Running head: LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS
Leadership Characteristics
Meagan K. Tenia
Virginia Commonwealth University
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LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS
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Leadership Characteristics
What is leadership? According to Northouse (2007), “leadership is a process whereby an
individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (p. 3). The question then
becomes, how does an individual successfully influence a group in order to reach a common goal
and thus become a leader? This person must not only possess leadership qualities, but also
possess effective leadership characteristics. Understanding what qualities and characteristics a
leader must possess in order to be effective takes education, experience and growth as well as
self-reflection. The following paper will focus on leadership in both quality and character. The
researcher will give an in-depth reflection of a personal leadership journey, citing influential
characteristics and qualities of an effective leader within a school setting. The personal journey
will be followed by a literature review focusing on one important characteristic of an effective
leader followed by an analysis of the literature review centering on leadership within a school
setting and finally a conclusion.
Reflection
Leadership is a lofty endeavor and not for the faint of heart. As I reflect on my
leadership journey I see my successes as well as my failures. I am also able to reflect on what I
could have done differently for a better outcome. As I reflect, there is a constant revisiting of
what qualities and characteristics I possess that play a part in the effectiveness of my leadership.
I began my career in educational leadership as a middle school science teacher. I did not
hold a leadership position within the school; however, I began building leadership qualities and
characteristics within my classroom as the classroom leader. I found it necessary to build
relationships with my students in order for them to be successful and rise to their potential. I
found it to be important to understand students’ backgrounds in order to show empathy and
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equity within the classroom. What I noticed, as I continued my role as classroom teacher for
several more years, was that my students thrived on the relationships I built with them. The
relationships between teacher and student brought about a sense of trust and respect between
both teacher and student. Not only did this forming of relationships with students in the
classroom build trust and respect, it also showed that I possessed empathy towards my students
when solving classroom issues in an equitable manner.
As I continued my career in education I began pursuing leadership positions at the
school-building level. My first leadership position was as lead science teacher. My role as lead
science teacher was to analyze data, hold weekly department meetings, and make all common
assessments. During this time it was important to continue my practice of relationship building
with my team. I found that building relationships allowed teachers to feel comfortable when
bringing new ideas to the team and allowed the teachers to grow. In education, it is important for
leaders to involve all individuals when making decisions. As the lead science teacher, I often
involved the other science teachers and well as administration in my decision making thus
continuing to foster the relationships between myself, teachers, and administration. Not only
was it important to build relationships so that trust and respect could grow, it was also important
that I display empathy and equity during my decision making when it affected the team. I
ensured I was able to display empathy throughout the relationship building and it was important
to continue that practice throughout the day as the team leader.
After holding the position of lead science teacher for one year, I was offered the
leadership position of science gifted specialist of middle schools for the division. During my
time as gifted specialist I was able to continue the characteristics of empathy, equity, trust, and
respect through relationship building; however, I found it most important to display humility and
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humor. As gifted specialist I was asking many middle school teachers to step out of their
comfort zones as educators and try new things. I had to use the characteristic of empathy to
understand not all teachers are comfortable in taking risks, explaining to them I too was not
always a risk taker in the classroom and often shared stories of my classroom failures and
triumphs with them. This allowed my relationship with teachers to become more personable -displaying both humility and humor.
After my time as gifted specialist I was offered the position of Administrative Assistant
in a middle school setting. My role was an acting administrator with many shared duties with the
assistant principals in the building. Moving from the classroom to administrator was a difficult
transition during my leadership journey. While I had a steep learning curve, my focus on the
leadership characteristics I learned while in the classroom helped my transition. I learned that
acting with integrity while showing humor, humility, empathy, equity, respect, and trust allowed
teachers to better understand the decisions I made as an administrator.
Literature Review on Leadership and Integrity
Most books on leadership have a focus on how ethics and integrity play a role in effective
leadership. An article search for peer reviewed articles on integrity and leadership yields over
150 articles. Many of the articles focus on ethical leadership within a specific leadership
discipline. The discussion of leadership and integrity as general leadership philosophy yields
few scholarly articles. Not only does the discussion of integrity and leadership yield few general
scholarly articles, within the articles the words moral worthiness and integrity are used in the
same context to mean the same thing. Not only are both moral worthiness and integrity
interchangeable within leadership research, so are ethics in leadership. Thus, for this literature
review the terms ethics, moral worthiness and integrity will be used interchangeably. What
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follows is a literature review focusing on integrity and leadership within a generic leadership
discipline.
Integrity and Charismatic Leadership
The characteristic of integrity can be interpreted many different ways depending on
one’s perspective. According to Tedeschi and Norman (1985) as quoted by Gardner (2003)
“behavior presents the actor as morally worthy and may also have the goal of eliciting imitation
by others” (p. 503 ). The aforementioned quote encompasses leadership integrity with the theory
that a strong leader will empower followers to imitate actions displayed by the leader when
acting with moral worthiness. Therefore, a strong leader will portray oneself as ethical and
trustworthy. A leader who displays such characteristics is referred to as a charismatic leader
(Gardner, 2003).
Charismatic leadership, or the new leadership as referred by many, is the practice of
leading by example. Therefore, a leader’s actions speak volumes of one’s character and moral
worthiness. While charismatic leadership is based on the integrity of a leader via one’s actions, a
contradiction of actions can be detrimental to the leader’s following. For instance, when a leader
chooses to act outside of one’s moral compass, followers will notice deeming the leader as
ineffective. A leader’s actions are most important within charismatic leadership; however, the
perception of a leader’s actions as acting with integrity by the leader’s followers is the pillar of
charismatic leadership (Gardner, 2003). Therefore, a leader’s actions determine the effectiveness
of one’s leadership.
Ethics and Integrity in Leadership
Ethics is often referred to as the “examination of right, wrong, good, evil, virtue, duty,
obligation, rights, justice, [and] fairness” (Ciulla, 2004, p.305). Ethics and leadership are often
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studied in conjunction of one another citing numerous articles with philosophical arguments.
While there is little research outside of ethical theory and philosophy, author Joseph Rost’s book,
Leadership for the Twenty First Century, contains a chapter dedicated to ethics and leadership.
While Rost dismisses most ethical theories throughout his chapter on ethics, Rost concludes that
leading based on one’s personal moral judgments is often inadequate in a leadership role.
Moreover, Rost continues to state that, as research in leadership grows, new ethical guidelines
within the content of leadership will evolve (Rost, 1993).
While ethical leadership is an evolving philosophy, displaying integrity within leadership
capacity is sound leadership practice. According to Burns (1979) leadership occurs when “one
or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to
higher levels of motivation and morality” (p. 20). This quote from Burns speaks of leaders and
followers motivating one another to act with a moral compass or moral worthiness. In Rost’s
chapter on ethical leadership he uses Burns’ quote explaining that leaders and followers may be
operating on differing personal moral ground. In order for morality to play a role within the
leadership of an organization, the leader must act with integrity for the best of the organization
while followers support the leader by employing ethical decision making (Rost, 1993). Rost
continues to explain that ethical decision making can be detrimental in a leadership position if
not done with integrity for the good of the organization as a whole. Again, Rost’s view of ethical
leadership is the same as Gardner’s. When a leader acts outside of moral worthiness followers
often deem the leader ineffective.
Integrity and Leadership Effectiveness
Author Joanne Cuilla (2004) cites two research studies that dive into the paradigm of
leadership effectiveness and integrity. The studies come out of Ohio and Michigan. The
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research study from Ohio focuses on leadership effectiveness in relation to how followers are
supported by a leader. The Michigan research study focuses on leadership effectiveness in
relation to task orientation and completion instead of leader integrity and relationships. The
research studies from Michigan and Ohio spawn the ethical question of, “are leaders more
effective when they are nice to people, or are leaders more effective when they use certain
techniques for structuring and ordering tasks” (Cuilla, 2004, p. 315). While there are several
theories to answer the ethical question, there has been no definitive conclusion.
There are many theories that support ethical leadership outside of the Ohio and Michigan
studies. Author Thomas Sergiovanni (2007) cites researcher Zaleznik (1989) stating the
difference between leadership as manager and ethical leadership. According to Zaleznik (1989)
as cited by Serfiovanni (2007), “leadership is based on a compact that binds those who lead and
those who follow into the same moral, intellectual and emotional commitment” (p.29).
Sergiovanni (2007) goes on to explain the importance of democratic values of a leader within a
leadership role citing the leadership characteristic of integrity as an important moral aspect to
ethical leadership. Democratic values, according to Sergiovanni (1995), are most important to
effective leadership. Therefore, if a leader does not employ democratic values, or using ethical
decision making for the good of the leadership context, a leader is then ultimately ineffective in
sound leadership.
Analysis
The topic of leadership is one that yields many articles, theories, philosophical
arguments, and opinions and often results in a conversation revolving around ethics. While
ethics is the study of virtue, ethical leadership is leadership that employs good leadership
characteristics to achieve moral decision making while supporting followers all while displaying
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moral worthiness. Research is not definitive when it comes to ethical leadership as leadership is
often based on the perspective of a leader’s followers (Northouse, 2007). Therefore, when
leading with integrity, one is employing both equity and accountability. What follows is an
analysis of ethical leadership within a school setting focusing on leadership equity and leadership
accountability.
Leadership for Equity
When employing effective leadership within a school setting it is most important to
employ equity for both students and staff while acting with integrity. According to Hill,
McClure, Roza, and Weiner (2008), “achieving equity is the purpose of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965, one of the legislative hallmarks of President Lyndon
Johnson’s War on Poverty” (p. 35). Striving for true equitable leadership comes at a time of
increasing teacher and leader accountability. An equitable school is of main concern of ethical
leadership within a school setting. Understanding the need for an equitable education for all
students is just one pillar of educational leadership; however, it is an important focus of an
effective school leader and one where a leader must act with moral worthiness.
The challenges of continuing with an equitable education in both content and skill level
are great in number.
Therefore, continuing effective leadership while practicing integrity
becomes challenging. Several times one student group is overlooked while focusing on another
student group, causing an increase in achievement gap (Hill et al., 2008). Even with increasing
government and citizen concern regarding the growing achievement gap in our country, there are
historical grounds for concern with “the terrible racial and class histories of this country and the
deeply rooted inequality and injustice that continues to exist in the public educational system…”
(Skrla et al., 2004, p.133). In order to achieve ethical leadership in equity, a school leader must
LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS
employ a support system for staff in order for students to achieve.
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According to the
education.com website,
Educational equity is a federally mandated right of all students to have equal
access to classes, facilities, and educational programs no matter what their
national origin, race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, first language, or
other distinguishing characteristic. In upholding educational equity, school
districts are required to provide certain programs for students to ensure equal
education. (para 1).
This means all students are entitled to a fair and equal education. Therefore, if all students have
the right to an equitable education, all teachers have the right to an equitable leadership. As an
ethical leader, it is most important to ensure all students receive an equitable education. In order
for students to receive an equitable education it is important to lead with a moral compass
employing integrity within leadership (Northouse, 2007). This is particularly important during a
time of increased educational accountability for both teachers and leaders (Biesta, 2004).
Leadership for Accountability
Education today is focused on teacher and leader accountability in accordance to student
achievement (Biesta, 2004). In order for ethical leadership to take place within a school building
during a culture of high stakes accountability a sense of leader and follower collaboration is
essential. Collaboration within ethical leadership means all values and beliefs are upheld, not
just the leader’s beliefs and values. As stated earlier, an ethical leader leads by example while
practicing moral worthiness during decision making. When an ethical leader acts outside of
moral character followers deem the leader ineffective (Gardner, 2000). When given the
opportunity to have input in a school’s leadership philosophy it is important that both leader and
followers feel a sense of ownership and pride for their work (Hock, 2000). As a school creates a
collaborative culture, it is important to identify the core beliefs and desired outcomes of both
leader and followers (Hock, 2000). Developing a shared leadership philosophy is not an easy or
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quick task. Leaders must help find the common ground of the group as well as the dedication of
the success of the organization. This takes time, personal and group reflection, and active
listening and involvement from the school leader (Hock, 2000). Thus, in order for a culture of
collaboration to exist within a school setting an effective leader must work with all involved
acting with great moral worthiness. As mentioned in the literature review, when an effective
leader acts with integrity followers emulate the actions resulting in a dedication to ethics in the
workplace (Rost, 1993).
Conclusion
As a school leader, I believe it is my job to support faculty, staff and students within my
school while employing ethical leadership based on integrity. Therefore, I would consider my
viewpoint of leadership as a charismatic leader with moral focus on high student achievement.
Central to my idea of charismatic leadership, I believe it is important to employ a sense of moral
worthiness within the school building to build trust and equity.
In order to be a successful ethical leader, I must focus on strategies and best practices so
all students can receive an equitable education (Hock, 2000). As the leader of a school, it is
imperative that I am able to guide a good school to become a great school in all aspects of
education in accordance to student success and learning. As leader, my success is based on
student success as well as teacher morale. Therefore, my expectations must be set high for all to
include faculty, staff and students. In order for students and teachers to be successful within a
school it is imperative for the leader to act with great moral worthiness while building
relationships establishing trust and equity.
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References
Biesta, G.J. (2004). Education, accountability, and the ethical demand: Can the democratic
potential of accountability be regained?, Educational Theory, (54), 233-254
Burns, J.M. (1979). Leadership. New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers
Ciulla, J. (2004). Ethics, the heart of leadership. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers
Educational Equity.(2006). Retrieved from http://www.education.com/definition/
educational-equity. Skrla, L., Scheurich, J.J., Garcia, J., Nolly, G. (2004). Equity Audits:
A Practical Tool for Developing Equitable and Excellent Schools. Educational
Administration Quarterly, 40(1), 135-161.
Gardner, W.L. (2003). Perceptions of leader charisma, effectiveness, and integrity. Management
Communication Quarterly, 16(4), 502-527.
Hock, D. (2000, Winter). The art of chaordic leadership. Leader to Leader, (15), 20-26.
Northouse, P.G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Productions, Inc.
Rost, J.C. (1993). Leadership for the twenty first century. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers
Sergiovanni, T. (2007). Administering as moral craft. Rethinking Leadership. 2nd ed. Corwin, 1935