Transformational Leadership and Not for Profits and Social Enterprises

Ken Wiltshire, Aastha Malhotra, Micheal Axelsen, Ken Wiltshire, Aastha Malhotra, Micheal Axelsen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315468556
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Regierung & Wirtschaft

Recent decades have seen a significant transformation of the not-for-profit (NFP) sector. This includes rise in the number of organisations and people employed, shift from charities and philanthropic agencies to hybrid social enterprise business models, competing stakeholder interests and increasing expectations regarding accountability and transparency. The role of NFPs has also become more complex – they not only serve the disadvantaged and fulfil social needs but also actively advocate for and implement public policies and promote social and economic inclusion.

The growth and complexity has brought with it a need for innovative and entrepreneurial approaches to leadership that stems from an in-depth understanding of the changing nonprofit landscape. Addressing this need, for Not for Profits and Social Enterprises will help readers navigate extant challenges by drawing on conceptual literature, both theoretical and empirical and emphasising practical real world experience through case studies and vignettes

The key aim of this book is to help existing and future NFP leaders at all organisational levels to support their organisations and employees and in turn clients and communities, through theoretical insights and practical approaches by focusing on transformational leadership aspects for contemporary Not for Profits.

for Not for Profits and Social Enterprises is key reading for researchers, academics and policy makers in the areas of Non-profit Management, Leadership, Public Sector Management and Charity Management as well as related disciplines such as Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship.

Part I

The Leadership Journey

1 Leadership Concepts and Approaches

Kenneth Wiltshire

Introduction

Sound leadership is often the most crucial factor in the survival, success, and advancement of any organisation, community, or nation. This has been true from ancient times to the present day. However, the notion and type of leadership required are not a constant, and usually depend on the contemporary circumstances. The very nature of leadership itself has also been progressively subjected to wide ranging analysis thereby enhancing our understanding of the dynamics involved.

This chapter is not meant to be a comprehensive or definitive coverage of all leadership literature. It is merely intended as a snapshot of the changing nature of the concepts and theories of leadership and their evolution, attesting to the fact that there is no single definition of leadership, although there would be many who would say that they can recognise leadership when they see it.

The history of the evolution of leadership theories and concepts has been well documented.¹ The earliest focus was on personal traits of leaders; such factors as lineage, physical aspects such as height, strength, voice, presence, and appearance; and qualities such as courage, determination, resourcefulness, and even a messianic vocation and sense of destiny. The basic assumption was that there were such people as ‘born leaders’. The image of the leader was the person out in front, clearly on a personal mission, controlling and accruing all power to themselves, taking all the decisions and issuing all the commands. Sometimes they have one or a few trusted advisers but they take all the responsibility for strategies and tactics, including alliances, leading to the final result.

Notions of what constitute leadership traits has been a moveable feast. To illustrate this a new light on traits was provided by Stogdill in a 1948 analysis of 124 studies of leadership traits which had been conducted between 1904 and 1947.² The majority of these studies showed that leaders tended to be intelligent, more dependable or responsible, and more active in social situations. The old supposed traits especially those related to physical characteristics had little relation to leadership. Stogdill’s conclusion was that leaders had a strong capacity for organising and generating cooperative behaviour and this involved intelligence, alertness to the needs of others and insight into situations, reinforced by habits such as responsibility, initiative, persistence and self-confidence.

His work continued with a later 1974 analysis of 163 studies which suggested that leaders are characterised by: a strong drive for responsibility and task completion, considerable vigour and persistence in pursuit of goals, creativity and originality in problem solving, initiative in social situations, self-confidence and a strong sense of personal identity, willingness to accept consequences of their decisions and actions, a capacity for absorbing stress, willingness to tolerate frustration and delay, ability to influence the behaviours of others, and a capacity to organise groups to achieve the purpose at hand.³

In both studies he was quick to point out that the mere possession of these traits was not enough to ensure effective leadership—the actual behaviour and style of the crucial was crucial.

There then emerged a perspective that personal traits alone were not enough. The contingency in which leadership was required and displayed was also a key factor. The contingency might, for example, be war, crisis, rehabilitation, growth, competition, or sustainability. This gave rise to the modern expression, well known in the corporate and military worlds, that there are “certain leaders for certain times or situations”. The approach became known as situational leadership.

Leaders and Followers

For a long period the leader himself or herself remained the focus of attention in leadership literature and studies. Then a paradigm shift occurred when it was realised that a key way to understand the concept of leadership was to study the leader-follower relationship. If it were possible to ascertain why people were prepared to follow a particular leader the notion of leadership would become clearer and easier to identify. In combination with previous concepts this school of thought spawned a range of other explanations of the nature of leadership.

The idea of transactional leadership arose in this context. This was the thought that leaders could enter some kind of bargaining or negotiating process to convince people to follow them. Some attempt was made to identify levers of power and influence by which this might be achieved. However, this was a short-lived leadership concept, as might be expected.

Charismatic theory was another, often-wobbly strand of thought which sought to give an explanation for followers’ behaviour. ‘Charisma’, a word derived from Greek roots meaning spiritual or metaphysical power or energy, was an additional element added to the traits of leaders who attracted a large following. This thinking harked back to Weber’s categorisations of authority—traditional authority (where some people possess authority because those in their position or community have always possessed it); rational authority (where society calculates and determines that this person needs to have such authority); and charismatic authority (based on the mystical influence which some person has over others).⁴ Of course, charismatic leadership can be exploited with evil as well as good intent, leading to dire consequences, as in the case of Hitler and many dictators past and present.

Role Models

Yet another popular approach to understanding the leader-follower relationship has been role modelling. Successful and well-respected leaders have been scrutinised to determine just what qualities they possessed. For example, a scan of hundreds of leadership texts has revealed that the people throughout history most often cited as inspirational leaders include:

• Joan of Arc
• Winston Churchill
• Mother Teresa
• Martin Luther King
• Mahatma Gandhi
• John F Kennedy
• Aung San Suu Kyi
• Nelson Mandela

In the particular fields of business, adventuring, and sport many role models have also been cited predominantly of leaders who triumphed through adversity, turning around the declining fortunes of companies or teams, or who achieved long running stellar results, for example CEO of General Electric Jack Welch, and Antarctic Explorer Ernest Shackleton.*

Interestingly it has also been observed that many, if not most, role models do often have a flaw, sometimes a fatal flaw, which is usually not known by their contemporaries, or if known is overlooked in the light of their achievements for the nation, community, or project. The most often cited cases refer to drinking, gambling, health disorders, or aspects of morality. Apparently, leaders do not necessarily have to be perfect in every aspect of their personal lives even though this is considered desirable.

At any event the full scope of leader-follower perspectives reveals a long distance from the notion underpinning trait theory—that people would follow a born leader in blind faith. Now key factors which figured in any explanation of the leader-follower dynamic included vision, trust, values, integrity, inspiration, sense of direction, clear communication, and a team approach.

Organisational Leadership

Much of the leadership literature previously mentioned has been based on general and random observations of leadership behaviour. However, there is now also a body of work which purports to be based on close empirical studies of the behaviour of successful leaders and which often leads to prescriptions or formulae which authors say can be replicated. Bookshops at airports and train stations abound in these tomes—the 10 key factors of leadership, the seven ways to success, the 12 thoughts of pathfinders etc. etc. A fair proportion of this is pulp fiction but there are some works which are based on well cited examples of actions and behaviour. Most of it is written in the context of organisational leadership and it pops up usually in the section of the shelving labelled ‘Management’.

Indeed, this gives rise to one of the key debates in the literature, and one which is of considerable significance to Not-for-Profits and Social Enterprises viz. “ Is there a difference between leadership and management?”

Leadership or Management

Basically there are three points of view to be found: (a) that the two concepts, leadership and management, are completely different; (b) that they are the same; and (c), as is so often the case in academic deliberations, a hybrid approach which says that aspects of leadership can be found in management and that leadership requires elements of good management.

In the real world, this dilemma is also often to be found. Visit a school and ask for the leader, (i.e. the school Principal), and you will be directed to a block labelled ‘Administration’. Audiences sitting in an orchestral concert could be forgiven for thinking that the conductor is the leader of the orchestra given that conductors are always out in front waving their baton and taking bows, but the real leader of an orchestra is the first violin player. And just who is the leader of a sporting team? Some would say the captain is the leader but captains do not choose players for the team, nor rotate them during the match, nor decide their remuneration, nor determine the strategy for the match, nor take the full credit or blame for the result. Indeed, the coach and often the CEO of the club make these key decisions which in the corporate world would fall to the front person of the business i.e. the captain. Even on the field where captains do have a near monopoly on immediate tactics, the modern practice in many sports is for the captain to have a leadership team of three or four players who jointly decide such matters.

Those who say that leadership and management are different are often espousing the thoughts contained in the literal definition of each concept. The word ‘leadership’ is derived from a Greek word which, roughly translated, relates to the path of a ship at sea. Hence leadership has strong overtones of dynamic motion including long term vision, a goal or destination, a passage to that destination, and strategies and tactics to keep to that pathway or change course when required: in essence they have an overview of the progress of the mission and also of the team below on the decks.

‘Management’, on the other hand, derives from a Latin word which relates to ‘the hand’. Thus, the word gives rise to images of control, command, direction, monitoring, oversight, performance measurement, all mainly oriented to short to medium considerations: in essence a ‘hands-on’, active rather than reflective posture.

One of the strongest advocates of a clear distinction between leadership and management, John Kotter, claims that leaders focus on change by setting direction and vision, aligning people to that vision, and motivating people to achieve the vision. In contrast managers plan and budget to produce results. They organise staff, and structure jobs and reporting relationships to implement plans; and they control, problem solve, and correct deviations from the plan. So, it is a leadership task to develop a shared plan, and a management task to coordinate its implementation.⁵

By contrast, one of the key proponents of the hybrid approach, Yukl, says that in influencing task objectives and strategies, commitment and compliance in task behaviour to achieve these objectives, group maintenance and identification, and in influencing the culture of the organisation the terms manager and leader can be used interchangeably.⁶

Interestingly whereas some people used to follow the Kotter line and argue that the Board should provide the leadership and the CEO the management, today leadership is considered a shared responsibility.

Whatever your view may be in this debate, we live in an era where many leaders of organisations are concerned that they are being swamped too much by demands that they focus on management issues thereby reducing their capacity and time to focus on their true leadership responsibilities. This can be seen best in organisations situated in a professional context such as Heads of Hospitals who regard themselves as medical leaders, or School Principals who used to be regarded as Curriculum leaders. However, their job descriptions and performance measures are often struck in purely management terms, including micro-management requirements. (Government employers are the worst in this respect.) Some of this burden, but not all, can be mitigated by delegating management to deputies or buying in expertise: after all it is far easier to buy in management than leadership. This issue is also plaguing Not-for-Profit Organisations where Board membership may not have a full range of skills, or may be focussed solely on short term factors. Government regulations may impose all manner of management responsibility on the leader. It is becoming clear that CEOs of most organisations are being considered predominantly as managers and not given enough space or encouragement to practice and enhance their leadership capacity.

By the same token, within the public sector itself, those who head government organisations are nowadays also required to have sk...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Foreword
• Preface
• Part I The Leadership Journey
• Part II Shaping the Journey
• Part III New Journeys, New Horizons
• About the Contributors
• Index