Presenting a Taxonomy of Leadership: The Foundation of the Leadership/Strategy Conceptual Framework

• In Event: Leadership Taxonomies, Frameworks, and Applications for Employee Engagement

Short Description

This presentation introduces a taxonomy of leadership that emerged during the process of developing the leadership/strategy conceptual framework. The goal is to offer a pragmatic, strategic definition of leadership that will support executive analysis of the complex business environment and aid practitioners tasked with designing leadership development programs.

Detailed Abstract

The Leadership/Strategy (L/S) Conceptual Framework synthesizes and leverages the advances made in the fields of leadership and strategy to develop a pragmatic, strategic understanding of leadership. Specifically, the L/S Conceptual Framework combines the synthesis of the leadership models of Kellerman (2012), Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy (2009), and Veslor, McCauley, & Ruderman (2010) with strategy’s pragmatic bent and perspective on the business ecosystem to position leadership as a dynamic process involving three equally weighted factors—leaders, followers, and context—for realizing sustainable validity. The term sustainable validity constitutes an established direction, alignment, and commitment for achieving long-term superior organizational performance. The L/S Conceptual Framework eliminates the ubiquitous use of leadership and strategy and serves as the theoretical foundation required by executives analyzing the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) business ecosystem and

practitioners tasked with designing leadership development programs as sustainable competitive advantages. During the process of developing the L/S Conceptual Framework, a basic taxonomy of leadership emerged. The following provides a brief overview of this taxonomy of leadership and the L/S Conceptual Framework.
Burns’ (1978) oft-cited quote “leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth,” (p.2) might have been accurate in 1978, but since that time considerable advances have emerged in the scholarship of leadership. As a multidisciplinary field of study, leadership has attracted scholars from diverse arenas who explore and research leadership from different perspectives and paradigms (Goethals & Sorenson, 2006; Kellerman & Burns, 1984). This resulted in a proliferation of leadership definitions and theories nearing fifteen hundred definitions and forty theories (Kellerman, 2012), none of which are correct or incorrect (Hughes, et al., 2009). The diversity of leadership scholars and their collective research contributions demand a more holistic understanding of leadership.
The field of leadership advanced when scholars from different academic backgrounds discerned leadership as a process, not as an individual. Burns (1978) mused “if we know all too much about leaders, we know far too little about leadership,” (p.1). This implicit call for a bifurcation between leader and leadership marked an important step in advancing the field. Leadership scholars have since conceptualized leadership as an overarching process, with leaders, followers, and context subsumed as contributing factors within the leadership umbrella (Bass & Bass, 2008). Consequently, research streams have emerged that loosely focus on one of the following: leaders, followers, context, or the development of models and frameworks of leadership (see Northouse, 2013). These research streams contribute to a more robust understanding of leadership.
Fiedler (1967), Burns (1978), and Hollander (1978), followed by Gardner (1993), helped influence the leadership dialogue and research toward this taxonomy of leadership. These authors, in aggregate, surfaced the complexity of leadership as a process, involving leaders, followers, and context, to achieve common goals. The scholarship of leadership (Kellerman, 2012) has progressed from a singular leader-centric focus to conceptualizing leadership as a dynamic process impacted by leaders, followers, and context. Within this basic taxonomy of leadership leaders constitute individuals, with or without official organizational titles, who possess the knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors, and other characteristics essential for gaining the support of others to positively impact the leadership process (Charan, Drotter, & Noel, 2011; Lahti, 1999; Tichy, 1989; Veslor et al., 2010). Irrespective of official organizational titles, followers describe engaged individuals with integrity who possess the critical thinking skills, in addition to knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors, and other characteristics, essential for actively supporting a leader to positively impact the leadership process (Charan et al., 2011; Kellerman, 2010; Kelley, 1992; Lahti, 1999; Tichy, 1989; Veslor et al., 2010). Context, the third factor, describes the elements and situations internal and external to the collective that influence the leadership process. Over time leadership scholars adopted this basic taxonomy to guide research, ground dialogue, and advance understanding. Subsequently, the field of leadership has slowly evolved from leadership definitions to a more holistic yet nuanced conceptualization of leadership represented by models and frameworks developed for specific purposes.
The L/S Conceptual Framework builds on the foundation established by the basic taxonomy of leadership by leveraging the strengths of the Interactional Framework (Hughes et al., 2009), the Equilateral Triangle Model (Kellerman, 2012), and the DAC Model (Veslor et al., 2010). These models were synthesized to form a robust yet nuanced understanding of leadership, thus positioning leadership as a dynamic process involving three equally weighted factors—leaders, followers, and context—for generating direction, alignment, and commitment. The specific purpose of generating direction, alignment, and commitment, according to the L/S Conceptual Framework, is to achieve long-term superior organizational performance through capturing sustainable competitive advantage. The organizational strategy scholarship provides a refined understanding of sustainable competitive advantage, a particular perspective of context, and suggests criteria for evaluating the potential for securing sustainable competitive advantage. The L/S Conceptual Framework recognizes the importance of the following: 1) leadership as a dynamic process; 2) the differentiated use of leadership and leader; 3) leaders, followers, and context as three equally weighted factors positively impacting the leadership process; 4) a pragmatic bent with a focus on outcomes; and 5) designing leadership models for a specific purposes.
During this presentation, participants will be introduced to this basic taxonomy of leadership and to the L/S Conceptual Framework. Executives interested in analyzing the VUCA business environment will receive a new and robust tool, and HR practitioners will gain the knowledge and skills required to design leadership development programs as sustainable competitive advantages. HR professionals can tailor these programs to their organization, yet the programs remain anchored in the L/S Conceptual Framework. Definitions, schematics, and

examples will be provided to make the material accessible, pragmatic, and directly applicable to the participants’ organizations.

Participants

• Travis A. Berger, Alvernia University/Vide Consulting Group, LLC

• John A Anderson, Indiana University of Pennsylvania