LEADERSHIP AS SERVICE A New Model for Higher Education in a New Century KENT A. FARNSWORTH

Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

THE NEED FOR NEW LEADERSHIP

This book begins by showing us that quality including intellectualism, misdirected colleagues, and a network of professional protection in academic life can be a major barrier in leadership.

INTELLECTUALISM

Higher education is higher education because it has traditionally been a center for storing knowledge and knowledge. not anti-criticism and acknowledges the validity of the problem carried out in the process of rapid improvement, based on understanding the literature, debating it, changing it completely so that every aspect can be evaluated before the change takes place.

COLLEGIALITY

One of the great strengths of the higher education community is human resources. The ability to change is very important for the continuity of professional life, but sometimes colleagues can be a barrier such as the power of influence on policymakers.

PROFESSIONAL PROTECTIONS

Higher education is the essence of professional development and professional networks that are effective for the protection of the continuity of professional life.

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ISOLATION

A lecturer or administrator can spend all living professionals without ever working outside the academy. But limiting social isolation can encourage them to see and consider all the same possibilities. This isolation can separate itself from real problems and challenges by turning them into theoretical abstractions so that these problems will affect our own survival which requires immediate action and response.

TECHNICAL NAÏVETÉ

Academics are institutions that are slow to receive and obtain technological skills. Technology revolutionizes higher education for those who will use it, and those who use our services expect it to be utilized. How schools will prepare students for the world of the future with technology.

TRADITIONAL APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP

Traditionally, leadership in the academy does not only come from within but from the ranks of those who have been most vulnerable to obstacles to change listed above: faculty. We have long argued that scholars must lead to higher education because academic leadership must be true based on teaching and learning,

Leadership as a Quest to Serve

Most of our mission statements are to "serve, help, help, and develop." However, so much administrative time is spent attracting donors, caring for grass, eyeing legislators, and complying with regulations that most visionary desires have been drained of position and profession. It's time to find it again, and some people have to reignite the spirit of leadership based on service. They find that truly satisfying leadership, problem-solving, and constantly productive are stewardship, calling. Not a divine call possible, but a spiritual one,

Leadership roles do not have to combine largely religious leadership. However, at least the oriental philosophies mentioned are as easy as social and political as religion, and social and political leaders such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King showed how easy elements of spirituality can be transferred to secular leadership.

ROBERT GREENLEAF AND SERVANT-LEADERSHIP

Greenleaf acknowledges that change and institutional development generally depend on a single leader. At this initial stage, only a few understand the vision, and even fewer may want to fully participate in realizing it. In this more pragmatic manifestation of leadership, Greenleaf acknowledges that leaders must carry a lot of responsibility, but consciously try to create an atmosphere by asking for full input and recognizing its value as equal to his own.

A CALL FOR NEW LEADERSHIP

Some people argue that religious leadership remains impractical and counterproductive given the reality of the academy. I believe that, for the most part, these challenges are only a reflection of the crisis in Greenleaf's leadership, which can change the way we think, relate, and do.

But to return to service-centered leadership, it takes courage and willingness to take risks, to share power while remaining responsible, to be a prey for those who want to fight, and to recognize service-based leadership that makes leaders very vulnerable.

This leader must be willing to assume responsibility for decisions made collaboratively. Male or female must open the environment to invite and accept the best thinking from everyone, but when the recommendation doesn't seem right, and things don't go according to plan, the leader must be willing to step forward and say, "This happens and becomes my responsibility."

This greater struggle can bring higher education towards greater meaning in what we do, satisfaction in doing so is also in results. And we have that choice. We can recapture the vision and spirit that triggers our initial excitement about being a servant in the education sector. We can expand the first spirit of service in building a new leadership approach that will change our institutions, our profession, and public trust in what we do.

Leadership, such as philosophy and literature, must be art. Leadership is an invitation to serve. There will be internal helplessness and dissatisfaction, public attention, and cynicism, the door to vision directed at service to each individual but still the leader as the manservant.

"Good" and "effective" leadership and leadership approaches have met these standards. In assessing effectiveness in the past, won't we include among the most important questions: "How strong is the influence of leadership that has happened?" And "How positive are these effects on the development of civilization?" If so, service-centered leadership is the most enduring and influential leadership approach in history. It is time to rediscover and apply its principles to education.

Lessons from the Wisdom Traditions

Most leadership practices that are common in organizations today cannot last long. The world has become too small, too many Marshall McLuhan "global villages". This is a world where prosperity and poverty, authoritarianism and egalitarianism, isolationist views, and the need to collaborate inevitably clash and that there must be greater opportunities to participate. Communism seems to fail as a solution, but top-down capitalism is also struggling, giving way to systems that have succeeded in entering greater inclusiveness and participation in leadership and organizational life.

If we consider the sign of great leadership to be a lasting influence, then the greatest leaders of all ages have become the founders of a lasting tradition of religion and philosophy, with hundreds of millions forming their thinking and living around the teachings.

THE WISDOM OF THE ORIENT

The words below are simple, the effect is very large. Every Chinese child is weaned on the principles of Confucianism, and the teachings of the Kung Fu-Tzu Master remain the single most powerful formation influence on Chinese thought and action. Leaders in Western societies will also be well served to learn the principles of Chun-Tzu, li, and other Confucian concepts of right and true action thought. Much of the spirit of service-centered leadership is found in it.does not accept people because of what they say, nor reject sayings because the speaker is what he is calm and at ease; the small person is fretful and ill at ease. it does not grieve that other people do not recognize his merits. His only anxiety is lest he should fail to recognize theirs. it is ashamed to let his words outrun his deeds. it takes as much trouble to discover what is right as lesser people take to discover what will pay. it calls attention to the good points in others; he does not call attention to their defects. The small person does just the reverse of this. The ancient people whose teachings were more "theological" were the most enduring examples of service-based leadership, and the teachings are chosen to offer significant insight into its principles.

THE EIGHTFOLD PATH

In contrast to the pragmatic worldliness of oriental philosophers, the Buddha advocated a complete separation of the things of this world - a position that seems to offer little on the surface of the present under him. But Indian philosophy, which is as old as any religious tradition still in practice, provides some of the most profound observations about intellectual development and mental and emotional control can be found in written history.

In his exposition on the Eightfold Path, the Buddha contributed his most significant thoughts on leadership designed to help seekers who are pious through right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mind, and right concentration. From the description of these principles, we accept wisdom like Buddhist advice to live in the present, because anger comes from living in the past, and fear of living in the future. Right thinking, the Buddha taught four qualities: compassion, love, sympathetic joy, and inner balance. Leaders such as Gandhi, despite drawing more specifically from the Hindu and Jain traditions in India, found the power of great leadership through the implementation of these true attributes of thought.

SERVICE IN THE WESTERN TRADITION

In the West, most of us are more familiar with the teachings and traditions of the great monotheistic religion as presented by their leaders, the prophets of Israel, Jesus, and Muhammad. But we often choose to ignore the basic principles of their leadership and management, more inclined to seek the support of their teachings for our personal "desires".

The Muslim prophet, Muhammad, preferred to assume the public leadership that virtue lay only in him who ordered charity, goodness, and peace among humans. Through Muhammad, Allah advised that if a man carries a piece of news, he first investigates the truth, otherwise he will misinterpret another person by misappropriating it. A good person, the Koran commands, curbs his anger and forgives his fellow human beings. The Qur'an is very clear against the practice of usury that Sharia, Islamic law, prohibits interest taking. Justice and charity govern all human relations.

How, one might ask, can a leadership practice based on caring, compassion, selflessness, and integrity survive in the rough and tumble climate of today’s business or the academic world?

Shaping a Syncretic Leadership

It should come as no surprise that the principles of service-centered leadership have proven to be very successful and enduring in our history. Warren Bennis recorded half a dozen famous historical figures contributed to the six-document in a population of only three million citizens.

It is a challenge to think of a caliber leader in America today. On the world stage, there are several - Nelson Mandela. But where are the leaders who shape the world in business? In higher education? The difference, according to Bennis, is that examples from our past history are people who are committed to the nation and citizens rather than money and themselves, while in the public and private sectors, what today's leaders call "confusing quantities for quality and substitute ambition for imagination.

MANAGEMENT REVOLUTION

Although the principles of service-centered leadership have resurfaced in the business community, and some of these principles have become the mainstay of modern management practices. The management revolution of the 1970s and 80s acknowledged that male-dominated hierarchical organizations from the first seven decades of the 20th century were inefficient, prone to conflict, greed, and not in line with the emergence of the belief that business is a social organization. Thus, businesses, as well as other social institutions, have a responsibility to add to the development of civil society.

Modern organizations as organic creatures, which are always developing, always depend on proper functions and involvement to make the whole perfect. Each also agrees that the main thing among leadership responsibilities is forming the vision that directs change, fully involving them in the organization in pursuing general organizational goals, and arranging these goals so that they contribute to the improvement of society as a whole. This, by itself, is a dramatic and uplifting movement back towards the altruism of our great leaders in the past.

THE FOLLETT PRINCIPLES

Follett presented four postulates that have foreshadowed modern leadership and management thinking. These included her concepts: (1) of creative conflict, (2) of management as a generic activity with application to all organizations, rather than exclusively to business, (3) of management as a function rather than as an assortment of tools, and (4) of the importance of reinventing the citizen within the social organization. We now see postulate two, that management approaches can effectively be applied in all organizations, as a given, so our focus here will be on postulates one, three, and four. In many ways, they were early expressions of what has since emerged as service-centered leadership.

Follett viewed conflicts—or what she preferred to call “differences”—as inevitable developments within an organization. She believed them to serve a useful and constructive purpose by illuminating areas of disagreement or misunderstanding that could then be used to foster consensus. He stressed very much on "The Law of the Situation," stating that "when there is identification with organizational goals, members tend to see what is needed in the situation and do it whether the boss sees whether they are resolving it or not.

A conflict arises when one of two situations:

employees do not identify with the organization's goals, or these objectives are differently perceived and understood by employees and leadership. Conflict can be an opportunity to identify which deficiencies exist. When conflict resolution is approached objectively the results can be integrated and creative solutions that strengthen the organization and serve all who are related.

The Law of Situation states that when examined carefully and honestly, the facts of the situation contain a solution and the key to finding this solution is openness between those involved in the conflict, plus as many opportunities as possible to thoroughly examine the problem.

Even though the solution might be in trouble, it won't be easy to see for everyone, and the more people examine it, the more likely one of those involved will see the best solution. This broad involvement introduces the second part of the Follet Creative Conflict principle.

Conflict, when handled in this objective way, begins to function as a vital creative force within the organization. The first rule for getting integration, Follett suggests, is that you have to "put your card on the table, face the real problem, uncover the conflict, bring everything to the open."  To do so requires extraordinary internal trust with the concept of power-with and results that have integration, parallel to the principles of Greenleaf's Servants. 

In Follett's model organization, everyone, from leaders to line workers, contributes some vital functions without which the organization cannot be fully effective. Some responsibilities require a broader scope and understanding, but if the organization is complete without exaggeration, nothing is important.

Each must view itself as a vital organ, with the existence and survival of the organization depending on each function that works in a healthy and coordinated manner. With this integrated service view, the principle of power-by becoming much clearer and important in the organization. Those who even have short college leadership experiences have seen this principle in action.

Follet sees constant interaction of actions and ideas. Ideals must guide our actions, and actions will in the process inform our ideals. Through the interaction of these actions and ideals, we can guide organizational and individual behavior. Organizations, in almost the same way, develop collective morality - an understanding of what is right based on unity together in the presence of the dynamic ideals of all involved. This sense of collective rights results in an organization's conscience, group understanding of what is best for the organization, and for all those involved with it. From this interrelated understanding of rights arises common sense goals - the basis for organizational commitment and loyalty. When organizations are larger communities, the result is citizens who are knowledgeable and committed, loyal not by coercion or violence, but by an established belief that sharing ideas will guide collective action.

Follett offers a brief summary of his thoughts by observing: "Leaders and followers alike follow an invisible leader that is a common goal."

Shaping the Vision

Milton Greenberg observes that "There is still less than a large part of faculty preparation and professional development is the place of higher education in the country and the world, the underlying and widespread social problems that influence it, and the great potential of the strength of academic citizenship."

One of the core values of the academy is institutional autonomy, which is valuable as an enclave that is free from political and economic problems. In many cases, faculty members can barely see outside of their own discipline or narrow specialization, seeing even those independent of their own campus problems.

Vision will be better by receiving new income to support public good (strengthening the academic experience of a relatively fixed number of students), but instead is expanding floor space, increasing budgets, and adding games and food courts.

One institution is to collect, analyze, and objectively issue public knowledge in all its forms is a university, and its vision must include establishing itself as social criticism, broad-based public educator, and citizen builder. With extensive public education, church groups, union meetings, middle school citizenship classes, and senior centers wherever ordinary people gather, the best and brightest is to be there to share, fish, and energize.

“RAILROAD” VISION

Indeed, many important studies that affect our lives come from their work in the academy. Over the past century, teaching has prepared a professional workforce that builds and maintains our dominant economy. But there is a growing sense in the business world that even here, our vision is closed. Training & Development Magazine reports that, in 1995, companies spent more than $ 55 billion on education and training in the United States - up 20 percent from a decade earlier. 6 Ronald Compton, chairman of Aetna Life, noted in an article written for Corporate Board that: "The speed of changes in the way we do business is accelerating, so are concerned about the health of our social and educational institutions. As a result, the company found that they must be responsible for teaching and training employees. "

No one argues that maybe every university in the state does not need a teacher education program. No one argues that there might be a relationship between the acceptance of teacher education candidates who are not academically strong, public perceptions of teacher preparation, and the public's desire to support better wages for teachers.

The vision is being shaped by institutional personal interests based on economic feasibility rather than by sound academic judgment. Principals in the same country complain that postgraduate education in School administration is outdated and does not come into contact with the reality of the current school environment.

At the Principal Academy, those present argue that many faculties in university leadership programs have not spent a full day of public schooling in decades, and have experienced monumental changes in student background and behavior, legal problems, academic expectations, and technological innovation only through articles that they have read or, worse, written.

Maybe we at the academy have created an existential vision that makes us inclined to believe that, to remain purely intellectually, we must separate ourselves from the polluted world, with the result that we stop understanding it and therefore cannot serve its needs to free its own intellectual capacity.

DEFINING VISION

College leaders must be concerned with registration, income, and breadth of supply. They must not ignore contractual obligations, accreditation demands, legal issues based on new consumerism, and "implied contracts." But what is this vision? Vision is by nature transcendental and pragmatic. This directs us from the real to the ideal. This forces us to ask basic questions about why we exist, about the nature and value of education in general, and about what works and work to do.

Transforming leaders can recognize and utilize existing needs or requests from potential followers. However, beyond that, this leader must fulfill higher needs and involve people who are fully followers. The results of leadership transformation are mutual stimulation and enhancement relationships that turn followers into leaders and can turn leaders into moral agents.

Such leadership occurs when one or more people engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers increase each other to a higher level of motivation and morality. Their goal is not as a counterweight but as reciprocal support for common goals. But transformational leadership ultimately becomes moral because it increases the level of human behavior and ethical aspirations of leaders and those who are led, and thus has a transforming influence on both.

In a college and university context, a vision based on service must include more than the generic commitment to be all we can be. Though there is wisdom in crafting a brief and memorable “vision statement” that the college community can memorize and use as a foundation for guiding decisions and actions, to become operational, the vision must be defined in clearer and more explicit terms.

Nevertheless, in creating a vision, the service-centered leader has a responsibility to reinfuse the institutional mission with a discussion of values. Central to a well-rounded education is the essential need to equip students with the understandings, experiences, and ethical tools required to grapple with the truly monumental issues that will be central to improving the human condition during the students’ lifetimes. Without discussion of values, there can be no discussion of purpose, of meaning, or of the reasons to be of service. 

If accrediting bodies want quantifiable results, we must find ways to provide them rather than avoid the challenges that might make producing them more difficult. A primary responsibility of the syncretic leader is to help all served by the institution find, through the actions and activities of the organization, greater personal sense of purpose and greater desire to be of service—and these objectives must be clear in the institution’s statement of vision.

VISION AND VALUES

Committed leaders must embrace human values intrinsically love, truth, fairness, freedom, unity, tolerance, responsibility, and respect for life. For them in education, building people with integrity, people who are committed to caring for others and can work cooperatively, and citizens must be part of a vision such as encouraging intellectual and creative curiosity. Otherwise, we build a world of phenomenal inventions and extraordinary technology, but without heart and soul to make their use rational and valuable.

Responsibility is scary. But most of us, in our hearts, know that that is what we should do. A quote from Marianne Williamson, stated, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are strong beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, which makes us most afraid.