Running head: LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY

Leadership Philosophy Christopher J. Van Drimmelen Seattle University EDAD 570 March 12, 2014

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY Introduction In constructing a philosophy of leadership, one must first define what leadership is. In some cases, it may also be useful to examine what leadership is not. I hope to define leadership within four areas: the purpose of leadership, what leadership looks like, what leaders do, and my own identity as a leader. In personalizing my philosophy of leadership, I must identify what informs my leadership. All of the life experiences of a leader will inform how they lead, so both my identities and leadership journey must be examined in order to explain both the how and the why of my leadership. I will then link my leadership to the resources that I utilize, and where my leadership fits within the frames of leadership (structural, political, human resource, and symbolic) detailed by Bolman & Gallos (2011).

Finally, I will share a personal example of my leadership, the planning of the SATech Seattle Unconference. I will highlight how it fits into my preferred leadership frame and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of my contributions to the events leadership. Phase I What Is Leadership The Purpose of Leadership Leadership and leaders mean many things to many people. At its most basic level, leadership exists to advance the interests and goals of a group of people. Leadership is not a self-serving act; it is inherently a service to others and cannot exist in a vacuum. That is not to say that leadership cannot be beneficial to one group and damaging to another. What are arguably effective leadership practices can even unintentionally advance one group at the expense of another, so at times, leadership can even be something of a dangerous act if not exercised carefully and intentionally. Leadership is in and of itself

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY neither good nor evil, though its outcomes can fall into either category dependent upon context. Though the practice of leadership can be complex, its purpose remains simple and

uncomplicated. Simple should not be confused, however, with ease or a lack of importance; effective leadership can be the difference between success and failure for an organization. What Leadership Looks Like It is this basic purpose that allows leadership to be practiced on many different levels. As John Gardner (2000) states when attempting to define leadership, we must not confuse leadership with statuswe have all occasionally encountered top individuals who couldnt lead a squad of seven year olds to the ice cream counter. Just because a person occupies a position of power does not make them a leader and just because a person does not have status does not mean that they cannot be a leader. Power and status may make leadership more visible, which can be an asset, however visibility does not in and of itself equal leadership. There is no single kind of leadership, just as there is no single kind of effective leader. Leadership can be loud and ostentatious, but also subtle and quiet. In fact, more subtle forms of leadership are probably far more common than the more visible conceptions of leadership that personified early Great Man theories of leadership. My conception of leadership falls more within a postmodern frame, emphasizing subjective and local experiences, history, and context (Kezar et. al., 2006). What Do Effective Leaders Do? First, effective leaders understand the context in which they operate. Context is important because just as no two leaders are the same, organizations, even similar ones,

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY have important differences that will require different solutions and leadership. Margaret Wheatley (2000) observes that most change efforts fail when leaders take an innovation that has worked in one area of the organization and attempt to roll it out to the entire organization. A good leader can use context as a positive force, a poor leader ignores it at their own peril.

Second, effective leaders seek to involve others in collaboration. In this way, leaders promote leadership in others. Wheatley (2000) also notes that there is a clear correlation between participation and productivity. By giving others a voice in the operation and direction of any organization, leaders create a sense of loyalty and belonging that keeps the organization focused around its goals. This kind of shared vision for [a] school can motivate staff, students, and community alike. It is not simply for the leader; it is for the common good (Deal & Peterson, 2000). Finally, leaders keep organizations from becoming static. Change is inevitable, and thus all organizations must change or disappear. People naturally resist change, but a truly effective leader learns to embrace it as a positive and renewing force. Leaders will facilitate change while maintaining the core values of their organization. Truly effective leaders can even use change to strengthen their organizations such that their constituents are more committed to the organization after change has occurred than they were before the change was implemented (Wheatley, 2000). My Leadership I have personally identified as a leader for a number of years now and would say that I am very comfortable both leading and calling myself a leader. I came to identify as a leader first by taking on positional leadership roles at the beginning of my college career. I

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was encouraged to get involved, and so I sought out positions within organizations at my school. I led by advancing the goals of these organizations from a very visible place, which persisted until several years later. At the point that I transitioned out of the highest elected office on campus, I found that I still had the desire to lead. The following year, I worked for the university as an intern, a far less visible role, but I found myself leading all the same. I was pushing the institution forward from a position closer to the bottom than the top, and it became apparent that I could be a leader in almost any context. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment at which I began to identify as a leader, however, I believe that one particular early college event had an impact on this identity for me. In my first term at Oregon State University, I decided to apply to be on my residence halls Hall Council. At the time, this was not an elective process, which might actually have deterred me from seeking the position. Instead, a panel composed of the buildings Resident Director, several RAs, and a couple of returning residents vetted applications, conducted interviews, and placed residents in leadership positions on the Council. I applied for and was selected as the halls Publicity Coordinator. Reflecting on this experience, I can see important components on the Leadership Identity Model at play in my own experience. I was at the stage of wanting to get involved, but more importantly, I also see the affirmation of my leadership potential by individuals who I saw as leaders as a crucial step toward developing an identity as a leader (Komives et. al., 2006). This experience also helped me see that in order to be an effective leader, I need to be a promoter of leadership in others as well as myself. Phase II What Informs My Leadership Identity and Leadership Journey

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY Every person carries with them a set of identities that are shaped by a variety of biological, environmental, and social factors. This set of identities is not necessarily static, however, it is likely one of the most consistent components affecting an individuals leadership style. In examining my own identity as a leader, I find that two identities stand out as particularly salient: my gender and socioeconomic class. Leadership was once regarded as the exclusive province of men. I was born biologically male and I identify as male with regard to my gender identity, so I have received constant implicit and explicit messages throughout my life that I can and should be a leader. Masculine traits are stereotypically associated with leadership, and since I

exhibit many of these traits due to my gender and gender identity, I have been perceived as a potential leader from a very young age (Dugan, 2006; Boatwright, 2003). Also of great importance in my identity as a leader has been my upbringing in an upper-class family. While great man and trait theories of leadership are now considered to be outdated, their legacy is alive and well, particularly among those to whom these theories might have applied in the past, namely those from high socioeconomic status (Witherspoon, 1997). Among my family, there has always been a certain sense of obligation to lead. While the phrase to those whom much is given, much is expected in return may seem to be a healthy notion meant to promote service to the community, there is a less positive, unspoken corollary: one should not expect much from those who have little. I believe that on some level, I grew up believing that because I was one of those to whom much was given, that I would make a better leader than others. In attempting to pinpoint milestones in my journey as a leader, it is useful to identify how I have progressed through both the Leadership Identity Model (Komives, et al., 2006)

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY and the Social Change Model of Leadership (HERI, 1996). Starting with the conception of

leader as self, I see that major milestones in my early leadership journey revolved around being selected by adults and authority figures for leadership roles, including the lead student role in planning a school retreat at my high school and a position on my residence halls Hall Council during my first year of college. These affirmations of me as a leader caused me to begin exploring my own leadership and taking a more active role, eventually seeking out positional leadership opportunities for myself. I progressed into thinking in terms of leader in a group when I sought out such opportunities as President of the Residence Hall Association and President of the Associated Students of Oregon State University. Though these organizations do have a broad community impact, I was not yet thinking from that broad of a perspective. My leadership was still moving out of the dependent view of the Leadership Identity Development model, and I was not quite ready to address my leadership in a broader sense. Consequently, my focus remained upon leading the group well. Leader in society/community would not be a part of leadership that I was ready to address until I was removed from the context of leader in a group by the ending of my major positional roles. At first, my post-service internship with the Dean of Student Lifes office was to be just an internship, but I came to understand it as a broader leadership role than I had ever taken on before. Being able to work on initiatives at a community and institutional level broadened my view of leadership considerably in a way that remaining in the same types of formal, group leadership roles could not (HERI, 1996; Komives, et al., 2006). Framing and Resources

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY Though leadership style is unique from individual to individual, four broad frames are described by Bolman and Gallos (2011) that encompass much of what one could describe as leadership. These frames are structural, political, human resource, and symbolic, each with its own unique characteristics, strengths, and drawbacks. While no

one frame captures all of the nuances of a persons leadership, I believe that my leadership style falls mostly within the political frame. As a leader, I believe that people support what they help to create. I also have a particular, personal aversion to having seemingly decisions arbitrarily imposed upon me from above, and so I try not to impose direct command & control upon others, but instead attempt to bring them into alliance with me (Wheatley, 2000). I think that one of the best things about the political frame of leadership is how necessary relationships between people and departments become when leading from this perspective. A mentor once told me the first time that you meet someone should never be when you need something from them. I think that this maxim is particularly emblematic of the political frame of leadership. Even within the same institution, individuals can have very different wants and needs because of the many subgroups that exist in any organization, so it is important to understand those needs before seeking support (Bolman & Gallos, 2011). As an example, when working with multiple sub-groups to improve response rates on online assessments in Housing & Residence Life, I have had to meet with many different people in order to understand what they are looking to get out of the assessments. Resident directors will use this data to address community issues, senior leadership will use it to make the case for more/different funding and support requests, dining services will use it to alter service operations, etc. The key to the success of the survey is that I need

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY the support of all of the constituent groups to effectively promote it to our resident population. By understanding the needs of each group, I will be able to more effectively garner their support by addressing their underlying interests when making requests (Bolman & Deal, 2000).

The leadership currency of the political frame is empowerment (Bolman & Gallos, 2011). From this perspective, the greatest resource that one can utilize as a leader is the knowledge of the needs of others within the organization and how they line up with strategic goals. I am quite skilled at doing this from an analytical perspective, however, I often fall flat when it would be advantageous to do this from a place of heart or encouragement. In reading Kouzes and Posners (2003) work on encouraging the heart, I can see that this should be an integral part of the political approach to leadership. I utilize relationships as a resource, but underutilize encouragement, recognition, and praise as a tool for building them. I see my strength as a political leader growing as I improve my capacity for encouragement as a tool for building buy-in. As with any conception of leadership, there are drawbacks to the political frame. Politics carries a negative connotation in our society, and particularly in academia, because of its implications around using people and relationships for others ends (Bolman & Deal, 2000). If the relationships are not genuine, the whole organization has the potential to become wary of any attempt on anyones part to reach out. Additionally the coalitions that make up a successful political organization can be exclusive, creating in and out groups. This marginalizing behavior can result in large segments of an organization who are perceived to have little power, which can be damaging as they seek to regain power at the expense of the groups that marginalized them (Bolman & Gallos, 2011).

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY When successfully managed, however, a political organization can be a hotbed of creativity. Given the differing views of each member of a coalition, solutions will come forward that may not have had the opportunity to come to the surface in other types of

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organizations. While politics can hinder progress when executed in an intractable and/or adversarial manner, when all groups have a common vision and willingness to advance that vision, political organizations can advance everyones interests. Phase III How Do I Do Leadership? In my own leadership journey, there have been times where I have needed to use the above frameworks and definitions to create something. An excellent example of this is the SATech Seattle Unconference that I chaired this year at Seattle University. The process of bringing this event to fruition provides an interesting look inside my process as a leader. Since this type of event had never been done at Seattle University before and was not part of any kind of university or divisional initiative, my first task was to secure funding and support for the event. Without it (particularly the funding piece), all of the planning in the world would go to waste. I started by meeting with people who I knew would not be able to provide funding for the event, but would probably be willing to support it and who would be able to help me get the support of those who did have access to funding. These initial supporters included the department of Housing and Residence Life and some of the faculty for the Student Development Administration program. With the help of early supporters, I approached the leadership of the Division of Student Development for funding and support. The response was something akin to this is great, but we just dont have the money to fund the whole thing. Lets look for a co-sponsor. Using connections from the Division, I solicited co-sponsorship from the University of Washington, whose Housing &

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Food Services department was willing to cover half of the conference costs. At that point, the Division of Student Development at SU was happy to cover the remaining costs. The way that the conference was supported and funded affected how I put together my planning team. The committee ended up including two professionals from Housing and the Career Center at University of Washington, Seattle Universitys Assistant Vice President for Student Development and Director of Housing, another SDA graduate student, a professional from Oregon State University who had helped put on a similar event, and myself. All of these groups had provided resources to the Unconference in one form or another, so they all got a say in what the final event looked like. In the months leading up to the event, the seven of us practiced collective decision-making on our weekly video calls between institutions. Putting together this Unconference, particularly the planning process, has been an interesting study in the political frame of leadership. The frame emphasizes that resources are scarce and that decision-making revolves around the allocation of power and resources. Coalition building is also very important in the political frame, as is negotiation and bargaining (Bolman & Gallos, 2011). One can see my political leadership as I first sought to build a coalition of support for the event before seeking scarce resources (in this case money). With a coalition in place, I was able to more effectively make the case for why some of the institutions resources should be devoted to the SATech Seattle Unconference. Even with this coalition, however, resource scarcity was a primary factor in the Divisions inability to completely support the event. The Vice-President for Student Development and I negotiated a bit and it was decided that if we could find a financial co-sponsor, that she too would be willing to

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devote institutional resources to making the event happen. Once University of Washington signed on as a co-sponsor, the remaining resources that we needed were allocated to the Unconference and planning could begin. Once we had a co-sponsor, however, the coalition needed to be broadened to include them. By using the political frame of leadership, I was able to successfully secure funding and support for SATech Seattle. From the beginning, I recognized that resources, particularly money, are scarce in institutions. As a graduate student who did not work directly for any of the entities named as supporters at the time, I alone did not have the power or resources to put on this event. It became necessary to build a coalition in order to secure the allocation of resources to my cause. Others had interest in the project, but not funds. These individuals did however, have an important resource that I lacked: access to those who did have the monetary resources needed for such an event. By taking a step-bystep approach, I acquired the resources of support, then access, then funding. Through this process, I learned one of the major strengths of the political model and of politically savvy leaders: political leadership can occur at any level of an organization , even among those with little individual power or access to resources. As a graduate student, I had little positional power, authority, or access to funding. I would consider myself near the bottom of the overall divisional structure within Student Development, however I leveraged the power and access of those around me to initiate and complete a significant project. Another significant thing that I learned about the political model is that the resource that you think you need may not be the one that you should immediately pursue . Initially, I had gone to then-Vice-President for Student Development, Dr. Jacob Diaz to secure funding

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY support. I felt that my personal rapport with Dr. Diaz would make the conversation such that all I would have to do would be to convince him of the merits of the event. At the meeting, he revealed to me that he would soon be stepping down as Vice-President, but that he loved the idea and wanted me to present it to the new Interim Vice-President, Dr.

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Michelle Murray. At this point, I decided to alter my strategy and start building a coalition because I had no prior relationship with Dr. Murray upon which I might be able to base such a request. I needed to switch to gathering a different resource, first that of support in order to gain access to those who could provide funding. The biggest weakness of the political frame in this process was time. Originally, I had wanted to hold the Unconference in October 2013, at the end of the 2013 SATech Unconference Series, but instead we held the event in March 2014, at the start of the 2014 Series. I dont see the failure to meet that target as a failure of leadership, but perhaps more of a failure to recognize that securing scarce resources would be a process rather than a single request. This experience strengthened my political leadership and ultimately the Unconference. If I had been able to secure scarce resources quickly and easily, my planning committee would likely not have been so diverse, nor would I have had the chance to build such a broad base of support, which might have negatively affected the attendance of the event. Politics may have been a slowing force in the development of the event, but it also brought many creative voices to the table who would not have otherwise been present. Political leadership can be time consuming, but it can also bring different groups together to make something new and wonderful.

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY Resources Boatwright, K.J., & Egidio, R.K. (2003, September/October). Psychological predictors of college womens leadership aspirations. Journal of College Student Development, 44(5), 653-669. doi: 10.1353/csd.2003.0048 Bolman, L. G., & Gallos, J.V. (2011). Reframing academic leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2000). The manager as politician. In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership. (pp. 164-181). Jossey-Bass: San Francisco Deal, T. & Peterson, K. (2000). Eight roles of symbolic leaders. In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership (pp. 202-214). Jossey-Bass: San Francisco Dugan, J.P. (2006, March/April). Explorations using the social change model: Leadership development among college men and women. Journal of College Student Development, 47(2), 217-225. doi: 10.1353/csd.2006.0015 Gardner, J. (2000). The nature of leadership. In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership (pp. 3-12). Jossey-Bass: San Francisco Higher Education Research Institute (HERI). (1996). A social change model of leadership: Guidebook. Kezar, A. J., Carducci, R., & Contreras-McGavin, M. (2006). Rethinking the L word in higher education. ASHE Higher Education Report, 31(6), pp. 15-99. Komives, S.R., Longerbeam, S.D., Owen, J.E., Mainella, F.C., & Osteen, L. (2006, July/August). A leadership identity development model: Applications from a grounded theory. Journal of College Student Development, 47(4), 401-418. doi: 10.1353/csd.2006.0048

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Kouzes, J.M., & Posner, B.Z. (2003). Encouraging the heart: A leaders guide to rewarding and recognizing others. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Wheatley, M. (2000). Goodbye, command and control. In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership (pp. 339-347). Jossey-Bass: San Francisco