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The ‘strategic leader’ is an expert professional practice or role with a certain (high) level of managerial competency and complexity in leading there. Two quotes will serve here to give a flavor of the complexity of the role. The first reflects the common, limited view of strategic leadership… , “… A substantial influence on the effectiveness of an organization. ” Gary Yuk, Leadership in Organizations the second speaks of one specific aspect of wider responsibility… , “unadulterated commitment to preserving the dignity of others. Joe Earlier, Leader Practice Between them, the images indicate a high level and wide perspective of professional development. This paper seeks to synthesize current understanding of strategic deader development; such a contribution may be significant for it’s input into: 1 . Development planning of high potential managers. 2. Provision of an organizational environment that optimists the potential for strategic leadership to arise, 3. Recognition, valuing and support of managers exhibiting strategic leadership qualities, 4.
Improving the effectiveness of coaching and mentoring praxis, and thus provides valuable knowledge for human resource development professionals, career development planners, executive mentors and coaches, and management educators. Concepts and Definitions Leader Development Leadership development has been defined as expanding the collective capacity of organizational members to engage effectively in leadership roles and processes (McCauley et al. , 1998). These processes enable groups of people to work together in meaningful ways.
In this way, leadership can be conceptualized as an effect in a social context, and leadership development consists of using social / relational systems to help build a community of practice (Winger and Snyder, 2000) as social capital. The primary emphasis is interpersonal competence; it is an ‘integration’ strategy (Day, 2000). In contrast to this ‘collective’ approach, leadership development has been commonly defined as ‘individuals’ learning skills, an approach that dominates the research literature.
From that perspective, improvement is better termed “leader development”, a development of human capital in the organization. Day (2000) summarized this primarily in terms of forming an accurate model of oneself, attitude and identify development and effective performance; through self- awareness, self-regulation and self-motivation enhancing knowledge, trust and personal power. It is a ‘differentiation’ strategy. In reviewing this topic, Day (2000) concludes that “researchers can help enhance the purposefulness of leadership development by examining how various practices and processes contribute to better leadership” (p. 86). He advocates recognizing that it is a continuous process that can take place anywhere and involves “the interrelated concerns of developing human and social capital in organizations” (p. 606). The same is true for how practices and process lead to better development. Strategic Leader Development A leadership development approach is, then, oriented towards building cognitive and behavioral capacity in anticipation of unforeseen challenges; a high level of development of such leadership complexity (Highbrow et al. 1997) has been termed strategic (Phillips and Hunt, 1992; Bola and Highbrow, 2000) or integral (Copied and Albrecht, 2000) leadership development, which is only valid in the sense used in this paper when the focus is integration of the collective. Where it is a ‘differentiation’ development process directed at the individual; a high level of such development has also been termed self-leadership (Mans, 1986; Houghton et al, 2003). It is better termed leader development.
Integral Development Epistemological orientations Stages of Development Ontological tensions The development process is ‘integral’ (whole) when the subjective intentions and objective behaviors of the leader are also explicitly considered in undertaking both the individual and collective aspects of their role. The dialectic of individual and social (self-in-relation; Fletcher and Gaffer, 2003) is recognized in the discrimination of leader vs.. Leadership development (Day, 2000).
What is not explicit in the vast bulk of the literature on strategic leadership (including the latter papers), or any style/type f leadership, is that it is a social practice and thus, it also has a dialectic of the objective and subjective. This dialectic of objective and subjective (perspective-in- practice) is revealed in the distinction of the tacit and explicit learning (Antipollution and Benton, 2004), such as in the tacit perspective of leaders with respect to their own development, and the explicit practices of development professionals (trainers, coaches).
The full landscape of all four resultant epistemological orientations (Semis and McGrath, 2000) – the objective / external / behavioral practice for both the individualistic/self and social/relation alms, and the subjective / internal / intentional perspective for both the individualistic/self and (to a much lesser extent) the social/relation realms- are well represented in the strategic leadership literature (although masquerading as different typological paradigms, and generally positivistic reductionism with little social constructivism), indicative of the high degree of understanding of what such leadership entails, but there is currently no correlation and integration of these orientations for either the nature of strategic leadership or its development. Second Tier and Full Spectrum Central to this capacity for leadership complexity is that strategic leadership transcends-and-includes’ (Wilier 2000) less complex leadership roles. That is, it is a leadership role that evolves out of, and then can utilities (when appropriate) the other roles of leader.
Such leadership is full spectrum’ when this practice is founded on development and appropriate utilization of lower levels of leadership complexity. Meta-criteria Much of the literature on the subjective-social orientation of leadership in organizations derives from social constructivist theory (Sarcastic and Coopered, 998; Alveolus, 1996), while it may reject the dialectic epistemology used here (Strand et al, 20001) . Commonly, a high level of ‘leadership’ in this orientation is termed Wisdom’ (Sarcastic and Coopered, 1998). General studies into adult development theories of wisdom (Sternberg, 1990; Ballet and Standing’s, 2000) may allow a fleshing out’ of this orientation in a fuller spectrum construct of strategic leadership.
In particular, the concept of ‘meta-criteria’ for wisdom as expert knowledge / learning (Ballet and Standing’s, 2000) transcending and including antecedent factual and procedural knowledge, may provide correlation with objective ‘meta-criteria’ of the strategic leader Meta-criteria- characteristics or criteria that denote and define this level of leadership – characteristics that allow utilization of lower level criteria of leadership – defined for all orientations of knowledge Accordingly, an integral or Whole’ development (Copied and Albrecht, 2000) towards this full-spectrum’ vision involves development of leadership meta-criteria (attributes/competencies) that transcends-and-includes’ less complex leadership criteria. And it is a ‘social practice’ development towards self-efficacy (Bandeau, 1997) in all four epistemological orientations. This treatment of development is consistent with a broader philosophy termed the ‘integral approach’ by Wilier (2000).
Objective This paper is, therefore a theoretical inquiry into the process of managers becoming strategic leaders, for a full-spectrum’ or ‘integral’ sense of professional development. At its core, the paper is investigating the process of attaining a certain level of professional expertise for one type of social practice. This ‘process of becoming is the emulation of intentional methods and unplanned events that culminate in achieving this expertise. Through study of such process, it is possible to build a ‘change strategy or theory framework to design methods and plan events that may make professional development more deliberate and effective.
The aim of this paper is to build a general theory of strategic leadership development, Such a integrated perspective on strategic leadership will allow better recognition of the meta-criteria supporting this role that need be the focus for strategic leadership development, and thus allow inquiry into processes that contribute to their development. While descriptors abound (albeit generally positivist and reductionism) of how an ideal strategic leader performs, the published knowledge base of how these qualities were / are developed is relatively sparse, restricted largely to the objective/external practice orientation of leadership and mostly based on popular practices advocated by leadership development practitioners. This paper will make a case for the need for more phenomenological investigation towards identifying the key developmental strategies that drive effective practice, particularly if grounded with regards to their validity in the managerial setting. B.
Leadership Development Modeling The aim of this paper is to build a general theory of strategic leadership development, structured in correlation with the four components of the enactment model of developmental action inquiry theory (Torture, 1991; 1999; 2000), and personal mastery theory (Sense, 1990; Mendoza, 2001), that provides a conceptual framework (figure 1 , attached) for the support of and intervention into leadership development planning in the managerial setting. To meet this aim, the four components of the strategic leadership development theory form four interrelated objectives (leading to four propositions) that will be addressed by the study: 1.
The meta-criteria of a full spectrum strategic leadership perspective and practice (vision paradigm) 2. Of these, criteria that can be made self-aware in a organizational environment (assessment / outcome) 3. Development scenarios for these criteria (strategy / focus) 4. Of these, development that can be supported in a organizations environment (implementation / creative tension) Four propositions have been generated for this study (figure 2, attached) C. Propositions The Strategic Leadership Paradigm Proposition 1 : Published understandings of leadership and adult development all the building of a full spectrum epistemological theory of strategic leadership define by self-in-relation and perspective-in-practice meta-criteria.
The first requirement a developmental planning is a vision, a goal or aspiration paradigm for development In this context, the vision comprises the criteria for and character of strategic leadership. The social science and popular literature on managerial leadership in general, and strategic leadership in particular, is voluminous, mostly focused on scripture of the qualities of this social practice and it’s “model” practitioners, representing a high level of competence in managerial endeavourer. Different perspectives or orientations of the types of knowledge used in descriptions are well represented in the strategic leadership literature, but there is currently no correlation and integration of these different orientations.
Behavioral Orientation Early models of ‘strategic leadership’ arose from upper echelon theory, giving rise t research into agency (top managers as agents of shareholders) and strategic leadership theory (Canella and Monroe, 1997). This focused on leaders at the ape of organization; the title was positional and is still occasionally used that way (Vera and Coronas, 2004). More commonly in recent publications, this title refers more to certain perspectives and practices of leadership, albeit still “upper echelon” and distinct from supervisory leadership (Bola and Highbrow, 2000). Strategic leaders AR “strategically adept and interpersonally skilled” (Conger and Benjamin, 1999, p. 4).
Ideally, they are available at many levels in an organization, and affecting the organization more widely than Just the immediate followers or team, influencing tragic decisions / structures / processes, vision creation, and managing organizational culture, ethics and diversity (Phillips and Hunt, 1992; Vice and Fuller, 1998; Bola and Highbrow, 2000). Vice and Fuller (1998) and others link strategic leadership with the ‘learning organization. Highbrow et al. (1997) have defined effective leadership in terms of cognitive, behavioral and social capacities, and Bola and Highbrow (2000), in reviewed research on strategic leadership, have incorporated these into an ‘individualistic’ model.
They designate three ‘essences’ of such leadership: absorptive capacity (double-loop learning ability and risk taking), adaptive capacity (flexibility and acceptance of change) and managerial wisdom , of (relational competence, discernment and timely action). These sees founded on published theoretical constructs of cognitive complex complexity and social intelligence respectively, moderated by public leader vision, charisma and transformational leadership. They also ‘social’ relational context of strategic leadership in an environment complexity and information overload. Behavioral complexity is deaf and Quinn (1992, p. 164) as “… He ability to act out a cognitively co playing multiple, even competing roles in a highly integrated and c way’. Other Orientations Many other models of leadership appear to be correlates of strategies defined for other epistemological orientation.
The full landscape’ of epistemological orientations (Semis and McGrath, 2000; Wilier, represented in the strategic leadership literature, although the ‘star generally described in objective-individual terms and the other one masquerade as different typological paradigms. These other model appear to be correlates of strategic leadership, as defined for other orientations. This includes ’empowering leadership (Pearce et al. , 2 leadership and ‘superheated’ (Houghton et al, 2003), ‘Level 5’ execute (Collins, 2001), ‘master manager’ (Quinn, 1988), ‘learning leadership’ and Benton 2004), ethical leadership (Mendoza, 2001) servant lead Stone, 2002) as shown in figure 3.
Pearce et al (2002) have developed ‘individualistic’ and ‘objective’ theoretical typology for a range of be leadership (more strictly – leaders) that discerns directive, transacts transformational and empowering ‘styles’. A strategic leader style is although the empowering style is reminiscent of facets of it. They c tit the ‘Human Relations’ leadership of Quinn (1988), and the self- (Mans, 1986; individualistic and subjective) and the superheated (H 2003; individualistic and objective). The latter model clear identifies leader has the capacity to develop the other styles in subordinates, transcends and includes their capacities and competencies. Viol similarly contend that the “best leaders” are both transactional and Vera and Coronas (2004) equate this with strategic leadership.
They comparison to Collins’ (2001) Level 5 executive leadership, a individual subjective model of leader that transcends and includes transform effective) and transactional (Level 3 competent) leader styles. The c “master manager” in Quinn’s (1988) competing values (individualists modeling of managerial leadership has implicit to it this sense oft include’ as it includes competency in a range of other styles as well Relations’ orientation (equated above with empowering leadership). Styles are seen as ‘paradoxical’; their ‘mastery is a benchmark for ‘b complexity. A similar construct informs the ‘integral’ leadership and model of Copied and Albrecht (2000), although also incorporating self-development qualities.
Baleen (2000) has extended the objects he competing values leader into leadership in the social context of organization’. Behavioral complexity is the primary criteria for ‘high leadership’ leading to organizational effectiveness. From a more subjective orientation, Antipollution and Benton (2004) describe a model of ‘learning leadership’ (social) and ‘leadership-from-within (individual) stressing the tacit dimensions as a relational process in a community of practice. The “paradoxical nature of what being a leader is about” is noted (p. 89). Correlation is made to the subjective self-leader and objective sheepherders constructs, and the subjective/ social model of leadership in the ‘learning organization’ (Sense, 1990).
Ethical leadership (Mendoza, 2001) and servant leadership (Russell and Stone, 2002) are other correlate construct the describes a higher level of leading in an individualistic, subjective (motives, character) orientation, probably reflective of ’empowering leading with slightly different emphases. Self-Awareness Assessment Proposition 2: A full spectrum epistemological theory of strategic leadership, defined by self-in-relation and perspective-in-practice meta-criteria, allows explicit use of hemoglobin’s inquiry, and triangulation with behavioral survey and development stage testing, in more fully assessing leadership development progress.
The second requirement of developmental planning is assessment of the current reality, in relation to the Vision’ for development. In this context, the assessment comprises self-awareness of current character of leadership with respect to the determined criteria for and character of strategic leadership. Behavioral Level Explicit practices of leadership development generally focus on the objective- individualistic orientation. Probably the most advocated assessment tools in both search and organizational development programs is measuring behavioral ‘style’ (e. G. , Viol et al. , 1999) and ‘complexity (e. G, Quinn, 1988; Copied and Albrecht, 2000) through 360 degree feedback instruments (McCauley et al, 1998; Day, 2000).
None explicitly link assessment to strategic leadership meta-criteria, but it is implicit in the complexity models (master manager, integral leadership). Professional Level The process of becoming a ‘strategic leader’ is the road to mastery of expertise. Dresses and Dresses (1986) provide a 5-stage model that describes development from voice to expert, reflecting transformational change in the whole practice not improvement in parts. While this model has been used to describe the outcomes of the development process (Quinn et al. , 1996), it also provides a framework for exploring the process itself, which is not evident in leadership research literature. Ego Level One form of indirect explicit assessment of leadership is the use of ego development testing.
Numerous studies have shown relationships between stages of ego development and interpersonal behavior and management performance (Rookie and Torture, 1998). This implicit characteristic of strategic leadership within a transcend-and-include framework in much of the mainstream reviews of leadership is suggestive of explicit developmental stage theories, both those directly addressing leadership (Beck and Cowan, 1996; Torture, 1999), and those for adult development in general (Cook Greeter, 2000; Wade, 1996; Wilier, 2000) but none of these are referenced in any of the leader models cited in the previous section. The more objective strategist level of Torture (1999) and the more subjective systemic level of Beck and Cowan (1996) seem correlative with the strategic leader.
Cook Greeter A TU (2000) summarizes the ‘strategist’ level in terms of interpretive m paradox, tolerating paradox, and integrating of parts of self toward actualization, while the correlative ‘authentic’ level of Wade (1996 associated with a preference for ambiguity, uncertainty and Para diversity and the autonomy of others, self-integration and self-AC the individual/self stage modeling also includes the corresponds orientation relevant to leadership (Beck and Cowan, 1996; Wilier, developmental models, and the wisdom ‘meta-criteria’ approach, integration of the more mainstream strategic leadership literature hat covers all four epistemological orientations. The ‘meta-criteria expert knowledge / learning of Ballet and Standing’s (2000) are k complexity, relativity and uncertainty.
These are a cognitive trans transcending and including antecedent factual and procedural k would seem to provide correlation with the objective ‘meta-criteria leader ‘level ‘proposed by Bola and Highbrow (2000) – behavioral managerial wisdom, adaptability. None of these approaches to ad are referenced in any of the ‘main-stream’ leadership developed they provide a framework for integrating the different orientation relative with strategic leadership. Development Strategies Proposition 3: Development of the meta-criteria for strategic lead learning and personal transformational strategies. Although the number of publications on leadership development, particularly outcomes (a Vision’ of leadership) and methods (practices) of dive relative dearth of scholarly research directly on the framework (SST methods and desired outcome (Day, 2000).
Research into leaders has focused on models of leadership and methods of develops 1998, Vice and Fuller, 1998; Bennie, 2000; Collins and Hilton, 2 scholarly research directly on the development process (Day, 200 Typologies In keeping with this deficit, there is little in the literature that poi strategies for strategic leadership development. Mostly, the focus leadership to ‘competencies’ and ‘dimensions’ without any inquire attaining these. Lane and Kline (2004), for example, bring attention leadership competencies’ of coping with ambiguity and manage propose related dimensions of ambiguity tolerance, mindfulness, judgment, creativity, and spirituality, without any implications of development. Barker et al. 1997) has differentiated these leaders placement methods into training, ‘development’ and ‘education latter as in keeping with a individual-in-social paradigm of leader Creative Leadership recognizes leadership development domains acquisition, skill development, behavior change, self-awareness transformational perspective change (McCauley et al. , 1998). Trans The prevailing paradigm in the objective-oriented leadership dive is that all behavioral competencies can be learned (e. G. Souses Yet in the more subjective-oriented approaches, there is a call of (2000) summarizes the ‘star. Paradox, tolerating parade actualization, while the core associated math d preference diversity and the autonomy the individual/self stage m indentation relevant to lea( developmental “lodes. An Integration of more mi that covers all four epistle expert knowledge / learner complexity. Lethality and u transcending and including would seem TA provide core leader ‘level ‘proposed by E managerial Wisdom, adapt are referenced in any of the they provide a framework correlative math strategic If Proposition 3: Developer learning and personal Tara nuttier oaf publications on outcomes {a ;. /Olson’ to lead relative hearth of scholars} methods and desired outs has tousled on remodel” to scholarly research directly In keeping, math this dealt strategies for strategic elate leadership to ‘competencies leaders competencies’ propose rotate-‘ dimension judgment. Creativity, and development. Darker et al. Development methods intro latter as in keeping ‘Air a Creative Leadership recon acquisition. Kill develops Transformational perspective The prevailing paradigm IR that ODL’ behavioral com Vet In the more subjective- paradigm of personal transformation” (Antipollution a this literature rarely addresses strategies to support such Mendoza (2001) is a rare example in discussing “self-tar thou any reference to development process or support allusion to mediation, prayer and “practices of examination development theorists have noted that transformation, at organizational levels, is implicit to ‘learning organizations’ capacity to self-transform is seen as the key “competence” ‘authentic’ level, this self-transformation is towards self-AC 2000; Wade, 1996). Jungian development theorists advocacy ‘inferior function’ to achieve such self-actualization (De Chi way, various ‘intelligences’ have been identified as the foci effective leadership, in particular emotional intelligence (e virtual leadership (Fairchild, 1998). The implication is GE rather than transformation. Strategic Leader Transformation Vice and Fuller (1998) have stressed both development rationales for strategic leadership development. To this, h transformation’ (Torture, 1994; Haring et al. , 1995; Anton Mendoza, 2001).
The relative role of these frameworks in development is not generally addressed in the mainstream Implementation Methods Proposition 4: Implementing strategic leadership develop requires support for both transformational and learning published knowledge base of how these qualities were / a parse, restricted largely to the objective/external practice and mostly based on popular methods advocated by lead practitioners. Published frameworks for development are, these methods. Day (2000) reviews the practice contexts f development tools: 360 degree feedback and coaching, m job assignments and action learning. Only mentoring and strategic leadership development themes.
Although coca ‘executive’, it is not described in terms of strategic develop includes exposure to senior executives and strategic agene learning oriented rather than as transformational suppose evidence for action inquiry and meditation supporting tar organizational settings (Torture, 1994), and for autobiography and Fisher, 1992), but otherwise the topic is sparingly doc Although there are a substantial, and rapidly growing, nu leadership development, particularly in terms of models o (practices) of development, there is a relative dearth of SC the process or strategies linking methods and desired MO contribute to knowledge is, therefore, insight into the plan framework) that address integral strategic leadership dive applicability of implementing such approaches in the ma lead to a more grounded theoretical framework for develop than currently exists in the literature. What is needed is an understanding of the theory framework or change strategies (Quinn et al. , 1996) that link such methods and practices to the Vision’ of leadership being developed. A broad range of development theory, such as social practice, professional and adult development, will also inform such a framework. Social practice, professional and adult development theory highlight the rich tapestry of developing the whole leader, the full spectrum’.
In keeping with the constructivist perspective of self-in-relation leadership (Antipollution and Benton, 2004; Alveolus, 1996), only phenomenological inquiry is keel to address the full richness of strategic leadership development as perception- in-practice. Thus, the field of strategic leadership development would appear to be “ripe” for a qualitative inductive study of the theoretical frameworks that direct integral development methods. The objective would be to inquire into the development process for leadership (behavioral) complexity in becoming a ‘strategic’ leader. This current study will thus be directed at the perceptions of individual leaders. But the study is also intended to be grounded in the practices of managerial placement in the organizational context (praxis) through a focusing on the practice of a community of development professionals.
The Integral Leader the level comfortable with paradox E. Further Research The most direct, implicit, assessments very likely come phenomenological through the intuitions of superiors, mentors and coaches that can and do fully recognize the criteria of strategic leadership within their preferred epistemological orientation. From a constructivist perspective, only phenomenological and ethnological inquiry is likely to address the full richness of leadership (Antipollution and Benton, 2004; Alveolus, 1996). Viol et al, (1999) state there have been very little effort to confirm survey assessment of leaders with alternative (qualitative) methodologies such as observation and/or interviews.
This inquiry will be inductive, building theory from the qualitative experience of recognized strategic leaders and leadership development professionals. Perceptual investigation towards identifying the integral developmental processes that resulted in managers becoming such leaders, addressing the full spectrum of the practice and the validity of such strategies in the managerial setting, will be an original contribution to the knowledge of leadership development. The primary research question and sub-questions of this thesis will be: “What is the process of becoming a full spectrum strategic’ leader? ” How might this be implemented in the organizational setting? How might this be monitored through manager self-awareness?
Interview transcripts will be analyses in two parts a. A concepts analysis (CB Barman et al. , 1996) to assess for leadership meta-criteria b. Grounded theory analysis (CB Parry, 1998) to reveal development themes Analysis will also be made of the corroboration between the leadership complexity measures and interviews assessment of leadership level. Given the small numbers, the triangulation is meant to be indicative rather than definitive. However, the comparison will be of interest; Viol et al (1999) state there have been very little effort to confirm survey assessment of leaders development with alternative (qualitative) methodologies such as observation and/or interviews.