of this leadership work happens when people are together, face to face, in real
time, in the same physical space. Energy is directly engaged when people can see
and hear the nuances of body language and voice tone. While we are not always
conscious of it, what we put into words is often the very least of what we actually
communicate to each other. As a result, leadership work in this space means paying
close attention to the ways in which energy is being exchanged in the moment.
VIRTUAL LEADERSHIP WORK
But a lot of leadership work also happens at a distance, between people who are very
far from each other. This aspect of leadership work has been with us for a long time.
It became necessary as soon as organized human effort took on a scope and scale
that involved work across many different sites. Today, many groups and organizations
operate across physical, organizational, national, and cultural boundaries. They also
operate across many different time zones, and around the clock. Some organizations
never close at the end of a day, but are open for business all the time. The result is
that a lot of work involves people who don’t know each other, have never met and
never will, yet are engaged in time-critical activity that involves instant
communication of complex ideas and data.
This is the world of virtual teams and virtual relationships, where people come
together for a limited time, have never worked together before, and won’t ever be in
the same room. They might even report to different people, all of whom have a
different stake in what is being done. To complicate things even further, team
members might belong to different virtual teams at the same time. At the end of each
project, the team members will often move on to new virtual teams, with entirely new
people. Until then, they have difficult work to do, must combine their efforts in a
timely way, and collaborate closely on a day-to-day basis. They have to be able to rely
on each other to get things done.
Leadership work in these contexts is still about some important basics. It is still
about making sure that everything is done to make it as easy as possible for people to
bring their energies to the task at hand, to connect up their energies across time and
space, and to align and focus their efforts.
But our understanding of how to do that in virtual teams and communities is still
emerging. The people involved might not have a shared language for describing
things; or a shared practice for doing things, and deciding things. They might not
have a shared culture for resolving conflict or expressing uncertainty. So a virtual
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team might take more time to make sense of information and issues, and to feel
comfortable relying on each other. Individual team members might be slower in
taking up their authority to advise and act. Virtual teams might more easily fracture,
or waste time and energy by going round in circles and doing endless reworks. Or
their energies might get blocked in other ways that are not so obvious. In this
situation, we can’t just assume that familiar techniques will work.
SOME KEY OPPORTUNITIES FOR LEADERSHIP
Leadership work under these circumstances means paying extra attention to the
likely points at which the energies of teams need support and then acting quickly
to put that support in place. Connections between people that would otherwise be
made just by spending time together in the same place now have to be deliberately
orchestrated. More work might need to be done at the front end to accelerate ‘getting
to know you’. It might take the form of making virtual introductions by sharing bios.
It might mean designing protocols for checking in and out of decision-processes.
Or, it might even involve inventing a common language so that conversations via
email or phone are as clear as they possibly can be. If people in different places and
with different histories are using the same words and phrases in different ways, then
the room for misunderstanding is a daily challenge. People might need some explicit
training to make their assumptions or their logic transparent, and especially to share
their thinking at critical times.
In virtual organizations that are always open for business, individuals often must be
able to swiftly respond to emerging situations, without relying on others to approve
their decision first. They need to be able to rapidly trade off time, money, and value,
where value is calculated very differently by different stakeholders. In these
situations, people must be able to authorize themselves to create value-based
solutions that are profitable or useful, that are sustainable and able to withstand
technical, moral and political scrutiny after the event. Sometimes it means that
people must be able to improvise or innovate to deal with something unexpected.
The challenge for virtual leadership work is that all this involves a high degree of
trust and confidence between everyone concerned, even across great distances. This
can be very testing. How leaders behave when something doesn’t work out can be a
critical event or defining moment in the life of a working relationship, a team or even
an organization. If such moments result in people losing confidence and energy, then
they can resonate well beyond a single event or moment and become part of the
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cultural stories that operate, even in virtual environments. Energy is then regularly
wasted in second-guessing the boss, trying to work out what is going on, over-
working solutions and worrying about consequences.
When people are separated and under pressure to perform, things that they would
normally deal with easily can quickly escalate into bigger problems. In times of real
crisis, a team’s confidence and energy can be compromised, so that they either
over-react or don’t do enough. Their usual calibrated effort — just enough of the right
thing at the right time — can be replaced with hesitancy, even avoidance. At the other
extreme, it can be replaced with lots of effort pushing and pulling in different
directions, with people getting in each other’s way.
Leadership work at this time is about helping people to stay engaged, focused and
connected. That might mean arranging for everyone to check-in so they don’t feel
isolated. It might mean making new critical connections, crossing formal
organizational boundaries and hierarchies to keep people talking to each other. It will
usually mean keeping everyone informed, responding to every question, and making
more effort in real time to talk personally to everyone. The virtual team leader might
also find it helpful to design ‘no-blame de-briefs’ so that teams can review their work
together and quickly learn what they need to adjust in their collective practice.
AND SOME NEW CHALLENGES
In a world that is rapidly evolving, where organizations are networked, virtual, and
borderless, leadership work also needs to focus more and more on attracting,
aligning, and sustaining the energies of diverse people, in new and robust
ways. Sometimes groups don’t get to choose who joins: new stakeholders simply
claim their place and insist on being consulted and involved. Even organizations that
are run on the assumption that there are borders that clearly define what is inside
and what is outside the organization can find their strategies, data and intellectual
property stolen by others and published on the internet; or can have their systems
deliberately trashed. They can be sued by customers or clients to whom they have
unofficially ‘outsourced’ work that used to be done by the organization itself. This can
happen when an ‘untrained’ customer is put at risk in ways that an employee would
not be. Organizations can find themselves having to justify their actions to a whole
range of self-appointed critics, as well as to regulatory bodies whose reach is global
and whose authority is not defined by any individual nation.
This is a different dimension of virtual organization and community. In this space,
leadership work involves negotiating with people who are not on the payroll, who
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might live anywhere in the world and remain ‘faceless’ in an administrative sense.
Here energies are enacted – and transacted - through processes that can be highly
fluid, with few ‘rules’. Or these processes can be highly political; or so tightly
ritualized that it takes decades to negotiate and agree anything of substance.
Mobilizing and sustaining energy in these very different modes means paying close
attention to the early signs that energy patterns are shifting. The emergence of
unfamiliar voices, raising fresh issues, and asking new questions can be a sign that
things are about to change rapidly. Often these unfamiliar voices can seem to be
coming from the ‘margins’ and it is easy to ignore them until they have gathered so
much momentum that they become ‘deal breakers’. Noticing something that is new
and unfamiliar but subtle – a weak signal of change - can be a challenge for human
beings even when it is right under a person’s nose. When a weak signal of change is
part of the virtual world of communication and connection, it becomes a lot harder to
notice. A leader’s virtual work includes building everyone’s capability to notice weak
signals – and their confidence to share what they notice in a timely and helpful way.
Just as the work of teams, organizations and communities requires sustained human
energies, so does leadership work itself. It takes considerable sustained energy - of all
kinds - to be attentive in the ways just described. It takes lots of energy to engage with
information that is virtually communicated, and with people one seldom or never meets.
As a result, virtual leadership work that is professional – intentional, aware and
responsible - also involves constant refreshment of the energies that are brought to that
work. Busy people can easily overlook their own need to replenish the energies they bring
to work. They might even take a long time to realize that they are ‘running on empty‘,
losing patience for the leadership work they need to do, taking short cuts and short-
changing the people whose energy they are meant to be engaging. So it is not a good idea
to assume that individual leaders will always attend to their own energy needs,
In larger organizations, an important step in refreshing the energies required for
professional leadership work is to treat this work as something that requires a
specific organizational strategy and commitment. Building a leadership strategy is
quite different from crafting a strategic business plan or a strategic management
plan. A leadership strategy surfaces some fundamental things about the energies
used across the organization: what it takes to mobilize and connect them up, to focus
them and align them. It describes what leaders will do to about all that: how they
need to help, how people can help themselves. But it also describes how leaders will
mobilize and refresh their own energies so they can sustain leadership work for the
long haul in both real time and virtual worlds.
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CHAPTER 7 COACHING RISING STARS
AROUND THE GENDER GAP
by MICHAEL HARVEY
The following is excerpted from 7 :: COACHING RISING STARS
Interactional Leadership and How to AROUND THE GENDER GAP
Coach It by Michael Harvey.
by MICHAEL HARVEY
©2015 Taylor and Francis Group.
All rights reserved. COACHING THE RISING STAR AND THE GENDER GAP IN LEADERSHIP
Purchase a copy HERE . The idea that leadership is about choosing the future takes on another meaning,
when it comes to developing the next generation of leaders. In this chapter we look at
Michael Harvey how to coach rising stars in organizations and examine one of the issues most likely
to throw off balance many who aspire to the top job: the gender gap in leadership. As
is one of Europe’s most we’ll see, coaching potential leaders brings out the importance of desire in
experienced leadership leadership. Organizational development programmes focus on assessing and
coaches. Based in London, developing a candidate’s expertise, knowledge, and skills – rightly so because all of
UK, he is an organizational these play a significant role in leadership. But positive and negative desires are at the
psychologist and the author heart of our motivation as human choice-makers, which means that it is crucial to
of Interactional Coaching: identify what a potential leader really wants to achieve.
Choice-focused learning at
work (Routledge, 2012). Sometimes the desire to lead can emerge suddenly, especially in entrepreneurial
companies and in uncertain situations where new leaders may step on to the stage
with startling rapidity. Sometimes, the apparently accidental success of the leader is
deceptive, as it is really the product of a long-pursued positional strategy aimed at
waiting until the route to the top opens up. However, in larger organizations, with the
introduction of sophisticated leadership assessment and development programmes,
the unexpected becomes a little less likely. The same may also be increasingly true in
the political sphere, with the advent of the professional politician, whose every move
since school has been designed to promote his political career.
‘You must learn to walk firmly on the ground before you start walking a tightrope,’
the painter Henri Matisse (1995: 46) once remarked and it is vital to help the potential
leader to evaluate her desire to lead because this will determine many of her future
choices. Identifying whole-cycle strengths and weaknesses is useful in this respect,
as well as being a precious form of development in its own right. Scenarios based on
different achievement cycle stages help to illuminate the areas in which the
inexperienced leader will excel, as well as the deficiencies which may sabotage her.
The ‘natural’ possibilizer will need to develop her probalizing and actualizing skills,
the probabalizer has to work on his possibilizing abilities, and so on. Throughout, the
coach will try to balance positive and negative feedback, helping the coachee to
master the generics of leadership, while developing her own unique personal style.
THE RISING STAR
In any organization, the rising star tends to stand out. The talented, up-andcoming
executive may not yet be a driving force in the present but she has the allure of
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representing the onward direction of a company. ‘You’re looking at our future’, a
veteran financial leader once told me, proudly pointing at one of his protégés.
Developing rising stars is an imperative for any organization and one which
leadership coaching is particularly suited to fulfil. One approach is ‘open future’
coaching which has relatively few performance goals, as it is aimed at helping the
young or inexperienced executive understand more about his values, emotional
patterns and his embedded assumptions about life and work. Open future coaching
attempts to help the coachee to discover what is familiar about leadership and what
is foreign about it. It can also assist him in finding the right balance between being
who he is, and who he is not, a useful asset if he is to approach the high wire of
leadership with confidence.
Above all, this type of coaching is about helping the up-and-coming leader to see her
trajectory to the future, to define what she wants for herself and others. For the
coach, it can be rewarding hearing the aspirations of young leaders, their dreams of a
future which is very different from the present and their determination to change
things for the better. How many of these powerful intentions will become realities is a
question which only time can answer.
In large organizations where the competition for top jobs is particularly intense,
coaching the rising star often has a more specific agenda. Such organizations put
their potential leaders through extensive assessments of their performance – both
hypothetical and real – in order to get a clear view of what they need to progress to
the top. Specific skills coaching and training may follow on from this. The coach
needs to help the coachee to define his leadership aspirations and relate these to the
organization’s idea of the path to the top. Weighing up the desire to lead against the
need to change in ways laid down by others can be a difficult choice, especially if that
change appears to go against the grain of one’s personality or values. In these
circumstances, deciding how much one wants to lead can be a major challenge, as
Alberto would find out.
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CASE STUDY: ALBERTO: BALANCING SELF AND OTHERS IN COLLABORATIVE
LEADERSHIP
On joining his financial services corporation, Alberto had been identified as a ‘natural
leader’, in that he was a strong, problem-solving strategist and a determined deliverer.
For three years, he had been very successful in running a small, highly profitable team
which specialized in selling risk-management products. But this success came at a
price in relation to Alberto’s reputation in the wider company, where he was seen as
divisive, hyper-competitive and only loyal to his own team. In his boss’s words, Alberto
was ‘trampling on far too many important egos’ to be considered promotion material
and his star was definitely on the wane. In whole-cycle terms, Alberto’s problem
seemed to be his resourcing skills, which may have been adequate for his role as a
team leader but was not considered up to scratch for him to progress to the next stage
in the steep hierarchy of his current employers. To do this, he urgently needed to
develop his capacity for collaborative leadership.
In our first session, Alberto spent a good deal of time telling me about his leadership
skills. He listed his impressive achievements and quoted testimonials from satisfied
clients, as though I was interviewing him for a job. He went on to explain what his team
did in selling interest rate derivatives. ‘It’s all about pricing risk,’ he said. ‘Essentially
it’s an insurance policy, so you never get surprised by the future.’Alberto was young
enough to have spent most of his present career in the period following the financial
crash in 2008. He told me, ‘anybody before the credit crunch who’d said interest rates
would be at virtually zero for years would have been put in a strait jacket because there
was absolutely no historical precedent for what’s happening now’.
Alberto also said something which struck a common chord with me: ‘This business is
all about the future – you try to anticipate what you can never totally predict.’
Alberto’s world of financial risk management was wholly directed at – you could
almost say obsessed by – making choices around the future. I brought this up a little
later, as we discussed Alberto’s leadership plans and his reluctance to embrace the
collaborative leadership style his bosses and talent management team wanted from
him. Why, I wondered, was he so keen on selling the future to others but thought of
his own future as a mere continuation of the past? This kind of conversation – it was
no more than that – enabled Alberto to develop a more open mind to expanding his
repertoire of leadership behaviours.
The real psychological challenge for Alberto was to move along the self–others
spectrum. He seemed to view his team as a kind extension of himself. He declared
that ‘I am the team, they are me,’ and he used the terms ‘the team’ and ‘I’
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interchangeably. Now he had to learn to build relationships outside this enclosed
space with those he regarded as potential competitors for business, promotion and
even remuneration (all his team’s bonuses came from one divisional pool).
Suggesting that he transfer some of his sales strategies and techniques to his peers
and internal customers helped. This use of the sales model of interactional skills,
which I have discussed in more detail elsewhere (Harvey, 2012), enabled him to adapt
to decision-makers within in his own company the probalizing skills he normally only
used on customers. Once he had perfected the script for these targeted roles he
seemed able to play them to perfection, even though he confessed that staying in
character when adopting a more cooperative and empathetic attitude was initially
‘exquisite torture’.
Alberto’s run at collaborate leadership paid off. He progressed far enough to assure
his organization that he could make the behavioural changes necessary for
promotion. As to whether he would ever make it to a top corporate leadership
position, I rated the chances at about 50/50. He was now capable of incorporating a
collaborative dimension into his everyday activities, without, I suspected, entirely
believing in it. Perhaps this would come with time or perhaps he would start his own
company and put all his possessive and competitive zeal into that, without having to
think too much about ‘others’ in a wider sense. Whatever the future held in store for
him, now at least Alberto had the priceless asset of knowing much more about what
his leadership choices would involve.
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CASE STUDY: JAY: ‘TALKING THE TALK’ VERSUS ‘THE RELIGION OF DOING IT’
If Alberto’s dilemma was around resourcing, Jay’s was about delivering results – with
a peculiar twist. He was a young manager in a large public relations and lobbying
company, who had been picked out for great things. But his leadership ascent had now
stalled, as his boss began to undercover a disturbing lack of consistency between the
brief that clients gave Jay and the results he delivered. Jay seemed to be ‘in denial’
about his failure to meet his goals, trying to conceal this discrepancy by retrospectively
changing the brief. This ‘reverse engineering’, as his boss called it, was putting Jay’s
future in doubt. ‘He can charm the birds from the trees, alright,’ she said, ‘but if he
can’t walk the walk, he won’t go any higher here or in any top-tier agency’.
Jay had chosen to be a leader, there seemed to be little doubt about that. From the
outset of the coaching, he was clear about his determination to get to the top. This fierce
ambitiousness was combined with self-deprecating humour and a surprising openness
which made for a strong leadership presence. His conversation was studded with
memorable phrases and pithy quotes from everyone from Nietzsche to Homer Simpson.
But when we discussed the inconsistency between his strategy and his results, Jay’s
ability for self-evasion and denial became apparent. He did not agree with his boss’s
diagnosis of his leadership failings. He claimed that he had all he needed to become
‘a signature leader’ and we ended the first session on something of a stalemate. A
fortnight later, he launched into another defensive monologue at the start of the
session but after a while it became clear that Jay was ready to address his faults.
Deep down, the criticism of his professionalism had hurt him and he could no longer
protect himself from the accusation that he was deceiving clients. It took more time
before he could bring himself to be completely honest, but when he did so it brought
a refreshing ‘unburdening of the soul’, to use his phrase. It meant his development as
a choice-focused leader could begin in earnest.
First, Jay had to reinterpret his tendency to deviate from his original brief. This he
initially saw as creative improvisation, ‘an impromptu variation on a theme’, which
added ‘spice to the whole process’. The realisation that this bending of the rules
brought out the risk-seeker in him gave him ‘a perverse pleasure’. So weighing up
these previously unacknowledged aspects of his personality against the new goal of
whole-cycle performance was by no means a straightforward choice. Jay hankered
after the ‘old Jay’, ‘the reckless improviser’ and ‘verbal magus.’ ‘Sticking to targets
will be a hard slog,’ he complained, ‘since all the interesting decisions have already
been made.’ At the same time, he was ready to accept his challenge: ‘It’s the religion
of doing it,’ he said, ‘and I have to become a devoted acolyte.’
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In the end, Jay found it easier than he suspected to develop a tougher approach to
pushing through his brief. His relationship skills already existed in abundance and he
found that he could be resolutely consistent with his team if necessary. At times,
adopting a closed attitude rather than an open one seemed ‘too much like hard work’
to Jay but when he successfully used it on an important assignment he became
convinced of its effectiveness. After that it became much easier for him to deliver the
results he had promised. ‘Walking the walk’ became a habit for him, however
precarious the path ahead. It enabled him to channel his creative skills in ways that
complemented the achievement cycle rather than subverting it – and this meant that
his positive leadership prospects in his company were soon revived.
THE GENDER ISSUE IN LEADERSHIP: WHO’S REALLY CHOOSING?
So far we’ve looked at potential leaders who are male but it is common to find as many
women on organizational leadership development programmes as men. And yet if we
look at the top management layers of these organizations disproportionally fewer
women are to be seen. Although women make up almost half of the UK workforce –
and dominate in certain professions, as well as in current UK university undergraduate
attendance – the percentage of women in senior corporate leadership positions is still
depressingly low. For example, only 4 per cent of FTSE 100 chief executives are female
(as of January, 2014). The statistics in the US are almost as dismal: only 21 of Fortune
500 companies have female CEOs and just 15 per cent of the executive officers of these
companies are women. In the political sphere, there are a few well known women
leaders, such as Angela Merkel of Germany, but only 20 out of 193 UN-recognized
countries have female leaders (Williams and Dempsey, 2013).
What happens? Why do so many potential female leaders fail to become actual
leaders, especially in large organizations? It is not as though women leaders make
a lesser contribution to their organization than men. One longitudinal study in the
USA found that, in terms of financial profitability, Fortune 500 companies with the
best record of promoting female executives outperformed their median competitors
(Adler, 2001). This appalling waste of human resources could get worse, if Leimon
et al., (2011) are right and demographic changes in Western Europe mean that we
are heading for a ‘leadership cliff’ by 2030, caused by a significant gap between
leadership-age population supply and demand. So why do big organizations
continually fail to choose women as leaders? Is it the system that decides, or women
themselves who make the choice?
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There are of course many possible explanations for one of the greatest of all
imbalances in the contemporary world of leadership, although here there is only
space to scratch the surface of this subject. One view is that female executives do not
push hard enough. Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg (2013) argues that women are
held back by a lack of ambition – ‘an ambition gap’ – which causes them to ‘lean
back’ rather than ‘lean in’. Without becoming over-aggressive, she believes that
women need to be more forceful in asserting their authority as executives. Others
take a less individual-centred position, arguing that the whole work system is skewed
against potential women leaders, especially if they are parents. Political scientist
Anne-Marie Slaughter (2012) argues that women are more family-orientated than
men but that the whole structure of work reflects an opposite bias. For example, if
someone leaves a high-profile role job ‘to spend more time with the family’, for a man
this is a likely to be a euphemism for being sacked, whereas for women it is often the
real reason they are leaving (2012: 4). When it comes to a choice between the job and
the children, Slaughter asserts that men find it easier to choose the former. She
quotes US Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who says in this situation, ‘There really is no
choice’; for a woman, the ‘maternal imperative’ wins every time (2012: 9).
It is certainly true that the very dimension of time at work seems to militate against
women. Anthropologist Edward T. Hall (1986) makes a distinction between
monochronic time (which is sequential) and polychronic time (in which events run in
parallel) and suggests that women are often more comfortable in polychronic time.
Certainly many organizations run on what has been called ‘macho time’, consisting of
long hours, client entertainment evenings and extensive travel, all of which come at
the expense of time spent at home. When we talk about the art of balancing choices,
the family tends to represents a special challenge to the female leader. Indeed, in
coaching, female executives with children often define their roles predominantly as
‘juggling between work and family’, with the school run imprinted on their
consciousness in a way that is probably not true for most men. Women have different
choices around parenthood and work. I’ve never heard a man saying that he decided
not to become a parent because he felt it would interfere with his leadership
ambitions. I know several women who have not only talked about this choice but have
made it, with the result that their careers in the higher echelons of organizations
have come at a considerable personal cost.
In spite of the difficulties, it is not impossible for women to reach the top.
Psychologists Alice Eagly and Linda Carli (2007) argue persuasively that the glass
ceiling metaphor for the limits of female leadership is misleading and a more
appropriate trope is the labyrinth. There are many challenges which women have to
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navigate to succeed as leaders, beyond overt discrimination and sexual harassment.
Women can be at a disadvantage in building social capital in organizations where the
social bonding that influences promotion happens during male-oriented activities
such as fishing or hunting. Eagly and Carli also pinpoint the double bind which
women can experience as far as communication and leadership style are concerned.
For example, women are expected to be supportive and communal in their approach
– although they are not necessarily credited for this – but blamed if they are not
dominant enough.
In this context, it is worth remembering how one of the twentieth century’s
outstanding female political leaders, Margaret Thatcher, was criticized early in her
career for sounding too ‘shrill’ and aggressive and so lowered the pitch of her voice to
sound more reassuring (Moore, 2013). (When was a male political leader criticized for
being shrill?) Yet Thatcher also demonstrated some of the potential advantages of the
female leader. She could act like a stereotypical man in terms of decisive action – and
she was certainly no feminist friend to women. But she skilfully used a range of
traditional female roles, such as mother, teacher, housewife, and even flirt, to gain
the support of her allies and fatally disarm her opponents (Campbell, 2012).
To some extent, we come back to the cardinal question, ‘what do you want? The
question ‘can women lead’ is totally redundant (if it was ever otherwise) and needs to
be replaced by the question ‘why do some women not want to lead?’ Specifically, we
should address this question to large organizations, corporate, public sector and
governmental, where the most influential choices are likely to be made, as there is
evidence of growing female leadership in smaller organizations (American Express
OPEN, 2013). It is one of the biggest questions for the whole future of leadership. At
the same time, we should not lose sight of the fact that every potential leader,
whether male or female, always has to make his or her own choices, in a particular
situation, at a particular moment in time.
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CASE STUDY: LAUREN: DO YOU REALLY WANT TO BE A LEADER?
Many of these issues of gender and leadership come together in the case of Lauren.
She was a rising young executive in a large credit card company, whose fast-tracked
career seemed to be threatened by a bout of headstrong, undisciplined behaviour.
Unlike our previous potential leaders, Lauren was not lacking in any aspect of her
leadership competence. Although only just 30, she was an accomplished whole-cycle
leader, with strong possibilizing and probalizing skills and a record of achieving
exceptional results. But she now seemed to being ‘having difficulty with some of her
peers’, according to her manager, who also felt she was no longer ‘pushing herself
beyond her comfort zone’.
Lauren initially described an incident in which she had lost her temper with a male
colleague as ‘a storm in a teacup’ but later admitted that it had been provoked by
what could be considered sexual harassment. ‘It’s just that kind of “dumb blonde”
remark which is basically good humoured banter,’ she explained. ‘You’ve got to take it
but it can still catch you off guard sometimes.’ She said it was one of a number of
things which had made her question for the first time whether she was ready for a
promotion to a senior role, which later that year was a distinct possibility. She denied
that she was considering leaving the company but she clearly was having
fundamental doubts about her future.
She faced a series of dilemmas. She was increasingly bored by the kind of ‘alpha
male’ behaviour of her peers, which, if anything, seemed more problematic at the
next level up in the organization. She said she found it increasingly hard to be
enthusiastic about some of the client entertainment events, in which predominantly
male clients were invited to football matches or lap dancing bars. She also
questioned whether promotion was a real option. She had better qualifications than
her colleagues and better results but she had recently lost out on promotion to a
‘relatively lacklustre’ male colleague and was beginning to wonder if the
organizational cards were stacked against her.
Increasingly to the forefront of Lauren’s mind, were her concerns about the ‘crazy’
work–life balance which seemed to be the norm for the company’s exclusively male
senior management. Now in a committed long-term relationship, Lauren was
seriously thinking about having children for the first time but she was trying to figure
how she could plan this in a way that made her leadership ambitions possible. Should
she wait for a few years or have children now and hope to come back into the market
in her late thirties? We discussed these considerations over several sessions and
eventually Lauren came to a decision, adopting a positional strategy. Her choice was
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to do everything she could to secure promotion, as apart from anything else, she felt
that she should set an example to the women executives in her team. If she got a
senior job, she would try to negotiate its terms to make it as compatible with her
values and family ambitions as possible. Only then would she really be in a position to
make a definitive choice.
For the best part of a year, Lauren gave it everything she had. She showed tremendous
energy and resourcefulness in developing a new balance of strategies and behaviours
which would enable her to weave through the labyrinth of promotion. She worked on
her communication skills, trying to blend assertiveness with supportiveness. She varied
her position on the self-others spectrum in a way that accorded with her understanding
of how women are expected to behave: generously and caringly but not weakly. She
also targeted the senior leaders, who were the arbiters of promotion, and ensured that
they knew who she was and the results her team was producing. In the past, she would
have hung back from this approach, regarding it as ‘toadying’, but she was no longer
prepared to leave the field open to her male colleagues.
Lauren also made an effort to be ‘one of the lads’ in client entertainment events
(although she decided that the idea of supporting a football team was ‘a bridge too
far’). At the same time, she cultivated female clients and subtly tried to change the
entertainment events schedule by advancing cost-cutting arguments to her finance
director (‘lap dancing bars aren’t cheap, you know’, she said). She worked hard to
improve her presentation skills to ensure that on the occasions when a larger
audience saw her, she stood out from her colleagues. Above all, she made sure that
her team was in the top ten percentile in terms of all-round performance.
I have to report that Lauren did not break through the glass ceiling in her
organization. In the end, she lost out on promotion, narrowly, it was said, in a way that
put her in a strong position for the following year. But it was not to be. She became
pregnant quite soon after, whether by coincidence or not I couldn’t say. She did not
return to the credit card company after the birth of her daughter, preferring to join a
smaller, family-friendly outfit, which allowed her to combine work and childcare in a
satisfying way. Whether at some stage in the future, she may decide to return to the
corporate fold and compete for a top leadership job is hard to say. No doubt it will
depend on how much she wants it. One thing is clear: it is not only individual women
who have to make hard choices about becoming leaders; society also needs to
ensure that these choices take place in a free, open and balanced environment.
Hopefully, requiring a woman to want to lead more than a man in order to make it to
the top will become a thing of the past.
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THE NEXT IN LINE: SUCCESSION LEADERSHIP
Finally, I briefly want look at another way in which organizations choose the future,
which involves a very different matrix of choices for the potential leader. Succession
planning is an increasingly important part of organizational life, designed to provide a
smooth, efficient leadership pipeline. It is required by many corporate governance
codes, which recommend that key positions have an internally appointed successor,
who can take over in the case of the unexpected departure or temporary unavailability
of the post-holder. Leadership succession involves adopting a long-term time
horizon, planning for the future and trying to minimize disruptions, and as such it is a
sensible course of action.
What is not always appreciated, however, is just how ambiguous the successor role
can be. In fact, it is a challenging balancing act in its own right. If the successor is too
distant from his leader, his suitability to succeed him may be questioned but being
too close to him can also cause problems, especially if the leader is unpopular. Many
politicians have had to walk this particular tightrope, with mixed results. For
example, in the 2000 US presidential campaign, Al Gore chose to distance himself
from his former boss, Bill Clinton, in order to avoid being tainted by the Monica
Lewinsky scandal. But this tactic may have lost Gore enough votes among core
Democrat supporters to tip the election result against him (Pomper, 2001). It
underlines the difficulties of reacting to a situation which in reality gives the would-be
successor no rights to, or guarantee of, a job.
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CASE STUDY: SEAN: EMBRACING AMBIGUITY
Unlike the example quoted above, Sean’s role in a large retail company had few
implications for world history but, as the officially designated successor to the head
of a division, it was complicated enough. He was eager to take over from his boss,
Eloise, when the occasion arose, but careful not to put pressure on her, as the two
were very close personally and professionally. Indeed, most people in the division saw
Sean and Eloise as being more or less engaged in a joint leadership operation. This
might have been fine for Sean, were it not for the fact that the business was going
through a downturn. As his boss’s performance was put in question, so was Sean’s.
Suddenly the next-in-line role began to look like a poisoned chalice. He realised that
he had been acting on the assumption that the organization had worked out
everything for him but he now realised that it was up to him to develop his own
response to his increasingly precarious situation.
In coaching, Sean began to develop what he had lacked before, a strategy for
succession. He decided to subtly distance himself from Eloise, without offending her.
He would offer her support in management meetings but also be prepared to
challenge her. He also worked a lot harder to impress his senior managers with his
view of what needed to be done, balancing respect for his boss with an enthusiastic
account of the changes it was in his power to instigate as a team manager. In time,
he came to regard his position as one of ‘as if’. He explained: ‘I have to act like the job
is mine but there are absolutely no guarantees. I’ve got an edge in the race but the
rest is up to me.’ This interpretation seemed to give Sean the new balance of choices
necessary to take him to a successful conclusion to his role as successor. Indeed, it is
not a bad summary of the situation faced by the potential leader in general.
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CHAPTER 8 SUSTAINABILITY
THROUGH DEEP
SYSTEMS LEADERSHIP
by RIAN SATTERWHITE
Rian Satterwhite 8 :: SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH
DEEP SYSTEMS LEADERSHIP
serves as Director of the Holden
Center for Leadership & by RIAN SATTERWHITE
Community Engagement at the
University of Oregon. Leadership is a socially constructed phenomenon, necessarily responsive to
Contributor to several books environment and context. The context of leadership, of our daily lived experience, has
including Leadership for changed significantly. Wicked problems - those novel, boundary spanning challenges
environmental sustainability for which there is no playbook and for which the only effective response is to learn
(Routledge, 2010), Environmental our way through - subtly and not-so-subtly create a new context for leadership. We
leadership: A reference handbook live in a tightly coupled world. Everywhere we turn, novel and interrelated
(SAGE, 2012), and Leadership environmental, social, economic, and cultural challenges spanning traditional
2050: Critical challenges, key boundaries are present. Terrorism, economic inequality, depleted natural resources,
contexts, and emerging trends and the integrated international markets, bubbles and downturns are but a few. Of
(Emerald, 2015), Rian works these, the challenge of climate change is perhaps the most sticky and complex of the
with others to explore how lot. It touches on consumption habits, development, economic and social inequality,
leadership theory, practice and transportation, historical inequitable distribution of wealth, child rearing, our
education is and should shift in relationship with the natural environment and innumerable other invisible or
response to new contexts in the culturally reinforced practices.
21st century. Rian has served as
Chair of the Leadership “Within the past fifty years, the study of leadership has shifted focus
Education member interest from the individual to the group, and has recently begun to include
group within the International systems approaches. Many leadership theories focus on personal
Leadership Association and leadership styles, characteristics, and qualifications, as well as
helped to found its Sustainability organizational structure, efficiency, and cross-organizational
Leadership Learning collaboration. While these are all important considerations, we are now
Community in 2013. compelled to ask larger questions about our place in the world and our
responsibility to it, the dynamics of living and working within complex
systems, and our relationship with life around us… In beginning to
consider these larger questions, the study of leadership must now
concern itself not only with bettering humans and their organizations,
but also recognizing the care that we must nurture for the planet and
the ways in which the systems that we are embedded in can better
reflect the lessons learned from nature” (Satterwhite, 2010, pg. 231).
Climate change should spark critical existential questions, while surfacing these
often invisible processes that shape our daily lives. Scientific research and modeling
enables us to forecast utterly bizarre future climate states; states of the ocean,
vegetation patterns, temperatures, weather trends, and extinctions that should spark
outrage, fear and above all action. Indeed, evidence is quickly mounting that we’re
already living in the early stages of the impacts.
My assertion is that now all leadership occurs within this context of wicked
challenges, specifically against the backdrop of climate change. Regardfull of the
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smaller, more specific organizational goals pursued, or community betterment
sought, leadership theory, practice, and development must now inexorably also
respond to these broader environmental contexts that shape our daily lives in overt
and hidden ways.
Attempts to call attention to these trends and emergent characteristics have been
numerous and tying it all together is exceedingly difficult. A starting place may be in
the Deep Systems Leadership model, found in Leadership for Environmental
Sustainability (Routledge, 2010). The Deep Systems Leadership model attempts to
triangulate this new location of effective leadership by using systems or complexity
theory, emergent trends in leadership theory, and the eco-philosophy of deep
ecology, all against a backdrop of our common biological reality. I will summarize it
here before offering additional thoughts.
“Cultural biology helps establish our biological relationship and interdependence with
our environment, as well as pushing us to consider what we choose to conserve
together. Systems theory forces us to become aware of the complex systems in which
we are embedded, and care for the systemic changes that, though distant or difficult
to discern, threaten the web of connections that sustain us. Deep Ecology… suggests
how we might identify with nature and see ourselves as part of it, leading to a more
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ecocentric ethic, and also establishes the pursuit of social justice as parallel to
ecological justice and sustainability. Systemic leadership disregards position and
hierarchy, offering everyone a means by which to help organizations and social
systems adapt while reinforcing the call to social, as well as ecological,
sustainability” (Satterwhite, 2010, pg. 239).
We cannot escape our biology, thus it is a logical place to start with leadership
studies… yet that idea has been anathema for fear of it leading down pathways paved
with reductionism and cultural blindness. The danger there still lurks, but starting
with biology (and then moving past that realm) also has the potential to ground us in
a common starting place... a goal that has proved to be elusive in leadership studies.
Cultural biology recognizes the ways in which we are constrained by our biology while
also illustrating that, at a fundamental level, we are no different from any of the
innumerable species and organisms that we pretend to have absolute dominion over.
It establishes the biological reality of structural coupling and autopoesis, while
setting the initial boundaries of an ethic of care: self and immediate environment. Yet
it does not do enough in making a convincing argument as to why we should care
about complex systems and outcomes seemingly independent from our own
immediate contexts. For that, systems thinking helps to establish a broader ethic of
care… the circle expands to contexts and environments not immediately relevant to
our survival. Employed to its logical ends, systems thinking then leads us to broader
fundamental questions about our place in relation to the rest of life. Deep Ecology
offers a way to understand how our individual and collective identity can be informed
by our relationship to the rest of life, and the ways in which that identity impacts
behavior. The resulting perspective, when integrated into one’s leadership approach,
results in a different type of leadership that is perhaps better suited to leading in the
21st century.
But that is all fairly theoretical. Let’s explore some of the practical implications of
leadership operating in this way and in this particular context. The practical question
remains: how to be a leader in this new context? There is no silver bullet… but here
are five distilled starting places consistent with Deep Systems Leadership.
1. Leadership is found in individuals and systems
2. Focus on what we choose to conserve; change is constant
3. Learn to operate on long timescales
4. Function as a meaning midwife
5. Increase adaptive capacity and information flow as we build the future we desire
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LEADERSHIP IS FOUND IN INDIVIDUALS AND SYSTEMS
What would happen if we release our hold on the notion that leadership is only about
the actions and behaviors of an individual? It isn’t that individuals are unimportant,
but instead that we’re missing a large part of the equation in recognizing the
interplay between the individual (which, biologically speaking, is simply a multitude of
complex systems and interplays with the environment anyway) and the environment.
In this new context and with the lens of systems thinking, leadership may be thought
of as a property of both individuals and systems. Leadership is about adaptive
capacity, information processing, making meaning, and remaining congruent with
both core values and the environmental context.
FOCUS ON WHAT WE CHOOSE TO CONSERVE; CHANGE IS CONSTANT
The biological reality of autopoesis (the defining characteristic of living; the continual
reproduction of self by taking in resources from the environment and responding to that
environment in ways that are structurally determined) tells us that we are in a constant
state of literally remaking ourselves. Change is constant. The principle of choosing
what to conserve, rather than fighting for change, is perhaps a counter-cultural
concept likely to appear very foreign. Yet it is simply a different method of aiming for the
same ends. What is conserved is the most interesting part of change, and helps you
influence that change while clarifying decision-making in chaotic environments.
Let’s take a single example to explore the concept further. Perhaps we’ve chosen to
conserve the value of diversity. This is a value implicitly important, but also born out
of the lessons of nature. Diversity is a crucial factor in successful and more stable
ecosystems. It has also been found to be an important characteristic in complex
adaptive systems. Think of a time when you faced a challenging decision. If you enter
that situation with a clarified set of values that your behaviors should seek to sustain,
the decision is often not yet simple but it may be clarified. Now imagine if an
organization operated in the same manner, or a community. The nature of our
politics, economics, and culture today means that we encounter the effects of wicked
challenges regularly.
LEARN TO OPERATE ON LONG TIMESCALES
Community and political leaders are accustomed to weigh decisions that span a
generation or two. Business leaders typically operate on much shorter timescales.
Both are far too short. The assertion isn’t that short timescales are unimportant or
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that we’ll in some way move beyond the need to effectively plan for them, but instead
that long timescales must be much more integrated into decision making than they
currently are.
We need to be able to relate to the challenges that we face, which typically play out on
timescales and geographies unfamiliar to us. Right now it is too easy to pass the
buck on climate change to other communities, either geographically or temporally.
The timescales that we are comfortable operating within (recent past, present, near
future) must be drastically elongated. The concept of deep time – or, perhaps, the
seven-generation perspective – should be a part of every leader’s vocabulary and
decision-making. I believe this is one of the great challenges for leadership education,
training and development. How do we effectively help individuals relate to timescales
that operate on a biological, geological, or cosmic basis and that far surpass our lived
experience as individuals? It requires humility and a recognition of our mortality. The
ethics involved must reach into as-yet unimagined future generations.
FUNCTION AS A MEANING MIDWIFE
Leadership is about meaning making... or perhaps more accurately serving as
meaning facilitators or midwives. One of the central challenges when operating in a
broader environmental context of wicked challenges is making meaning of the
challenges we face. Of storytelling. Climate change is a perfect example of the
importance of storytelling. The science is nearly unequivocal. Public opinion on the
validity of the science is strong. Yet we struggle to effectively act. One of the essential
steps yet remaining is bridging the gap between our intellectual understanding and
emotional decision making.
Crucially, however, it isn’t up to any one individual to effectively point the way for us
all. Rather, it is our collective responsibility to make meaning of these challenges and
weave our own emerging stories. It is impossible for an individual to effectively make
sense of the flood of data that we now operate within. But individuals can help ensure
that communities and organizations are structurally oriented to incorporate these
new contexts into their identity and make sense of them.
Information is now, by in large, free. Leaders must recognize that they will no longer
be in a position of having the most current or largest volume of knowledge. Instead,
leaders must function as a node, coordinating efforts of much broader and more
intelligent systems. Leadership must function as meaning midwives, birthing and
nurturing new meaning as information flows and contexts change. This is still an
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active process, but looks markedly different from the traditional concept of the
individual pointing the way.
One potential way forward is to look for newly emerging trends in the data, a concept
called weak signal processing in computer science. It likely won’t be the individual to
effectively recognize these signals, but a group of individuals can help shape a
system, crafting an environment where such trends are recognized and valued. Again,
the interplay between individual and system is crucial.
INCREASE ADAPTIVE CAPACITY AND INFORMATION FLOW AS WE BUILD THE
FUTURE WE DESIRE
Distributed, systemic leadership increases the adaptive capacity and resilience of a
system. Systems theory describes a world in which wholes are larger than the sum of
their parts, where we must effectively shift perspectives on the fly and understand
multiple levels of organization, where emergent properties can only be found when
examining the whole, and where life operates as a network of relationships.
Emergent trends in leadership theory have underscored just how much we have to
learn about human organization, communication, and relationships by looking to the
natural world. They’ve also challenged the knee-jerk reactions that so often
characterize the ways that we respond to changing context. Increasing information
flow and facilitating the collective interpretation of that meaning capitalizes on the
organization of systems capacity in ways that strictly hierarchical structures resist.
Finally, the concept of choosing what to conserve actually enables a greater visioning
of the future. Instead of remaining paralyzed by fear of the unknown curveballs that
will invariably arise as plans change and context evolves, knowing what it is that we
choose to conserve provides a roadmap for those unforeseen detours and
adaptations by simplifying the decision-making process while instilling a certain
flexibility about all other choices, enabling us to maintain a vision of our desired
future that remains true to core values while flexibly adapting to changing contexts.
REFERENCES
Satterwhite, R. (2010). Deep systems leadership: A model for the 21st century. In B.
Redekop (Ed.), Leadership for environmental sustainability (pp. 230-247). New York, NY:
Routledge.
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CHAPTER 9 MULTICULTURAL AND
GLOBAL LEADERSHIP
by JUANA BORDAS
Juana Bordas 9 :: MULTICULTURAL
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is a former trustee of the
International Leadership by JUANA BORDAS
Association and a founder of Mi
Casa, one of the first Hispanic As the world becomes increasingly connected through technology, travel, globalization,
organizations in the U.S. migration and immigration, the ability to lead people from very distinct cultures,
focusing on serving Hispanic nationalities, and ethnic groups has become fundamental to effective leadership. Our
women. She is the author of two emerging global village, growing diversity, and multicultural workforce are challenging
award-winning books: Salsa, today’s leaders to develop the cultural flexibility and adaptability to inspire and guide
Soul, and Spirit: Leadership for a people who represent the whole rainbow of humanity.
Multicultural Age and The Power
of Latino Leadership which is Yet today’s leadership models, although they may differ from person to person and
now available in Spanish, method to method, generally have a common bias toward Western- or European-
El Poder del Liderazgo Latino: influenced ways of thinking and approaches. Contemporary leadership theories
Cultura, Inclusión y Contribución. commonly center on the dominant or mainstream culture and exclude the enormous
contributions, potential learning, and valuable insights that come from leadership in
diverse communities.
The urgency of integrating multicultural leadership practices that respond to our
changing world is evident when noting that in a few short decades the United States
will not have a dominant ethnic or racial group. Recognizing these transformative
changes, Peter Druckers considered by many the father of modern management
observed, “The dominant factor in the next two decades is not going to be economics
or technology. It will be demographics.”
Multicultural leadership practices bring out the best in our diverse workforce and
fashion a sense of community with people from different backgrounds. It enables a wide
spectrum of people to actively engage, contribute, and develop their potential. This article
puts forth six practices that can enhance a leader’s Multicultural I.Q. and promote an
inclusive and adaptable style that is more effective with our growing diversity.
1. KNOW YOUR HISTORY
The first step in expanding leadership into a multicultural form requires an
understanding of how Eurocentric and hierarchal leadership became dominant in the
first place. This begins with examining the myths concerning the “discovery of
America,” which exclude the historical contributions of communities of color – thus
the need for designated times like Black History or Hispanic Heritage Month.
When white immigrants came to the United States, they were encouraged to
assimilate, cut ties to their homelands, and merge into the melting pot. This may
have been necessary when the United States was first forming its identity, but
assimilation set the tone for conformity, homogeneity, and valuing sameness. Cutting
one’s roots and losing touch with one’s culture can be painful. People who make such
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sacrifices often believe that others should do likewise or not recognize why cultural
identity is so central to other people.
Communities of color, on the other hand, remained intact due to exclusion and
discrimination and strived to hold on to their history, identities, and cultures. To do this
they embraced traditions that kept them connected to their roots. “Lift Every Voice and
Sing” which is considered the Black national anthem proclaims, “Sing a song full of faith
that the dark past has taught us;” Many Latinos revere El Dia de los Muertos (the day of
the dead) where they connect to the wisdom and life-lessons of their grandparents. Many
Asian cultures create ancestral altars and honor those who came before while American
Indians believe their ancestors, the venerated ones, walk right along beside them.
For mainstream leaders reclaiming and honoring one’s own history is the foundation
for appreciating that of others. What is the story of how your ancestors came to
where you are? What are the characteristics, values, and strengths you inherited from
them? How has this shaped your character, life choices, and worldview? The past is
brings valuable insights and knowledge.
This process of encouraging people to conform and value sameness is true among
most, if not all, early processes of national identity creation not just the one that took
place in the United States. It is the basis for cultural discrimination and the belief
that one culture is better or superior to others. In our emerging multicultural society
this tendency must be replaced with one that weaves the history, culture, and values
of many people and backgrounds into a new cultural tapestry.
2. THINK WE NOT I
Anthropologists who study and categorize cultures make broad distinctions between
collective or We cultures and those that are more individualistically or I oriented.
Most of the world’s cultures, including Latinos, Blacks, American Indians, and Asian
are WE oriented. Distinctive Women’s Culture within larger cultures also tends to be
WE oriented. Only North Americans and Western Europeans are individualist, value
independence, competition, self-interest, and personal achievement.
We cultures are usually more tightly woven and interdependent. They value group
welfare, cooperation, and harmony. To maintain these elements, people generally
behave politely, act in a socially desirable manner, and show respect to others. Group
success takes precedent over personal credit or gain. In collective cultures it was
generally recognized that excessive accumulation of wealth or power by a few
hindered the well-being of the group.
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It is important to note I and We are not a dichotomy. I is intrinsic to the We
orientation, for the two are intertwined. Just as each stand of straw making up a
woven basket must hold its place, so too individuals have to be strong for the
collective to thrive. The challenge is to balance communal good with individual gain
and reach the higher ground of interdependence, where personal gain is not achieved
at the expense of others.
Organizations today recognize that collaboration, teamwork, and mutuality which are
touchstones of We cultures, result in higher productivity, commitment, and creativity.
Leaders can tap into the spirit of collective cultures by growing a community of
purpose in the workplace. Allow others to take credit. Be generous with your time
and talents. Develop a reputation as someone who supports and grows others.
Embrace the wisdom of the South African philosophy of Ubuntu – I am only a person
because of other people. This resonates with people from collective cultures and
fosters a shared identity, group unity, and spirit of cooperation.
3. PRACTICE GENEROSITY – MI CASA ES SU CASA
The Latino saying mi casa es su casa (my house is your house) reflects a sprawling
sense of inclusiveness and generosity. It encapsulates the joy of sharing and implies,
“What I have is yours.” In We cultures possessions are more fluid and communal.
People take pleasure in sharing and giving things away. Community celebrations,
fiestas, and large gatherings are a testament to collective hospitality. Everyone
contributes which ensures there is always enough to go around.
Collective generosity has held communities of color together through hard times,
oppression, and economic scarcity. Generosity strengthens the bonds holding people
together. The African-American saying “it takes a village to raise a child,” bound
people together in the slave quarters children were taken in and cared for as family
members. This speaks to the collective generosity and responsibility of We cultures.
How does this generosity show itself in the work place? Let’s use Latinos as an
example. They have the highest percentage of participation of any subgroup in the
U.S. labor market and are great contributors. Work is an opportunity to share their
talents, support other team members, and provide for their extended families. They
invest their time and talent freely, promote group achievement, and show genuine
concern for customers.
As a leadership trait, generosity means recognizing the contributions of others,
sharing one’s time and expertise, chipping in when someone has a special need or
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challenge, and supporting community causes. Basically a leader must be known as
someone who serves people. At times this might even mean providing financial
assistance or ensuring that people have the resources needed to sustain themselves.
Profit sharing, good benefits, paying fair wages, and having open environments are
ways companies embody generosity. Whole Foods provides excellent benefits and
health care to its workers and is also structured around team responsibility. Their
compensation scale is devised so no one makes more that fourteen times the
average wage. Starbucks pays a living wage to their baristas, provides health
benefits, training, and promotional opportunities. TDI industries ranked by Forbes as
twenty-second out of the hundred best companies to work for is employee owned and
caps the pay scale at no more than ten times the average wage. At TDI no one has
special parking spaces, everyone has cubical offices, and people address each other
as partners. These practices reflect our fourth practice – the leader as equal.
4. BE A LEADER AMONG EQUALS
In many cultures it is improper to claim, “I am a leader.” Leadership is externally conferred
by people who recognize a person’s good character, generosity, abilities, and
contributions. Unlike individualist cultures where leaders distinguish themselves, in
collectivist cultures, the leader’s power and respect comes from being an integral part of
the group. Any type of elitism, such as setting oneself above others or calling too much
attention to oneself, damages the group cohesion which is central to collectivist cultures.
Leaders should remain “ordinary folks,” so people identify with them and strive to
emulate them. They work side-by-side with people, remain approachable, and are
impeccable followers. This levels the playing field, so that others believe they too can
become leaders and is known as the leader as equal.
The leader as equal treats everyone with respect regardless of position or status.
Such leaders work as hard as everyone else or even harder. They are fair and do not
play favorites. They articulate the rules and abide by them. The result is authentic
collaboration where people work as equals to attain mutual goals. In shorthand,
leaders “walk their talk,” keep their word, and set the example for people to follow.
Practicing being a leader among equals implies preparing others to lead, rotating
responsibility, and then providing opportunities for people to exercise their abilities.
Organizationally, this might mean flatting the structure and cultivating an inclusive
environment where everyone feels responsible and accountable for the group’s
success and where everyone is rewarded in an equitable manner.
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5. LEADERSHIP BY THE MANY
Paradoxically, the leader as equal promotes people’s participation and cultivates a
community of leaders – a practice called leadership by the many. It might be important
here to reflect on the historical context in which leadership often emerged in
communities of color and other underrepresented groups. Leadership frequently
evolved out of the collective concerns of people and focused on overcoming social and
economic discrimination. Essential to these groups’ success was building long-term
involvement, garnering collective resources, and sharing responsibility. Thus a
critical mass of skilled and committed people needed to change their situation and
status and leadership was cultivated and leadership could be distributed among
many. A primary example is the Civil Rights Movement in the United States
Leadership by the many implies everyone can contribute so leadership is rotated
depending on the task or function as well as an individual’s expertise, interest,
availability, or developmental goals. Leaders today can foster this type of
commitment by advancing a shared vision and practicing deep listening – both of
which building consensus and group unity. These are further described below.
By integrating a shared vision leaders steer the course towards a destination that
represents real progress for the people they serve. A compelling and shared vision
must be grounded in people’s combined experiences, articulate their mutual
concerns, and point towards a more rewarding future. A shared vision rallies
people’s commitment and acts as a focal point for their skills, talents, and resources.
Since leadership is a shared responsibility and relies on the involvement of many,
a shared vision is the magnet holding people together.
Listen first is the golden rule of collaborative and shared leadership. Deep listening is
an ancient tradition that enabled the chief or leader to discern the common ground,
areas of concern, and unifying themes. Listening can be difficult for take charge
leaders however it is a powerful tool that empowers others. Martin Luther King Jr.
would bring people together to discuss an issue and remain silent himself. He listened
intently, and then took time for reflection before offering a decision. By listening first
the leader encourages more active participation, finds consensus points, and allows
the collective wisdom to surface. This may require more time and resources on the
front end, but generates more creative solutions, greater productivity, and more
widespread investment in the long-term.
Reflect on the power of listening to identify common ground and consensus points.
Take turns assuming the role of weaver – the one who listens and waits until
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everyone has spoken and then interlaces people’s contributions. Practice using
consensus as a decision-making tool and to encourage ownership.
6. TREAT PEOPLE LIKE VALUED RELATIVES
Universal kinship – the belief that we belong to one human family – is the core of
Christianity and other major world religions. Many cultures have strong and binding
social ties were people recognize each other as being related. Latinos, for instance,
have large extended families that welcome people who are not blood related. The
Cherokee and Lakota tribal greeting – mitakuye oysain – (all my relatives) mirror a
similar belief. African-Americans have an impeccable sense of community and call
each other brother, sister, or cousin. Many women share a sense of sisterhood based
on their connection with each other and the roles they have in society.
This widespread custom of treating people as relatives is a mainstay of the We identity of
collective cultures and their tendency to take care of one another. It reflects a spiritual
understanding of the universal human connection. Seeing people as valued relatives
transforms the purpose of leadership to one of promoting people’s well-being and
accepting responsible for the welfare of the group. As noted leaders must work for the
common good, reflect a spirit of generosity, and refrain from promoting their own
agenda. They are expected to treat people with the respect due a valued family member
and provide opportunities to develop their capacity. This is easier to understand when
noting that leadership in communities of color is not seen as a passing stage or position
but as a lifelong commitment to serving and remaining part of one’s community
Seeing people as relatives is the foundation for utilizing multicultural leadership
practices that respect and value the uniqueness of every individual. It changes
hierarchal thinking where one culture is seen as better than or more advanced than
another. Seeing people as relatives recognizes that we are intricately connected and
that creating our global future will depend on the best efforts of all of us.
THE MULTICULTURAL LEADER!
In The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman surmises that the 21st century will be “more
and more driven by a more diverse – non-Western, nonwhite – group of individuals…
you are going to see every color of the human rainbow take part.” Friedman is
describing our emerging global multicultural village and inferring that effective
leaders will use practices that incorporate the influence, preferences, and values of
many cultures in a respectful and productive manner.
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The six practices described above: Know your history, Think We not I, Practice
Generosity, Be a Leader among Equals, Promote Leadership by the Many, and Treat
People as Valued Relatives point the way to inclusive global leadership. Leadership
that tends to our human family, heals the divisions that have separated us,
recognizes our common human bond, and celebrates our cultural differences. As we
stand on the threshold of our multicultural society, effective leaders understand the
urgency of this task and embrace new forms that inspire and guide people who
represent the whole rainbow spectrum of humanity.
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CHAPTER 10 COMING TO JUDGMENT
by NATHAN HARTER
10 :: COMING TO JUDGMENT
by NATHAN HARTER
The following is excerpted from THE PROCESS BY WHICH LEADERS, FOLLOWERS, AND INVESTIGATORS DECIDE
Leadership and Coherence ON A COURSE OF ACTION1
by Nathan W. Harter.
©2015 Taylor and Francis Group. Leadership consists of a series of decisions about setting a direction, attracting
All rights reserved. followers, and figuring out along the way how to get to your destination together
Purchase a copy HERE . (see Drath, 2001, p. 22). Outsiders will judge leadership in large part based upon
those decisions. They will judge the ends, ways, and the means, the strategies and
Nathan Harter, J.D., tactics, the efficacy and the ethics, for that is what we all do: when it comes to
leadership, we seek to assign praise or blame.
is Professor of Leadership
Studies at Christopher Newport But first, the leader must be the one to judge. Out of a welter of possibilities – often
University. After practicing law, in the teeth of uncertainty – the person we call the leader must choose which is the
he spent twenty-two years at right way to go. Then comes the follower’s opportunity to judge whether to
Purdue University. A former chair accompany that leader. Thus, all three roles in the leadership process (which I have
of the Scholarship section of the identified elsewhere as the leader, follower, and investigator) involve making
International Leadership judgments about the right way to go (Harter, 2012).
Association (ILA), Harter has
published two leadership books Making judgments is an interior process calling for a cognitive approach to the study of
and is developing a project on the leadership. Fortunately, the cognitive approach to understanding leadership seems to
last lectures of Michel Foucault. be picking up steam. The Leadership Quarterly just dedicated an issue to the topic in
June 2015 (volume 26, issue 3). Also, neuroscientists such as Tara Swart (2015) are
1 The author appreciates the critical advice starting to add a physiological approach to the role of the brain in leadership.
of Jessi Hinz, Dagney Palmer, and Col.
Thomas Williams. In the same spirit, I wrote a book published by Routledge in 2014 on this phase of the
leadership process. Titled Leadership and Coherence, its purpose was to consider a
private experience, before the social actor takes action, as he or she contemplates
what to do. If each of us will be judged by the decisions we make, how are these
decisions actually reached? Further, once we understand more or less how they are
reached, how can we learn to make even better decisions next time?
We all make judgments of one kind or another. We all have to decide what to do every
day. There is a function in the mind where these operations take place. At the root of
this process is a judgment as to what is right/wrong, good/bad, better/worse.
Ultimately, we make a choice based on some kind of evaluation of the alternatives.
To be clear, an investigation into the standards by which you and I are to judge is a
task already being addressed in the study of ethics. Instead, I wanted to understand
how the process actually works and how it could work better, regardless what the
standard turns out to be.
Here is why this is curious. Inside each of us is a potentially confusing mélange of
drives, desires, memories, feelings, ideas, and so forth that insinuate themselves into
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the process. Occasionally, the right choice will be obvious, though often the choice is
unclear. There are forces and counterforces, arguments and counterarguments
urging a person finally to conclude, one way or the other. We could do X. We could do
Y. Each alternative probably has its merits. We say that we are “torn” or “of two
minds” about the best way to go. So how exactly does a leader pluck from the
tangled dynamics of the mind a single course of action and say to everybody else,
“Let’s go this way”?
There must be in one’s mind a sense of what really ought to be done. We all talk and
act as though this is true. This “inward imperative” often competes with other
internal forces, such as temptation, so it doesn’t always get its way, and in many
cases it remains silent because you really don’t care about something. (My wife will
ask me which shade of white to paint the bathroom, and I have no opinion. I just
don’t.) Nevertheless, this imperative can also sweep everything aside and insist that
you do the right thing, without cavil. As a result of my research for this book, I
decided that this inward imperative is exactly what leaders must learn to recognize,
understand, and strengthen. That was the central lesson of the book.
What makes leadership so interesting, however, is that whatever a leader decides
must somehow resonate with followers. In other words, after consulting my inward
imperative I appeal to your inward imperative – and if we agree, each in our own
minds separately, then our adventure begins. We go forward with what the Greeks
called homonoia or like-mindedness. Rivals and historians might determine that you
and I were wrong, of course, although they can say this only because they underwent
a similar process.
On those occasions when we look back and praise leadership, what you and I are
saying is that somehow everyone’s inward imperatives fall into alignment. Leader,
follower, investigator - we all converge. But how can that be, I wondered, if these are
separate operations conducted in the black box of each independent mind? How is it,
in other words, that there is such a thing as a shared imperative? In my opinion, to a
large extent leadership can be understood as the process of harvesting or fostering
this shared imperative.
For the sake of anchoring my investigation in something empirical and not just my
own meditations, I chose three historical figures to determine the extent to which
their success can be attributed to a heightened sense of this inward imperative. An
aspiring leader would be advised to consider the philosopher Socrates from ancient
Athens, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln from the mid-nineteenth century, and
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human rights activist Jan Patocˇka who died in 1977 at the hands of an interrogator in
communist Czechoslovakia. Each of these characters wrestled with this thing I am
calling an inward imperative and gave voice to its authority under extreme conditions,
when the right way forward was by no means clear.
Before bringing my book to a close, I had to admit that leaders frequently appeal to
some inward imperative that seems to the rest of us kooky, cruel, or just too
convenient to be binding on the rest of us. Leaders claim to speak on behalf of some
higher authority, whether by that they mean God, history, science, or some other
abstraction to which they have private access but that they seem to regard as
presiding somehow outside themselves. Is it possible, I wondered, that some leaders
are mistaken – or worse, lying? If that is so, how can the rest of us ever know? Are
we condemned to pitting one person’s inward imperative against the other person’s?
If so, then how are we to test these competing assertions?
Are we left to shrug and adopt some type of pluralism that says there is no way to
discern who is right and who is wrong? Because, in my opinion, if we give up trying to
do so, then our attempts to praise or (more critically) blame leaders and their
followers will seem hollow, like saying little more than, “Well, that’s just how I see it.”
Is that the best we can do, I wonder? In other words, are we fatally left to trust a
solitary individual’s claims to what happens in the privacy of his or her own mind?
Tangentially, I had to address the possibility of a disordered mind. We might speak
pejoratively of someone who is crazy or mentally ill, easy to dismiss, even though many
of history’s most venerated leaders appear in retrospect to have been disordered,
ranging from the slightly daft to the raving lunatic. In their own time, in fact, they were
probably suspected of madness. I would go a step further, citing Nassir Ghaemi (2012),
to speculate that many of them were clinically insane. If that turns out to be so, I worry
about two implications. First, how can anyone’s investigation into some generic “mind
of the leader” be reliable? How does the disorder in such minds lend itself to anyone
else’s understanding? Second, what would programs in leader development start to
look like? How do we select candidates for leadership? And how do we cultivate their
capacities? Could it be that our efforts to identify and prepare tomorrow’s leaders
overlooks the most gifted candidates in our midst, notwithstanding their impairment?
Perhaps the most reliable check against imperious and aggrandizing leaders who
make unsubstantiated claims of authority based on private revelation would be
developing followers who must also learn to recognize, understand, and strengthen
their own inward imperatives. That was the second critical lesson of the book.
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Leaders cannot lead without willing followers. But let us be fair. Those of us who
investigate the phenomenon of leadership as educators and scholars probably ought
to learn to recognize, understand, and strengthen our inward imperatives as well and
not pretend that somehow we can evade responsibility for the way that we go about
our business casting praise or blame. Our process is basically the same, even if we
have the luxury of judging leadership in retrospect. According to Hannah Arendt (a
scholar who features prominently in my analysis), the process of judgment is still the
same (e.g. 1971).
Given the pluralistic nature of the human mind, in which many forces compete, the
act of making a decision offers a kind of unity or convergence, bringing one’s
thoughts and intentions to resolution. Under volatile conditions, when you can go in
different directions, a decision eliminates alternatives and turns your attention,
rendering a purpose.
As Michel Foucault pointed out, effective leaders must overcome their natural
stultification (2001, p. 131ff). Stultification includes the tendency of youth to go in
different directions, being pulled this way and that, experimenting and being readily
distracted. That posture of being open to many possibilities is entirely appropriate to
youth. The adolescent mind is a wonderful kaleidoscope of multifarious powers.
Nevertheless, he found, at some point a leader has to grow up, closing around a
project or mission and disavowing the attraction of other courses of action.
For this reason, my book concludes that whatever the content of this thing I am
calling an inward imperative, it must promise a sense of coherence to the pluralistic
mind, maybe an unseen order or even a simple choice, in order to emerge from
uncertainty with a plan. To which, the followers assent. Whether the world itself is
actually coherent would be beside the point; leadership promises coherence - at least
for those who participate.
To be fair, leadership does more than close around a decision. It also opens up our
consciousness, for disrupting the prevailing sense of coherence in order to avoid
harboring some limiting worldview that cannot adapt to a wild and whirling reality.
In other words, it is also the case that leaders sometimes scramble our pieties and
dislodge our dogma. Even at that, though, they do so for the sake of a higher order,
a more comprehending vision, which is why I can stand by my original thesis.
Finally, I have been convinced by Immanuel Kant that you can improve your powers of
judgment by learning to consider a question from multiple points of view. Being able
to critique one’s own position from a variety of perspectives strengthens the quality of
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any subsequent decision. Consider the possibility that there is another way of looking
at things. Taken to an extreme, a leader would examine a problem through the eyes
of followers and of victims and of rivals and even of posterity. Maximizing one’s ability
to adopt many seemingly incompatible positions before deciding on a course of action
was recently explained in a little book published in 2007 by Roger Martin, titled The
Opposable Mind. There, he gives examples from the world of business, even though
the advice is more broadly applicable. In short, what Kant and Martin recommend is
taking advantage of the pluralistic mind, using the capacity to contemplate
differences, before making hard and fast decisions. That is very different from being
whipsawed in multiple directions in an incoherent fashion; instead, it is a purposeful
examination of a single problem from a variety of perspectives.
REFERENCES
Arendt, H. (1971). The life of the mind. Harcourt.
Drath, W. (2001). The deep blue sea: Rethinking the source of leadership. Jossey-Bass.
Foucault, M. (2001). The hermeneutics of the subject: Lectures at the Collège de France,
1981-82 (F. Gros, ed.; G. Burchall, trans.). Picador.
Ghaemi, N. (2012). A first-rate madness: Uncovering the links between leadership and
mental illness. Penguin Books.
Harter, N. (2015, January 19). “Leadership as the search for greater coherence.”
European Business Review. Accessed 8 August 2015 from
www.europeanbusinessreview.com/?p=6591.
Harter, N. (2014). Leadership and coherence: A cognitive approach. Routledge.
Harter, N. (2012, Summer). “Point of view: Leadership studies from different
perspectives.” Journal of Leadership Education. 11(2): 158-174.
Martin, R. (2007). The opposable mind: How successful leaders win through integrative
thinking. Harvard Business School Press.
Swart, T. (2015). Neuroscience for leadership: Harnessing the brain gain advantage
(Neuroscience of Business). Palgrave Macmillan.
R O U T L E D G E 97 R O U T L E D G E . C O M
CHAPTER 11 HAVING EFFECTIVE
CONVERSATIONS
by AL BOLEA and LEANNE ATWATER
The following is excerpted from 11 :: HAVING EFFECTIVE
Applied Leadership Development CONVERSATIONS
by Al Bolea and Leanne Atwater.
by AL BOLEA and LEANNE ATWATER
©2016 Taylor and Francis Group.
All rights reserved. CREATING A FUTURE
The question that I always get in my seminars is: “Okay, Al, you established that we
Purchase a copy HERE . need to manage our conversation to the future, exactly how do we do that?” Typically
a discussion will ensue among the seminar participants about the difficulty in doing
Al Bolea this merely once in a while, let alone consistently. Frequently, I hear something like
this: “Our work lives are all about opinions, evaluations, analyses, judgments and
is the founder and architect of appraisals, and you are telling us to abandon them — these are what we get paid to
the Applied Leadership Seminars, do, and it’s what our bosses want from us.” This is when I talk them through the six
the former CEO/GM of a large steps in Figure E 6.2: Leading Conversations to the Future.
independent oil company in the
United Arab Emirates, and a STEP 1: BALANCE IN THE MOMENT
retired executive from a major I remind the attendees that it is about balance, not abandonment. In order to lead,
international oil and gas company, one must manage, and not eliminate, the time spent in conversations about the past
as well as Distinguished Visiting and present, and focus on conversations about the future. It is tough to do; the future
Professor of Leadership at the is a risky place because you might be wrong. Being in the past and present is much
University of Alaska and a guest safer as there is more certainty there, less vulnerability. Pushing toward the future
leadership lecturer at the can be a lonely place in an organization, and it takes courage.
University of Houston.
Figure E 6.2
Leanne Atwater Leading conversations
to the future.
is Professor of Management in
the Bauer College of Business at
the University of Houston. She
has published over 50 journal
articles and two books in the
areas of leadership and feedback.
She teaches leadership
development at the graduate and
undergraduate levels. She is also
the current editor of The
Leadership Quarterly.
R O U T L E D G E 99 R O U T L E D G E . C O M
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