Prior to reading Kouzes and Posner’s (2011) discussion of characteristics of leadership attributes, I ranked my top leadership attributes as imaginative, dependable, broad-minded, forward-looking, and supportive. My decisions stemmed from my experiences with an outstanding mentor and leader, less competent leaders, as well as how my personal values and ethics aligned with my motivation and efforts in each situation. The attributes that I ranked as most valuable promoted the most job satisfaction and personal growth.

I previously recruited graduate students for online programs in a high-volume contact center environment. Our direct manager’s role was reflected as per Workman and Cleveland-Innes’s (2012) definition of managers in transactional leadership: enabling, facilitating, and negotiating to achieve organizational outcomes. I enjoyed being part of his team because he was always supportive of ideas or initiatives that team members wanted to try. He showed his support by connecting team members to resources, facilitating learning opportunities, allotting time for individual projects, testing and reviewing prototypes, and negotiating buy-in from stakeholders to drive prototype implementation. By empowering the team to pursue new challenges and solutions, we were not only able to achieve our targets, but also felt committed to the shared purpose, inspired to innovate, and a sense of belonging. I felt that his leadership was motivating because it incorporated Gill’s (2006) defining functions of effective leadership: vision and mission, shared values, strategy, empowerment, and influence, motivation, and inspiration.

In less than three years, the leadership team above my manager changed at least four times. Every three to six months, a new “visionary” leader would expect us to conform to their new strategy. Eventually, we became a full-fledged call center with an automated dialer system, which was opposite of what our data informed – that prospective students were moving away from phone interactions and preferred text and email communications. With this dialer system, we had no time or freedom to innovate. We were expected to adhere to and evaluated based on an assigned script. Ultimately, we experienced all of the disadvantages of transactional leadership: failing to motivate followers to achieve more, failing to promote individual development, and failing to adapt and pivot when the targets were missed (Khan, 2017). This exemplified how organizational leadership could negatively affect follower motivation, performance, and outcomes by removing collective learning, collaboration, and personal transformation from the equation (Khan, 2017). By the time I transitioned to a different role, I felt burnt out, demotivated, and stressed. I felt that the leaders in our organization did not properly assess the needs and changes in our digital environment prior to investing in an outdated and ineffective strategy.

During this time of change, we need to incorporate adaptive leadership in order to respond effectively and imaginatively to potential changes in the environment (Khan, 2017). This should be informed by community-oriented approaches like the Aboriginal leadership style which promotes employee motivation by recognizing each follower as more than just a number, and ensuring that they can arrive at their jobs performing at their best (Julien et al., 2010). By recognizing and supporting employees at the individual level, this holistic approach also considers the wide range of skill sets and experiences offered by a diverse team of motivated followers.

My experiences have illustrated that followers are aware of the transition of their work to the digital setting, but they are not in want of a leader who will present a grandiose vision and set of instructions for them to conform to. Followers can contribute their diverse skills and experiences creatively to the shared goal. To do this, they need to be empowered by a leader who is dependable, broad-minded, forward-looking, and supportive. This leader can enable the followers to grow beyond their limits as an individual.  Each team member brings their unique strengths and skills to their role, but the leader recognizes and optimizes on this diversity to promote collaboration and innovation. They are imaginative in how they envision each member adding value to the vision, and serve to achieve this.

If I were to suggest a leadership attribute not on Kouzes and Posner’s (2011) list of leadership characteristics, a leader should be “empowering.” This means creating the environment, opportunities, and connections that will empower their team to learn, achieve, collaborate, and innovate. It also means supporting and empowering each team member to lead in their own roles and projects. In the Aboriginal leadership style, the role of the leader and follower is fluid (Julien et al., 2010). Each team member can assume the leadership role according to the situation. When the leader offers support, guidance, and space for new leaders, the team may be able to bring a wider variety of solutions and strategies to the table, and collaborate with the leader on a well-informed decision.

References

Gill, R. (2006). Redefining leadership: A new model. In Theory and practice of leadership (pp. 63-95). Sage Productions.

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

Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or transactional leadership in current higher education: A brief comparison. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3), 178-183. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i3.3294

Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2011). The characteristics of admired leaders. In Credibility : How leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved from Books 24×7 e-book database.

Workman, T., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2012). Leadership, personal transformation, and management. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 13(4), 313-323. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v13i4.1383