Transformative leadership, social change, and commitment: an analysis

Michael Chew

Introduction This paper explores various concepts of transformative leadership in the theory and operation of a pilot social change project, the Pledge Project. In particular it critically explores how the transformative concepts of expanded identification and distributive leadership operate in the project. This is achieved in two parts - firstly by exploring the broad conceptual background of the project, then in the second part critically examining the projects various operational roles together with their inter-relationships. From this analysis brief recommendations are developed for deepening the transformational nature of future projects.

Part A Background and context

Snapshot: the project and its context The Pledge Project was designed to provide a mechanism to enable participants to make individual written commitments to undertake actions to address climate change. These commitments involved specific, personally feasible social actions that would address climate change directly or indirectly. The project was initiated as a response to: a) The collective lack of political leadership around addressing climate change at various levels of government; b) The failure of the recent Copenhagen summit to produce scientifically meaningful action;

a) The dominant emphasis in public discourse on personal action as the most appropriate site of action to address climate change (as opposed to the community or political spheres).1 Because of these factors namely insufficient action concentrated at the wrong level - I explicitly framed the pledged actions in terms of social, community and political influence, defined as ones cultural footprint2. The participants written pledges committed themselves to take actions that would increase his or her cultural footprint - expanding their social influence on others e.g. taking political action, educating their community, motivating friends to reduce their ecological footprints, and so forth. The project operated as follows: a small number of volunteer facilitators sat at the public project table and verbally engaged passers-by to participate in the project. This involved inviting them to sit down, introducing them to the concept, and engaging the participant in a general conversation with the aim of guiding her/him to commit to a relevant action. The participant then wrote a brief description of the action on a slip of carbon copy paper to produce two written pledges. Finally, the participant attached the original pledge to a large public display board, and kept the copy as a reminder to take the action. The project took place as part of Create program of the 2010 Sustainable Living Festival in Birrarung Marr, Melbourne. This festival has established itself a key event in Melbournes sustainability calendar, and approaches sustainability in a broad fashion encompassing educational, political, consumerist, and creative approaches (Petheram & Johnson 2006). Despite this wide scope, the vast majority of stalls and events were predominantly information-based, framing the participant as a generally either a passive recipient of information or as a predetermined role - for instance as a potential member or donor of an environmental organisation. As we will explore in the subsequent sections, the projects goal of fostering the
1

The author acknowledges that these points are contested; however their discussion is outside the scope of this paper. 2 This term is used in contrast with personal actions, which are designed to reduce one's individual or households 'ecological footprint'. The term was first introduced to me during a lecture for an environmental leadership course (J Clarke [Centre for Sustainability Leadership] 2007, Week 6, 15 June).

participants own agency represents transformative leadership processes which have the potential to transform the participants subjectivity to a greater degree than the approaches listed above. Firstly however it is important to introduce the core elements of transformative leadership relevant to the project and its context of social change.

Theoretical background: transformative leadership and social change Although many of the concepts behind transformative leadership are far from new, they have only been critically discussed over the last few decades.3 Burns (1978) work on the topic is considered seminal (Stone, Russell & Patterson 2004), arguing that leaders are transformational or transactional the former appealing to the followers higher moral values and the latter appealing to the followers self-interest through systems of rewards and punishments. Since then, the definition of transformational leadership has been widely researched and contested in academic and management literature (Brown & Trevio 2006, Fry 2003). Two perspectives that are useful in exploring the Pledge Project will now be discussed. Firstly, according to Bass, transformational leadership occurs when leaders generate awareness and acceptance of the purposes and mission of the group, and when they stir their employees to look beyond their own self-interest for the good of the group (Bass 1990:21). Namely, it is a process for expanding a persons concerns from self-centred to group-centred, appealing to the followers higher moral values that of expanded identification. The second perspective can be broadly described as distributed leadership. As Timperley writes, distributed leadership is not the same as dividing task responsibilities among individuals but rather it comprises dynamic interactions between multiple leaders and followers (Timperley 2005:396). While this concept of distributive leadership has a literature of its own (National College for School Leadership 2003), and its
3

An age old example is Lao Tzus famous quote, The wicked leader is he whom the people revile. The good leader is he whom the people revere. The great leader is he of whom the people say, "We did it ourselves." (Lao Tzu, cited in Senge 1990:328).

relationship to transformative leadership is complex and is still being debated,4 this paper draws upon the concept for its transformative connective and emergent processes. While other transformative concepts are referred to throughout the paper, these two perspectives form the general basis underpinning the projects operation. A key point to note here is that the project takes place in a social change context, rather than in an organisational context - where much of the transformative leadership literature is focused. The latter theories intersect with research on social and behaviour change in complex ways; it is unwise to assume that one can be applied uncritically to the other. Frequently behaviour change theory and practice relies on a mix of transformative and transactional leadership styles to achieve specific ends - for instance using appeals to an individuals intrinsic values (transformative), while also relying on incentives (transactional) to encourage specific behaviour change (De Young 1993). However there are two clear differences between the projects function and this kind of model behaviour change program. Firstly, instead of encouraging a personal behaviour change - such as reducing energy ones usage, the project instead appeals to the participant to make change on a broader level, relying on an expanded identification beyond personal actions.5 Secondly, instead of a specific action such as writing to ones local representative the project asks the participant to reflect on his or her life, then decide on an action themselves. These differences are reflective of the transformative processes in the participant-facilitator interactions, which are discussed in more detail later in the paper. A final component of the projects theoretical context is its form that of a personal, written commitment. This is by no means unique, having been studied extensively as a means to generate behaviour change (De Young 1993). However, on a theoretical level, the pledge mechanism is transformative according to the earlier definition as making a commitment
4

For the purposes of this paper we will take Timperleys view, regarding it as a subset of transformative leadership (Timperley 2003). 5 It is important to note that a minority of pledges described personal actions, rather than community actions this issue is noted at the conclusion of the paper as a topic for further research.

can create a shift in the participants internal attitudes - not just their external behaviour. For instance, Pardini and Katzev, when reflecting upon why their commitment intervention produced durable change, suggested that the participants may have found their own reasons for recycling, to begin to even like doing so, and, as a result, to continue to perform these behaviors on their own (Pardini & Katzev, cited in De Young 1993:499). Thus pledges can decouple behaviour change from existing transactional, reward-based incentives, causing the locus of change to moved to the internal, transformative, value-based level.

Part B Project Analysis

Transformative Leadership in action We shift now from the general discussion of the projects transformative processes to explore its specific operations and the extent to which transformative leadership is expressed through various operational roles. These include the roles of project designer, project manager, facilitators, and participants.

Pedestrian traffic flow

Participant 1

Participant 2

Participant 3

Facilitator 1

Facilitator 2

Facilitator 3

Project Manager

This figure shows the operational relationships discussed in Part B

Project designer I had three roles: project designer, manager, and facilitator (during the projects operation). As project designer I conceived the vision and operation of the project. It was a largely my idea, though I took input from several friends in the design process. However, I consciously chose not to develop this vision collectively, thereby choosing a non-transformative approach to this generative stage6. This was because of time constraints, and a concern that involving others at that stage would alter the developed project vision. Here I was operating more inline with heroic leadership for instance having a strong personal vision that needed to be protected (Fletcher 2004). This was the trade-off: I got a pilot project off the ground nimbly in limited time, but without the perhaps stronger base of a slow-moving organising group with a collectively generated vision. On reflection, this illustrates that genuine postheroic transformational leadership inevitably takes more time if applied consistently at all project stages; and this time may not be available.

Project management and cooperative facilitation dynamics During the projects operation, my role shifted to project manager coordinating and briefing volunteers to act as facilitators. This role was a complex interplay of transformative and non-transformative processes. The actual structure of coordination (primarily recruiting, briefing and timetabling facilitators) was managerial rather than leadership based, and specific outcome of the vision process described above.7 However the process in which it operated displayed transformative qualities. During the project there were many times when I could not be present at the project stall, leaving after meeting and briefing volunteer facilitators. I encouraged the facilitators to perform not only the content of their roles (engaging with participants), but also some of the coordination role itself independently of myself and collaboratively with other facilitators. For instance, the facilitators
6

See Lyman (2005) for a discussion on the relationship between collective visioning and transformative leadership. 7 An interesting point to note here is Leithwood and Jantzis incorporation of these processes into their model of transformational leadership, they write, Most models of transformational leadership are flawed by their under representation of transactional practices (which we interpret to be managerial in nature) (Leithwood & Jantzi 1999:454).

found replacements for themselves if they had to leave the stall, briefed new facilitators, and juggled the varied incoming streams of participants. These leadership processes can be read as context dependent transformative distributive process, as described in Part A. As Copland writes, Decisions about who leads and who follows are dictated by the task or problem situation, not necessarily by where one sits in the hierarchy (Copland cited in Timperley 2005:396). By handling these meta-tasks as well as their own tasks, the facilitators expand their concerns from just their own duties to the project broader operation and goals, joining with the other key concept of the earlier definition of transformative leadership expanded identification. As Lyman wrote, Transformational leadership, however, is still about getting others to do what you want them to do (Lyman 2005:153) what is important here is how others are actually engaged to do this. We now turn to examine these relationships in detail using a more specific theory of distributive transformative leadership - the complexity leadership theory that Uhl-Bien, Marion and McKelvey (2007) develop. Their theory is based on how leadership processes develop in Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) - neural-like networks of interacting, interdependent agents who are bonded in a cooperative dynamic by common goal, outlook, need, etc (Uhl-Bien, Marion & McKelvey 2007:299). The dynamic functioning of the facilitators in the Pledge Project can be read as a basic CAS with its shared goals of engaging participants as individuals while simultaneously selfmonitoring and managing participant demand as a whole. According to the theory, these actions could be read as an example of adaptive leadership adaptive, creative, and learning actions that emerge from the interactions of CAS as they strive to adjust to tension (Uhl-Bien, Marion & McKelvey 2007:305). The tension in this context was the varied flow of participants and their inter-subjective interactions, as well as physical perturbations, such as wind or shifting sunlight. I participated in this system alongside the others however as the recognised manager, my presence had a dampening effect on the network dynamics. Facilitators tended to defer to me in problem solving,

which they would have probably addressed themselves.8 This shows how the mere presence of administrative leadership recognised positional leaders affects the emergent dynamic of the system, skewing it towards traditional non-transformational leader-follower relations. Facilitator-Participant dynamics The interaction at the core of the project was between the facilitators and the participants themselves. Several transformative leadership processes were crucial here, affecting the quality, depth and transformative potential of these interactions, which subsequently had a direct effect on the pledges made. Here, it is important to note two key limitations in the facilitatorparticipant dynamics. Firstly, due to the festival context - with its rapid flows of people participant-facilitator interaction time was constrained generally less than ten minutes per participant. Intuition suggests that a short duration would limit the effective transformative processes in this interaction a view corroborated by Krishnan (2006).9 Secondly, although participants emails were recorded after pledging, no follow up contact was made with them. This limited the ability to gain evaluative information about the success rate of pledge follow-through, and the ability to remind, support, or re-inspire participants after the project finished. Returning to the complexity leadership analysis of the Pledge Project, we examine how adaptive leadership operates as part of facilitator-participant interactions. In these interactions the facilitators used a range of techniques to guide the participant towards choosing an action to pledge. Some relied mainly on the example action sheets provided10, which tended to shift the participant into a more passive subject position, often causing participants to pledge arbitrarily or politely leave.11 The more successful facilitators engaged

It is important to note that I was only able to infer this phenomena second-hand through knowledge of various facilitators styles and observation it is difficult to measure accurately. 9 It is of interest that the above study also infers that the affective subset of transformative leadership outcomes - attachment and affective commitment to organization - were unaffected by duration. This implies the short interaction may still be effective as an initial spark or inspiration to explore the ideas projects ideas. 10 These contained compiled lists of example actions and were intended to jog the participants mind and provide a backup if they could not think of an action themselves. 11 These observations were generalisations from my own experience as a facilitator and observing other facilitators techniques, and do not capture the wide range of interactions

the participants as thinking subjects, drawing out the persons concerns around climate change, their interests in action, and encouraging them to arrive at their own decisions about what actions to take. This dynamic interplay allowed adaptive leadership to emerge as a product of the interactions of facilitator and participant. These dialogues created a fertile space for new realisations to occur for instance the aha moment, when interdependent individuals who are debating conflicting perceptions of a given issue suddenly, and perhaps simultaneously, generate a new understanding of that issue (Uhl-Bien, Marion & McKelvey 2007:307). Effectively the facilitator and participant co-create the pledged action together. Though the conversations were very rarely directly oppositional as implied above, the actual process of encouraging a participant to choose an action tended to pose some degree of challenge, indirectly or directly, as it required the participant to step outside her/his assumptions about social change, it is the process of seeing beyond original assumptions to something not bounded by those assumptions. Uhl-Bien, Marion & McKelvey 2007:307). This complexity leadership analysis articulates in more detail the general transformative leadership concepts outlined at the beginning. Expanded Identification The process of encouraging the participant to see beyond her own assumptions about undertaking social action is another key transformational process operating in the Pledge Project that of expanded identification. This forms the conceptual basis for the projects ask of participants, which was to expand their cultural footprint. This process can be analysed on two levels the broad and the specific. On the broad level, this expanded sense of self relates back to Bass definition of transformative leadership quoted earlier to look beyond their own self-interest for the good of the group (Bass 1990:21). In the projects context the group is not a specifically defined structure, but is rather delineated by what it is not (an individual). It is instructive here to draw upon OSullivans (2004) concept of the minimal and the ecological self. The former
displayed. Formalised evaluative methods would lead to more accurate results and more faithful analysis.

represents the modernist, isolated self that is alienated from authentic connections with others and the planet, while the latter is the reverse the self that is fundamentally interconnected with successively wider circles of identifications- family, community, nation, earth, and universe. Thus the Pledge Project asked the participant to look beyond their minimal self to take broader action centred on their wider circles of identification. This perspective raises a question if successively wider identification reconnects the minimal self, is there a similar expectation of an ideal trajectory of expansiveness implicit in the project? That is, does it imply that successive pledges should be bolder and more far-reaching? This question is difficult to answer my personal view is that it does imply this; however, although it may be appropriate for such a project to impose a particular trajectory for pledges made in an organisational context, it does not suite the social change context, where a diversity of trajectories, for a diversity of participants, is required for transformative change. Finally, we address how this expanded identification affects the participants self-image. If the facilitator-participant engagement has been successful, and the participant expands his/her identification, then their selfimage simultaneously shifts in the direction of embed the other what was formally an outer circle of identification. This is characteristic of an altruistic relationship, which is ultimately the context in which participants make pledges. Thus ..altruism brings in the dimension of others into leaders definition of self (Singh & Krishnam 2008:264). This can in turn produce other transformations in the participants self-image for example, from empirically focused to more community focused, or from a member/donor selfimage to that of an independent change-agent.

Conclusions, recommendations and further research We have seen through these critical explorations that transformative leadership processes are active in both the broad conceptual positioning of the Pledge Project, as well as in the specific interpersonal processes occurring between the various project roles. While these processes were subject to various practical constraints and limitations, they essentially serve to structurally underpin the projects aims of social change. These transformative aims are enacted both in the projects organisation and delivery the former empowering the facilitators to act autonomously and collaboratively, and the latter expanding the participants circle of awareness and action. It is, however, important to remain critical and realistic in our explorations. The pilot projects two most serious shortcomings were the lack of time spent on individual participant interactions limiting the projects transformative affect, and lack of follow-up with participants limiting ability to follow through and support actions. Future projects should take steps to address these two concerns which would allow for a greater realisation of the transformative leadership processes inherent in the pilot. Further research could also address analyses not included in this paper due to space constraints such the transformative basis of the actual pledges themselves, their relative success or failure, and the types of participants who were engaged.

References
Bass, B.M 1990, From transactional to transformational leadership: learning to share the vision, Organizational Dynamics, vol. 18, no. 3, p. 19-31. Brown, M. & Trevio, L 2006, Ethical leadership: A review and future directions, The Leadership Quarterly, vol.17, p. 595-616. Burns, J. M 1978, Leadership, Harper & Row Publishers, New York. Copland, M. A 2003, Leadership of inquiry: building and sustaining capacity for school improvement, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, vol. 25, no. 4, p. 375395. De Young, R 1993, Changing Behavior and making it stick, Environment and Behavior, vol. 25, no. 4, p. 485-505. Fletcher, J 2004, The paradox of postheroic leadership: An essay on gender, power, and transformational change, The Leadership Quarterly, vol 15, p. 647-661. Fry, L 2003, Toward a theory of spiritual leadership, The Leadership Quarterly, vol. 14, p. 693727. Leithwood, K & Jantzi, D 1999, Transformational school leadership effects: a replication, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, vol. 10, no. 4, p. 451479. Lyman, L. L., Ashby, D. E. & Tripses, J. S 2005, Redefining Leadership: New Ways of Doing and Being, in Leaders Who Dare: Pushing the Boundaries, Rowman & Littlefield Education, Lanham MD. Krishnan, V. R 2005, Transformational leadership and outcomes: role of relationship duration, The Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 26, no. 6, p. 442 457. National College for School Leadership 2003, Distributed Leadership: A Review of Literature, NCSL, Gloucestershire. O'Sullivan, E, Taylor, M 2004, Glimpses of an ecological consciousness, in Learning Towards Ecological Consciousness, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Pardini, A. U, & Katzev, R. D 1984, The effects of strength of commitment on newspaper recycling, Journal of Environmental Systems, vol. 13, p. 245-254. Petheram R.J & Johnson R.C 2006, Practice change for sustainable communities: Exploring footprints, pathways and possibilities, APEN 2006 International Conference, La Trobe University, Beechworth, Victoria, Australia, 6 8 March 2006, www.regional.org.au/au/apen/2006 Senge, P, Scharmer, C, Jaworski, J & Flowers, B 2003, Awakening Faith in an Alternative Future, Reflections, vol. 5, no. 7, p. 1-11. Senge, P. M 1990, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Currency Doubleday, New York. Singh N., Krishnam V. K 2008, Self-sacrifice and transformational leadership: the mediating role of altruism, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 29, no. 3, p. 261-274. Stone, A. G, Russell R. F, Patterson, K 2004, Transformational versus servant leadership: a difference in leader focus, The Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 25, no. 4, p. 349 36.

Timperley, H 2005, Distributed leadership: developing theory from practice, Journal of Curriculum Studies, vol. 37, no. 4, p. 395420. Uhl-Bien, M, Marion, R & McKelvey, B 2007, Complexity Leadership Theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era, The Leadership Quarterly, vol. 18, p. 298 318.

Appendix 1 Project Documentation Further documentation can be found at: http://thepledgeproject.blogspot.com