Eric Burleson
Dr. Howard T. Prince, II
My Leadership Framework
Principles and Practices of Effective Leadership
PA 388L
3163 words
McCombs B6300, Mailbox 335
22 April 2015
I.
What: Leadership defined.
Humans, being social animals, have evolved in such a way that they can create massive
strength simply by interacting so that efforts are shared and multiplied such that the group may
benefit. Interestingly, as people have developed more and more specialized skill sets, we have
become more and more interdependent, despite cultural and social trends that place an enormous
premium on individuality and self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, these trends also tend to produce
conflict between people that may not realize how inextricably entwined are our lives. Leaders are
required to organize and align the efforts of individuals such that groups may avoid pointless selfdestruction and even, at their best, produce incredible outcomes far greater than the sums of the
individual efforts. In this sense, leadership is the learned process of aligning individual motivations
and efforts towards the achievement of a common purpose.
This definition, while seemingly simple, actually encompasses a sequence of discreet ideas.
First, leadership is a learned process. A leader must either intuit or be taught that a group of people
working towards a goal will more efficiently or more effectively perform. Second, it must create
alignment, in which each individual is aligned not only with each other along particular
dimensions, but also that that alignment is consistent with the overall goal. Third, the alignment
must include both motivations and effort, such that individuals’ work is consistent in both duration
and magnitude with the goal across the total effort. Finally, there must be a purpose to the effort.
One can imagine situations in which one or more of these elements are missing and readily observe
that leadership is not exercised in that situation. For example, without alignment, a group is at best
self-defeating, and a leader that creates misalignment deliberately without a higher goal is most
likely more of an overseer or referee, and cannot be exercising leadership. In contrast, aligning
people to generate healthy discourse and conflict which may be perceived as misalignment could
still be leadership if all parties are bought in to the concept as a means to achieving higher quality
group decisions. Furthermore, if the leader has not engaged in a learned or deliberate process of
engaging other individuals, they may only be a first mover to an attractive trend, and the
followership may be only incidental and not part of serving a higher purpose.
Humankind has consistently demonstrated tremendous potential for achievement. The
exercise of leadership to unlock this human potential and direct it towards the betterment of the
species is the greatest challenge to confront the human race.
II.
Why: The nature of leadership and its importance.
Leaders serve several critical functions. Among a species for whom collaboration is
absolutely critical to survival, leaders provide easily graspable context and structure in which
individuals may confidently act. Consider a group of people in a wilderness situation who lack
specialized knowledge of survival techniques. It becomes quickly clear that any individual acting
completely on their own will be likely to die (and rarely peacefully). Thus, the group realizes that
by coordinating their efforts towards a few critical tasks, they may collectively survive. A leader
at this stage may identify if anyone has any knowledge about particular tasks, or if one or another
individual is naturally suited to one task or another. They may divide labor or focus everyone on
achieving one or two large tasks together and much more quickly. In either case, the leader has
taken a large and scary problem (survival in the wilderness), given it constraints and structure so
all may grasp the significance and purpose (light a fire, build a structure, find some food), and
moved all efforts in pursuit of common objectives.
Leaders can also serve to define the ways in which we interact with each other. This role
fills the human need to connect meaningfully with each other in ways that are acceptable to all
parties. Although in many cases a leader inherits the structure or culture which she leads, she may
set the tone for acceptable interaction between its members, strengthening (or, if she is inept,
perhaps weakening) the linkages between members of a group. This helps individuals within a
group to better understand each other and more confidently take action with others in pursuit of
shared goals. It also can provide a framework in which others may grow and develop personally,
a critical function for creating future leaders.
Leaders also define success. While working towards a common goal, it becomes easy for
individuals to worry only about their tasks, and pay little attention to whether combined efforts are
achieving any meaningful goals or one’s individual efforts are appreciated properly for their
contribution to the greater success. This role of leadership is critically important, because it gives
a sense of personal satisfaction and validation. In many ways, this function serves to give the entire
effort, and individuals within it, purpose.
III.
How: Ethics, or Ends and Means.
Ethics play a particularly important role in the exercise of leadership. Considerable effort
has been exerted to differentiate the value of leadership from its effectiveness. For example, has
this person’s leadership resulted in “good” outcomes (ends)? Has this person’s leadership utilized
“good” processes (means)? Finally, by what definitions or standards are these items considered?
Ethics provide the necessary internal feedback by which followers or observers may judge
both the process and its outcomes. In some cases, a group’s goal may seem without any ethical
quality, but closer inspection will almost undoubtably reveal a higher some dimension of ethics in
either the process or its results.
At the most basic level, any action must answer the question “does this serve to further a
positive value or at least does it avoid undermining or destroying it?” Two particularly useful
frameworks of ethics, when used together, can produce very desirable outcomes. One is the virtue
framework, in which the human ideals of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity are provided as
standards by which to judge action. In this framework, the goal itself is measured as having one or
more of these virtues or of potentially leading to it. The profit motive, for example, could be
considered as an attractive end in light of Goodness, in that profit allows a firm to be a going
concern that provides support for the owners and employees and their families. The other, the
universalist approach, takes action into account and measures it by its own standard. In this
framework, means are held up as being acceptable or unacceptable for the consequences that they
may create, regardless of whether those consequences are realized. When used together, these two
frameworks can address both outcome and process to give those for whom it matters a sense of
how to judge a leadership.
A mature and effective leader will use the universalist framework to ensure her actions will
be consistent with accepted norms of behavior and will not produce any unintended negative
consequences, and will use the virtues framework to choose between goals and measure their
outcomes.
IV.
Who: Qualities of leaders and where they matter.
Although leadership, under the definition we here use, requires that leaders undergo a
learned process, certain largely stable qualities will be more likely to encourage individuals to
exercise leadership. In particular, personality traits described in the Big Five theories of
personality, locus of control characteristics, and tolerance for ambiguity all play a role in
optimizing a person’s likelihood of exercising good leadership. Of the big five characteristics,
Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability are most highly correlated with good
leadership. This suggests that the proclivity to engage with others, the degree to which one is
consistent in their application of work and following through, and the degree to which they can
keep themselves (and by extension, a group) on an emotionally even keel all contribute
significantly to becoming a good leader. A high locus of control would suggest that not does a
person believe that they can make a difference in the outcomes important to them, they believe
they should be the ones to exercise that control for the betterment of their constituency. Finally,
tolerance for ambiguity can be a good predictor of certain kinds of leadership, particularly when a
group’s task is highly technical and contains lots of interdependent and different parts (mountainclimbing or neurosurgery, in which tolerance for ambiguity should be low), or highly creative and
abstract (high-tech product development, in which it should be high).
Gender does not play a role in overall capability, but there are some observable trends in
types of leadership more likely to occur in each gender. Males tend to be more authoritative, and
females tend to be more participative. Additionally, females tend to advocate much better for
others than they do for themselves. Due to a confluence of factors, there are generally fewer women
at the highest levels of leadership. This need not be the case; considerable research has
demonstrated superior outcomes when the gender proportion is more balanced. This objective can
be achieved by actively seeking women to develop and recruit for higher leadership roles.
These qualities do not perfectly describe those that “should” or “should not” be a leader
per se, but they could be useful in determining whether a person could be developed further in
some career or, perhaps more importantly, that they should not be encouraged to do so. One
probably would not appreciate a neurosurgeon with a high tolerance for ambiguity operating on
them, for example, so maybe that person should consider some alternate career paths.
V.
When/Where: Situational constraints and leadership styles
Leadership has been described as the intersection of a leader, followers, and a situation.
The situation provides the problem, the acceptable set of solutions, and a set of constraints in which
a leader must act. Different kinds of situations, therefore, call for different kinds of leadership.
Although American style democracy is explicitly designed to prevent the most
authoritarian leadership in certain situations, it may be very effectively used in other situations. In
particular, time-constrained situations in which there is a high likelihood of highly undesirable
outcomes are usually best managed with a highly authoritarian style. Both of these criteria should
be present with authoritarian leadership styles, and authoritarian leaders should become more
participative once one or both of those criteria are no longer met.
Ideally, a great leader would be highly participative through the earliest stage of their
leadership process, learning and coming to understand their followers and what drives their
behavior. In knowing what is most important to their constituents, a leader can better use the tools
at their disposal to effect the most desirable outcomes.
Transactional and transformational leadership describe two different approaches for
creating alignment in followers. In transactional leadership, a leader provides externally something
that a follower wants in exchange for their effort towards a leader’s preferred outcome. This type
of leadership may be used when a group of tasks are simple or mechanical or there isn’t much
expectation of a long-term relationship. A good example of when transactional leadership is
appropriate is when a contractor is directing part-time laborers. This is the most effective style to
achieve the ends as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Much more frequently, transformational leadership will provide superior outcomes. In
transformational leadership, group goals are transformed into individual goals, and the followers
internalize group success as critical to their own well-being. In almost any situation where the
relationship between leaders and followers is expected to be ongoing, transformational leadership
will produce superior outcomes. Additionally, complex tasks may have better outcomes through
transformational leadership if an individual can be made to take greater pride in the task, despite
the lack of expectation of an ongoing relationship.
VI.
Followership and Organizational Citizen Behaviors
Followership, or the practice of aiding or preventing a leader form achieving his goal,
requires closer examination. An ideal follower owes both energetic obedience and conscientious
judgment to both the leader and the group. Energetic obedience allows a leader to concentrate his
efforts on problems other than motivation and discipline, and conscientious judgment provides a
leader with someone who will question him should a particular path not seem like the most ideal
or ethical. Should a leader only be using a group to serve their personal ends, however, such an
ideal follower will take action on behalf of the group both energetically and conscientiously. It is
in this way that a follower can be considered and judged. A good leader is often also a good
follower, because he understands that organizational citizenship behaviors, those that support the
organization no matter who is in charge, will ultimately support him when he is in a leadership
role as well. Additionally, it provides a model of behavior for those that may not even ever aspire
to be a leader. In this way, it further supports the leader.
VII.
How, revisited: The process of leadership
Much has been discussed about all of the characteristics of leadership and leaders, but no
framework for leadership would be complete without a practical discussion of its exercise. A leader
effectively exercises leadership by collecting information about the problem, situation, and
potential or actual followers; engaging with followers in formal or informal settings and
communicating an end result; making decisions as to how the end result should be achieved and
communicating those decisions; measuring progress as followers act together; and providing
feedback on the progress and course changes to the group.
None of these actions occurs independently; indeed, there are times when a leader is
performing all of them at the same time. For most leaders, the particular action to be taken is in
constant flux, such that the leader must work diligently to address each of them consistently
throughout the process.
VIII.
Motivation, Satisfaction, and Performance in Transformational Leadership.
Motivation, the focus of attention towards performing an action, is the single greatest
barrier to unlocking human potential. Without motivation, a person will not act; with improper
motivation, a person may act sub-optimally at best, or at odds with a leader at worst.
Every leader has to deal with moments where motivation to work on the goal is low, morale
among the group is low, or performance has not reached its potential. There are three times when
a leader may affect the morale and motivation of an individual, thus driving her performance:
before the group effort, during the effort, or after a failure has occurred.
Before an individual even starts, a leader may greatly affect the performance of a person
by designing the work in alignment with the person’s highest values. Additionally, by giving the
person autonomy, potential for mastery, and purpose in the greater scheme of the group’s effort, a
person is much more likely to work diligently at the task. During an effort, a leader may offer
encouragement and feedback, or she may remind the follower of the shared goal with vivid
imagery. If a failure has occurred, a leader may most effectively motivate by acknowledging the
failure and providing a clear course of action for righting the effort and achieving the goal.
IX.
Leadership and Power.
Although leadership and power may seem like the same thing in certain cases, the fact is
that they are distinctly different. Power is essentially the potential for compelling others to do what
one wants them to. Leadership, by contrast, is a process in which some kind of power can be
exercised. There are five kinds of power: legitimate, expert, coercive, referent, and reward.
Typically, coercive and reward power are most closely associated with transactional leadership.
Legitimate, expert, and referent power, however, can be better exercised with transformational
leadership, particularly when a leader uses the situation in which they achieved the power to the
greatest extent. For example, a person with referent power should avoid claiming legitimacy or
expertise that isn’t present, as they may undermine the true source of their power. Additionally,
the goals a leader pursues should also be aligned with the type of power they wield. A legitimate
or expert power wielder should recuse himself from any decision where they have personal
interest, lest their power be eroded by perceptions of advantage-taking.
X.
Developing future leaders.
Perhaps the most important challenge after the initial alignment of objectives is ensuring
continuity of leadership. A leader must develop leaders such that the leader’s knowledge and skills
are transferred but without destroying the qualities in the junior leader that the senior may himself
lack. This delicate balance may be achieved through mentorship and frank dialogue, where the
leader develops the junior’s capacity for reasoned thinking and decision making and consequences
and outcomes are reviewed together after a leadership experience.
A leader may be developed by practice; if a person takes advantage of every opportunity
to influence her peers, she may develop into a stronger leader. Formal instruction in the processes
of leadership coupled with informal mentorship and advocacy by a senior leader will accelerate
this process tremendously, and will lead to higher quality leadership for both the mentor and the
mentee. This is because the mentee gains access to a wider perspective and knowledge base, and
the mentor gains insight into another generation, improving his understanding of another group.
A leader who wishes to improve her capability should take advantage of every opportunity
to practice in as many different contexts as possible. The most effective leaders are flexible, able
to adjust their style to accommodate their followers and the situation to the greatest effect possible.
XI.
Conclusions
In developing this leadership framework, I took great care to incorporate those different
ideas about leadership I thought to be most universally useful. I did not discuss all of the different
ethical theories, believing cultural relativism and justice to be better ethical frameworks for foreign
policy and legal experts, respectively, nor did I discuss certain elements I thought to be selfexplanatory, such as how a leader uses a transaction to motivate behavior. These ideas reflect
instead my understanding of how to determine which leadership action would be most appropriate
given an entire situation/follower/problem set, and how to create best possible outcomes without
compromising my integrity. I deliberately wrote my framework in a positive voice, deciding that
if I were to stipulate that this is “my” framework, it would have less application for another. I
believe that my ideas, if taken holistically, can lead to better outcomes than simple trial and error,
and therefore should be shared from that voice. Where my framework differs substantively from
other accepted frameworks, the burden of resolution falls to the reader. I should hope this would
be the case, for they will be a better leader still for having struggled in this way.
Leadership as a personal calling can drive me personally to tremendous efforts, for there
are few actions to which I am as committed as those that will affect the people around me. It is for
this reason that I consider the process of unlocking and directing human potential, leadership, as
the most important effort to humankind.