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March 2006 Editorial

Defining Leadership as a Process

Shannon Flumerfelt, PhD.

Editor of the E-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership

How does one define leadership? Over the years authors have tried to do so to such an extent that there are currently over 350 widely accepted definitions of the term, some describing behaviors, traits or characteristics, others describing practices, approaches or styles. Warren Bennis, noted leadership expert, explains, “For all the ink it gets in scholarly, business, and popular journals, leadership remains an elusive concept.” ¹ Defining leadership on a pragmatic level proves difficult, as Wilmore and Cornell found. They examined the status of school leadership and discovered that administrators often operate under “idealized conceptions of what principals should be like rather than on-the-job performance within given circumstances.”² Their study reinforces the problems inherent in defining leadership in that it shows that leadership conceptualizations are disconnected from leadership practice.

While not easily defined, one point is very clear regarding leadership—effective leaders are needed. Consistent evidence emerges regarding this demand for leadership and the new dimensions of leadership that are necessary for effectiveness. Van Wart states, “Leadership is difficult in all eras, to be sure, but it seems that today's leaders face additional challenges.”³ Friedman explains how this has occurred, “The underlying structure of the global economy is shifting, bringing with it a bewildering array of unprecedented challenges that require a new kind of leadership.”⁴ Brown describes specifically that standard leadership development practices no longer suffice and that leaders need to be trained in new ways, “Fundamentally, different leaders are required for the modern world of business and at the moment, the system isn’t delivering.”⁵ In a recent webcast sponsored by The New York Times, Erik Peterson, Senior Vice President at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, vision casts seven global drivers of change through the year 2025, identified by a non-partisan think tank, the Seven Revolutions Initiative. Interestingly, he both prefaced and summarized his presentation by describing the importance of understanding the new definition of leadership in the global context of change. Peterson focused on three main concerns regarding leadership: the need for leaders to develop cooperation across multiple layers of multiple organizations, the cost of increasing pressure and responsibilities leaders face through real time decision making, and the rapidly growing demand for organizations to plan strategically. Peterson further analyzed the costs and benefits of the hyper-pace of change leaders face as both “promise and peril” and expressed concern that those in leadership may abdicate sustaining and authentic organizational practices in place of short-term approaches. His concerns revolve around an undermining of leadership that occurs when management practices are relied upon.⁶

An interesting phenomenon in regard to defining this new leadership is based on developments in how it is conceptualized. The conceptualization of leadership is moving away from checklists of attributes to more systemic descriptions of process oriented elements. This includes leadership being described as a learning process, such as with breakthrough and transformational leadership. As descriptions of process thinking about leadership are presented, a relationship between holistic development and learning surfaces. Kedro defines how the process of breakthrough leadership occurs, “Breaking Through occurs when you grasp the significance and interconnectedness of the whole.” ⁷ In other words, when the leader has gathered enough organizational information and experience, an understanding of the system emerges. Kanungo describes transformational leadership in a similar way, “Transformational leaders have an organic worldview . . . .” ⁸ This means that the leader is developing a living definition of the broadest possible context in which she/he operates. Prabhakar presents an interesting mixed methods study of transformational leadership. He observed 153 projects studied in 28 nations and found that transformational leaders are continually engaged in a community building process that helps employees to understand the big picture better. Prabhakar commented, "The transformational leader builds relationships with followers through interactive communication, which forms a cultural bond between two participants and leads to a shifting of values by both parties toward common ground.”⁹ Prabhakar’s explanation paints a picture of a leader working on process on several levels simultaneously, creating organizational knowledge, values and culture with stakeholders.

Defining leadership from a systems view provides more sophisticated options for understanding it better in the future. Process thinking about leadership allows for enriched understandings through the examination of multiple elements at a time; consideration of how different elements interact and interrelate; identification of what hierarchies, inputs and feedback relationships might exist with those elements; and understanding what the scope and sequence of process interactions are. Several authors have done research on leadership from this systems view. For example the work of Barbuto and Burbach highlights how informative process thinking can be in understanding leadership. They examined the theory of transformational leadership as it relates to emotional intelligence theory. As they state, “Despite the popularity of transformational leadership in the research literature, researchers know much more about its outcomes than about its antecedents.” ¹⁰ Using both self-reported and others’-reported data, their study challenges some previous ideas about the relationship of transformational leadership to emotional intelligence. They found that leaders who demonstrated less mood regulation (more mood regulation is considered a desired behavior of emotional intelligence), enjoyed higher levels of authenticity with peers. Another surprising finding was that leaders with high levels of self-awareness (another desired behavior of emotional intelligence) felt less effective as transformational leaders in terms of inspirational motivation. In other words, where a positive relationship between all elements of emotional intelligence and transformational leadership were believed to exist based on traits, this study uncovered different findings when leadership was examined more systemically.

As the complexity of leadership is better understood through systems thinking and process-based analysis, interdependent relationships can be researched and new insights developed. Perhaps when our understanding of effective leadership is pushed to new horizons, then the essence of leadership can be defined. This is a critical issue as we face a growing need for changing leadership practice. If leadership can be more clearly understood, even if the definition is more complex, then leaders can be properly trained to effectively practice in a changing world.

References:

¹Bennis, W. (1999). The leadership advantage. Leader to Leader, 12. Retrieved March 1, 2006, from http://www.pfdf.org/leaderbooks/l2l/spring99/bennis.html

²Wilmore, E. & Cornell, T. (2001). The new century: Is it too late for transformational leadership? [Electronic version]. Educational Horizons, 79(3), 115-23.

³Van Wart, M. (2003). Public-sector leadership theory: An assessment [Electronic version]. Public Administration Review 63(2), 214-28.

⁴Friedman, S. D. (2001). What is it about leadership? [Electronic version]. Training and Development, 55 (3), 21-45.

⁵Brown, D. (2003). Fast-trackers can lack ethics, vision [Electronic version]. Canadian HR Reporter, 16(8), 1-2.

⁶Peterson, E. (2006, March). Scanning the Future. Webcast presentation sponsored by The New York Times, American Association of State Colleges and Universities, Society for College and University Planning. Service delivery provided by KRM Information Services, Inc.

⁷Kedro, M. J. (2004). Leading schools to higher plateaus – part 2. weLead Online Magazine. Retrieved February 17, 2006, from http://www.leadingtoday.org/Onmag/2004%20Archives/feb04/mk-feb04.html

⁸Kanungo, R. N. (2001). Ethical values of transactional and transformational leaders [Electronic version]. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 18(4), 257-265.

⁹Prabhakar, G. P. (2005). An empirical study reflecting the importance of transformational leadership on project success across twenty-eight nations [Electronic version]. Project Management Journal 36(4) 53-60.

¹⁰Barbuto, J. E. & Burbach, M. E. (2006). The emotional intelligence of transformational leaders: A field study of elected officials [Electronic version]. The Journal of Social Psychology, 146(1), 51-64.

Comments to: flumerfe@leadingtoday.org

About the author:

Shannon Flumerfelt, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Oakland University. Previously, she worked in public school administration and teaching, which included leadership development initiatives, restructuring schools with the Coalition of Essential Schools’ principles and other various change issues related to traditionally-based settings. Her scholarly interests include organizational leadership change and development and technology.