Leadership As Meaning-Making

Leadership as Meaning-MakingThe Evolution of the Leadership Principle

in the Post-Industrial Era:Dominance to Meaning-Making

Guest Lecturer

American Studies & Interdisciplinary Studies

University of California at Berkeley

Summer 2010

Carlos F. Camargo, PhD

Taken-for-granted Assumptions

Leadership is a quality or ability of a person

Leadership & authority are closely linked: authority confers leadership, while leadership is the exercise of authority

When leadership needs to change, it is leaders who change

Carlos F. Camargo, PhD 2

Difficult ideas

shared leadership

everyone is a leader

distributed leadership

leadership teams

self-managing teams


Questions raised by the junction of new ideas and old assumptions

If everyone is a leader, does this mean that everyone needs to possess special leadership qualities and abilities?

If leadership is shared, what happens to authority and accountability?

If leadership is a function of teams, how do you change leadership?


Evolving Leadership Principles

Carlos F. Camargo, PhD

dominance influencemeaning-making

Personal Leadership

Relational Leadership5

Dominance

Most basic of all leadership frames

Master of the House

Protection and guidance

“authoritative utterance”

Controls & limits conflict

Leadership is what the leader does


Some Limits of Dominance

The ability of the leader to provide guidance and protection is limited

The ability of people to believe in the leader’s personal power is limited

The capacity of people to rely on someone else for guidance and protection is limited


Overcoming the Limits of Dominance

Take into account the limitations of the leader

Connect the leader to the concerns of followers

Include followers in the process of leadership


Influence

Flowing from leader to follower

Interpersonal negotiation

Human reason, empiricism replaces “authoritative utterance”

“Leader should first serve as a follower to understand the follower’s mind” -- Hegel

Get others to do what they don’t want to do & like it


Some Limits of Influence

• The ability of any one person to understand multiple meaning-making “worlds”

• The ability of any one person to influence people in different “worlds”

• The ability of people to be influenced by ideas, feelings, and values based on a “world” different from their own


Overcoming the Limits of Influence

• See meaning as a shared creation of people working together

• De-center leadership from the person to the process of shared meaning-making

• See people as taking part in leadership together

• Learn to make leadership work across “worlds”


Meaning Making• Brings meaning into being

• Meaning, knowledge, & reality are shared creations

• Leadership is the shared search for and construction of meaning and understanding

• People participate in leadership together

• “Leader” & “follower” represent ways of participating in leadership and do not define it


Assumptions of the Meaning-Making Principle

• An individual person cannot create meaning alone

• Meaning is a shared, reciprocal achievement

• Meaning is embedded in communities and cultures

• power, authority, influence, & values are outcomes of a meaning-making process

• Therefore, leadership creates leaders, not the other way around.


Not Assumptions of the Meaning-Making Principle

• That leadership is always distributed

• That power, authority, & responsibility are always distributed

• That everyone is equally capable of participating in leadership

• That strong personal leadership is ruled out


Shifts in Leadership Development• Dominance principle = Prepare the leader for

the challenges of mastery

• Influence principle = Enhance Self-knowledge and interpersonal skill to enable the person to effectively exercise leadership

• Meaning-making principle = Increase the capacity of the community to make meaning through inter-relationships


Highly Developed Leadership Participants of the Future . . .

• will understand the “self” as incomplete & interdependent

• will be able to appreciate multiple and conflicting “worlds”

• will be able to link differing perspectives and translate among “worlds”

• will have the capacity to engage in dialogue


To evolve to the next principle, ideas that need letting go . . .

• That an individual is the source of leadership

• That authority & power are sources of leadership

• That some people have more leadership than others

• That individuals develop “their” leadership


& ideas that need taking on . . .

• That the work of every person includes participating in leadership in some way

• That authority & power, as community resources, are open to inquiry and contingent on need

• That people are responsible for their job in relation to the whole

• That dialogue is a key tool of leadership


Documents

Leadership As Meaning-Making