weLEAD Online Magazine

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weLEAD Leadership Series

Exclusive interview with Dr. J. Howard Baker

Interviewed by Greg Thomas

Dr. J. Howard Baker was the monthly guest writer of weLEAD Online Magazine in 2001. He is Assistant Professor of Computer Information Systems at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Dr. Baker has been a Franklin Covey 7 Habits of Highly Effective People certified facilitator for eight years, and has served the University of Texas at Tyler as their facilitator for four years. During the summer he offers a graduate and undergraduate course at U. T. Tyler in personal and organizational leadership. He holds a B.S. in Management from Samford University, a Master of Accounting (MAcc) from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Texas at Arlington.

An index of all of Dr. Baker’s 2001 weLEAD articles can be found here!

Howard, thank you so much for your monthly articles in each of the 2001 issues of weLEAD Online Magazine. Your articles generated more comments than any other contributing author! What experiences have led you to become so passionate about leadership?

I wish I had a simple answer to this question! Over a period of many years I began to awaken to the fact that something was very wrong with the way I saw bosses and leaders behave. I observed that many were more concerned with serving themselves and those above them in the hierarchy than their customers, students, or employees. Many were into power and status, pursuing self-interest over service. At times this was also connected with unethical behavior. For about the first four decades of my life I just assumed that this was the way things had to be. Then I experienced a metanoia (a shift of mind). As Peter Senge (primary author of The Fifth Discipline, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, The Dance of Change, and Schools That Learn ) says, “To grasp the meaning of ‘metanoia’ is to grasp the deeper meaning of ‘learning.’” Senge says that through real learning we re-create ourselves. That is what took place in my life beginning about twelve years ago, and I have been constantly re-creating myself ever since.

The writings of two individuals triggered my metanoia about twelve years ago—Robert Greenleaf and Stephen Covey. Robert Greenleaf was the first to have a powerful influence on me. I saw an advertisement by The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership (www.greenleaf.org) in a magazine and sent away for The Servant As Leader, The Institution As Servant, and Teacher As Servant. As I read, I realized that I had finally discovered the more noble way of leading that I had been longing for! About that same time, a close friend of mine introduced me to Stephen Covey’s Principle-Centered Leadership. I can’t express in words how powerfully that book struck home. I actually read Principle-Centered Leadership before reading Covey’s #1 bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Both of these authors had a profound impact on my thinking about leadership and the use of power. I continued to learn more about leadership, and by 1993 I became a certified facilitator of the Franklin Covey 7 Habits of Highly Effective People seminar.

During this same period of time I was completing my Ph.D. I had a deep interest in the use of the computer to facilitate learning. This interest in computers and cognition led to my selection of a dissertation subject that focused on the use of hypertext, electronic document search, just-in-time learning, and case-based reasoning. The research was highly interdisciplinary, drawing from a number of disciplines as diverse as information systems, general semantics, linguistics, ethics, and systems theory.

I was extremely fortunate to have the guidance of Dr. Lawrence L. Schkade (pronounced Scottie), Jenkins Garrett Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington (http://www.uta.edu/infosys/faculty/schkade.htm) as my doctoral chair. Dr. Schkade was both my friend and mentor. His doctoral class on Systems Concepts (INSY 6301) opened up a whole new world to me. I learned about general systems theory, sociotechnical systems issues, and systems thinking. This prepared me well for my dissertation research. I was also greatly helped in formulating my research question and approach by three eminent scholars at the University of Texas at Austin—Dr. George P. Huber, Dr. David A. Schkade, and Dr. Urton L. Anderson. I was also fortunate to have the opportunity to personally discuss many of my ideas with Ted Nelson, the father of hypertext, at a NASA hypertext conference at the Clearlake campus of the University of Houston.

In 1990 Peter Senge (MIT) published The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, which was the first in what has become the Fifth Discipline Resource Book series from Doubleday/Currency. In it he describes five learning disciplines: personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, team learning and systems thinking. Senge describes systems thinking as the fifth discipline. It is the discipline that “integrates the other disciplines, fusing them into a coherent body of theory and practice.”

About nine years ago I began putting all the pieces together. The pieces included the writings of Greenleaf and Covey, my dissertation research, systems thinking, and a fascination with the “deeper meaning of learning” as described by Peter Senge. As I was completing my Ph.D. dissertation, Dr. Schkade gave me this charge: “Howard, go and teach people how to think.” I took that as meaning that I had finally learned something about how to think. He knew that I had come to understand the importance of systems thinking, and that as a teacher I should continue to help others learn how to learn and how to think. That has become one of my life’s missions, and I have been passionate about it.

I know you are an avid reader and enjoy "mining" great leadership concepts and principles from others. Are there one or two particular individuals who have most influenced your enthusiastic study of this subject?

You are correct in saying I love to read books and articles on a variety of subjects that touch on leadership, including personal and organizational learning, knowledge management, organizational culture, and systems thinking. I find it impossible to just list one or two. So many authors have had a powerful influence on my life. Besides Greenleaf, Covey and Senge, I believe the following authors have had an important influence on my thinking:

Peter Block, Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest
Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence
Dee Hock, Birth of the Chaordic Age
Tony Buzon, Using Both Sides of Your Brain
Michael Gelb, Thinking for a Change
Edgar Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership
John van Gigch, Applied General Systems Theory
Kevin and Jackie Freiberg, NUTS! Southwest Airline’s Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal

Success

In most of your weLEAD articles you wrote about servant-leadership. Can you give us a good basic definition of servant-leadership and why it differs from what is commonly called leadership philosophy in the modern world?

In describing servant-leadership to another, it must be recognized that the listener is always filtering and interpreting what is being said based on his or her current worldview. For a better understanding of this phenomenon I suggest that the reader see my article entitled Is Servant Leadership Part of Your Worldview? (weLEAD, January 2001). I think the most succinct way I can describe a servant-leader is that it is a leader who is caring and works very hard! No matter what the particular leader’s style, you know that he or she really cares about you. A servant-leader leads by example and persuasion rather than coercion. The most important characteristic is that the servant-leader truly listens. Servant-leaders view their role as a stewardship role, and they feel a sense of responsibility for things beyond their control. Greenleaf said that servant leadership is about helping the people around you to grow as persons, to be healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, and more likely themselves to become servants. Servant leaders facilitate the growth of others along a maturity continuum—to greater and greater levels of maturity.

I know that due to other opportunities you will be unable to write for every issue of weLEAD this coming year. However, we do have some great news for our readers! You have been asked to become the Editor of a brand new section of the weLEAD web site called "weLEAD in Learning". Tell us about the vision of this new project and why there is such a pressing need for it.

I am very excited about the opportunity to be named the Editor of this new section of weLEAD called weLEAD in Learning. I believe that there is no better time to begin this project than the present!

Learning is both deeply personal and at the same time intrinsically social. Learning not only connects us to knowledge, but to each other. Real, deep learning involves both mind and heart. It involves both the accumulation of knowledge and the ability to use that knowledge. It involves both study and practice.

Learning organizations are very different from controlling bureaucracies. They have a culture of respect, dignity, and compassion. Our work should not only be a place where we make a living, but where we have a life! It should be a place to learn, create, contribute and have fun.

I see the mission of weLEAD in Learning to provide a unique web-based resource addressing all aspects of learning. In effect, weLEAD in Learning can be viewed as the 21^st century genome project for learning! We intend to research and document personal and organizational learning using state-of-the-art hypertext and electronic document tools.

The weLEAD in Learning web site will address learning organizations of all kinds—learning schools, learning classrooms, learning communities, learning families, and learning businesses and nonprofit organizations. The web site will focus on both theory and practice connected with all five learning disciplines identified by Peter Senge. It will integrate this with the thinking of Greenleaf, Covey, and many others.

I envision the weLEAD in Learning project as an opportunity to pioneer using hypertext and electronic document technology to facilitate learning about learning, including a case data base related to personal and organizational learning. One important aspect of this project is to develop a taxonomy of personal and organizational learning along with a bibliography on learning.

The goal of weLEAD in Learning is to publish material that will not only be of interest to educators, but also to parents, community leaders, business leaders and others interested in issues of personal and organizational learning. In addition to book reviews, articles, and other helpful material on learning, there will be ongoing research about the effectiveness of the web site itself and how technology can improve learning about learning. Scholarly papers will be sought and blind reviewed. Those selected will be published in weLEAD in Learning.

The initial publication of this web site will take several months. In the interim, we will be publishing monthly status reports in weLEAD to let our readers know what is happening and what they can look forward to once the web site is launched. Rather than having an on-line magazine format, the new project will be an ever-increasing web of knowledge about learning. Our hope is that it will continue to grow indefinitely, adding new material and implementing new technology as it becomes available.

How can our readers help to support weLEAD in Learning?

I would love to receive feedback about the proposed mission of weLEAD in Learning. Comments, ideas and technical suggestions will be greatly appreciated. In status reports to be published over the next several months I will ask questions and seek feedback from our readers to help us launch the project. Also, those who would like to write book reviews, submit scholarly papers, write cases, or become a reviewer of such papers and cases should contact me at jhb001@juno.com.

Thanks Howard!

Comments to: jhb001@juno.com

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