C1 - Leadership Philosophy

Running head: FINAL LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY 1

Amy Bergstrom

EDAD 570

Dr. Monica Nixon

March 19, 2014

Final Leadership Philosophy

FINAL LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY 2

Leadership is a concept that cannot easily be defined or described. Yet there are elements

that are evident in leadership in general, which I view as including a collaborative movement

toward a vision in order to enact change. Ultimately, I think that leadership is essential for us to

accomplish anything collectively as a society. My personal leadership is influenced by my social

identities, both marginalized and privileged, as well as my attitudes and intrinsic personality. I

operate primarily by the human resources frame (Bolman & Gallos, 2011), which centers on

encouraging, empowering, and supporting others, a positive but sometimes naïve perspective on

leadership.

When I contemplate leadership, I immediately think of examples of leaders. I think of

world leaders, business leaders, sports leaders, social leaders, and others. In trying to synthesize

what makes each one a leader, I realize there is very little that ties them together. They have

different personalities, strengths, weaknesses, situations, reactions, strategies, and results.

However, there is at least one thing that I believe all leaders have in common, because it is

essential to leadership: They are all working to move a group toward a vision.

The idea of vision sounds grand, and indeed, it can be. Vision can also be on a much

smaller scale, though. An elementary school teacher has a vision for students to learn and grow

in the classroom. A coach can have a vision for winning a single game or a championship.

Vision can be big or small, and everyone can have one, which is part of why everyone can be a

leader, an idea the Jesuits affirm (Lowney, 2003, as cited in Nixon, 2014).

Leadership, then, involves moving toward that vision. A person with a vision and no

action is just a dreamer, not a leader. It is important to make such distinctions. I am a language

person, and I have a great appreciation for the different connotations of words. There are words

that describe attributes for a leader, but they are not all synonymous with leader. As such,


dreaming can be part of leadership, but a leader is not just a dreamer. Having a vision means

paving the way. To lead means to guide or direct (Merriam-Webster, n.d.), and those words

imply navigation and movement.

Moving a group toward a vision involves collaboration and motivation. Leadership

implies followership, although I use the term follower not to indicate hierarchy but rather the

necessity of relationship. In the post-industrial paradigm of leadership theory, leadership is an

interactive process (Kezar, Carducci, & Contreras, 2006). I believe the relationship of leader

with and among followers is essential to the process of leadership. Without this collective

element, the process at hand is not necessarily leadership. For example, one might argue that a

person who makes revolutionary strides in a specific field is a leader, even though the rest of that

community is not following along. I would contend that is not leadership; the person is a

pioneer, but just as a dreamer is not necessarily a leader, neither is a pioneer. Innovation can be

part of leadership, but making change without the involvement of others is not. It is

independence. However, pioneers may become leaders if they then collaborate with their group

or community to move toward their vision.

Collaboration, though, can be a tricky endeavor, especially for the pioneer. Even with a

sincere desire to bring people along, a leader cannot compel people to change (Komives,

Longerbeam, Owen, Mainella, & Osteen, 2006). Instead, leadership involves creating an

environment for the change (Komives et al., 2006). Leadership requires a community, followers,

but it does not require successful accomplishment of the goal or that the entire community agrees

with the vision for change. Collaboration involves give and take and adaptation.

Ultimately, leadership is about collaborating and motivating toward a vision in order to

create change. While I do not contend that is the comprehensive definition of leadership, I do


believe those elements are critical. Change, like vision, can be large or small. The social change

model of leadership (Higher Education Research Institute, 1996) examines the interactions of the

individual, group, and community related to change, but it does not define the boundaries of

community. Community could mean a classroom, a school, a city, or an entire country.

Leadership still involves change at whatever level it is enacted. If there is no purpose for

change, then the parties involved are just maintaining a status quo, a role that can be

accomplished through management (Gardner, 2000).

Therefore, change and the related vision for that change are important aspects of effective

leadership. This means a leader needs to have a reason or purpose, stated or implicit, to lead.

One such reason may be related to desire. For example, Boatwright and Egidio (2003) discuss

the important factor of aspiration related to college women and leadership. They contend,

“‘Glass ceilings’ are broken by opportunity accompanied by desire” (p. 654). An opportunity for

leadership is needed but will not necessarily be seized lacking desire. On the other hand, the

reason for leadership may be a feeling of responsibility. Many of the activists in Linder and

Rodriguez’s (2012) study spoke of a feeling of obligation to be a leader and to represent one or

more of their identity groups. This responsibility can be another motivation for leadership.

Once leaders have a sense of purpose, they also need to know themselves and their

groups. Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky (2009) explain many of the elements involved in knowing

yourself, including knowing your identities, your loyalties, your tuning, and many others. This

understanding of self is particularly useful in then knowing your group and how you will

interact. Knowing the group helps make the group more effective. Likert (1967, as cited in

Witherspoon, 1996) advises treating people like contributing members rather than faceless

workers, and similarly, Wheatley (2000) discusses how having everyone on board to a shared


vision means that everyone can use their own ideas and creativity and still move toward the

group’s mission. A leader will be better able to facilitate this group dynamic by understanding

the group itself.

In articulating leadership as a process of collaborating and motivating toward a vision in

order to create change, I concentrate most on notions of leaders in various contexts. This

provokes the question of whether a leader is intrinsically a leader or reacts to being in a

leadership situation. I evaluate this in relationship to my own identity as a leader, rooted in the

leadership identity development model of Komives et al. (2006). Specifically, I consider the

broadening view of leadership category of the model, and I do conclude that being a leader is

part of my identity. I recall understanding that leaders are out there, but I was not one of them,

particularly in light of the fact that I am shy, which I thought precluded me from being a leader.

The desire for involvement pushed me into the exploration/engagement stage, and over time I

have accepted myself in the role of leader and eventually the understanding of my leadership

transcending my roles.

Arriving at, or rather continuing to develop, this understanding has taken me awhile. I

was generally fine with pursuing and practicing positional leadership, especially in high school

and college. After college, though, my daily work and life no longer involved formal leadership

positions. I was content to be a worker bee and did not aspire for leadership roles within my

organizations. However, using the perspective on leadership I have developed here, I can

examine myself and see how leadership has continued to permeate who I am.

In my most recent job, as a sports producer for a newspaper website, I had a vision for

improvement in my content area and what our coverage and technology could look like. Even

from my position that lacked authority to demand changes, I worked with others in the company


to move toward those improvements. I was frequently a trainer and teacher for new hires, and I

understood the importance of explaining context and my vision. I was not able to see all, or even

many, of the changes I would have liked to see, but again, leadership is not dependent on results

(Gardner, 2000). I believe I was a leader in that circumstance, and I was a leader because it is

part of who I am. Seeing how the leadership process influences my actions no matter my

position has helped me realize I can always be a leader.

Knowing myself as a leader also helps me attempt to understand why leadership is

necessary. I am always trying to improve, and while I do not know if that is true for everyone, I

can assume it is not just true of me. I wonder, then, if leadership is an important part of our

shared humanity. Leaders act as catalysts and facilitators (Higher Education Research Institute,

1996), and without that, I question what and how much we could accomplish independently. In

a sense, I ascribe this idea to the social constructivist paradigm of leadership, understanding

leadership itself as a social construct (Kezar et al., 2006) that we have come to depend on and

desire. It is essential to our interactions and hope for change.

Because I do care about creating change, I therefore must be a leader. I also do not think

I could lead if I did not care not only about change but also for others. The concepts of leading

and caring are intertwined in my mind. Additionally, it is impossible to look at my leadership

journey without examining the intersections of my identities. I identify as a mixed-race, Asian

and White, Christian woman from an upper-middle class, predominantly White area. Each of

those facets of my identity affects my leadership, but I have recently begun to understand how all

of those characteristics together make an impact on who I am as a leader. My identities interact

with one another and within systems of power and oppression (Linder & Rodriguez, 2012).


My leadership has largely been informed by my places of privilege, especially as they

relate to my upbringing and education. I had access to schools that afforded numerous

opportunities, with educational and extracurricular resources, which came with expectations for

students to be involved and to be leaders. I also had tremendous support from my parents, via

financial resources, encouragement, and their physical presence. I was encouraged to be a

leader, at least implicitly, from my youth, and much of my understanding of leadership has been

rooted in a “traditional,” privileged mindset.

In recent years, though, I have been growing in my understanding of my identities as a

person of color and an Asian. The more I learn about the experiences of my grandparents in

particular as well as other people of color, the more I think about modern-day injustices and what

my role as a leader is in combating them. My focus now is on how I can leverage my privilege

as well as give it up to empower others. I was always friends with other people of color in my

neighborhood and schools, but I did not seek to understand our shared experiences. I am

purposefully seeking more of this understanding now, with the diagnostic mind-set Heifetz,

Grashow, and Linsky (2009) describe, and I am becoming more critical of what I have been

socialized to think of as “normal.” My privilege has spared me from much overt racism.

However, I recently learned about the concept of racial microaggressions (Sue et al., 2007),

brief, subtle, and everyday expressions of racism. I realized these are embedded in my life, both

as a victim and a perpetrator. Being able to name this experience has been empowering to me, so

I can learn to be a better advocate for myself as well as empower and advocate for others.

There are numerous other facets of my identity that contribute to who I am as a leader.

Several aspects of my personality, like being an introvert and a perfectionist, have sometimes

made me question my innate ability to lead, but I now choose to explore the strengths of these


traits. I am also pursuing the leadership strengths, not just the challenges, of my identity as a

woman. For example, my values-centered, collaborative leadership focus could be attributed to

my identity as a woman and is a strength in the post-industrial paradigm of leadership (Dugan,

2006). Finally, my Christian faith has made the idea of servant leadership central to what I do;

serving is at the core of my faith. I have been a youth group leader to junior high and high

school students for many years, and my focus is on mentoring them, empowering them in their

personal faith, and serving them and teaching them to serve.

The intersections of my identity also affect the resources I use in my leadership. One

resource I draw on is leadership skills that I have developed through the formal opportunities that

have been afforded to me. Skills such as communication, commitment, and teamwork have

either been explicitly encouraged or embedded in the work I have done. For example, the

President’s Leadership Program I was a part of during my undergraduate experience involved

many exercises to teach us leadership skills. One activity I particularly remember had us

simulate a factory ordering system where we could not talk directly with others on the team.

Debriefing the activity helped me understand the importance of communication and the effects

each of our actions had on people up and down the line.

In addition to learned skills, I draw on personal attitudes and traits for my leadership,

particularly my attitude of care. I am very empathetic; I cry at movies, commercials, and even

books I have read multiple times because I feel the joy or pain of the characters. I can also be

overly sensitive, both for myself and others, so my empathy can be to my detriment. However,

overall I think it contributes to my leadership by keeping my focus on the needs of others and the

group, rather than just my own. I closely identify with Tony Codianni’s assertion that


“encouraging the heart is the [emphasis in original] most important leadership practice” (as cited

in Kouzes & Posner, 2003, p. 8).

Some aspects of my personality hinder the resources I tap into, though. I think my

introversion and independence sometimes prevent me from fully utilizing networks and mentors

to support my leadership. As a leader, I like helping others, but it is harder for me to ask for

help. When I do take opportunities to ask, I am not quite sure how to nurture these relationships;

I feel as though I do not know how to ask the right questions. It is the formality that frightens

me. I like building relationships naturally, and perhaps it is my naiveté (Bolman & Deal, 2000)

that assumes I will always be able to naturally form the bonds that will benefit my leadership.

Seeking mentors and developing those relationships as a process is a resource I would like to

embrace more. The value in networking is relationships (Bolman & Gallos, 2011), which are

important to me. I need to capitalize on natural connections as well as push myself to stretch

into the uncomfortable places. In these forays into professional networking, I need to embrace

the political framework (Bolman & Gallos, 2011) and remind myself that every relationship does

not have to be forever. I can create a bond with someone that serves a purpose for a minute, a

day, or a season, and it will still be a worthwhile connection.

My reluctance to aggressively network and my emphasis on empathy and care make it

quite clear to me that I operate under the human resources frame of leadership (Bolman &

Gallos, 2011). Viewing the leader as servant, catalyst, and coach (Bolman & Gallos, 2011)

describes three of the core concepts in my leadership. I seek to encourage and empower others,

spark action and leadership potential, and serve however I can. It matters to me that things are

done right, but it also matters that people are cared for. I also embrace the concept of

encouraging people to bring their best selves to their work (Bolman & Gallos, 2011).


Working within this leadership frame aligns well with the idea that leadership is not

positional and people can lead from anywhere in an organization (Komives, Longerbeam, Owen,

Mainella, & Osteen, 2006). Being a catalyst and coach (Bolman & Gallos, 2011) means

empowering others as leaders, and this empowerment means everyone, including the positional

leader and all the constituents, can grow. I have also found that leading with a human-resource

perspective creates a positive environment. At my going-away party for my previous job, people

said nice things about my work, but I was truly touched by the comments my co-workers made

about the environment I brought to our office. I had not realized at that point how important that

was to others, but I now am embracing that aspect as a fundamental part of my leadership.

On the other hand, the human resources leadership frame can be a somewhat naïve

perspective, especially when considering the coexisting reality of politics in leadership (Bolman

& Deal, 2000). The human resources frame works under the assumption that people will

respond positively to the care displayed by leaders. If a leader is acting from this assumption and

others are not responsive, the leader would need to shift perspectives in order to be effective.

The leader who focuses too much on care of others is also at risk of burning out. There

can be a tendency to carry others’ burdens (Heifetz, Grashow, & Linsky, 2009), and a person can

handle only so much of that. Self-care is an important aspect for human resources leaders

(Bolman & Gallos, 2011), but they also need to have someone else who is pouring into them. In

this way, this style of leadership works best as a reciprocal relationship, rather than with all of

the care coming from one individual.

Navigating leadership from the human resources frame is a natural fit for me given my

emphasis on encouraging and empowering others. I see this clearly in one of my most

influential, challenging, and fun leadership experiences I had, during my senior year of college.


As an undergraduate, I worked on campus in the Student Organizations Office, and I was asked

to lead the organization of our Student Organizations and Advisor Recognition (SOAR) event.

The year I ran the event was only the third year for SOAR, so we were still experimenting with

the structure and building a lot of traditions. Additionally, in the previous two years, the

ceremony planning team had been a committee of volunteers, but that year, it was formalized

and folded into our office, and the planning team was made up of my fellow student employees.

Leading SOAR had become a capstone experience in our office, with my second-in-command

that year becoming the chair the following year.

Similarly, I had been the assistant chair the previous year, which helped me to have an

understanding of the event, but the experience was very different for me being the positional

leader. Planning the event took up most of my working hours (and then some) during the spring

semester, and I had to coordinate the various members of my team, who were each in charge of

different aspects of the event, such as marketing, award submissions, and judging. I am a detail

person, and I had ideas about every aspect of the event. If I had been able to, I probably would

have enjoyed taking care of each piece. However, I did not have the time or resources to do that

nor would it have been the best thing for our team. I had to give the team bounded autonomy

(Bolman & Gallos, 2011), trusting them (Wheatley, 2000) to do their part to create a successful

event.

This is where I see the human resources framework of leadership playing a prominent

role. In addition to delegating the tasks to my co-workers, I also needed to be a catalyst and

coach (Bolman & Gallos, 2011), spurring them on and inspiring them through a rather

complicated process. For me and my task-focused mind, this role could have easily become one

in which I acted more as a manager than a leader (Gardner, 2000). Because I focused on


empowering my co-workers, though, I was able to help us form more of a team in which

everyone was invested in the event.

At the same time, I was also leading from the middle (Bolman & Gallos, 2011). Even

though I was in charge of the event, I was still a student employee, leading my peers while being

responsible to the professional staff in my office. I had regular check-ins with my supervisor to

make sure we were on track, especially with budgets and deadlines. Fortunately, the director of

our office also largely operated from the human resources frame, and in retrospect, I can see how

much of her leadership was about empowering me.

The biggest lesson I learned from the experience was that I needed to involve more of the

symbolic leadership frame (Bolman & Gallos, 2011) into my work. As I articulated earlier,

vision is an important aspect of leadership. I had a vision for the event, but I realized at the time

that conveying this vision did not come easily to me. I had to figure out how to share my vision

with the team so that their tasks were not just disparate items that needed to be completed but

vital components of a cohesive experience. Not only did I need to provide vision for the

objective needs of the various pieces, but I also needed to provide vision for the idea and feel of

the event. I needed to set the tone, speak to both the head and the heart, “express the intangible

through the concrete” (Bolman & Gallos, 2011, p. 110). I can recall many meetings in which I

was trying to explain why someone’s ideas for decorations or food did not fit with what I had in

mind for the ceremony.

Related to this, what I did not learn then but I realize in looking back is that part of

empowering the team should have been involving them more in creating a shared vision for the

event. Then it would not have just been my vision but our vision. I think it would have been


easier to communicate the vision if we had built it together. My role would have been less about

transmitting the ideas than reminding everyone along the way.

Overall, the leadership experience was a success, both because SOAR turned out well

and because we worked well as a team in creating the event. There were a number of snags

along the way—I will never forget scrambling the morning of SOAR trying to figure out how to

coax dozens of stargazer lilies to open up for our centerpieces. The team used creativity (warm

sugar water and sunlight for the lilies) to tackle the obstacles, and I felt that everyone was on

board, invested and committed to our success. We also were able to build traditions that have

continued for years after. Operating from a human resources frame allowed me to ensure that we

accomplished what we needed to while ensuring that people were cared for and included.

My own experiences with leadership have helped me understand that whichever

framework a leader operates from, leadership hinges on relationships, and our movements in

relation to each other—that is, our movements toward change—depend on leadership. A vision

of change is central in order for leaders to be effective, and they also need to know themselves

and know their groups to work toward their vision. All these factors stand independent of a

requirement for positional leadership, which helps me to understand myself as a leader no matter

my circumstances. I have learned how my leadership is influenced by my core and social

identities and how those have influenced my adoption of a primarily human resources frame of

leadership. My care for others and motivation for change are central to how I lead and provide

the inspiration and motivation to move forward.


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