SOME TRANSFORMING CHARACTER DIMENTIONS

Note:  Merry Christmas everyone!!

As advertised, this posting will continue with my view of transformational leadership.  The purpose is to extend some themes associated with change, such as changing a school’s content in one of its core subject offerings.  This blog has been dedicated to convincing those in charge of choosing the content for civics courses at the secondary level to shift from the use of the natural rights construct to a federation theory construct.  Naturally, a lot has been presented in this blog describing and explaining each of these constructs.  The above introductory remarks (the ones seen above this posting) give an overview of what constitutes the federation theory construct.  The natural rights construct is what currently prevails in our nation’s civics classrooms.  Of late, in order to facilitate the adoption of a federalist approach, I have been addressing some elements of change theory, hoping to assist anyone who is disposed to work toward making this curricular shift.  I have shared some ideas concerning what goes into an individual making choices – a person’s demeanor, mode of political behavior, options, and tenor – and what constitutes the environmental space in which the change is being planned and implemented.  With the last posting, I introduced the last topic I will write about concerning change: that of leadership.

I have already established that in order to be successful in changing an entire orientation in a given subject area, one needs to utilize a change strategy known as normative-re-educative.  This strategy type is geared to changing the normative stance a person holds toward something so that that person adopts a different stance.  Since normative views are made up of attitudes and values – with their accompanying emotions – changing them can be very challenging.  If one takes on the goal of adopting a newer construct for civics, one is probably going to step on some toes in the effort – change of this sort is calling on teachers to change extensively how they see and do their jobs.  For example, a federation theory view of civics is going to challenge some strongly held feelings concerning liberty.  Federation theory, while cherishing liberty, does not hold this value as its trump value.  While the effort would not directly command teachers and their students to give up their beliefs and values concerning liberty, it would present information and situations that would question the prudence of holding liberty as the dominant value.  This might strike teachers and students as frustrating and somehow challenging.  Let me give you a specific example:  should you be forced to pay into health insurance?  By having a national pool of health insurance payers – a pool consisting of all age groups – the price of such insurance for any one person is much less, so much less that everyone can be insured at reasonable prices.  But the question is:  doesn’t a person, under the provisions of liberty, have the right not to pay; not to participate in such a national program?  Isn’t this a liberty issue?  It is these kinds of questions that would be highlighted under a federation theory guided civics lesson.  The point is not that a natural rights guided lesson would avoid such a question; it is a matter that in classes where federation theory is the source of the content, this type of questioning would be more central and occur more often.  Why?  A federation theory guided content would zero in on those commonly held dispositions that people are apt to hold and that are contradictive to federalist values.[1]  And again, this is likely to question not only the beliefs of students, but also those of teachers and administrators as well.

And this takes us back to leadership.  In order to have those involved with such change, a leader has to be knowledgeable enough and talented enough to shepherd such a change toward a successful implementation.  And the trick is, in order to approach such a change, the leader will not be able to simply mandate it.  As a matter of fact, he/she cannot spell out what the change will exactly be.  The leader has to manage a series of phases in which those involved take an active part in the problem identification, planning, testing, implementation, and evaluation of whatever is strategized.  As I indicated in the last posting, the leader is going to have to convince those whom he/she is leading that the change is more prudent, more legitimate, and/or something that will bring each of them closer to those they want to be closer to due to some dimension (such as friendship).  What is called for is transformational leadership.  That is,

… a style of leadership where the leader collaborates with employees to identify the needed change, creating a vision to guide the change through inspiration, and executing the change in tandem with committed members of the group.[2]

In order to pull off this type of leadership, there are certain mechanisms.

These mechanisms are many and varied.  A trained change agent is familiar with them.  Most schools, though, cannot afford the services of a change agent, but even if they could, a corps of teachers, those perhaps with graduate degrees and a rudimentary understanding of change theory and techniques, could provide the necessary leadership.  Most high schools these days have an assistant principal in charge of curriculum; this person would also be key to any extensive curricular change effort.  But leading all of this is, of course, the principal.  Ideally, among those who identify the need for this type of change, would be the principal.  That person, more than any other, sets the tone for the school.  This is true regardless of how gifted or ungifted the person is.  These blog entries addressing change are geared toward teachers and parents, but any of these identified personnel, I believe, can benefit from understanding this subject matter.

Let me end this posting with an overview of the mechanism change that leaders can adopt in ushering in the type of change proposed.  One, a change worker (referred to earlier in this blog as the planner) would benefit from getting those who are to change (referred to earlier in this blog as the planned-for) to make the proposed change as an extension of their identity and self.  In my proposed change, that would entail the planned-for to see and feel federalist ideals as their espoused theory and a theory they want to implement in how they act – their theory-in-use.  And this identity factor is not contained within the individuals, but becomes a collective identity of the school – “we are a federalist school.”  Two, the leader is a role model for change and encourages the other planners to be role models also.  He/she and other planners live out federalist ideals.  This includes such personality traits as being inclusive, open to dialogue and collaboration, and an infectious spirit of unity that he/she can infuse among the planners and planned-for.  Three, the leader should have the ability to instill ownership of what is being attempted and what has been accomplished – both of the positive and negative.  Such a leader is a transformational leader and one that can at least have a shot at instituting a federalist posture in his/her school.

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[1] You might question how a mandated national health program reflects a federalist issue.  I hold that health care, given its relation to survival concerns at the individual level, reflects an inequality of opportunity reality.  If a portion of the population is deprived of a basic, survival service, those who belong to that segment of the population are being deprived of enjoying a basic element of opportunity to live a reasonable, secure life in a society that is wealthy enough to provide it.

[2] Wikipedia, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformational_leadership .

DO AS I AM

I want to continue my look at change theory with one more related issue: leadership.  As I indicated a while back, to institute the type of curricular change I have been advocating in this blog – that is, changing the content of our civics instruction from one guided by the natural rights construct to one guided by liberated federalism – the needed type of strategy to institute that change would be the normative-re-educative type.  A strategy that would fall under this type would be one that seeks to not only solicit outward compliance to some change mandate, but also would further strive to have those involved willing to participate in the planning and implementation of that change.  If one is after a profound change that is pervasive in its effects, then one needs to get at not only the related behaviors, but also the related knowledge, attitudes, norms, and values.  This level of change encompasses not only changed procedures, but changed procedures over time and therefore demands those involved to see and feel differently.  Serious change has the knack of bringing up emotional challenges and if one is expected to adopt another way of doing something, in order to have the necessary discipline to adopt a new way, one has to want to do it.  The change, therefore, is transformational – as opposed to transactional change.

If you are unfamiliar with this distinction, let me describe it.  When one does something at the behest of someone else in anticipation that one is to be rewarded or relieved of some punishment by so acting, we are talking about transactional change, a tit-for-tat arrangement or an “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” agreement.  If we apply the concept of power to these types of changes, this relates to, in the first case, reward power or, in the second case, coercive power.  Each of these, in turn, has corresponding types of change strategies:  reward relates to empirical-rational strategies and coercion relates to power-coercive strategies (I’ve written of these in previous postings).  For most changes, one of these can fit the bill.  But most changes are not extensive; most take on a style that usually can be voiced as “wouldn’t it be better to do this before that” or something along those lines.  But from time to time, an organization will want to initiate a new way that something important is done; for example, teaching a civics content that has different priorities and moral perspective from what has been taught to date.  You can try to reward people to teach a different content or you might try to threaten some punishment if they don’t teach this other content, but if you want a teacher who is believable in what he/she teaches and is motivated to do a good job, then you need one who believes in what he/she is teaching.  Further, if that teacher and the other teachers involved with the shift in content are not of that frame of mind initially, then you are attempting transformational change – change that gets not only at behavior, but also at this level of priorities and motivations the new way entails.  One, then, is concerned with the normative aspects of how the person views the process, aims, and goals of the endeavor.

Now what convinces a person to want to change?  There are a few categories of such motivating forces.  These occur when, one, a person perceives the change as morally or otherwise legitimate; two, a person perceives the change as prudent – the more intelligent thing to do; or three, a person perceives the change as soliciting the positive response from someone with whom that person wants to be associated.  This last category can be motivated by love, friendship, envy, loyalty, or any emotion that leads the person to establish or maintain a close relationship with the targeted subject.

For each type of change, transactional based on reward power, transactional based on coercion, or transformational, one needs a different style of leadership.  In the upcoming postings, I want to address transformational leadership.  I will attempt to share ideas concerning its elements and attributes.  But to give you a sense of what is to come, let me just mention a couple of reputed transformational leaders as examples from our history:  FDR and Martin Luther King.