VISIONARY LEADERSHIP: A PATH TOWARD ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS AND SELF-DEVELOPMENT IN ACADEMIA
Héctor López
INTRODUCTION
The 1990s was the ‘decade of the leader,’ a theme that continues today as the second decade of the twenty-first century moves forward. Nationally, we seem to be looking for the hero who can turn us around, establish a new direction, and pull us through tough and difficult times. Organizations are searching for visionary leaders—people who, by the strength of their personalities, can bring about a major organizational transformation. We hear calls for charismatic, transformational, transitional, and visionary leadership. Innumerable individuals charge that the problems with the U.S. economy, poor organizational productivity, lost ground in worldwide competitive markets, and lost reputation in higher education performance, are largely a function of poor management and the lack of good organizational leadership.
In fall 2011, the Center for Teaching & Learning and the Office of Academic Affairs hosted and moderated a Professional Development Workshop on Leadership through a discussion of The 360° Leader (Maxwell, 2005). Of importance is that the workshop and discussion that ensued is, by extension, applicable to current day organizational demands placed on leaders and the linked managerial responsibility, a fundamental element of leadership. This article will address some of the concepts and comments raised during the workshop. It is not an attempt to trivialize the excellent leadership concepts presented and discussed during the workshop, but rather a thoughtful and challenging look at this concept identified as “leadership.”
LEADERSHIP
Leadership is an easy concept to define but a difficult one to study and understand. It is easy to define since, by basic definition, leadership means influencing others to work willingly toward achieving objectives. What makes leadership a challenging concept to master, on the other hand, is the need to understand a variety of leadership theories, and to translate them into leadership skills through application and practice. Such concepts as power, traits or attributes, structure, consideration and participation, among others, have a major impact on how leaders act like leaders. Leadership knowledge is only part of what an individual need to have in order to be a leader.
A summary review of literature on leadership (Buckingham, 2005; Collins, 2001; Kouzes & Posner, 1995, 1993; Lawler, 2003; Pierce & Newstrom, 2008) indicates that leadership is a much more difficult matter these days than it once was. The world is much more complex and confusing. A different kind of work force and the information revolution brought about by technology calls for a different type of leadership as organizations continue to adapt to the internal and external competitive demands of the new millennium. Traditional methods of leadership were designed for supervision of factory workers—they emphasized regularity, measurement, orderly appearance, predictability, and control (Zand,1997). In the 1970s and 1980s, employees were being told what to do and given a lot of guidance. Today, an organization’s workforce is more ‘internally driven.’ Now they are told ‘this is where we are going,’ and they figure out for themselves how to get there. This sense of freedom about what they can do gives people a greater sense of control over their working life, and impact their sense of success in the work environment. It is also carried over into their personal life and well-being.
In addition, the work environment is changing at an accelerated rate, as witnessed by shorter product life cycles as organizations rush to get their products to market, experience intensified competition, and realize corporate globalization (Friedman, 2005). This scenario makes the present style of leadership—one person at the top of the management hierarchy—increasingly counterproductive.
How do today’s new leaders and leadership researchers define leadership? Definitely it is not seen as something that you do to employees in terms of the autocratic (one person) style of leadership, or for employees in a benevolent kind of way in terms of a democratic style of leadership, or even the far end of the spectrum or continuum laissez-faire (free-rein) leadership. A leader is no longer seen as someone carrying the leadership banner at the head of the pack, but more a human relations expert knowledgeable in diversity and adept at bringing diverse people together, sensitive to their needs, and of their capabilities and of a mission. The word “leader” has increasingly been used to mean a person with a vision, someone who initiates changes that anticipate future threats and opportunities and who inspires others to follow.
Experts on management and leadership management believe that leadership is not rank, privileges, titles, or money. They submit that leadership is responsibility. Others assert that the leader is clearly one who has the visionary attributes to envision the future and what the journey is going to be like. If this person creates that visual impression for people and sets performance standards along the way, then people will know that they are doing a good job and that they are achieving the success that’s envisioned for them and the organization. This article will address visionary leadership and the practice or process of inspiring a shared vision—envisioning a future and enlisting others in a common cause.
Some people are more skilled at executing directives and some people are more skilled at motivating and creating synergy among their employees. Some are very sincere, very concerned about people and how people react to changes in the work environment. They are demanding but not autocratic and yet get the job done. Yet, organizations have been operating under very difficult conditions that may be characterized as warfare, e.g., dynamic change, crises, urgency, uncertainty, and chaos. In many situations, technology and global competition has created the need for, and in some cases demanded, a restructuring of the organization as exemplified by such paradigms as restructuring, reengineering, downsizing, correct-sizing, and reorganization. The consequence is a flat borderless world and a borderless economy, where leaders are those who embrace major change and capitalize on opportunities and increased competition. Given this environment, what are the challenges for leaders?
CURRENT LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES
Today, leaders must face and deal with constantly accelerating change. There is no getting around it. The constant demand for more information and the in- formation revolution brought about by the advent of the personal computer has added to this urgency. Given the information and the tools required, people expect things to get done at a faster rate. Globalization has added to this vicious circle, as organizations establish strategic alliances to compete more effectively in the global economy as a means of strategic positioning or survival in the marketplace.
Technological change, innovation, and the implementation of new technologies in higher education, require leaders to view technology as a tool that can make things possible, and embrace its potential in enhancing course technology applications, i.e., Smart Rooms, Blackboard, Skype, iPad’s, etc., under the umbrella of web-facilitated, blended/hybrid, or online environments. Leaders must also be able to deal with the unexpected and unintended consequences of technology that may affect the learning environment. Finally, shifts in faculty composition in terms of diversity requires leaders that are good listeners and respect and understand their people, and where the other person is coming from.
SOME THOUGHTS ON BECOMING A LEADER
Presently we accept the fact that the workforce is rapidly becoming increasingly diversified. For many individuals, becoming a leader is a process of transformation that in many cases may be necessitated by changes in the work environment. This transformation requires the leader to be completely responsible for the decisions that need to be made, and the consequences of those decisions. Yet, this transformation is not easy. Whether we want to accept it or not, becoming a leader is hard work, and being a leader may be even more difficult.
Managers need to demonstrate the qualities that define leadership, such as integrity, character, vision, fortitude, passion, sensitivity, commitment, insight, emotional and moral intelligence, ethical standards, charisma, luck, courage, tenacity, and even, from time to time, humility (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2002; McGaughey, 1992; Lennick & Kiel, 2005; Teal, 1996). In addition, Dean (2006) asserts that being a leader requires a complicated host of attributes. Among them:
Self-awareness—the leader requires a clear understanding of his/her own personal, internal core. They need to spend creative time analyzing themselves, reflecting on what’s important, staying focused, making choices about who they are and how they behave, understanding where their ego starts and stops, and where it’s usefully employed or when it’s best to sublimate it to some extent.
The ability to embrace and handle change, uncertainty, chaos, and ambiguity by being decisive and self-confident—the essential focus here is flexibility. Failure to adapt to change will create immense problems for an organization. The new challenge for leadership is to help organizations remain flexible, and still maintain a sense of community, of togetherness, where individuals feel like they can come and contribute.
Having a vision of where the organization is going—leaders must have a vision that can help channel the decisions that are made for the organization. They must also be able to articulate that vision, and able to convince others to share their vision. While the vision itself may not be totally clear, followers who have faith in their leader will help the person in charge clarify the possibilities.
A clear set of values—leadership grows out of a set of values held by the leader. Essential among them are integrity, credibility, fairness, and having a good work ethic.
A desire to serve those you lead - referred to as ‘servant leadership by Greenleaf (2002), this attribute may evolve over time as the leader matures and develops a philosophy of responsibility to be successful and to move the organization forward.
Openness—a leader must have the ability to synthesize the thinking and contributions of others. They must be able to proactively invite and encourage people’s thinking, be open to change, and initiate appropriate action toward achieving organizational goals—present and future.
Trustworthiness—leaders earn trust when it’s clear they are not out to dictatorially manage their followers. There is impartiality inherent in the word ‘trust.’ Also, an unwritten understanding that the leader will make decisions that benefit all members of the organization.
LEADER CHARACTERISTICS AND THE NEW CONSTITUENTS
Based on extensive studies conducted and data collected by Kouzes and Posner (1995) during the 1980s and early 1990s, twenty characteristics of admired leaders were identified. From this list, four major characteristics were identified as of primary importance for constituents: honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and competent. It should be noted that constituents today are more educated, demanding, have more leisure time available to them, and may not be as loyal to their organization as previous constituents. Add to this the change in the composition of the workforce (i.e., ‘workforce diversity’) and the need for workforce development and we get an excellent perspective of the basic challenges facing leaders today.
Leaders must understand the various constituents with whom they work. This requires the ability to appraise accurately the readiness or resistance of followers willing to move in a given direction; to know when dissension or confusion is under- mining the group’s will to act; to make the most of the motives that are there; and to truly understand the sensitivities that permeate the work environment.
LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE- ON BECOMING A VISIONARY LEADER
Certain requirements are popularly identified as requisites for leadership. The most common is that leaders must have vision, which can mean a variety of things: that they can think long-term; that they see where their system fits in a larger con- text; that they can describe the outlines of a possible future that motivates people; or that they actually are able to establish the elements that determine what is to come. Gardner (1990) asserts that “with respect to some things, the future announces itself from afar…but most people are not listening...leaders who have the wit to perceive and the courage to act will be credited with a gift for prophecy that they do not necessarily have” (p. 131).
The secret to leadership rests in applying the concepts of visionary leadership for survival, growth and excellence, and contribution to the community in terms of social responsibility, outreach programs, and global citizenship. However, this can only be realized when constituents buy into the process.
How does vision work? According to Nanus (1992), the right vision (a) at- tracts commitment and energizes people, (b) creates meaning in constituents’ lives,
establishes a standard of excellence and (d) bridges the present and the future. The job of the visionary leader? Be a direction setter, change agent, spokesperson and coach. Heller (1995) describes a process for developing a vision (a ‘vision primer’ if you may) that consists of four stages:
What is my vision of the future?
If my vision succeeds, how will I differ
to my stakeholders?
to my customers?
in my internal management processes?
in my ability to innovate and grow?
What are the critical success factors (on each of the four above counts)?
What are the critical measurements (again on the four counts)?
The process is an ideal tool for auditing and evaluating your fundamental position on visionary leadership prior to proceeding to a full-fledged modification of your leadership style.
Kouzes and Posner (1995) also offer that a shared goal is a commitment to “envision an uplifting and ennobling future, and enlist others in a common vision by appealing to their values, interests, hopes and dreams” (p.171). On the other hand, Covey (2004) points out that a shared vision represents a “win-win” performance agreement, where both parties share a common vision based on common principles, liberates both parties to do what they must do—the worker to get the job done and the leader to be a source of help, a servant. A visionary leader is then seen as one who can develop a unique vision that attracts commitment, inspires people, revitalizes organizations, and mobilizes the resources needed to turn vision into reality.
Other steps that can be implemented to become a visionary leader, and used as a process for self-development, include but are not limited to the following: First, start by learning everything you can about your organization and similar organizations in terms of strengths and weaknesses, challenges and opportunities. Bring your constituents into the envisioning process over a period of time, and keep an open mind. Second, conduct an audit in terms of a clearly stated vision. Third, analyze your constituents and their needs. Who are the most critical constituents and their major interests? Fourth, target your vision—what critical issues must be addressed? Fifth, develop futuristic thinking by setting a timeline or horizon to reduce the likelihood of unpleasant surprises. Sixth, identify important future developments in terms of major changes that can be expected in the organizational environment, internal and external. Finally, assess the significance and probabilities of future developments by building scenarios and drawing conclusions.
By combining these action-steps for envisioning an uplifting and ennobling future, and enlisting others in a common vision by appealing to their values, interests, hopes, and dreams, we will be using Dean’s seven steps (2006) to become a ‘visionary leader’—a path toward organizational and self-development. Taken together, these commitments form the wave that will carry the visionary leader on the journey to making a difference. How the leader personally or operationally adjusts to this new orientation or style is part of the ‘leadership challenge.’
We cannot leave visionary leadership without a reference to ‘power.’ Power and the requisite leadership traits are not sufficient for successful leadership—visionary or any other. They are only a foundation, a precondition. If you have the traits and you have the power, then you have the potential to be a leader (Zand, 1997). To make this potential a reality, the leader must also have the skills to pro- vide a vision and engage in the behavior required to implement that vision (Dessler, 1998). In other words, the leader must be forward-looking (‘intuit’ the future) and be adept at developing a shared sense of destiny among the constituents.
THE ART OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT: MASTERING LEARNING AND EXISTING KNOWLEDGE
For an organization to improve, its leaders must learn from the organization’s errors. Poor leaders say they want to improve performance but, curiously enough, suppress the knowledge they need, become defensive when attempting to solve problems or improve performance. Poor leaders are inept at investigating deficiencies in a way that helps people learn and improve. They may make constituents fear that they will be punished if they reveal deficiencies; that is ‘they shoot the bearer of bad news,’ (Kellerman, 2004). Examples of negative elements in the work environment include, among others, lapses of ethical conduct at the highest levels of the organization without counteractive action being initiated, hostile work environment, un- healthy working conditions, and discriminatory and abusive management practices. Effective visionary leaders open the flow of information by acting as teachers, planting ideas and nurturing them. They learn by finding and capitalizing on knowledge, and their learning becomes the foundation for successful change and improvement, both personal and organizational.
Leadership development is a process that extends over many years. It calls for repeated assessments and repeated opportunities for learning, and for training and tackling challenges. Some leadership characteristics cannot be learned from others. As previously stated, becoming a leader is a process of transformation and accepting responsibility for the decisions that must be made. Decision making is the cornerstone or foundation of leadership. The essential element here is that some individuals may not have or identify with the complicated and demanding host of attributes required in leadership, i.e., the ability to implement change, dealing with uncertainty, chaos and ambiguity, having a clear set of values, accepting responsibility, and being open and trustworthy. Inclusive is the fact that becoming a leader is hard work and carrying out the responsibilities of leadership may be even more difficult for some more than others.
At some time or other, there is a trial by fire and you have to navigate through the fire. Unfortunately, too many so-called ‘leaders,’ visionary or otherwise, have not confronted this rite of passage. The critical element of visionary leadership lies in monitoring change, making the necessary corrections based on effective feedback, and knowing when to initiate a new vision-forming process. However, all these efforts on the part of the person in charge will not make it happen without credibility.
CREDIBILITY-A KEY REQUIREMENT
Constituents choose to follow leaders who are honest, competent, forward- looking, and inspiring. Constituents choose to commit to leaders they find credible. Credibility, seen as a human approach to leadership, is characterized by honesty, sensitivity to diversity, and the need for community. It also calls for respect and loyalty. A leader must put into practice six key disciplines to strengthen their capacity for developing and sustaining credibility (Kouzes & Posner, 1993):
self-discovery by first clarifying their values and standards;
appreciating the values and desires of their constituents;
affirming shared values by honoring the diversity of their constituents;
developing the capacity of their constituents to keep their commitments;
serving a purpose through servant leadership not self-serving leadership; and
sustaining hope by projecting energy, enthusiasm, inspiration, and optimism—proactive and compassionate leadership.
Credibility is rooted in the past. It is directly linked with reputation—and credibility, like reputation, is something that is earned over time; it does not come automatically with the job or the title—it begins early in our lives and careers with our personal values and integrity.
LEADERSHIP TODAY
There is a wealth of resources on leadership. Thousands of studies have been conducted and articles written on a multitude of facets about leadership. Equally as well, hundreds of books on leadership have been printed - from thought-provoking and useful guides to self-development to technical ‘how to’ guides. Management has moved or progressed from the age of management giants, e.g., John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford, to the age of Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Jobs’Apple. Moreover, we have witnessed an era of excellence populated by efficiency experts, e.g., Tom Peters (2010), as well as the era of total quality management (TQM) (Deming, 2000). We have seen command-and-control practitioners (‘lead, follow, or get out of the way’); micro-managers; management by fear; management by objectives (MBO); management by walking around (MBWA); transformational leadership; situational leadership; and participatory management. As we navigate the 21st century, ‘relationship management’ has become the new leadership focus (Pierce & Newstrom, 2008).
LEADERSHIP-21St CENTURY STYLE
Today, leaders in organizations are ignoring the fads and are practicing the basics - respect, trust, vision, listening, feeling the pulse of the environment, and managing proactively with a higher degree of self-confidence. Generally, in basic courses of business management or administration, academics teach that the basic principles of management (planning, organizing, directing, and controlling) are universal, that is, they can be applied to any type of organization—private, public, for-profit, and non-profit alike. The same can be said for the basics of leadership— they are enduring. The major thesis of current research on leadership is that what changes are the challenges. What is required of a leader is a fundamental focus on these basics as they confront the challenges that are evolving today and that will continue to evolve in the years ahead.
Being a visionary leader means taking the steps required to boost your effectiveness at filling the leader’s role. No specific prescription, however, can guarantee that you will become a visionary leader or a successful leader at that. How can one meet this challenge?
The key strategy in developing and fine-tuning the traits and behaviors you will exhibit as a visionary leader is lifelong learning. Leaders need to formulate and continually revise their vision of the organization’s goals and strategies in a changing environment. To really succeed, visionary leaders need to be life-long learners who skillfully and continually encourage their people to learn. In essence, the leader’s new role is to help constituents learn by getting the organization into a learning mode. Effective leaders need to learn how to learn, and renew their knowledge if they are to avoid irrelevant or obsolete information that undermines their organization. Part of the leader’s task is to “develop what is naturally there but in need of cultivation” (Gardner, 1990, p. 157).
Implemented properly, lifelong learning can provide the visionary leader with a focus on extensive continuing training and self-development, and advanced decision-making techniques throughout the leader’s career. Lifelong learning can enable the visionary leader to develop, adapt to, and see an enhanced possibility of fulfilling their potential in an ever-changing work environment. In visionary leadership, the highest priority is on learning how to learn. Nanus (1992) offers that “visionary leaders are virtual learning machines, skilled at accumulating ideas and knowledge from a great variety of sources and putting them together in novel ways to discern new patterns and directions” (p. 182). Again, the emphasis is on the importance of lifelong learning as a tool for self-development. He presents the following relation- ships as the formulas for visionary leadership:
Vision + Communication = Shared Purpose
Shared Purpose + Empowered People + Appropriate Organizational Changes +Strategic Thinking = Successful Visionary Leadership
Success as a visionary leader will be measured by the effectiveness of the vision in moving the organization forward. Within this context, the formulas are not a prescription, but rather a process.
CONCLUSION
The need for visionary leadership in academia today is critical. Standards in education are constantly shifting and, regardless of our philosophical or educational orientation, there seems to be a social movement in progress toward an elitist agenda for higher education. For example, there have been few periods in the long history of established colleges and universities when the imperative to innovate and to re-de- fine mission statements and visions for the future has not played an important part. Perhaps most important, the nature of knowledge has been profoundly changing to the extent that the rapidly changing character of knowledge - both in and out of the workplace—makes necessary a new approach to research, teaching, and learning.
The challenge for leadership is how to keep getting extraordinary things done in organizations. The most effective leaders use a mosaic of approaches, skillfully switching between vital components of leadership depending on their analysis of the situation. Whatever the nature of the organization, the first step rests in challenging the process, a change in the status quo. The latter requires envisioning the future and sharing that vision with the constituents. The objective is to make a difference as a leader. And visionary leaders can make a difference. If you want to have a significant impact on people, on communities, and on organizations, you need to invest in learning to become the very best leader you can. Warren Bennis (Bennis & Nanus, 2003) puts it very succinctly:
Constant change disturbs most leaders and managers. It always has; it always will. But visionary leaders recognize that they—and we—are all children of chaos. Thus they disrupt the status quo, challenge the gospel, and disequilibrate the system in the interest of effecting change that ultimately benefits us all. (p. xiv)
That is what vision is and why it matters. Practicing visionary leadership re- quires people to demonstrate on an everyday basis the collective skills of Peter the Great, the Great Houdini, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
The greatest challenge to the leader of the future is to make the future a reality. The challenge is all the greater because organizations themselves are on the firing line. Leaders are on the firing line. Visionary leaders build resonance by moving people towards the organization’s goals and exhibiting an unwavering resolve. Visionary leadership is a must.
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