Over the last few days, I have started writing this blog post probably five different ways. Each time it felt wrong, and I started over again. Eventually, I decided to stop writing, step back, and assess why I was finding it so difficult. I realized that I struggled with this post for two reasons. First, I see leadership as how a person acts, not the position they hold. Second, I have yet to see fundamental attributes that set leadership in digital environments apart as something unique. As such, every time I began to write a post that would respond to the provided prompts, I found myself struggling with the prompt itself. Therefore, I have chosen to write a post that reflects on these two areas of struggle in order to better understand my own position regarding leadership in digital learning environments.
My perspective of leadership has been shaped over the years from experiences in my youth, leadership in organizations, and various readings. Using leadership distinctions presented by O’Toole (2008), my early years taught me that leadership should be a mix of paternalistic and servant leadership. On the other hand, most of my working life has had me working under leaders that used a mix of power, cognitive, and transformational styles, with claims of a shared leadership style that was never actualized. Whether for right or wrong, this caused me to interpret the term “leadership” as an authority figure I am required to follow, whether their style or attributes made me desire to follow or not. Those who I felt conveyed traits of a good leader rarely held a position of authority, rather they were those I went to for advice, who sought to improve their community, or cared more for those around them than their own comfort. To connect this with the attributes from the activity, they were caring, intelligent, supportive, honest, and cooperative. These attributes are more in line those of aboriginal (Julien et al., 2010) or values-based (O’Toole, 2008) leadership than my experience with corporate leaders. Leaders I respect are not focused on ambition or independence, they create a supportive environment with room for honesty, imagination, and broad-mindedness, without losing sight of the need to build up the people around them. They understood, just as can be seen in O’Toole (2008) and Julien at al. (2010), that a leader is not a position of authority, it is who you are whether you have authority or not.
Though my view of leaders is detached from their position, I understand that people who hold positions of authority act as leaders, and now most leaders do so within digital environments. But does the context of the environment impact the underlying needs of organizational leadership? I should clarify that I refer to leadership that participates within digital spaces (Sheninger, 2014) rather than a specific organizational role that is meant to direct how technology is used by the organization to reach goals (Wade & Obwegeser, 2019). Kane et al. (2019) wrote about what makes digital leadership unique, describing the increased pace, need for a clear vision, understanding of the digital world, and the ability to adapt to change, as being integral to digital leadership. Similarly, Sheninger (2014) defined seven pillars for digital leadership in education that include the need understand communication, public relations, branding, student engagement, professional development, learning spaces, and new opportunities through a digital lens. I offer that these ideas are not unique to digital environments and that organizational leaders have needed to adapt to these changes since business began. Whether from the introduction of the printing press, telegraph, fax machine, or email, leaders have always had to adapt to new technology and an increasing pace of work. Establishing an organization’s vision, finding novel ways to approach public relations, and the need for keeping staff educated has been necessary whether the world communicated through twitter or the postal service. The world has always been a place of change, and I understand that digital leadership principles offered by Sheninger (2014) and Kane et al. (2019) are important to help those who are unsure of how to adapt to this changing. Still, I feel that good leaders in a digital learning context are good leaders within a traditional learning context. They follow leadership principles like those presented by Castelli (2016), such as adapting to change, respecting their colleagues, communicating openly, and challenging what was done in the past. These attributes are not dependent on whether leading in traditional or digital environments, they empower teams in whatever environment they inhabit.
References
Castelli, P. A. (2016). Reflective leadership review: A framework for improving organisational performance. The Journal of Management Development, 35(2), 217–236. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/10.1108/JMD-08-2015-0112
Julien, M., Wright, B., & Zinni, D. M. (2010). Stories from the circle: Leadership lessons learned from aboriginal leaders. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(1), 114–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.10.009
Kane, G. C., Phillips, A. N., Copulsky, J., & Andrus, G. (2019). How Digital Leadership Is(n’t) Different. MIT Sloan Management Review, 60(3), 34–39. http://search.proquest.com/docview/2207927776/abstract/8A139DE1C55D4BB5PQ/1
O’Toole, J. (2008). Notes Toward a Definition of Values-Based Leadership. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 1(1), 10. https://scholar.valpo.edu/jvbl/vol1/iss1/10
Sheninger, E. (2014). Pillars of Digital Leadership. International Center for Leadership in Education, 4. http://leadershipmedia.net/pdf/LeadingintheDigitalAge_11.14.pdf
Wade, M., & Obwegeser, N. (2019). How to Choose the Right Digital Leader for Your Company. MIT Sloan Management Review, 60(4), 1–4. http://search.proquest.com/docview/2239539576/abstract/C7069D4598B94576PQ/1
An excellent read, David. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. My experience with leadership is similar to your own. In particular, your story of having the idea of shared leadership not come to fruition is so familiar. In fact, I’ve found that people who have held supervisory positions over me have rarely lived up the standards they appear to set for themselves and their followers. Why is it, do you think, that those people who you identify as having leadership qualities don’t tend to hold managerial positions? Is there some barrier in the advancement systems that prevent them from move into more appropriate positions?
Thanks again, David. I really enjoyed this.
Thank you, Christopher. I really appreciate that. While I might enjoy ranting about why I feel those who would likely make the best leaders are those who don’t want to be leaders, I have nothing but opinions and personal experience to back it up. I suppose it depends on the type of leader we want. While some might like a leader who is able to take them places without necessarily being a decent human, I would prefer someone who is more interested in supporting the needs of their team. Maybe the issue is that those who have have the leadership qualities I value would prefer to remain under the radar due to a humility, or possibly the feeling that sometimes the role makes their style of leadership more difficult? I really don’t know. Perhaps I will find answers in this course.
Hi David,
It struck a note for me the part where you mentioned a leader is not what position you have but rather who you are as a person.
I think the ability to lead in the digital world doesn’t necessarily mean the leader needs to make a huge change or impact. For me, leaders inspire. Rowe it is a good point you brought up; why are many people we consider leaders not in more authoritative positions?
Perhaps real leaders know they can inspire other without having to climb the ladder.
Thanks, Emma. That’s a great point about leaders not necessarily needing to make a huge change or impact. It has me thinking about idea of inspiration and whether it should move “followers” to create the leader’s idea of change or move them to create their own change. I suppose both ideas have merit in different circumstances, but they would definitely attract different types of follower. This now has me considering whether there could be more focus on understanding types of followers rather than types of leaders.
Your post echoes a many things I was considering when I wrote my post this week too.
Two things in particular caught my attention.
First I agree that just because you are a boss, doesn’t mean you are a good leader.
Second, in our group, the differences we saw between our group members were largely due to the fact we have had different experiences with past bosses and that had a huge effect on our view of what a good leader should be.
I found a study by Amit et al. (2009) which explains how important our past experiences are in determining what makes for an effective leader: “In addition to guiding behaviors and social perceptions, experience-based knowledge of leadership becomes over time inextricably integrated with the development of one’s self-concept as a leader” (p. 304).
Amit, K., Popper, M., Gal, R., Mamane Levy, T., & Lisak, A. (2009). Leadership shaping experiences: a comparative study of leaders and non leaders. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.
That looks great, Patrick! I’ve just been skimming the article and it seems really interesting. One of my early comments with my group was that I felt my ordering of the attributes was heavily shaped by my most recent experiences with poor leadership. Leaders will never be perfect, so as “followers” we’re likely always wishing we could have a leader who fills those attribute gaps from the last leader. I haven’t read the entire article, but what I’ve read reminds me of how our childhood shapes so much of what we consider “normal”, and that must be passed on to how we perceive leadership qualities. Which then makes me scared about how I’m shaping my own children’s idea of what makes a good leader. Uh oh.
Hi David,
While I agree that “good leaders in a digital learning context are good leaders within a traditional learning context”, I wonder if younger students/colleagues/followers respect you a bit less if you don’t keep up with new developments in digital trends, don’t follow the latest memes, don’t use the strategies that influencers use, etc, which is less relevant a traditional learning. Although, maybe that is covered by competency trait?
That’s a very interesting thought, Denys. I hadn’t thought of that, but I suppose it might depend on the team you’re leading and the leadership traits desired by the members of that team. It reminds me of how some people vote for politicians because they feel they’re down-to-earth and are the sort of person you might enjoy to share a beer with, while others aren’t looking at all for that sort of a person to lead in the political sphere. Some may strongly desire their leader to be current on digital culture, trends, and strategies, while others may want that leader to understand what skills they lack so they can rely on, and learn from, their team in those instances. Depending on the level of their lack of knowledge of current digital affairs, their team may perceive this as a lack of interest in learning and growing as a leader. Thanks for bringing this up. Does it come from a place of experience with a leader?