This article includes segments of the Organizational Leadership degree proposal submitted to the Kansas Board of Regents in 2001. Written by Dr. Curt Brungardt, Chair of the Leadership Studies Department and Dr. Larry Gould, Provost and Chief Academic Officer at FHSU, this document provides rationale, justification, and a complete description of the academic displine of Leadership Studies and the specialized field of Organizational Leadership.

Brungardt

Introduction

The Bachelor of Arts/Sciences major in Organizational Leadership is a 33 credit hour interdisciplinary degree which provides students with an innovative curriculum that focuses on the study of leadership in the context of the modern organization. The primary purpose of this degree program is to blend a liberal arts education, which provides breadth, and a specific Organizational Leadership major that provides curriculum depth in leadership and organizational behavior.

This academic program is intended to prepare graduates to serve in a broad range of leadership and supervisory positions in both public and private organizations. The Organizational Leadership major is designed to provide students with the knowledge and experience necessary to be effective in a variety of organizational settings. First, students will develop a deep understanding of how organizations function and what role leaders at all levels can play to improve organizational performance. Second, students will gain important practical skills and competencies essential for success in the 21st century organization. Skills in interpersonal relations, problem solving, teambuilding, motivation and communication are necessary in the modern workplace.

The “New” Organization

Generally speaking, organizations are administrative structures operated by specialists to perform a limited range of tasks: make automobiles, educate people, govern a country, etc. The typical organization has traditionally been pyramid-shaped with various functions performed by separate departments and with control and direction provided by one person or grouping of people arranged in graded ranks from high to low (president, vice president, middle level managers, workers, etc.). However, this command and control approach is changing. In some cases, the change has been dramatic enough to produce what could be called the “new” organization.

A combination of increased market and global competition, regulatory demands, new microeconomic trends, technological changes and demographical shifts in the workplace have all led to a new business climate. Simply put, status quo thinking and slow incremental organizational change and improvement of the traditional workplace will no longer be sufficient for survival. Thus, the will to stabilize is not going to be the answer for organizational success, but rather, a ticket to sure failure.

Organizational leaders have begun to realize that they will have to increase quality and reduce costs to insure growth, compete and survive in this new environment. Transformational change and progressive leadership will need to replace the incremental approaches of traditional leadership styles. Therefore, organizational leaders are now playing a new game - the change game. In the 1980s and 1990s, we experienced an explosion of new management techniques and approaches in order to enhance organizational growth. The quality movement (TQM, CQI, etc.), re-engineering methods, strategic thinking and planning, change management, organizational improvement and transformational leadership are all attempts to implement major “change” in our organizations. In the name of organizational success, managers and consultants alike are now encouraging intervention strategies that truly alter the organization. The motto chanted by many is – change or die! The will to stabilize no longer guarantees growth, success, or even survival. The will to change has now become the answer.

In addition to the overall purpose of leadership changing from status quo thinking to organizational change, so too has the method by which leaders pursue that change. The popular literature of today describes a completely different management style or approach. Instead of the traditional idea of leadership in which a leader is tough-minded, in control and functions in a top-down situation, we now recognize that a leader needs to be a collaborator and facilitator in this volatile climate.

Business consultants, scholars and many top managers often talk about a world in which the traditional hierarchical organization doesn’t work anymore. They tell us that the conventional command and control style of leadership (with power residing in higher positions) no longer produces the results needed in today’s changing and competitive environment. Both scholars and practitioners alike describe in great detail the decline of the hierarchy. As a result, they encourage organizations to create new flexible structures and cultures that maximize the contributions of all employees. The purpose of this leadership style is to make the organization stronger by encouraging critical thinking and decision-making by more and more employees. To be successful in today’s business environment, all employees must contribute. Empowerment advocates tell us that the benefits are endless. In essence, by sharing power with everyone in the organization, we are in fact “unlocking the potential” of all employees.

The 21st Century Workplace

The latest research on employment needs reflects this new and changing organizational environment. More and more employers are looking for people who can successfully operate in a workplace where there is a dispersal of responsibility and where empowered employees are valued. Employers from all industry types and at all structural levels seek individuals who possess certain skills and competencies that will help benefit the organization as a whole (Farr, 1998).

First and foremost, these employers are looking for employees who possess a good mixture of communication skills, the ability to work in teams and groups and are self-disciplined and self-empowered. They are looking to higher education institutions to prepare and enhance students’ knowledge, attitudes, skills and abilities simultaneously. Today’s employers are suggesting that graduates need to improve in a number of important areas in order to maintain a job in the 21st century workplace (Keiper, 1998). Simply, they are telling us that we need to do a better job of preparing students for the modern organization. In addition to knowledge in their career field, employers are looking for verbal and written communication skills, interpersonal skills, leadership experience, initiative and personal motivation.

Needed skills and competencies as defined by human resource industry:

The rapidly changing workplace must depend on employees who possess organizational skills and who adapt to changes quickly and efficiently. Employees in today’s workplace must become creative and innovative leaders who promote powerful and positive differences in their communities, as well as in their organizations. The ability to take risks and to create change within an organization is greatly valued. The growing idea of entrepreneurship is being rapidly incorporated into the modern organization. Thus, employees must be enthusiastic and willing to create change (Harvey, 1999).

The Bachelors degree in Organizational Leadership prepares students to become effective organizational players in today’s workplace. Through the various courses within this degree program, students will develop the skills necessary to obtain and maintain a career, and to be effective in the 21st century organization. Flexible organizations need flexible and increasingly empowered employees. The Bachelors degree in Organizational Leadership stresses the importance of developing the skills and characteristics necessary in today’s workplace. No other major can adequately prepare a student for the modern organization than a degree in Organizational Leadership. The Bachelors degree in Organizational Leadership seeks to develop graduates with the characteristics and skills which modern organizations require.

The Academic Study of Leadership

Higher education has long asserted that it prepares young people for the responsibilities of leadership, but until recently, only a few schools have addressed the characteristics of leadership and how leaders might be educated. In fact, the earliest colleges in this country were founded in order to develop leadership. Until recently, however, course work at these earliest colleges paid more attention to the study of leadership than the modern curricula.

Over the last several decades, an increasing number of colleges and universities have begun to offer programs and courses in leadership studies and organizational leadership. Latest reports indicate that between 600 and 700 campuses are attempting to address leadership issues through classroom instruction and/or co-curricular experiences. The 1990s have seen an explosion of leadership-related academic programs. Many of these include comprehensive and coherent curricula providing the learner with an in-depth study of the leadership process. A recent report by the Center for Creative Leadership (1998), identified 49 comprehensive programs. They included five undergraduate majors, 21 undergraduate minors and 23 undergraduate concentrations or certificate programs. Below is a sample of three undergraduate degree programs:

*Bachelor of Science in Organizational Leadership and Supervision, Purdue University (School of Technology).

*Bachelor in Leadership Studies, University of Richmond (Jepson School of Leadership Studies).

*Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Leadership, Chapman University (College of Lifelong Learning).

Today, more and more institutions of higher learning are recognizing the need and importance of providing their students with the opportunities to study and practice leadership. They are also very aware that the 21st century organization and workplace will require a different set of competencies. Fort Hays State University concurs and believes that one of the central purposes of higher education is to prepare citizens for positions of leadership.

What is Leadership?

The desire to understand, define and explain the essence of leadership has interested researchers and scholars for most of the twentieth century. In their efforts to find an “accurate and precise” definition of leadership, thousands of studies have been published in the last several decades alone. Most of these explanations have focused on a single person and his or her personal qualities or skills. Social scientists have tried to identify what abilities, traits, behaviors, sources of power or aspects of the situation determine how effective a leader will be in influencing others.

Contrary to popular thinking, the term “leadership” is a recent addition to the English language. In fact the word did not come into usage until the late 19th century. Although the words “lead” and “leader” have a much longer history, they usually referred only to authority figures. The birth and evolution of the idea of “leaderSHIP” focuses on a much more complex concept that reaches beyond the single leader. In fact, contemporary definitions most often reject the idea that leadership revolves around the leader’s ability, behaviors, styles or charisma. Today, scholars discuss the basic nature of leadership in terms of the “interaction” among the people involved in the process: both leaders and followers. Thus, leadership is not the work of a single person; rather it can be explained and defined as a “collaborative endeavor” among group members. Therefore, the essence of leadership is not the leader, but the relationship (Rost, 1993).

One result of this transformation in the concept of leadership has been the reconstruction of leadership definitions. Joseph Rost of the University of San Diego is one of the most popular writers to recognize the shift from the industrial model of leadership to a paradigm he calls the post-industrial model of leadership. In his book Leadership for the Twenty-First Century (1993), he articulates a definition of leadership based on this post-industrial perspective, a definition he believes is more consistent with contemporary organizational life. Rost’s definition says that “leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purposes.”

This definition is composed of four basic components, each of which is essential and must be present if a particular relationship is to be called leadership.

*The relationship is based on influence. This influence is multidirectional, meaning that influence can flow upward and downward, and the influence attempts must not be coercive. Therefore, the relationship is not based on authority, but rather on persuasion.

*Leaders and followers are the people in this relationship. If leadership is defined as a relationship, then both leaders and followers are doing leadership. He does not say that all players in the relationship are equal, but does say all active players practice influence. Typically there is more than one follower and more than one leader in this arrangement.

*Leaders and followers intend real changes. Intend means that the leaders and followers promote and purposefully seek changes. Real means that the changes intended by the leaders and followers must be substantial.

*The changes the leaders and followers intend reflect their mutual purposes. The key is that the desired changes must not only reflect the wishes of the leader, but also the desires of the followers (Rost, 1993).

Rost says: “From these essential elements, we can see that leadership is an influence relationship wherein leaders and their collaborators (followers) influence one another about real changes that reflect their mutual purposes. Leaders compete with other leaders for collaborators. The collaborators develop a relationship with leaders of their own choosing, not necessarily those who have authority over them. Leaders and their collaborators may change places. There may be a number of leadership relationships in one organization, and the same people are not necessarily the leaders in these different relationships... The intended changes reflect the purpose or vision that leaders and collaborators have for an organization. That purpose is usually not static but is constantly changing as leaders and their collaborators come and go, as the influence process works its effects on both leaders and collaborators, and as circumstances, environment, and wants and needs impact the leadership relationship and the organization” (Rost, 1993).

Slowly scholars and practitioners alike are giving up on the old ways of leadership, the industrial paradigm. This traditional approach to leadership is characterized by a top-down philosophy, where the leader is decisive, efficient, unemotional and in-control. The changes in the way we view leadership can also be found in other disciplines where descriptions of our world are objective, single, mechanical, hierarchic and controllable. The post-industrial leadership paradigm, on the other hand, is characterized by collaboration, power-sharing facilitation and empowerment. This new view of the world is more complex and diverse, mutually shaping and spontaneously changing (Rogers, 1992).

For Rost, this radical shift in leadership thinking revolves around the notion that, first, leadership does not equal what leaders do, and second, leadership does not equal good management.

One of the most notable themes found in the paradigm shift is the role of the followers. The 75-year history of the industrial perspective fails to illustrate the important role followers play in the leadership process. It was believed that followers did very little, and leadership was no more than what leaders wanted and did. Very simply, the followers did not count in this leader-centered view of leadership. In contrast, the post-industrial paradigm places the followers into a significant role with leaders in the leadership process. If we define leadership as a relationship, then it is imperative that we recognize the contributions of those who collaborate with leaders.

The faculty of Leadership Studies concur with Rost and others who advocate this new conceptual framework in leadership thinking. We believe that leadership is a relationship. It is a relationship among people who share mutual interests. It is a relationship among people who seek change. It is a relationship among people who promote changes for the collective good. In its simplest form, “leadership is an interactive influence process for change.”

Leadership is not what leaders do. Rather, leadership is what leaders and followers do together for the collective good. In today’s society, leaders operate in a shared-power environment with followers. No longer does a single leader have all the answers and the power to make substantial changes. Instead, today we live in a world where many people participate in leadership, some as leaders and others as followers. Only when we all work together can we bring about successful changes for our mutual purposes.

Can Leadership Be Taught?

Yes, leadership can be taught, and more importantly, leadership can be learned. While experts agree that life experiences play a critical role in leadership development, many scholars and educators alike believe that specialized educational environments can also enhance leadership abilities. Leadership development spans a lifetime. Early childhood activities, education, and later, on-the-job experiences encourage and nurture leadership abilities. Leadership education (a component of leadership development) includes those learning activities and educational environments that are “intended” to enhance and foster leadership skills. Thus, leadership education is the more formal and structured learning situations that seek to intervene by enhancing, altering, creating, or speeding-up the leadership development process. Fort Hays State University has joined a growing number of institutions around the nation who are providing curricular activities that educate students about leadership.

Fort Hays State University believes that much of what makes people successful in the leadership process is learned. There are identifiable skills that are essential for those who participate as agents of change in our shared-power society. This includes the ability to self-reflect, communicate, critically think, problem solve and cooperate with others. Our goal is not so much to teach students to be leaders, but rather to prepare them to be capable of participating in the leadership process. We provide them with the needed knowledge and experiences so they are prepared for the responsibilities and commitments of leadership.

Fort Hays State University also distinguishes between leader development and leadership development. Until recently, leadership development programs were synonymous with the development of leaders. However, we know that leaders are not the only people involved in the leadership process. Therefore, our developmental model (including both content and methodology) must accommodate the changing post-industrial paradigm of leadership. This means that leader development is no longer sufficient for the 21st century. If leadership is what leaders and followers do together, then it is logical that educational environments reflect this collaborative perspective. Therefore, the Organizational Leadership program has constructed a leadership development program designed around this new understanding of leadership.

The New Field of Organizational Leadership

Organizational leadership is the study of leadership in the context of the modern organization. It examines the theoretical foundation as well as the practical behaviors and processes that promote positive organizational development. This new and growing discipline merges the traditional field of organizational theory and behavior with the new and emerging field of leadership studies. The purpose of this discipline is to help the learner understand and participate as a leader to improve his or her organization. Organizational leadership is a broad academic field that is adaptable to a variety of collective entities, including private for-profit organizations, public and not-for-profit organizations, large and complex organizations, to small groups and teams. Finally, there is a clear distinction between the traditional discipline of business and public administration and management and the field of organizational leadership. Whereas management focuses on the processes of consistency, efficiency, organization, structure and authority, organizational leadership advocates movement, transformational change, innovation and collaboration. While all these processes are key to organizational success, the latter one is becoming more and more important in today’s volatile workplace.

Those who participate in organizational leadership will have a strong foundation in the theories of leadership and organizational behavior as well as the competencies and desires to put knowledge into action, thus, serving as change agents to lead organizational transformation and improvement at any level.

The field of organizational leadership is further defined by the following points:

*Organizational leadership is both “multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary”. It uses principles, models, theories and methods from other disciplines. It also attempts to blend and integrate these different approaches to collective behavior.

*Organizational leadership is “performance oriented”. It evaluates the performance of collective entities and recommends invention and change strategies for positive improvement.

*Organizational leadership has a distinctive “application orientation”. Its research provides useful answers to questions that arise in the context of regular day-to-day organizational operations.

*Organizational leadership encourages “shared power” methods of leadership. It recommends influence behavior that promotes teaming and collaboration processes.

ORGANIZING THEMES

Fort Hays State University’s Organizational Leadership degree program integrates three major themes in its curriculum: creating change, collaboration and collective purposes. These themes provide the foundation and purpose for all leadership development activities. Each can be found in our content and methodology. We conceptually define leadership as creating change. Consistent with contemporary definitions, leadership is about making personal and organizational changes. Collaborative leadership tells us we need new approaches to how we practice and participate in the leadership process. Finally, the collective purpose focus provides the meaning and purpose for our leadership behavior.

Creating Change

First and foremost, leadership is about creating change. The very concept of change is what makes leadership different from all other forms of human interaction. When reviewing both historical and contemporary definitions of leadership, there is considerable disagreement on such elements as “who serves as the leader? what attempts at influence are leadership? and what are the purposes of that influence?” However, there is very little dissension on the basic premise that leadership is about the process of change. For our conceptual purposes, we view leadership as a process of change where both leaders and followers serve as change agents. Thus, those actively involved in leadership are not just the subjects of change, but rather the driving force of that change. They are responsible for moving the organization from “what is” to “what ought to be.”

There are several other important elements to our creating change theme. First, leadership is about “purposefully” seeking change. It is more than just natural or obvious change; it is change making that is intentionally designed and implemented by the change agents. Second, leadership refers to transformational or fundamental changes rather than small incremental adjustments. In most cases, it is the changes which require full and long-term commitments. Third, the purpose of change is “positive” movement. Therefore, leadership is about making “improvement” or “correcting discrepancies” between what is and what should be for the collective good (Krysinski & Reed, 1994).

Collaboration

If leadership is creating and encouraging useful change, then the next logical question becomes “how” do we initiate and sustain those changes? The answer is collaboration. It is critically important that our methods of practicing leadership reflect the new post-industrial paradigm of leadership if we hope to be successful. These approaches are characterized by cooperation, power sharing and empowerment. The collaborative premise is: “if you bring the appropriate people together in constructive ways with good information, they will create authentic visions and strategies for addressing the shared concerns of the organization or community” (Chrislip & Larson, 1994). When individuals are engaged constructively and effectively with others around issues that affect them or that they care about, they can achieve results and in the process they will be empowered. Citizens successfully engaged in the collaborative process begin to expect to be involved. Therefore, advocacy changes to engagement, hostility to civility, confrontation to conversation and separation to community (Chrislip & Larson, 1994).

Collective Purposes

Our third and final theme focuses on why we should practice and participate in leadership. If leadership is an influence relationship for change, and collaborative approaches are the preferred method, then the final step in the cycle is to encourage change that makes things better for all. We are asking students to believe in something larger than themselves as they become active players in the leadership process. The collective purpose theme represents a shift from the purpose of leadership that emphasized goal attainment for individual good (the leader) to the collective good (groups and organizations). Finally, this theme encourages students to take action on behalf of this larger good. Each person has a responsibility to carry change forward for themselves and their collective unities. We believe that this collective purpose focus is essential to leadership development.

Methodology

We believe it is imperative that our teaching styles reinforce, rather than contradict, the leadership content presented in class. This means that traditional approaches of teaching, characterized by the teacher controlling behavior, holding the power and serving as the final authority, does not reflect the post-industrial paradigm of leadership. Instead, our teaching methods will reflect new perspectives on leadership, with the instructor serving as a collaborator in a shared power classroom.

The general methodology adopted by Leadership Studies revolves around two complementary approaches: the comprehension-analysis-application model and modeling leadership (Hichman, 1994; and Howe, 1995). First developed for Leadership Studies in the spring of 1993, the comprehensive-analysis-application model will continue to serve as the framework for the program and specialized classroom learning activities. With each content topic, three levels of learning experiences have been incorporated into the program as well as into each individual course. Comprehension means that students will be introduced to theories and concepts through assigned readings and classroom presentations and then be tested to reinforce their intellectual mastery of material. Analysis means students will be expected to demonstrate that they have critically analyzed topics and issues, which require synthesis of the material covered in class discussions and assignments. Application means students will be expected to effectively demonstrate their knowledge of leadership by applying what they have learned in both structured and unstructured learning exercises.

“To ‘educate’, then, is to empower students, to become transformational teachers/leaders, and to help students become leaders in their own right”. Howe goes on to say:

Just as many businesses and other organizations have developed flatter structures and moved to an emphasis upon teams and empowered employees, so have many classrooms – within leadership education programs but also more broadly – developed non-hierarchical, student-centered structures and moved to group learning and empowered students. Under these new assumptions, the student can act as a teacher/learner, and the entire class can act as a team of collaboration (literally, “co-workers”) engaged in a leadership relationship (Howe, 1995, p.5)

Simply, we believe it is important to “practice what we preach”. Our structured pedagogues will reflect and correspond to the leadership concepts and theories presented. Therefore, modeling leadership in the classroom is first based on “shared power”, where the teacher and the student provide mutual support in the education process. “Modeling leadership through power sharing involves a clear demonstration by the instructor of respect for students as competent, contributing individuals who are capable of providing leadership” (Hickman, 1994, p.138)