On June 14, 2019, my father died. I wrote his obituary. And I wrote the eulogy I read at his service. I stopped writing for “publication” after that (to the extent that this blog is a publication of mine…)
Paul Simon’s “Graceland” lyrics have been in my head for months: “I see losing love/ Is like a window in your heart/ Everybody sees you’re blown apart/ Everybody feels the wind blow.” The wind has been blowing. And it’s been hard to come back to write here. It’s not that I haven’t done my fair share (what does that even mean?) of writing and reflecting; it’s that it’s often been too raw to be shareable.
My father was deeply committed to the community in which he lived. He was a probation officer at the 58th District Court for years, and he served not only the community at large but his probationers individually. He also was head of a number of community service organizations at their inceptions—Community Action House, The Good Samaritan Center. Of course, it wasn’t always easy to see the layers of his service when I was growing up seeing him come home from work (and arguing with him over who got to read the sports section of the newspaper first). But at his service, judges and former probationers sat side by side to honor his memory. And I am grateful for the stories they shared.
"If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”—Sir Isaac Newton
This fall, I tried to get back into the rhythm of the school year and found my dad present in everything I did. I was unsure how to negotiate the transition back to school—my new students’ parents asked me if my parents still live in Michigan; I hadn’t prepared for that one: “My mom does, but my dad just passed away, so I guess just my mom lives there now…” And I’ve no idea how to navigate those waters yet.
So it should be no surprise that my dad was ever-present in my mind when I engaged with a colleague in an email conversation about how our leadership school might define leadership.
Why define leadership? Our school has a mission, and the opening phrase is that “Culver educates its students for leadership and responsible citizenship…” So to do that work, we need to have a common understanding of what we mean when we say, “leadership.” For some of us, that starts with a definition.
Culver went through this exercise a number of years ago—there’s a “hard card” that shares the fruits of that effort: “Ethical Leadership is empowering others to achieve legitimate organizational goals while balancing the welfare of the individual with the needs and requirements of the group; ethical leadership arises from the balance of legitimate authority and moral virtue: courage, wisdom, moderation, and justice."
In a recent conversation, another definition was proposed: “Leadership is the practice of building and sustaining campus communities that live the Culver mission.” The second is clearly more concise than the first, but I wondered what we were missing through that concision.
“It’s kind of like wrestling a gorilla…”
And that’s where the wrestling comes in. The writing that follows is my thinking on how we might define leadership; it comes from a message exchange I had with a colleague in one of my personal reflective moments this fall. And as I look back now, I can see how I was drawn to this particular argument (the need for balancing the needs of the individual up against the needs of the community) given my own sensibilities, my research, and my dad’s giant shoulders.
Here are my musings in response to that second proposed definition (largely unedited from the email I originally sent):
“Culver educates its students for leadership and responsible citizenship in society by developing and nurturing the whole individual—mind, spirit, and body—through integrated programs that emphasize the cultivation of character.”
What does it mean to educate students for leadership in society?
In the mission statement “in society” is connected both to “leadership” and “responsible citizenship.” So if we are educating our students for leadership in society, our definition of leadership should be about leadership in society, not only leadership at Culver. This line of thinking also aligns with the aspirational nature of the mission statement—we are educating our students to go out into the world to lead well (presumably) and to be responsible citizens.
If we substitute in the current working definition of “leadership” to the mission statement, it might be easier to see the objection that people have to including “campus communities” and even “that live the Culver mission” in the definition:
“Culver educates its students for the practice of building and sustaining campus communities that live the Culver mission and responsible citizenship in society by developing and nurturing the whole individual—mind, spirit, and body—through integrated programs that emphasize the cultivation of character.” The piece about “sustaining campus communities” takes away from the mission’s target to send our students prepared into society.
“To be a Culver grad” should mean to be equipped with a set of leadership skills that can be employed to positively impact society. This is why it seems important to have a Culver definition of leadership that is “portable” for our students and for our adult community, as well, rather than one that references “campus communities.”
I appreciated seeing the process of developing the working Culver definition of leadership from the original Northhouse definition. I wonder, though, if in trying to translate pieces of the Northhouse definition across to the context of Culver, some key pieces of Northhouse’s definition were lost in translation. I also wonder if the original definition captures how we conceive of and teach leadership at Culver.
Specifically, Northhouse’s definition includes a reference to “an individual” and his/her influence on a “group of individuals.” In the Culver definition, the “individual” as an agent of the practice of leadership is missing. I’m not sure that is as significant, though, as the omission of the individual from the phrase “building and sustaining communities.”
When I first read the proposed “Culver Academies” definition, I was most struck by what felt like the utilitarian nature of that definition. And the question, “But, what of the individual?” (WiH 1.0) popped in my head. Northhouse’s original definition hints at individuals who make up a “group,” but there are certainly other definitions out there that speak of a leader’s target to not only build and sustain communities but also to care for individuals in the process.
Brene Brown: Leadership is “taking responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and having the courage to develop that potential.”
Simon Sinek: Leadership is “inspiring action” and “creating environments where people thrive,” and “taking care of those in your charge.”
Kouzes and Posner: "Leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations."
How might we make sure that a Culver definition of leadership includes not just the communities that our leaders build but also an expectation of the leaders to care for the people who are in those communities? The aspirational nature of the mission statement calls for an inspirational definition of leadership to guide our work. A clear definition of leadership can push us towards clarifying the kind of leaders we would like our students to be and become. Our mission statement includes the word “responsible” with “citizenship” but offers no modifier for leadership. What an opportunity we have to explore that missing modifier here in our definition.
Over the years, as I’ve introduced Culver to people, I’ve started time and again with the mission: “Our mission at Culver is to educate students for leadership and responsible citizenship…” No one ever asks me what I mean by “responsible citizenship,” but nearly everyone asks, “What do you mean when you say you educate them for leadership?” I can talk about the systems and the classes and the positions. But imagine the power in telling someone that “our students are educated to create environments where people thrive by inspiring action and taking care of those in their charge” (Sinek). Or imagine a Culver grad applying for a job and being able to clearly say that they are educated in “taking responsibility for people and processes in a community”(Brown). It matters that the definition of leadership is both inspirational and aspirational for educators and students alike.
I heard concern in conversation about context. It feels like the definition of leadership should be the “what.” But the context is the “how” and maybe even the “where” of leadership, and that shouldn’t necessarily go in the single-sentence definition itself. Rather, a second statement might read something like, “In order to develop as practitioners of leadership, students at Culver are mentored in building and sustaining campus communities that live the Culver mission.”
Or I wonder if we might be able to capture a definition of leadership that reflects the language, thinking, and spirit of the Culver mission statement. I have always loved that the mission statement clearly puts an emphasis on community through “responsible citizenship in society” and the individual’s significance within the community through “nurturing the whole individual.” As we designed the summer leadership curriculum, we thought a lot about Daniel Goleman’s modes of attention: focusing on yourself, focusing on others, focusing on the broader world. We teach students about the importance of knowing the people that they lead and about balancing the needs of the individual up against the needs of the community. Culver’s mission statement seems to call for this—nurture the whole individual so that they can become a responsible citizen in society. To that end, I would propose a definition that looks something like this: “Leadership is the practice of nurturing individuals while building and sustaining communities.” If I circle back to the opening substitution exercise, the Mission statement then reads: “Culver educates its students for the practice of nurturing individuals while building and sustaining communities and responsible citizenship in society by developing and nurturing the whole individual—mind, spirit, and body—through integrated programs that emphasize the cultivation of character.”
Incidentally, I know that most definitions of leadership are concerned with a “goal.” In the definition above, the goal is building and sustaining a community. This definition seems, perhaps, like a Kantian approach to leadership—the ends and the means to the end are intertwined, though. And both Brown and Sinek seem to view the “goal” as less important to define than the process by which we would reach that goal.
I look forward to continuing the conversation.
To my dad...
As I look back now, I see his voice echoing in my argument above. "But what of the individual?" was the way that he lived his life.
And I am better for it.
Wrestle on, friends.
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