1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

Chapter 9 Leadership

Like two sides of the same coin, leadership and decisionmaking are inseparable. Leadership cannot be a soloperformance. By definition, as we shall see, the only way thatleaders can exercise leadership is by working with andthrough other people, the followers. Thus, leadership isalways an ensemble performance. The subject of thischapter, leadership theory, focuses on conceptualizing therange from which one may choose in deciding on a way toengage with others in exercising leadership. Contemporaryleadership theory is not neutral in making this behavioralchoice: It contends that some ways of working with followersare predictably more effective than others.

On the other side of the coin, decision-making theory focuseson the array of options from which one may choose toimplement the leadership theory that has been selected.Decision-making theory is the subject of the next chapter;thus, these two chapters are closely interrelated.

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

Adaptive LeadershipIn today’s fast-paced world dominated by change, the school, andparticularly the school leader, must be sensitive to emerging changes in theexternal environment that call for nimble, deft, rapid responses by theorganization. One of the key concepts of organizational theory is the role ofchange and stability in the environment of the organization in selecting astrategy for leadership.

Certainly, as the pressure to improve the performance of schools hasgained momentum and ever-widening support, the need for effectiveleadership in school administration has been increasingly emphasized. Butthere are many different and often conflicting ways of thinking about andunderstanding the nature of leadership. One popular concept or theory ofleadership is the time-honored top-down style, which is based on the beliefthat the best ideas are, or ought to be, found at the higher levels of theorganization and are passed down to those at the lower levels, where theyare implemented. This traditional understanding of leadership comes to usfrom the military traditions of ancient Rome, and it is currently exemplifiedin the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.

Those who supported the enactment of this approach to school reform intofederal law in 2001 confidently believed that they knew what had to bedone in the schools and classrooms to improve the learning of students.Their beliefs are clearly spelled out in the law itself, which includes therequired use of phonics in teaching reading, the regular use of standardizedtests to monitor learning, the punishing sanctions to be levied againstschools that fail to demonstrate improvement in student learning, and theinsistence on using instructional methods that are supported by evidenceof their effectiveness derived from “scientific research.” Those who

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

advocate this exercise of top-down power from Washington, unparalleled inthe history of schooling in the United States, tend to describe it as anexercise in educational or political leadership.

Contemporary scholarly thought about leadership, however, is dominatedby the recognition that change, complexity, and uncertainty are dominantcharacteristics of the environment to which organizations today mustnimbly adapt. Margaret Wheatley (1999) popularized the term chaos theoryin the study of educational organizations and leadership after she studiedquantum physics and the science of living systems. Her ideas haveintroduced the need to find new and better ways to lead under the unstableand unpredictable conditions that confront organizations. Essentially, theleader in these circumstances is confronted with the need to deal with twovery different kinds of problems:

Some problems are technical (discrete). They are relatively clear-cut, ifnot simple, and can be solved by applying technical expertise; theoutcome can be predicted with some confidence. Such problemsnormally can be solved by technically competent individuals and thatfact might well favor the use of top-down methods of leadership.Other problems are adaptive (emergent). These problems, bydefinition, are so complex and involve so many poorly understoodfactors that the outcomes of any course of action are unpredictable(Heifetz, 1994). Common examples of adaptive problems include thereduction of crime, the reduction of poverty, and the implementation ofeducational reform. Solving these kinds of problems requiresleadership methods that make the knowledge of many people atvarious levels in the organization accessible and that facilitate theinvolvement and cooperation of these people in leadership processes.Therefore, leadership in dealing with adaptive problems, as we shallexplain more fully in this chapter, requires collaboration between and

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

among many individuals over time in an iterative process. Heifetz andLinsky (2002) added that adaptive problems

require experiments, new discoveries, and adjustments from numerous placesin the organization or community. Without learning new ways—changingattitudes, value, and behaviors—people cannot make the adaptive leapnecessary to thrive in the new environment. The sustainability of changedepends on having the people with the problem internalizing the change itself.(p. 13)

In the next chapter, we discuss decision-making processes involvingdiscrete (technical) and emergent (adaptive) problems. Many problemsconfronting schools today, particularly problems of school reform, areclearly adaptive problems and require adaptive leadership concepts andtechniques that are discussed in this chapter. But first we need to reviewsome fundamentals of leadership. The literature is replete with discussionsabout the dichotomy between leadership and management, so this is wherewe will begin.

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

Leadership and ManagementThe rhetoric of reform contends that U.S. schools require leadership, not“mere management.” This point suggests that there is a difference betweenmanagement and leadership and that they are mutually exclusive. This viewcorrectly derives from the fact that one manages things, not people, andone leads people, not things. We manage finances, inventories, andprograms, for example, but we lead people. There is a qualitative differencebetween managing and leading and, some contend, they are mutuallyexclusive. Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus (1985), for example, have told usthat “managers are people who do things right and leaders are people whodo the right thing” (p. 15). Some blame much of our present dearth ofeducational leadership on the existence of a managerial mystique, longpromoted by schools of business as well as schools of education, thattaught managers to pay attention to structures, roles, and indirect forms ofcommunications; to ignore the ideas and emotions of people; and to avoiddirect involvement of others in leadership. The result has been aprofessionalization of management that deflected attention from the realbusiness of schools, which is teaching, and conceptualized leadership asan emphasis on rules, plans, management controls, and operatingprocedures.

This mistake often manifests itself in the language of those who confuseschooling and teaching with “the delivery of educational services,” and whodo so with the cool detachment that a merchant might use to speak of thedistribution of goods or the manager of a fast-food restaurant might use todescribe the essence of serving food. Thus, in schools, we too often see

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

an emphasis on doing things right, at the expense of doing the right things. Inschools, improvement plans become substitutes for improvement outcomes.Scores on teacher-appraisal systems become substitutes for good teaching.Accumulation of credits in courses and inservice workshops become a substitutefor changes in practice. Discipline plans become substitutes for student control.Leadership styles become substitutes for purpose and substance. Congenialitybecomes a substitute for collegiality. Cooperation becomes a substitute forcommitment. Compliance becomes a substitute for results.(Sergiovanni, 1992, p. 4)

There is little question that as the U.S. public school enterprise becamemarkedly more bureaucratized in the decades from 1945 to 1985,emphasis was placed on the bureaucratic concept of leadership, which wenow call management. There is also little question that this myopic focusneeds to be corrected, that leadership is badly needed in educationalinstitutions at all levels. But we must be cautious about substitutingmanagement-bashing for leadership.

Educational leaders must—as must all leaders—be able to manage. JohnGardner (1989) rightly pointed out that leaders often must allocateresources, deal with budgets, and organize the enterprise to enable peopleto do the work necessary to move the organization toward its vision. Heconcluded, therefore, that leaders need to be skilled managers, able to dealwith the mundane inner workings of organizational life that must beattended to if the vision is to be realized.

Schools are still largely organized and administered as bureaucracies or, asthe contemporary pejorative expression has it, using the factory as amodel. There is little question that most educational administratorsconceptualize their work largely in terms of management of operationalroutines. Clearly, this emphasis has tended to thwart the development ofinstructional leadership in schools while emphasizing management.

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

Therefore, U.S. schools are generally in need of more and better leadership.But it is false to argue that principals should be leaders, not managers,because they need to be both.

One of the most common criticisms of educational administrators in theliterature on school reform is the charge that they tend to manipulatefollowers, often by using a veneer of seemingly participative involvement.By indirection, these administrators get followers to pursue ends that theadministrators seek while seeming to act on the followers’ intentions.Through this manipulation, those who are in power maintain their power,whereas followers are induced to believe that the arrangement isappropriate and legitimate, if not inevitable. Teachers, deeply socializedinto the traditional ways of schools—having participated in them since theywere 5 years old—generally accept the hierarchical power of principals andsuperintendents as a reality of life that is both inevitable and legitimate. Itis commonplace for teachers who have had their views brushed aside tosay to the principal, “Well, just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll trymy best to do it.” This hierarchical power of organizational leaders is animportant concept for administrators to understand, and we now turn ourattention to the use of power in leadership.

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

Power and LeadershipThere is a vast amount of research on leadership; the literature containshundreds of definitions of leadership. However, there is general agreementon two factors:

1. Leadership is a group function: It occurs only when two or morepeople interact.

2. Leaders intentionally seek to influence the behavior of other people.

Thus, any concept of leadership deals with exercising influence on othersthrough social interaction. To understand leadership, we must examine thenature and quality of the social interactions involved. The heart of thematter is power: What kind of power is involved, and how is it exercised?

One must understand that those who lead are necessarily powerful peoplebecause power is the basic energy for initiating and sustaining action thattranslates intention into reality when people try to work collaboratively(Bennis & Nanus, 1985). One cannot lead and be powerless. But theexercise of power is not necessarily oppression—indeed, it cannot beoppressive—in the exercise of leadership as it is being discussed here. Letus explain.

There are different kinds of power through which one may attempt toinfluence others, and they come from different sources. Understandingleadership requires one to understand the difference between the power ofthose who lead and the power of those who command. The two arefrequently confused with one another. The difference between leadershipand command lies in the sources from which power is derived.

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

Leadership Different from Command

Those who occupy official positions in the hierarchy of an organizationexercise vested authority, which is the legitimate right to command. Vestedauthority rests on legal power that is customarily granted to officialpositions in the hierarchy such as dean, superintendent, or principal.Because the legal power of office is granted by those higher in thehierarchy, subordinates have no control over it and must yield to it, at leastin theory. In practice, of course, such absolute power is rarely found in U.S.educational organizations. When absolute command is exercised, it isoften viewed as oppression. Teachers’ unions, for example, were createdexpressly to mediate and limit the arbitrary exercise of power of schoolboards and school district administrators over teachers; there is no doubtthat they have generally been highly effective.

The power of leaders, on the other hand, is voluntarily granted by followerswho accept the leader’s influence and direction by shared agreement, nomatter how informally the agreement is reached. Leaders do not wield legalpower vested in an official office; rather, they exercise power that followershave willingly entrusted to them. Why do followers entrust power toleaders? Often, and perhaps at the highest level, because the followers aredrawn to the ideas of the leader, because they share the values and beliefsof the leader, and because they are convinced that the leader can representthe followers well in the inevitable conflict with others for control ofresources to achieve what the leader and the followers are bound in mutualcommitment to achieve.

The key to understanding the difference between the power of officeholdersand the power of leaders lies in who controls the power. Followers can, andoften do, withdraw the support that they have voluntarily entrusted to theleader. They can also voluntarily increase their grant of support, which

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

increases the power of the leader. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., forexample, is generally acknowledged as one of the great and powerfulleaders of the twentieth century, yet he had little legal authority to make hisfollowers do anything. Nevertheless, Dr. King had extraordinary power toinfluence the behavior of followers and ultimately the course of the nation.

What Dr. King did have was ideas, a set of values and beliefs, and a clearvision of a better, more just, more morally perfect future that embodied allof these ideas and values. It was the intense wish of his followers to sharein achieving these goals that motivated them to empower him with theirstrong, active support. Thus, Dr. King was a very powerful man who couldmobilize vast numbers of people for a common purpose and set in motionmomentous events, yet he was no oppressor. He had learned much aboutleadership from studying Mohandas Gandhi, who was a master of the art.Gandhi’s work stands as a monument to the effectiveness of leadership:He emerged victorious in 1947 from head-to-head confrontation with thedetermined oppression of seemingly invincible forces of entrenchedcolonialism.

Position power, such as that of a superintendent of schools or a schoolprincipal, provides the officeholder in the hierarchy with legal authority forat least the potential for forcible domination and coercion. This is notleadership; it is superordination. We must distinguish between the two:

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

The source of superordination is vested authority [while] the source of leadershipis entrusted authority. Authority is vested in a superordinate when power resides inthe institution, and obedience is owed the superordinate by the subordinate invirtue of the role each occupies, roles the subordinate cannot alter.

Authority is entrusted to a leader when power resides in the followers themselves,and cooperation is granted the leader by the follower . . . a judgment . . . thefollower can alter. The superordinate may legitimately compel subordination; theleader can legitimately only elicit followership. The relationship betweensubordinate and superordinate is compulsory, between follower and leadervoluntary.(Getzels, 1973, pp. 16–17)

Although they do exercise various kinds of power, leaders engage withfollowers in seeking to achieve not only the goals of the leader but alsosignificant goals of the followers. Thus, “[l]eadership over human beings . .. is exercised when persons with certain purposes mobilize, in competitionor in conflict with others, institutional, political, psychological and otherresources so as to arouse and satisfy the motives of followers” (Burns,1978, p. 18). This definition of leadership by James MacGregor Burns is asgood a definition as we have at this time.

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

Power Defined

Power is commonly considered to be the capacity to influence others(Louis, 1986), and different kinds of power can be used to exercise thatinfluence. The classic, generally accepted definition of power identifies fivekinds, or sources, of power, as described by John French and BertramRaven (1959):

Reward power. Controlling rewards that will induce others to complywith the power wielder’s wishesCoercive power. Having control of potentially punishing resources thatwill induce others to avoid themExpert power. Having knowledge that others want for themselves somuch that they will be induced to comply with the power wielder andthus acquire the knowledge or benefit from itLegitimate power. Having authority conferred by holding a position in anorganization that is recognized by others as having a legitimate right toobedienceReferent power. Personal charisma of the power holder, or ideas andbeliefs so admired by others that they are induced by the opportunity toassociate with the power holder and, as far as possible, to becomemore like him or her

The strength of the leader’s power depends on the range of the sources ofpower drawn on. Leaders who draw on one source of power are inherentlyweaker than those who draw on multiple sources of power. Especially sincethe advent of teachers’ unions and the broadening judicial interpretations ofthe constitutional rights of teachers, many school principals perceive thattheir power to lead has been undercut. The official power inherent in theoffice to coerce teachers into compliance has waned markedly. Althoughthe power to control their compensation also waned in the 1980s and

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

1990s, with NCLB and Race to the Top (RTTT) mandates to use test scoresin teacher evaluation, we are again seeing the power to controlcompensation increase. In general, however, the degradation of thecoercive power of principals has increased the need for leadership. Strongschool leaders still have access to significant sources of power:

Many teachers find helping behavior from principals to be highlyrewarding if it is nonjudgmental, supportive, collaborative, and caring inthe tradition of self-development (McClelland, 1975). When they findsuch behavior by the principal rewarding enough, their support for theprincipal increases, and the principal’s power to lead increases as aresult.Teachers continue to recognize the authority of official positions in theorganization because they value the organization. They largely defer tothe legitimate power of those occupying official positions in thehierarchy of the organization.Teachers generally resent and reject principals who pose aspedagogical experts by demanding that lesson plans be submitted forprior approval and principals who conduct critiques of observedteaching in the paternalistic, judgmental manner that they may thinkappropriate for technical experts. However, teachers view favorablysupport from principals for fresh ideas. Teachers tend to recognize andsee as powerful those principals who are expert in using collaborative,collegial methods of working together to identify and solve mutualproblems. Such methods are personally rewarding to teachers at thehigher levels of Maslow’s concept of motivation (see Chapter 5 ) andfacilitate continuing personal self-growth.Principals who have fresh, exciting ideas—who have a vision of thefuture—that others embrace and want to share are building referentpower. Teachers tend to admire principals who express their visioncoherently and vividly; who inspire enthusiasm; who involve others indialogue intended to mold and develop the ideas; and who cause them

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

to see a connection between the vision and their own desire to achievesomething meaningful, to be part of a new and better future that isunfolding. This is an important source of power for principals whowould be leaders.

These two kinds of power—position power and the authority voluntarilygranted to leaders by followers—are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Auniversity dean may have considerable legal clout in decisions regardingreappointment and tenure yet at the same time have power that comesfrom strong support of a leader by the faculty. The litmus test is whocontrols the grant of power: A dean who loses the support of the facultywill also have lost considerable power to influence followers and get thingsdone even though his or her official position remains undiminished.Presidents of the United States combine the official power of office with thepower from supporters who willingly accord them great power. Forexample, the collapse of Richard Nixon’s presidency after Watergate hadlittle to do with the official legal power of the office of the president;without the support of followers, his position in office was untenable.

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

Two-Factor LeadershipTheory AbandonedMost of the formalistic theorizing that dominated the study of educationalleadership in the 1960s to the 1990s has been largely abandoned. Instead,the seminal insights of Burns, which we have been discussing, gave rise toa new understanding of leadership and have gained ascendancy. Theapproach prior to Burns’s work, which was studied by many present-dayeducational administrators, generally defined the behavior of leaders in twodimensions:

One dimension was the emphasis that the leader gives to getting thejob done. This was often called initiating structure because it ofteninvolves structuring the work: delineating the relationship between theleader and the members of the work group; specifying the tasks to beperformed; and endeavoring to establish well-defined patterns oforganization, channels of communication, methods of procedure,scheduling, and designating responsibilities. It was also often calledproduction emphasis or task emphasis, for obvious reasons.The other dimension was the emphasis that the leader gives todeveloping friendship, mutual trust, respect, and warmth in relationshipsbetween the leader and followers. These behaviors were usually labeledconsideration or concern for people (Halpin, 1966).

Bernard Bass spoke of leaders as tending to be either “follower focused”(i.e., emphasizing concern for people) or “task focused” (i.e., emphasizingrules and procedures for getting the task done):

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

A task-focused leader initiates structure, provides the information, determineswhat is to be done, issues the rules, promises rewards for compliance, andthreatens punishments for disobedience. The follower-focused leader solicitsadvice, opinions, and information from followers and checks decisions or sharesdecision making with followers. The . . . task-focused leader uses his or her powerto obtain compliance with what the leader has decided. The follower-focusedleader uses his or her power to set the constraints within which followers areencouraged to join in deciding what is to be done.(Bass, 1981)

This two-dimensional theory held that leadership consists of a mix of thesetwo kinds of behavior and that effectiveness as a leader depends onchoosing the right blend in various kinds of situations. The generaltendency is for individuals to favor one of these behavioral orientationswhile placing less emphasis on the other. It would be almost impossible, inU.S. schools at least, for a leader to lack completely both of the twobehavioral dimensions of leadership. Students of leadership who wish todenigrate this concept of leader behavior, which has fallen into disrepute inacademic circles, often achieve their purposes by reporting that they do notfind leaders who are always task-oriented or always people-oriented.

In the two-dimensional approach to understanding leadership, greatemphasis was given to leadership style. For example, one commonly hearscomplaints that educational leaders in the past emphasized the task, ormanagerial, dimension of leader behavior—which is often called theautocratic leadership style—and few emphasized the considerationdimension—which defines the democratic style of leadership. Thus,individual styles of various leaders were described as tending to beautocratic or democratic, task-oriented or people-oriented, directive orcollegial, and one could adopt a leadership style thought to be appropriateto the leader’s personality, on the one hand, or the situation in which theleader works, on the other. All of this emanated from efforts to reduce the

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©

study of leadership to a science, and therein lay its weakness. In educationtoday, recognition is rapidly growing that leadership cannot be reduced toformulas and prescriptions but must be attuned to the human variables andconfusions that normally abound in busy, complex, and contradictory—thatis, messy—human organizations.

For readers who want to learn more about some of the most popular two-factor theories of leadership, we suggest the following theories and theprimary authors associated with each theory:

The Ohio State Leadership Studies and the Leader Behavior DescriptionQuestionnaire (LBDQ) (Hemphill & Coons, 1957; Stogdill, 1974)The Managerial Grid (Blake & Mouton, 1978)Situational leadership theory (Hersey, Blanchard, & Johnson, 1996)Contingency leadership theory (Fiedler, 1967)

For a thorough description of these and other leadership theories, werecommend Peter Northouse (2010). Northouse’s book is about ascomplete a listing of leadership theories as you can find, and it includescases and questionnaires for each major theory.

Leadership As A RelationshipWith FollowersWhe

1103472 – Pearson Education Limited ©