Leadership: Toward a Visionary Approach
By
Richard D. Young
Introduction
Leadership is an important part of the human condition. It has been an indispensable and necessary factor in defining civilization through the ages. To understand the past, one studies the leaders who have shaped history. The present is comprehended by looking backwards at great and small leaders, and by examining leaders of today who influence the lives of trillions. Interestingly enough, but quite logically, people look to today’s leaders for what lies ahead. The vision of these contemporary leaders, it is believed, holds the keys to the future. Individuals look to these leaders and their visions of tomorrow in hope of better and more satisfying lives, not simply for themselves, but for their children and future generations to come.
As leadership is of great importance and concern to humankind, then it is reasonable to desire to understand what it is. What is leadership? How do morality and the common good fit into the leadership equation? Are there cultural and environmental considerations at stake in the notion and practice of leadership? What do the experts and researchers say with regard to the differing leadership approaches? Is there a difference, a real distinction, between leadership and management? And, lastly, what is the so-called “visionary leader” that is much discussed in today’s literature?
In this monograph, answers to these vital questions will be touched upon. Based on an extensive literature review, leadership will be examined in order to provide a discussion that will encapsulate, in narrative form, what leadership is and its various distinguishing factors. Additionally, as common sense, practical experience, and the literature dictates, this narrative will place leadership plainly in the spheres of both private and public theory and practice. Nevertheless, in the spirit of public policy research and its import in everyday affairs of government, some emphasis will be placed on leadership in the public sector.
The Need for and Meaning of Leadership
According to renowned author, James MacGergor Burns (1978), in his seminal work entitled Leadership, one of the greatest needs of our times is leadership. Not just any kind of leadership, but as Burns describes it “compelling and creative leadership.” (Burns, Wren ed., 1995, p. 8).
In his criticism, Burns claims that leadership is nowadays universally mediocre, and at times, simply irresponsible. Much of this is to do with our ignorance of the meaning of leadership in modernity. In essence, we are not sure of what leadership is. Is it composed of certain traits (intellect, courage, and a willingness to accept responsibilities)? Is it behavioral, perhaps something such as using persuasion, task competence, or exhibiting confidence? As Burns (p. 9) puts it:
Is leadership simply innovation—cultural or political? Is it essentially inspiration? Mobilization of followers? Goal setting? Goal fulfillment? Is a leader a definer of values? Satisfier of needs? If leaders require followers, who leads whom from where to where, and why? How do leaders lead followers without being wholly led by followers? Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth.
But despite this sort of scholarly frustration and his unanswered questions, Burns is nevertheless hopeful that in future scholarship, through an increasing abundance of pointed research and literature, there will inevitably be a yield of positive results in both the understanding and exercise of leadership. In the late 1970s, for example, Burns points out that more than 130 varying definitions of leadership existed. Add to this sum, literally thousands of biographies, writings, and news reports of leaders, and the possibilities for a greater and more “wholistic” understanding of leadership presents themselves. Burns, believes in the decades to come, there is a possibility for what he terms “an intellectual breakthrough” in the field or study of leadership (p.10).
A little over twenty years later, now into the very beginnings of the 21st century, great strides have been made in our learning and understanding of leadership (Nanus, 1992; Hesselbein, Goldsmith, and Beckhard, 1997; Heifetz, 1998; Kotter, 1999; Harper, 2001). While by no means complete, research and literature on the subject of leadership is propelling us forward in the grasp of leadership and its many dimensions. It is a cumulative effect, however, combining older models or theories of leadership with new findings and thought. Hence, Burns’ earlier cry for leadership and its meaning is arguably being addressed in that scholars and practitioners alike have made advances and continue to move ahead with greater comprehension and realization of the term “leadership”—what it is, how it works, and where to look for it.
For instance, Stephen Harper (2001) believes and argues in his nearly 200-page book that leadership is a highly complex matter that involves several vital components. In order to be a leader, one must forge ahead with maximum creativity and vision. As Harper puts it, the “breakthrough leader” must start with ideas, take calculated risks, possess a sense of urgency, have a capacity for “turbulence,” and a bias for action (p. xiii). He offers up and discusses 12 guidelines for leading change (pp. 1-15). These include:
1)Leading change must be a way of life.
2)Leading change is as multifaceted as a diamond. (Change is constant or variant. Leading change is, as such, a many-sided and far-reaching enterprise. It requires leaders that are perceptive and favorably adaptive to change.)
3)Leading change requires commitment from all involved.
4)Leading change means “sloughing off” yesterday and today.
5)Leading change involves avoiding the “boiled frog” syndrome. (If you put a frog in a frying pan and slowly turn up the heat, the frog will not jump out but will rather fry to death. If you put a frog in boiling water, however, it will immediately jump out. Hence, if people in an organization do not sense a momentous gap between where they are and where they need to be, they will stay in their “comfort zone” and, so to speak, “get passed by,” become “obsolete,” or perhaps “perish.”)
6)Leading change must establish relevance.
7)Leading change means asking the right questions.
8)Leading change means creating early victories. (People need to see some initial evidence that a new idea is working and that it produces results).
9)Leading change means recognizing the paradox of change. (Change is again constant. Leading change means understanding that a new idea may need to be changed further along the continuum of time. Thus the “irregularity” and “capriciousness” of change.)
10)Leading change involves creating a learning organization.
11)Leading change means competing against oneself.
12)Leading change means building coalitions.
Bernard Bass, a distinguished professor and director of the Center for Leadership Studies at the State University of New York, is and remains a scholarly and prolific author of leadership and its meaning and variations. He notes, for example, that leadership is a highly complicated and modern concept, which appeared in literature in the first part of the 19th century (Bass, Wren ed., 1995, p. 37). Bass states further that today the definitions of leadership have become so pervasive that its true meaning is difficult to ascertain. He nevertheless attempts to cobble together a definition that has received plentiful attention. Bass sees leadership “as a focal point of group purposes, as a question of personality, as an actor that induces compliance, a discharge of influence, and a personification of certain key behaviors and skills.” He adds to this that leadership is also “a form of persuasion, an interactive relationship(s), and a propensity to achieve goals or bring about results.” (p. 38).
The “effective” leader is likewise defined by internationally known speaker and author Karl Albrecht (1996) in his book, Creating Leaders for Tomorrow. In this work Albrecht declares that, generally speaking, “leadership is the capability to focus human energy to achieve defined outcomes (p. 16).” Having said this, Albrecht states that additionally an effective leader, in working with others, must possess 1) vision and values, 2) direction, 3) persuasion, 4) support, 5) development, and 6) appreciation.
Briefly, for example, Albrecht says that to be a visionary, the leader must be able to see the “big picture.” This means comprehending the current overall situation and circumstances, and then deciding where to go in the future. It also means articulating the purpose and values of the organization and developing a strategy for bringing it forward. As Albrecht states further, “the leader must make these values real and compelling for others.” (pp. 23-24).
Indeed, visionary leadership is a concept that is gaining increasing attention among experts and practitioners in leadership R&D and actual implementation strategies. The National Malcolm Baldrige Quality Program and other similar quality programs are placing emphasis on the theory and practice of visionary leadership and its importance in achieving future organizational goals and objectives (NIST, 2001, pp. 12-13). Burt Nanus, a management professor and director of research at the University of Southern California’s Leadership Institute, has been instrumental in forwarding the definition and meaning of leadership and its relation to visionary thinking. He states that “effective leaders have agendas and that they are totally results oriented. They take on demanding new visions of what is possible and desirable, communicate these visions, and persuade others to become committed to them.” (Nanus, 1992, p. 4).
And how do these experts’ renderings translate into leadership in the public sector? Quite easily, many experts agree, if placed within the proper context.
Private or corporate leadership is, of course, ultimately directed towards profit. In the end, public or governmental leadership is aimed at the common good. Otherwise, leadership is essentially the same in both cases.
Public leaders should seek to “inspire people and mobilize resources in a ‘shared-power’ world to take a kind of collective action in pursuit of the common good” (Bryson and Crosby, 1992, p. xii). Leaders in government must seek, therefore, to understand common, constituent needs and preferences that fall within the realm of civic or “community” needs—local, state, national, or international. Public leaders should strive to meet these communal needs that remain outside the interests and capabilities of corporations, i.e., private businesses and industries. Public leaders must work within the framework of political institutions, laws, and customs. John Bryson and Barbara Crosby, in Leadership for the Common Good, state that in “tackling public problems” (ones that are, e.g., educational, or deal with transportation, criminal justice, natural resources conservation, etc.), public leadership rests on several important factors. These factors are:
Understanding the social, political, and economic “givens;”
Understanding the people involved, especially oneself;
Building teams;
Nurturing effective and humane organizations, inter-organizational networks, and communities;
Creating and communicating meaning and effectively employing formal and informal forums as settings for creating and communicating meaning;
Making and implementing legislative, executive, and administrative policy decisions and effectively employing formal and informal arenas as settings for policy-making and implementation;
Sanctioning conduct—that is, enforcing constitutions, laws, and norms, and resolving residual conflicts—and effectively employing formal and informal courts as settings for sanctioning conduct;
Attending to the policy change cycle; and,
Putting it all together (pp. xii-xiii).
In the following chapters of this monograph, the meaning of leadership is expanded in much greater detail. The next chapter examines leadership as it relates to morality and the common good. This is a significant sequence in this narrative on leadership in that effective leaders must be morally grounded in ethical principles, such as, “right” versus “wrong.” This moral right, certainly in the Judeo-Christian sense, extends to all levels that embody leader intent, behavior, influences, and outcomes.
Leadership, Morality, and the Common Good
The authority of American government originates from the Constitution. The moral authority of government originates from the collective beliefs, attitudes and values of the citizens. Moral authority consists of the felt obligations and duties derived from shared community values, ideas and ideals. From a democratic perspective, the very nature of authority must be moral in form and content. Otherwise, social violence, chaos and coercion will be the norm. Moral authority rests on voluntary consent. Democracy, by definition, cannot exist without values. (Denton, 1999, pp.1-2).
Public leadership consists, among other things, of effectively mobilizing resources to develop and implement public policy. It is done with finesse when a leader’s attributes and skills, vision and creativity, and other contingencies are fully realized and brought to fruition.
But leadership also, most importantly, pertains to ethics and morality. The common good, for instance, is a “shared-value” goal that is intended to benefit society, or some segment of society, to the extent that it makes a positive and beneficial difference in the lives of individuals. “Rightful” and genuine public leaders seek the common good. Generally speaking, whatever their leadership style or approach, traditional or entrepreneurial, public leaders, with decent and noble intent, strive to be accountable to taxpayers and to carry out the laws and those public policies that are decided upon collectively and legitimately.
John Gardner (1993, p. 67) states that people ultimately judge their “leaders in the framework of values.” Honesty, integrity, fairness, and other values come to mind. The rule of law and justice likewise present themselves as moral notions of particular significance. Persons expect in a humane and civilized world to find leaders who are immersed firmly in morality and the common good. People desire not only an effective leader and leadership, but also one that is “good.” For in people’s minds and memories, both recent and aged, it is realized that leaders, and followers as well, can be devoid of morality—truly evil.
Hitler and Stalin were leaders, but as Gardner points out, they were “the kinds of leaders that clearly transgress our moral values” (p. 67). Slobodan Milosevic represents, by way of example, another but more contemporary transgressor. Milosevic is currently before a U.N. tribunal in The Hague being confronted by alleged victims and longtime foes in his war crimes trial. The former Yugoslav leader is charged with oppressing and ordering and sanctioning the killing of thousands of ethnic Albanians.
Osama bin Laden is representative of the newest breed of evil transgressors. His terrorist organization, the Al Qaeda, is responsible for the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Centers in New York City and the Pentagon in our nation’s capitol. Bin Laden is additionally responsible for planning the destruction of a passenger plane that crashed into a small field in rural Pennsylvania. Today, America and other civilized nations of the world are thus engaged in a war on terrorism. It is Osama bin Laden that is the leader and symbol of this terrible new and unconventional war.
Having cited examples of the transgressors, what then constitutes the morally acceptable leader? John Gardner, a renowned and prolific essayist on leadership, and advisor to several U.S. Presidents from the 1950s through the 1980s, attempts to answer this question in his writings.
Gardner acknowledges that defining the moral leader is a difficult task. While he recognizes many contemporary leaders of repute in his time, such as FDR, Eisenhower, and General MacArthur, he concedes that for his purposes of definition such leaders are, at least for him, more easily restricted to Americans or American values. This, believes Gardner, is a less complicated and more relevant approach to understanding the relationship between leadership and ethics. As Americans, Gardner understands astraightforwardness in the notion that Americans, as a society, believe in and uphold the democratic values spelled out in the Declaration of Independence; namely, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Thus moral leadership takes on a connotation that is rooted in American history and culture. To define a moral leader one must, therefore, define a leader who possesses and behaves in appropriate ways that are based on our interpretation of a democratic government. This for Gardner means people desire and covet leaders who serve the common good and at the same time recognize individual needs. For instance, people want equality, justice, and truthfulness. Leaders who exhibit this fair well in American society, says Gardner.
Gardner, following German philosopher’s Immanuel Kant’s moral dictum, further holds that leaders should look upon individuals as “ends in themselves, not simply as a means to an end” (p. 73). Leaders must constantly look to the common good that benefits an individual(s) in society, and not approve or sanction any means to merely get there. Bad or wrongful actions on the part of a leader to accomplish a beneficial end, nullifies the moral outcome. For Gardner, quite simply, “the means does not justify the ends.”
Thus for Gardner “we cannot approve of leadership that betrays the common good for any immoral means and ways, especially for purposes of personal gain or reward” (p.73). This self-gratification achieved by any means is “antithetical to American culture and is nothing less than a universal moral turpitude.” Gardner cites Hitler’s willingness to sacrifice his own people, the entirety of the German populace, to accomplish his own selfish ends.