President of AU

It was very interesting to hear President of AU Dr. Frits Pannekoek speak last night. I have not received and heard the recording yet. However, I will here on my blog give a summary of what I heard in the session in Adobe Connect on March 22nd.

Firstly, the Presidents emphasizes strong and clear values as something important in leadership in a higher education institution (HEI). In the case of AU, it was obvious that the mission to change educational patterns so that more people can get a degree from a HEI is a strong driver for Dr. Frits. For him success is when AU enrolls students from families without any educational background, because it increases the possibilities for their children to get educated. Therefore, he criticizes the ranking-systems for universities focusing on output rather than on outcome.

Secondly, I think it was great to hear Dr. Frits speaking about his own leadership. How he values empowerment. Therefore, he depends on a dedicated and engaged staff. For him it is an indicator of success if he can leave the institution for one month without anyone hardly noticing it. He also mentions the need for ethical leadership – in a period of time – where there is lots of different economic and political pressure on HEI. It was also very refreshing to hear him speaking about students learning, culture of learning and higher quality in DE as essential parts of his work.

Eventhough Dr. Frits finds that leadership theory tends to be common sense, he recommends a book: Paul, R. (2011) Leadership Under Fire: The Challenging Role of the Canadian University President Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. I have not read the book yet. However, Tony Bates http://www.tonybates.ca/2011/10/26/book-review-ross-pauls-leadership-under-fire/ gives an inspiring review which supports Dr. Frits' recommendations of the book. So, I will ask my liberary to buy an example of the book to learn more about Canadian Higher Education.
Finally, he points at integrity as something very important for a leader in HEI.

Through Dr. Frits' interactions with the cohort and the answers he gave us  on the questions we had posted to him, he supported his points of views and therefore he was a great illustration of an engaged, authentic and visionary leader - from my point of view.

Now, I look forward to receive the recording – and to compare his actual words with the words I heard and have reflected on today.

Transformational Leadership

Burns (1978) was a pioneer within transformational leadership theory. Burns' thinking is based on the assumption that leaders and followers can contribute to the growth of each other. Transformational leadership (TL) seems to be an appropriate approach when fundamental changes are required. TL is based the assumption that a vision can transform followers and lead to transformations in an organization, a field which can mean paradigmic shifts and new direction.

It is supported by Harms and Crede (2010) when they describe transformational leaders as "mentors to their followers by encouraging learning, achievement, and individual development they provide meaning, act as role models, provide challenges, evoke emotions, and foster a climate of trust" (p. 6)

Beaudoin (2007) discusses the advantages of a transformational and transactional leadership approach in academia and concludes that the most effective leadership style depends on the position of Distance Education (DE) in the institution. In an institution where DE is accepted, Beaudoin argues that a transactional leadership approach can be useful focusing on reinforcing and rewarding of the followers who have transformed their practice. Whereas the leader benefits more from a transformational leadership model if the followers have to be motivated to go into DE and the leader therefore has to move the followers to think and act in new ways.  According to Beaudoin, a third useful leadership style is the transitional which links the transformational and the transactional approach.

Given (2008) states that "a transformational leadership style will have a positive impact on:

·         organizational citizenship behavior/performance

·         long-term commitment, a sense of purpose, and the mutual interest of leaders and followers

·         organizational vision

·         on empowerment

·         job satisfaction

·         commitment

·         trust

·         on self-efficacy beliefs

·         motivation" 

In a review of leadership theories, Avolio, Walumbwa, and Weber (2009) equate transformational and charismatic leadership. It is not clearly described, why they make such a narrow link between transformational, which points at the processes of leadership and charismatic, which covers the personality of the leader. However, they provide a brilliant overview of theories such as servant leadership, authentic leadership, cross-cultural leadership and e-leadership

Furthermore, the authors highlight four essential leadership issues in future research across the different theories they present in the review:

1. More future research in leadership will be mixed methods.

2. Determining the causal mechanisms that link leadership to outcomes will be a priority.

3. Assessing and developing leadership using evidence-based strategies will be a target focus.

4. Examining strategic leadership as a process and person will be an evolving area of theory

and research (p.442).

We could add the need for research in self-directed leadership - at a micro- and macro-level.

References:
Avolio, B.J., Walumbwa, F.O. & Weber, T.J. (2009). Leadership: Current theories, research, and future directions, Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 421-49.

Beaudoin, M. F. (2007). Reflections on research, faculty and leadership in distance education. Oldenburg: Der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg – BIS – Verlag.

Burns, J.M, (1978). Leadership, New York, N.Y.: Harper and Raw Publishers.

Givens, J. R. (2008). Transformational leadership: The impact on organizational and personal outcomes Emerging Leadership Journeys, 1(1) pp. 4-24.

Harms, P. D. and Crede, (2010). Emotional intelligence and tranformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analysis. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 17(1) p. 5-17.

Entrepreneurship

Drucker (1985) is very specific about the differences between entrepreneurship in business and in public-service institutions. Service institutions, such as schools, universities, municipalities and labour unions, may actually need innovation and entrepreneurship more than business does. However, it is more difficult to innovate within a service institution where it is hard work to stop what 'we are used to do' and to start work in new ways with new issues.

According to Drucker, we have been used to that innovation in public-service institutions came from outside - represented by newcomers or catastrophes. It is, however a fact, that the public-services institutions have become too important and too big, growing fast since World War II. Therefore, there is an urgent need for innovation from inside the public-service-organizations which leads Drucker to conclude that entrepreneurial management is one of the most important tasks in our time:

To build entrepreneurial management into the exisiting public-service instituion may thus be the foremost politcal task of this generation (p. 171)

On Saturday (March 24th), I'll go to the final day of InnoEvent. 700 students from different programs have worked for a week with developing technological solutions for increasing security for patients in hospitals. I am part of the jury, and I look forward to see and judge all the great ideas and solutions. With this kind of projects, we support crossdisciplinary, authentic solving of problems and an entrepreurial mind-set. The leaders who have actively supported InnoEvent meet Drucker's requirements.

References:
Drucker, P.F. (1985). Innovation and entrepreneurship, Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.

Management Behavior

According to Yukl (2008) the management's behavior and the climate the management supports are factors with high impact on the staff's creativity and innovation. It is very important when we look at the implementation and institutionalization of new products and processes:

Management programs and systems can enhance the effects of direct leadership behaviors. For example, encouraging innovative thinking (called “intellectual stimulation” in transformational leadership theory) is much more likely to increase innovation when an organization has a program to facilitate innovation, a climate of psychological safety for risk taking, and appropriate rewards for creative ideas about improving products and processes. In their absence, employees may doubt that innovative ideas about products or processes will be supported and eventually adopted by the organization (p.713)

It is essential to facilitate innovation with reward systems as well as a support the learning of all employees. No organization can be stronger than its weakest part. However, the management and the collaboration within the management is the most important part in a learning organization:

First, organizational learning occurs through shared insights, knowledge, and mental models. Thus organizations can learn only as fast as the slowest link learns. Change is blocked unless all of the major decision makers learn together, come to share beliefs and goals, and are committed to take the actions necessary to change (Stata, 1996, p. 318)

As consultant in many projects about organizational learning and educational changes in colleges and higher education, I have seen that collaboration within the group of decision makers is depending on the CEO's capability to motivate and support changes. Ethical and visionary CEO's set the learning climate of the organization.

In my own unit, Research & Development (R&D) we have just initiated a project to enhance and improve our collaboration. It is designed with inspiration from action learning tools and methods - and will be based on a design-based approach as fare as we will adjust the initiatives and activities through out the processes.

Our first seminar is on March 30th. The process has been designed by a team of two members of the staff and me. All members of the staff has been invited to comment and adjust. Last friday our plan was discussed in the group and afterwards the plan was re-designed according to the comments.  Why do I mention this project here? Because managemental behavior, shared goals and belief are also important in changing processes like this.

References:
Stata, R. (1996). Organizational learing. The key to management innovation. In K. Starkey (Ed), How organizations learn. London: International Thomson Business Press.

Yukl, G. (2008). How leaders influence organizational effectiveness . In The Leadership Quarterly 19, 708–722.

Last Years Reflections

At IADIS 2011, I presented a paper about strategic work in my organization. The final reflection was the following:

The strategic framework is about innovative planning and risk taking to enable emerging results. Technology can change the world of education. We have to realize that there is many myths and rhetoric in this educational field, and we have to face the pros and cons in a concrete work with new technologies to avoid being engaged in the rhetoric traditions. If we want to use technology to our advantage, we should look at how we can change structures, roles, and processes within education. Technology within learning is not about adding something to established systems, it is about changing practice. Strategic choices are about scaffolding and enabling these changes. Then we can be dancing with the devil not the other way round

 
I still think it is important to combine the strategic work with concrete activities in order to innovate and change organizations - and ensure implementation and therefore institutionalization of the changes. This point is supported by Latchem & Hanna (2001) when they empasize how important it is to "think strategically and act immediately" (p.45)

References:
Latchem, C., & Hanna, D.E. (2001). Processes of organizational change. In C. Latchem and D.E. Hanna (Eds.) Leadership for 21st century learning. Global perspectives from educational innovatiors (pp. 41-52) New York: Routledge.

Tellerup, S. (2011). Still Dancing with the Devil? In Proceedings of the IADIS Conference e-Learning 2011 (pp. 95-99)

Nice Quotes from last Week's Reading

Ultimately, however, the proof leadership lies not in the words but in the actions; everything the leader may do, however casual, will be taken by staff as planned and meaningful (Latchem & Hanna, 2001a, p. 55)

Perspectives on leadership are coloured by many factors but, as our contributors remind us, most especially by assumptions deriving from the cultural lens through which we view the world (Latchem & Hanna, 2001b,p. 240)

Good leadership fosters change that is both transformative and sustainable. It can be concerned with moral or organizational matters. It can define the college’s role in the world beyond its walls, or it can determine their internal dynamics of the institution. Most importantly, it requires a worthy goal-vision, if you will -but it also requires persistence. (Ekman, 2003, p.2)

Early in the 21st century, the theory of transformative leadership has been consistently articulated as a form of leadership grounded in an activist agenda, one that combines a rights-based theory that every individual is entitled to be treated with dignity, respect, and absolute regard with a social justice theoryof ethics that takes these rights to a societal level (Shields, 2010, p. 571)

Complexity leadership theory also provides a pathway for respecting diversity, not only through its formal emphasis on heterogeneity, but also because cultural respect is much easier to cultivate through one-on-one interactions than it is to consistently enact through one-to-many leadership exchanges.

(Lichtenstein, Uhl-Bien, Marion, Seers, Orton, & Schreiber, 2006, p. 8-9)

References:
Eckman, R. (2003). Standing up when it matters. Council for Independent Colleges Newsletter, .

Lichtenstein, B. B., Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., Seers, A., Orton, J. D., & Schreiber, C. (2006). Complexity leadership theory: An interactive perspective on leading in complex adaptive systems. Management Department Faculty Publications 8

Latchem, C., & Hanna, D.E. (2001a). Leadership in open and flexible learning. In C. Latchem and D.E. Hanna (Eds.) Leadership for 21st Century Learning. Global perspectives from educational innovators (pp. 53-62) New York: Routledge.

Latchem, C., & Hanna, D.E. (2001b). Lessons for the future. In C. Latchem and D.E. Hanna (Eds.) Leadership for 21st Century Learning. Global perspectives from educational innovators (pp. 235-240) New York: Routledge.

Shields, C. M. (2010).Transformative leadership: Working for equity in diverse contexts, Educational Administration Quarterly, 46, 558-589.

Project-Planning - in an Asian context

It has been very interesting to compare the first project-plan I developed for the transformation of UniSIM with the result we now present after having researched the needs and expectations of the stakeholders (students and faculty). Now, I realize that my intuitive project-planning is based on a general western tradition. The Confucian leadership provides the leaders with more responsibility and influence than I am used to. It is important to consider in the planning phase. So, working with distributed leadership and horizontal learning processes is another challenge in this culture than in Scandinavian context. The variety of tools and methods for involving different stakeholders and their perspective has to be broader in Singapore. As a leader you cannot expect the followers to express their opinions eventhough you ask them to. In a Scandinavian context, you can be sure that everyone expresses an opinion - eventhough they were not asked to.

In my daily work, user-driven innovation and design-based research are in focus. If I should work in this way in an Asian context, I should re-think many of the procedures and methods usable in Western Europe.