People in Positions of Authority: A New View of Five Concepts
We are now better able to say what we mean when we talk about leadership as if it were meaning-making in a community of practice. We refer to leadership as a social meaning-making process that takes place as a result of activity or work in a group, instead of referring to leadership as a social-influence process in which individuals get others to engage in activity or work. We mean leadership as the process of connecting people to one another and to some social activity, work, enterprise. We mean leadership as that subspecies of culture-building that arises in communities of practice. We speak of leadership as flowing from meaning instead of meaning as flowing from leadership. We refer to leadership as that which creates commitments in communities of practice. We view leadership as that which connects people to work and to one another at work. We refer to leadership as a social process in which everyone in the community participates.
There are two important areas of leadership that look very different from this new perspective. One, which we hope to devote more time to soon and to report on at some later date, is people with no, or with relatively little, authority. Work in this area is, we believe, vitally important to understanding leadership. Fortunately, Heifetz (in press) has already begun the work, and anyone interested in this topic should read his book.
The other area is people in positions of authority in an accountability hierarchy. Looking at this area of leadership from the meaning-making perspective can make it possible for us to gain a new understanding of such concepts as influence, individual action, motivation, the relationship between authority and leadership, and accountability. Let’s look at each of these as we shift from the predominant view of leadership as dominance-cum-social-influence to the view of leadership as social meaning-making.
From Social Influence to Social Meaning-making
With the shift to seeing meaning-making as the basis of leadership, influence is no longer considered the essence of leadership; it becomes, rather, an outcome of leadership. Instead of being seen as an ability that the would-be leader must acquire, or as a commodity that he or she must have in plentiful supply before acts of leadership are attempted, influence is seen as a beneficial outcome of an effective process of leadership. Influence arises as people in the community of practice make commitments to one another and thus allow others to make claims on them.
This shift can thus lead people in positions of authority to view the effectiveness of the leadership process less in terms of how much influence they are personally generating and more in terms of the level of feelings of significance experienced by people in the community. The criterion of effectiveness will be less about how closely the group of followers adheres to a vision or plan, and will look more to the involvement of community members in increasingly central ways—the movement of people from relatively less important, marginal roles toward more important, more central roles; in other words, the criterion will tend to be the rate of increase of significance.
The shift from influence toward meaning-making implies a related shift in how we will view the role of the individual in leadership.
From a Dominant Individual Leader Acting on Followers to People Participating in a Shared Process
With this shift in point of view toward leadership, people in positions of authority will begin to question the paradigm that leadership (whether as an individual act or as a social process) arises in the action of a dominant leader. This is a shift away from understanding leadership as being about what a leader does to understanding it as being something people do together.
The concept, just discussed, of influence as the basis of leadership is allied to the view of leadership as an individually oriented process. The shift in viewpoint here involves moving from seeing the individual as the seat of leadership toward a view that the source of leadership lies in meaning-making in which all members of the community participate to some degree or another, including those people in the community, if any, who possess some kind of authority. Although this shift in point of view seems irrevocably to decentralize leadership, this is not the case. To repeat and emphasize this point: Shifting our view of leadership from that of a dominance-inspired influence process to a socially distributed meaning-making process does not necessarily imply that individually oriented leadership processes involving dominance are not possible or effective. As we will see below, even the most authoritarian modes of leadership can be seen as social meaning-making. What this shift in point of view does imply is that individual leadership is a special case (as is shared leadership, for that matter) of an underlying social process of making meaning around practice.
One implication of this for people in positions of authority is that, in adopting this view, they will no longer see their position as automatically granting them status as leader and thus as the fountainhead of leadership. They will instead recognize that the underlying meaning-making process constructs their authority and that, depending on the process, this may or may not make them the principal person in the leadership process. In other words, in this view, people called leaders do not so much produce leadership as they are produced by leadership.
What about dominance, you might ask? What about charisma? Isn’t it obvious that leadership is often a matter of a powerful individual taking charge of a situation, influencing people, and making things happen? Well, yes, but the process of taking charge can be seen itself in a social context. How so?
At its most basic level, dominance (we will discuss charisma in a moment) can be seen as a psychophysical phenomenon: physical strength, stamina, and speed matched with psychological courage, determination, and ferocity. This is the arena of the hero and the warrior chief. The demands and commandments of the dominant individual backed by strength and the will to use it define the very reality of those subject to the ruler. The experience of the community unfolds within the structure demanded by the dominant individual and is essentially a drama of survival. But it is also a drama in which all members play some role: Dominance, to be effective as a process of leadership, implies a meaning-making structure in which “followers” are reflexively obedient. This is often an extremely effective process of leadership (in crises and combat, to name just two instances) that has obviously had its uses and continues to be useful.
One reason for shifting our view toward a socially distributed meaning-making process is that to sustain highly individually oriented forms of leadership demands constant renewal through demonstrations of the leader’s dominance. Although crises and other moments amenable to individual control usually pass before people can begin to question the leader’s dominance, the situation is different in sustained settings, where other individuals will inevitably arise to challenge the leader’s strength, intelligence, experience, and so forth. In sustained settings, therefore, in which individual leadership is the predominant model (such as most military organizations around the world), more or less stringent rules pertaining to obedience, duty, and the consequences of insurrection are required. Such rules are, of course, in the view being offered here, themselves part and parcel of the underlying meaning-making process out of which individual leaders arise.
What about charisma and charismatic leadership? Dominance is only one feature of charisma. Extraordinary talents for communicating, forming relationships, and getting inside the hearts and minds of others are added to make the charismatic leader (Fromm, 1941). Weber (in Eisenstadt, 1968) understood charisma as an aura of specialness created around a leader by subordinates. This gift of specialness was seen as being granted to leaders who come forward in a time of crisis and offer extraordinary solutions and act as a savior. The followers are therefore attracted to the leader because they feel their own powers derive from those of the leader. This reminds us of Churchill. But did Churchill’s charisma arise from within his individuality alone? Or was some larger social context also involved?
Another view of charismatic leadership offered by Edward Shils (1965) points to both the individual component of charisma—the numen, the spirit within—and its social component—the involvement of the charismatic leader at the heart of things, the center, that is, arenas (institutions such as the law, education, and politics) where ideas play out in important ways in people’s lives. Thus charisma does not arise only out of an individual’s specialness but also out of the individual being deeply involved in the thick of things, either going with or going against main ideas and actions that largely affect people’s lives.
The shift toward a social-participation view of leadership allows us to consider that individual leadership may be effective when the leader represents (re-presents, that is, presents in a new way) or allows recognition (re-cognition, that is, knowing in a new way) of that which is inarticulate or unknown yet present in the community of practice. The leader’s involvement in the “heart of things” implies profound connectedness to a social whole—else there is no heart to be close to. This view connects the psychological (the individual’s knowing) and social (the significance of the knowledge for the community) aspects of charisma. Thus what can be seen as an example of the preeminence of an individual through charismatic leadership can also be seen as a collective process of meaning-making.
An example of this is Queen Elizabeth I. Clifford Geertz (1983) says, “Her whole public life … was transformed into a kind of philosophical masque in which everything stood for some vast idea and nothing took place unburdened with parable.… Elizabeth ruled a realm in which beliefs were visible, and she but the most conspicuous.… The center of the center, Elizabeth not only accepted its transformation of her into a moral idea, she actively cooperated in it. It was out of this—her willingness to stand proxy, not for God, but for the virtues he ordained, and especially for the Protestant version of them—that her charisma grew.” (p. 129). It was this participation in a community organized around Protestant virtues and culturally shared ideas of the meaning of royalty that in part granted charismatic qualities to Elizabeth.
Thus, people in positions of authority might be better equipped for their role in the leadership process if they were to become aware of the underlying process of meaning-making by which they gain their authority and are granted their influence. It has individual elements to be sure, but it is also a social phenomenon.
As we move away from viewing leadership as arising necessarily in the individual or as having influence as its basis, we also begin to shift our view with respect to what leadership primarily provides.
From Motivation to Act to Frameworks Within Which to Act
Lying deep beneath the view of leadership as social influence may be the assumption, pointed out by Kelly (1955), that people are essentially inert and require some reason for acting. In other words, we may see leadership as being rooted in influence because we think people need motivating. Instead, we could assume that people are already in motion, already acting, doing, and behaving, and that what they need is not to be prodded but to have some way of guiding their action toward the creation of significance.
In its broadest aspect, motivation, as applied to the question of leadership, has been seen as a more or less dyadic exchange between the person in a position of authority and individuals called followers. This exchange has been seen to involve the trading of rewards for performance. The essence of the arrangement is that the person in authority has the resources and power to provide rewards and that the subordinate wants the rewards. Much has been written about the nature of rewards and the nature of people’s desire for rewards. Under a view of leadership as social influence, the individual having authority (usually called the leader) is seen to be more or less personally responsible for creating motivation to perform. With the shift toward leadership as a social meaning-making process, the understanding of this dynamic changes.
This shift in viewpoint allows people in positions of leadership to see members of the community of action as being already motivated by a desire for increased centrality in the community—increased participation in the more skilled, more knowledgeable aspects of whatever activity the community is organized around. The purpose of the process of leadership in this view is therefore not to create motivation; rather it is to offer legitimate channels for members to act in ways that will increase their feelings of significance and their actual importance to the community. The question, then, for an individual in a position of authority is no longer how to get people to do what is needed but how to participate in a process of structuring the activity and practice of the community so that people marginal to its practice are afforded the means to move toward the center of that practice. In other words, how can the contribution of each person in the community of practice be made increasingly important and increasingly appreciated for its importance?
In discussing this view of leadership, we have thus far been careful not to identify the person in a position of authority as the leader, as is usually done when leadership is viewed as a dominance-cum-social-influence process. The reason for this should become clear in what follows.
From the Authority Figure as De Facto Leader to the Authority Figure as a Participant in a Process of Leadership
In the current view of leadership as a process of social influence, authority and power are associated with leadership by assuming that people in positions of authority and power are leaders. As we have already seen, there is a tendency to see leadership as whatever it is that a leader does; this means that there has been a tendency to see leadership as whatever a person in a position of authority and power does. This tendency has had the effect of making it nearly impossible to think about leadership as a process. Look at a book or article about leadership—even those that aim to discuss leadership as a process—and usually within a page or two, or at most a chapter, the discussion will have centered on individuals called leaders. Leadership is seen to flow from the individual in a position of authority toward a group of followers.
When seen as meaning-making, leadership flows around and through a community of practice, interpenetrating the community and including the authority figure (the person, say, with the power to hire and fire members) within its course. The authority figure, in this view, is a participant in the process of leadership who has more power than others in the group. As we will see, a key question arises around the exercise of power and its ultimate implication for the effectiveness of the authority figure’s participation in the process of leadership.
Are we saying that directive, authoritarian leadership is not leadership in our terms? Emphatically, no. We contend that even the most directive, unilateral leader can be seen as participating in a shared process of meaning-making in a community of practice. When people in a community accept directive rule from an authority figure, they are participating in the creation of a certain structure of meaning. It may be a structure in which the authority literally tells each person in the community what to do. As long as this is accepted by members of the community, the leadership can be seen as being a shared process in which the participation of the authority figure is defined as acting to direct the activity of all members. Sometimes this may be extremely effective. Almost certainly it is effective in an emergency when there is a single person who knows how to meet the crisis. Its effectiveness becomes questionable in a complex organization engaged in difficult and multifaceted activity. In this latter case, the authority figure will probably need to find some other basis for participation in the process of leadership.
The discussion of our shift in point of view has brought us back to the situation we outlined at the beginning of this paper: What are the key questions a person in a position of authority needs to ask him- or herself? How does the view offered here change these questions?
From “How Do I Take Charge and Make Things Happen?” to “How Do I Participate in an Effective Process of Leadership?”
Seeing leadership from the meaning-making perspective involves forming a new understanding of one’s role as a person with authority who is to be held accountable for the performance of others. The traditional approach has been, as suggested, to take charge. Taking charge suggests that authority and power are used to create some variety of influence that gets the job done. In the view of leadership we are offering, because leadership is seen as a process residing in the community of practice (though it is often, not always, embodied in the acts of individuals), the person with authority and power will not so much see his or her role as taking charge as participating. The key movement is from I need to make things happen to we need to make things happen and I need to figure out how best to participate in the process of us making things happen.
This shift in viewpoint also requires some reformulation of the relationship between accountability and leadership. Assuming that hierarchies will continue to exist and that individuals in authority roles will continue to be held accountable for the performance of others, we must rethink the nature of individual accountability. The tension for managers in organizations who would participate in leadership rather than be the lone fountainhead of leadership is how to do this while remaining accountable. Yet this tension is not so very different from the tension of being held accountable for tasks that one does not actually perform. The accountable person is deemed to be responsible for assuring that people are well selected, properly trained, and otherwise competent to do the task. So it might be with leadership. The accountable person would be deemed responsible for fostering and nurturing an effective process of leadership and for participating in it effectively.
As we have seen, a key aspect of this shift is the reexamination of the assumption that the only leadership process is one in which influence flows from some authority figure to followers. Our view allows that leadership can happen in other ways. But this is not to say that leadership is never effective when it manifests itself as influence flowing from authority to followers. In times of crisis, for example, when the authority figure is the only person with a sure sense of what to do to steer out of the crisis, a process of leadership in which the authority figure’s greater experience and knowledge lead to strong influence of followers will probably be the most effective process. The difference in this situation from this view of leadership is that the underlying process is seen to be meaning-making rather than dominance-cum-influence. The influence in this situation is seen to flow from the way the authority figure’s greater experience and knowledge are used to interpret and make sense of a crisis situation. It is this sense-making, more than dominance as such, that is seen as leading to influence.
But what of other situations, such as that described at the beginning of this paper where someone is given the assignment of forming a new unit in the corporation? Is it reasonable to assume that in situations when no one knows what is best or even what is possible to do, that the authority figure should assume that taking charge is most effective? Would it not be more reasonable for the authority to ask, “What is the most effective process of leadership?” Another way to ask this is, “What is the most effective way for this community engaged in this particular practice to make sense of our situation?” This question leads to different considerations than asking, “How can I take charge of this situation?” The question of what is the most effective leadership process leads then to the question, “How can I participate in this process effectively?” Thus the authority is faced with two questions, one of the nature of the leadership process and the other of the nature of his or her participation in the process. The determination of the most effective leadership process is itself, perhaps somewhat paradoxically, also part of the leadership process, as is the determination of the authority’s most effective mode of participation. Again, the authority can choose to answer these questions only in his or her own mind and to his or her own satisfaction, or the authority can choose to work through these questions in the community. The criterion will be effectiveness. Which works better? Our guess is that the working through of these questions will be better done in the community and that this will require some level of openness and the ability to create dialogue (Dixon, in press) in the community.