On Evolving Leadership Styles in Education, Then and Now
In 1936, Kurt Lewin published Principles
of Topological Psychology. In this
seminal work, he posited the heuristic equation B = f(P, E) where B is denoted
as a person’s behavior as a function of P, or a person’s E, meaning environment. The pioneering formula gave rise to the
notion that an individual’s present situation was gravely important when
considering their behaviors, more so than one’s past. When Dr. Lewin and his colleagues wrote on
patterns of aggressive behavior and used elementary-aged student groups for
analysis, it may be beneficial to consider the present circumstances of those children’s
lives and the lives of the authors and how it informed their behaviors during
the experimentation, documentation and publication of the results. This will advise both the revolutionary
notions they put forward, and the between-war industrialization of the world’s
major powers. In this context, one may
be able to appreciate both the theory of leadership styles as originally
posited, and the re-definitions/refinements of said theory.
The world-wide prefix of 1939 can be summed up in terms of global
conflict. Dictators from many countries,
including Spain, Germany and the Middle East were declaring, and acting on
declarations of war. Nations were
industrializing their manufacturing base, placing assembly lines in mammoth
warehouses as they geared up war machines, navies and arms in response to what
appeared to be global conflict. Rumors
of invasions in France, the Netherlands and even Britain abounded. These could be considered perilous times. In the present-tense of 1939, time and
resources were of the essence.
Organizations were framed by what Lewin (1939) called the authoritarian
leadership styles. It may be safe to
assume that the social dynamics in the homes of the children studied, and in
the school’s they attended mirrored those of the authoritarian, or patriarchal,
frameworks. In terms of knowledge
development, “Major events associated with mental processing go on, measurably
so, in our brain before we are aware of them” (Gazzaniga, 1998, p. 72). The awareness, Gazzaniga suggests, comes
through dialogical action between the interpreter, and researcher in Lewin’s
case, and the participants or subjects.
These fields of language, sapiential or otherwise, inform memories and
help individuals interpret the present which, in turn, promotes actions (Gazzaniga, 1998), (Lewin, Uppit, & White, 1939).
When considering the actions Lewin had to employ in order to
arrive in a space to create his research, Wren (1995) notes that, “All great
ideas in science, politics and management have travelled from one country to
another, and been enriched by foreign influences” (p.270). When Hitler took power, Lewin made his way to
the United States, and associated with individuals who helped him in his
work. In the context of Lewin’s work, it
may be important to note two important variables that may also have influenced
the collection of data and the results of the experiment. Note that only pre-adolescent boys were used
in the experiment. Furthermore, male graduate assistants, trained in the
interpretation of Lewin’s three leadership models, collected the data (Wren, 1995, p. 84). While Lewin’s world was then dominated by the
conflicts of men, advances in group dynamics, group think, leadership theories
and actions lend refinements to his original tenants. It still may be argued that little has changed
in terms of global conflict and an overall male-dominated society, however, the
dialogue now includes several key points that build upon Lewin’s original
works.
Re-definitions and Refinements
In 1957, a fellow MIT professor Dr. McGregor, who built on Lewin’s
work, posited Theory X. Essentially, Dr.
McGregor based his assertions on the research that promoted a sense of man’s
inherent indolence. That man required
regular interventions from management, who were responsible for the overall
organization and motivation of the work site.
This authoritarian assertion fueled Lewin’s findings about how to get
things done within the institution of work (McGregor as cited by Shafritz & Ott, 2001, Chapter 17). McGregor furthered that due to the human side of the industrial
organization, social scientists were challenged at times by the research that
found that conventional management styles grounded in Theory X weren’t always
successful. In fact, that the X theory
created two extremes in management.
These hard and soft pendulum swings were costly to
productivity and sustainability in the workplace. McGregor promoted a sense of awareness around
self-fulfillment and motivation via Theory
Y. The idea here is that management
creates possibilities for productivity through goal setting, collaboration,
consensus and releasing the overall potential of the workers (Shafritz & Ott, 2001, p. 183).
McGregor’s assertions around motivation had found fertile ground
in need theory. Maslow and Alderfer promoted the ideals of
society through the fulfillment of common needs based on “…internal states of
tension or arousal, or uncomfortable states of deficiency [where] people are
motivated to change” (Wren,
1995, p. 328). Successive theories
on motivation blossomed into discourses on cognition, equity, expectancy and
situational approaches. This research
helped develop ideals that promoted a sense of motivational interventions that
would help resolve conflicts in the work environment.
Resolving conflicts, building consensus and fulfilling that need
for unanimity may have its inherent challenges.
In the 1970’s Irving Janis wrote about President Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs
political debacle, coining the term groupthink. Distant cousin to the laissez-faire
leadership style Lewin discusses, groupthink differs in that it internally
promotes a sense of what Janis (1971) referred to as concurrence-seeking. This
social conformity need, built often by intellectually talented brain-trusts,
thwarts critical thinking in favor of bolstering group morale. In the extremes, nations may fail. In the microcosms of institutions, companies
suffer from the lack of directional leadership that Lewin promoted in his
original study (Irving Janis as cited by Wren, 1995, Chapter 47). The leadership style pendulum swung from
Great War authoritarian style to a mixed method democratic-laissez faire
execution with sometimes impractical consequences.
The stylized struggles between mechanistic societies and emerging
organic systems brought on management and leadership practices that played out
in some of the most successful international organizations. Since Lewin is responsible for promoting the
ideals of action research, it follows
that referencing industrial institutions in Japan and South America whose intermittent
successful transition of authoritarian and democratic-participatory styles
illustrate theories in action.
Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Matsushita Electric – more
commonly known as Panasonic, grew up in Japan.
He faced the overwhelming dogma of his societal ideologies, the forced
aristocracies of a feudal system migrating into a dominant world power and then
the downfalls of post-World War II Japan.
Through these experiences, he evolved his leadership practices from that
of an absolute authoritarian, driving the sales of light-bulbs by street
vendors, to a professorial democrat facilitating a multi-national purveyor of
high quality electronics. When Sony
refused to share Beta technology, by employing authoritarian group think
leadership, Matsushita openly shared his VCR technology with manufacturers
across the globe. The result was a surge
in international VCR sales and the eventual discontinuance of Beta, in spite of
superior quality. It is argued that
Matsushita’s ability to evolve as a leader, teach his leaders to do the same,
even opening a University at his manufacturing plant, made the difference in
sustaining a competitive world-wide presence in electronics (Kotter, 1997).
Another illustrative practical example, Ricardo Semler totally
transformed his father’s company Semco when he took the reins in the early
1980’s. Semco was highly authoritarian,
self-described as relying totally on the CEO’s expertise and top-down
leadership styles. Almost all decisions,
critical or otherwise, were made by the CEO.
The decisions weren’t questioned, they were executed. At the time of Ricardo’s takeover, the
company suffered from declining contracts and an inability to flex its
manufacturing to meet the changing needs of South America. Semlar transformed the workplace by allowing
workers to decide on departmental purchases, negotiating flexible work hours
with national unions, and re-tooling the organizational structures to include
representation from all departments (Semler, 1993).
Both of these practical examples illustrate, without in-depth
discussion about the challenges, the adaptive nature of Lewin’s work. Another, perhaps more theoretical application
follows W. Edwards Deming’s work with Japanese managers post-World War II on
total quality management. A trained
statistician and advisor to Matsushita’s rival, Akio Morita of Sony, Deming
promoted careful analysis of the manufacturing processes and the accompanying
employee training/leadership styles.
Commonly known as the Total Quality Control (TQC) or Total Quality
Management (TQM), these management systems are a unique combination of embedded
authoritarian leadership methods at all levels of the manufacturing
process. Once established, they are
carefully merged with a participatory/democratic system called Total Productive
Maintenance (TPM). TPM can be defined as
“…[involving] everyone in all departments and at all levels; it motivates
people for plant maintenance…[but] top management must design a system that
rewards everyone’s responsibility and ability for TPM” (Imai, 1986, p. 95). Deming’s influence through his Plan, Do,
Check, Act (PDCA) or Quality Control (QC) circles promoted a sense of Japanese kaizen, or the group-oriented permanence
around improving all aspects of an institution through small but very
deliberate systems of action overseen by management.
“Such job design means that it is necessary to
revise conventional thinking on the functions of manager and worker…the new job
design is to delegate as much planning and control to workers as possible, thus
motivating them to higher productivity and higher quality” (Niomi Misaki as cited by Imai, 1986, p. 95-96).
Kaizen serves as an academically sound, scientifically researched,
competitive model for production, management and leadership who’s originations
in the United States kept Japan viable in the international electronics and
automobile industries for decades. It
parallels the assertions of Lewin’s findings on the democratic process, where
more are involved, the quality of work
and product improves.
Rudolf Carnap (1950) is known for his work around linguistics and
empirical studies. He writes, “Let us be
cautious in making assertions and critical in examining them, but tolerant in
permitting linguistic forms” (Moser
& Nat, 2003, p. 78-9).
Permitting the examination and crude articulation of applications of
Lewin’s leadership research in the industrialized context informs further
linguistic examination of those applications in education. As the saying goes, we practice as we play
and we train as we fight. Our nation’s
education systems are modeled after the needs of the nation’s economic
drivers. Schools have mimicked
corporations in structure and organization for decades. While Lewin, Deming and their progenitors
were posting theories on leadership styles, a German educator named Kurt Hahn
was transforming education in two nations.
The first, a school called Salem in Germany, and Gordonstoun the second
school in Ireland founded as he left when Hitler took power in Kurt’s homeland
in 1933.
Hahn saw a need, after
performing a non-academic gap analysis, for the sons of trades-men and common
people to have access to the same rigor of education as their privileged
peers. His structure for the faculty and
students was highly participatory.
Shared responsibilities around caring for communities within and
surrounding the school were the norm.
Shore watches were established, with strict rules and procedures for
communication and responsibilities.
Infusing the war-time school developmental curriculum with relevance
through rigor, the founder sought participatory guidance from a host of
stakeholders who later became Hahn’s most ardent supporters. Kurt worked tirelessly to raise the
experiential and democratic processes for his participant stakeholders,
promoting this sense of fealty and eventually purveyorship. First from his colleague at Eton, and then
from associated consultations with parents, students, barracked soldiers, and
eventually American educators (Miner
& Bolt, 2002).
The first was Josh Miner, a visiting teacher, who later would
found the Outward Bound (OB) movement. A
theoretical, Harvard-developed extension of OB emerged, known as the
inquiry-based participatory model for education, Expeditionary Learning (EL). EL’s overall aim is to improve the quality of
student work, collaboratively through subject experts, texts, research and
co-educational teaching. The critical
pedagogy prescribed by EL (http://www.elschools.org) is rooted
in Freire’s call for praxis (Freire,
1997). The dialogical, or linguistic
exploration, is referred to by many theorists as a democratic process not to be
mistaken for “…a soft-shoe approach to teaching and leading in education” (Ornstein et al., 2011, p. 24).
There is a suggested dose of autonomy,
structured inter-dependence embedded in the application of these
interpretations of Lewin’s works. The
active, reflective evolutions from the mechanistic to the organic rationalities
of organizational and thereby educational frameworks support discipline and
autonomy. “We find that autonomy is a
product of discipline. The discipline
provides the framework. It gives people
confidence stemming from stable expectations about what really counts” (Dawson, 2003, p. 36).
The disciplines derived from authoritarian roots may provide the
possibilities for participatory processes in education. The current research suggests that by virtue
of these practices, the quality of education can and does improve. Take, for
instance, the choiceful combination of Finland’s strong welfare state and a
high performing economy as the central strengths of its education system. “In Finland, the state steers but does not
prescribe in detail the national curriculum.
Trusted teams of highly qualified teachers
write much of the curriculum at the local
level…”(Ornstein et al., 2011,
p. 320 emphasis added). Several other examples emerge from current
international educational leadership practices; they include successes of a
similar nature in Hong Kong, Australia and Canada. Common among these successful educational
leaders is the practice of treating stakeholders as engaged partners, who
employ the tenants educational kaizen/TPM on a national basis.
Lewin’s behavioral equation applies as readily to education today,
in our present state or context, as it did to his participants in the
1930’s. While the theoretical
developments of the past are relevant to our present, necessary innovations may
not be informative of our present actions.
Marx (2006) acknowledges the need for future-focused leaders to be able
to recognize emerging trends in education.
The key, he says, is “…in gaining respect and building relationships
community-wide…” (Marx, 2006,
p. 58). The participatory approach
is the clarion call here, one that imbues stakeholders as a collective
mind-trust in making high quality decisions around student needs. Gone are the days, according to Marx, when
educators only talk to one another and business leaders exclude others from
their meetings. Consider the arguable
success behind Teach for America (TfA) program that recruits successful
scholars from the nation’s top universities, prepares them through
collaborative local district participant training modules and places them in
the inner-city schools for two years.
Farr (2010) has developed a model for Teaching as Leadership that promotes the discipline of high
expectations intertwined with the autonomy of inquiry-based mastery in the
classroom. Close examination of Farr’s
work exposes parallels to Deming and Lewin’s work in leadership styles and
systems of organizational operation.
Farr (2010) derives his community of shared purpose, values and support
cycle from David A. Kolb, which closely resembles Lewin’s behavioral equation
and Deming’s plan, do, act cycle. “To
maximize the value of the teacher experience, it must be; data driven, infused
with feedback and reflection, and implemented in a spirit of accountability and
support” (Farr, 2010, p. 275-6).
“Business leaders, teachers, and other professionals are also
drawing from the wisdom of the past, and from their own experience, to create
more inclusive and integrated ways of living and working” (Senge, 2006, p. 10). These integrated ways of living also speak to
the integrated ways of teaching and learning.
Choices allow for a wide array of blended formats, charter, district,
and home schooling. In the potential chaos
of the existing and emerging choices, the mechanisms of education are migrating
to a more organic format with its own set of implementation challenges. Prior, it was natural to mimic the systems of
leadership born in the aforementioned industrialized conflicts of the 20th
century. Present, organic system
evaluations call out for a more fluid approach – perhaps in answer to the
present demands of a highly technological society. As technology evolves so then must
education. Herein lays a challenge of
perhaps standing in the way of natural processes of organizational and educational
innovation.
“Anytime we see systems in apparent chaos, our
training urges us to interfere, to stabilize, and shore things up. But if we can trust the workings of chaos, we
will see that the dominant shape of our organizations can be maintained if we retain
clarity about the purpose and direction of the organization” (Wheatley, 1992, p. 133).
Even as Fixsen (2005) and Hall & Hord (2006), as premier
implementation and change theorists, promote system interventions, perhaps
Lewin is speaking from the halls of university collections urging practitioners
to embrace the present situation, comparative to successive actions around our
own emerging leadership needs.
So emerge opportunities for further expressions of Lewin’s work in
education leadership. Wagner states that
“Indeed, virtually every other profession in modern life has transitioned to
various forms of teamwork, yet most educators work alone” (Wagner et al., 2006, p. 72). True, as illustrated here, external and
internal variables promoted environments of teamwork within the private sector. It may be that education has come to the re-definition
table late, but there are disciplined strategies that manifest themselves in a
participatory manner. To avoid the
traditions of authoritarian compliance, Wagner suggests that teachers and
leaders to publicly model communities of
practice as a tool to subvert the educational culture of reaction,
compliance and isolation (p. 80). In
keeping with Marx’s (2006) suggestions around communities of generative thinking,
it follows that educators, business and community leaders can no longer work in
isolation. Perhaps these communities of
practice will be inclusive of all stakeholders, and, outside the theories of
leadership, manifest themselves in terms of students being present to a
participatory process that enriches their classroom experiences.
References
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