TRANSFORMATIONAL STEWARDSHIP: ATTRIBUTES OF CHANGE-CENTRIC LEADERS

We believe that for public and nonprofit leaders to be successful, change-centric leaders must become transformational stewards of their organizations (Kee, Newcomer, and Davis 2007). Transformational stewardship, in the broadest sense, can be thought of as a leadership function in which those exercising leadership (those with “legitimate” authority as well as others throughout the organization exercising a leadership role) have developed certain attributes that provide a foundation for their actions. These attributes reflect leaders’ personal outlook or attitude (their inner-personal beliefs or values), how they approach a situation (their operational mindset), and how they involve others in the function (their interpersonal abilities/interactions with others).

The dominant advice in the literature on change management is that public and nonprofit sector leaders (much like their private sector counterparts) must “overcome” resistance to change, through a variety of top-down approaches designed to influence the agency’s stakeholders (see, for example, Kotter 1996). Atwood and colleagues (2003) refer to this—in its extreme version—as “Mad Management Disease,” the notion that if leaders can just impose enough controls, supply the “right vision,” and develop the appropriate “carrots and sticks,” they will successfully overcome the change resisters. However, our research finds that success with public and nonprofit sector changes depends on much more than compliance through rewards and punishments (even though reinforcement is an important aspect of successful change).

We believe that, rather than relying on top-down controls, public and nonprofit sector change leaders must employ a model of change leadership that engages other stakeholders in a “whole systems” approach to the change process. Rather than focusing on which level of the organization should institute the change effort, transformational stewards develop a variety of collaborative processes to find the proper balance of strategic leadership and involvement by informed and knowledgeable members and stakeholders at all levels of the organization.

Table 2.2 provides an overview of the key attributes of transformational stewards. Table 2.3 summarizes the supporting evidence in the research literature for those attributes.

Inner-personal Leadership Beliefs or Values

We believe that the most important personal leadership attributes are not ones we are born with, but those we develop throughout our lives. These attributes provide us continuing guidance on how to act in a particular situation, in essence becoming innerpersonal guides to our actions. The most vital attributes for transformational stewards are ethical conduct; a reflective, continuous learning attitude; empathy toward others; the foresight or vision to lead an organization toward a preferred future; and a propensity toward creative and innovative actions.

TABLE 2.2: Attributes of Transformational Stewards

SOURCE: Adapted from Kee, Newcomer, and Davis (2007).

TABLE 2.3: Attributes of Transformational Stewards—Supporting Authors

SOURCE: Adapted from Kee, Newcomer, and Davis (2007).

Ethical

An overriding inner-personal attribute is integrity or ethical values and standards. Transformational stewards must maintain a high level of standards for themselves and their organizations, which will allow leaders and followers to elevate the organization to a higher plane. Leadership scholar James MacGregor Burns (1978) posits that moral values lie at the heart of transformational leadership and allow the leader to seek “fundamental changes in organizations and society” (Ciulla 2004, x).

Similarly, those arguing for a servant-leadership approach (often aligned with the concept of stewardship) argue for the importance of “core ethical values, including integrity, independence, freedom, justice, family and caring” (Fairholm 1997, 133). Ethics and moral standards have their roots in principles we learn throughout our lives, either from parents and mentors or from our own inquiries into what constitutes just action.

Reflective/Learning-oriented

Wheatley suggests that: “Thinking is the place where intelligent actions begin. We pause long enough to look more carefully at a situation, to see more of its character, to think about why it is happening, and to notice how it is affecting us and others” (2005, 215). Transformational stewards are willing to step back and reflect before taking action. They take the time to understand and to learn before and during the acting.

Thompson argues that “Beyond a certain point, there can probably be no personal growth, no individualization, without the capacity for self-reflection” (2000, 152). While continuous learning is critical for organizations (Senge 1990), it is equally important for individuals. Self-reflection, including personal awareness and continuous learning, is not always easy or calming—just the opposite, “It is a disturber and an awakener” (Greenleaf 1977, 41). Transformational stewards must be awake to new approaches to problems, new understandings of relationships, and potential consequences of actions and impacts on others. Only then they can lead with confidence.

Empathetic

A transformational steward demonstrates concern for others, both within and outside the organization. Organizational change involves potential winners and losers. If leaders are seen as acting primarily in their self-interest, transformation of the organization can be derailed. However, if leaders show a genuine concern for others and address potential losses, they may find the path easier. Empathy is an attribute that is a product of both our nature and how we are nurtured; understanding its importance can provide us with an incentive to pay more attention to the needs, views, and concerns of others.

Empathy is more than just being a “good listener,” although that is an important skill. Leaders must both hear and understand. Thompson explains: “If by that we mean only that we have learned certain skills and techniques that make the other person feel heard, we have still largely missed the point. To empathize is to both hear and understand, and to grasp both the thoughts the other person is trying to convey and the feelings he or she has about them” (2000, 181). Transformational stewards participate in other people’s feelings or ideas, leading to a broader understanding of the situation and potential courses of action.

Visionary/Foresight

A transformational steward is able to look beyond the current situation and see the big picture and the organization’s potential. While this is true throughout the organization, as a leader progresses in an organization and assumes more responsibility, he or she requires greater vision and foresight (Follett in Graham 2003).

Mary Parker Follett refers to the need for leaders to “grasp the total situation…. Out of a welter of facts, experience, desires, aims, the leader must find the unifying thread…the higher up you go the more ability you have to have of this kind. When leadership rises to genius it has the power of transforming, transforming experience into power” (Follett in Graham 2003, 168–169).

While vision is necessary to transform an organization, it is equally necessary for a good steward. Failure to fully assess potential gains and risks for an organization will lead to a waste of resources and an inability to achieve the full potential of the organization. Follett continues:

I have said that the leader must understand the situation, must see it as a whole, must see the inter-relation of all the parts. He must do more than this. He must see the evolving situation, the developing situation. His wisdom, his judgment, is used, not on a situation that is stationary, but on one that is changing all the time. The ablest administrators do not merely draw logical conclusions from the array of facts of the past which their expert assistants bring to them, they have a vision for the future. (169, emphasis added)

Creative/Innovative

Transformational stewards do not wait for a crisis to innovate and create; they attempt to build an environment that values continuous learning and in which workers constantly draw on current and past experiences to frame a new future for the organization. Vaill (1996) acknowledges that “creative learning” is seemingly a contradiction in a world of institutional learning where people who “know” transfer knowledge to people who do not know. However, in a change environment there often is no “body of knowledge” to transfer; thus, it is up to the transformational steward to create or facilitate creation of the knowledge. This requires a pragmatic, inquiring mind that is willing to explore options, open to new ideas, and not bound by rigid dogmas.

Transformational stewards are leaders of action; their processes involve extensive interaction and relationships with others in the organization and with concerned stakeholders outside the organization. They look for linkages and interconnections. Aware that there are limits on what can be known, they are willing to be tentative, to be experimental in deciding and taking action (McSwite 2001; Harmon 2007). Just as an artist might not always know what the final product will look like, transformational stewards must be open to the unknown, willing to surprise themselves, and able to recognize that “in that surprise is the learning” (Vaill 1996, 61).

Operational Mindset

The “style” approach or theory of leadership focuses on how leaders interact with followers and stresses the need for leaders to balance “concern for people” with “concern for production or results.” The Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid is one of the best known tools reflecting this approach (1985). We believe that the operational mindset of a transformational leader includes but goes beyond simply balancing people with results, and includes a number of attributes of both transformational leader and steward.

Trustee/Caretaker

Transformational stewards recognize that they hold their position and use organizational resources for others and the public interest, not for self-aggrandizement. They take responsibility for the public in general, both current and future generations, as well as future members of the organization. Thus, the broad concept of “the public interest,” while not always easy to define, must be a constant touchstone for the leader.

Public and nonprofit servants, whether elected, appointed, or part of the civil service system, are only temporarily in charge of their resources and responsibilities. They hold them in trust for the public—hence they serve the public and must act in the public interest, not for personal self-interest. “Public managers are, after all, public servants,” argues Colin Diver (1982, cited in Moe 1994). “Their acts must derive from the legitimacy, from the consent of the governed, as expressed through the Constitution and laws, not from any personal system of values, no matter how noble” (404).

A public steward must be willing and able “to earn the public trust by being an effective and ethical agent in carrying out the republic’s business” (Kass 1990, 113). Because ethical considerations may conflict with efficiency criteria, Kass believes that stewardship requires that efficiency and effectiveness (the traditional measures of administrative success) be “informed by and subordinated to the ethical norms of justice and beneficence” (114).

Mission-driven

Transformational stewards fiercely and courageously pursue the mission of their organization. In most cases, they act as agents of those who established that mission—the legislature, a board of directors, the chief executive, or the courts. Sometimes, conflicting goals and agendas require public and nonprofit servants to arbitrate.

Behn poses the question “What should public managers do in the face of legislative ambiguity: ask for clarification, or provide it?” He answers it by saying that public managers must courageously define their responsibilities (1998, 215). It may be in the legislature’s interest to be ambiguous; moreover, “the political process itself creates a diffusion of power and responsibility that makes articulation of central values difficult” (Kee and Black 1985, 28). Thus, the transformational steward must seek to find the common purpose, values, and aims that drive the organization.

Public stewards can find this common purpose by engaging people in their agencies, citizens, and other stakeholders who will assist them in defining the organization’s mission or core values—in effect, determining the public interest. Follett notes that the “invisible leader” becomes the “common purpose” and that “loyalty to the invisible leader gives us the strongest possible bond of union” (Follett in Graham 2003, 172).

At other times, the organizational mission is clear, but the organization may have multiple means of achieving the mission; its leaders must weigh how those means will affect the organization, its mission, and the larger public interest. “Legislation, public scrutiny, and constitutional checks and balances all create legitimate legal and political limitations on the freedom of public managers to act. Yet within the constraints, there is considerable room for experimentation and action” (Kee and Black 1985, 31). Unless proscribed or prescribed to act in a certain fashion, the transformational steward (with the people in the organization) has considerable latitude in pursuing the change mission.

Accountable

Transformational stewards measure their performance in a transparent fashion and share those results with the public and those who can affect the organization and its success. This is consistent with efforts at the federal level to get agencies to articulate and measure progress toward their performance goals (e.g., the Government Performance and Results Act) and to enhance public accountability (e.g., the Sarbanes-Oxley Act).

Transformational stewards support processes such as performance-based budgeting, balanced scorecards, and other efforts to measure program results in an open fashion and to subject those results to periodic review and evaluation. Measurement is not important for the sake of measurement or for the creation of short-term output measures, but for the sake of legitimate feedback and program revision aimed at achieving the agency mission. “Stewardship asks us to be deeply accountable for the outcomes of an institution….” (Block 1993, 18).

An open process ensures public accountability and allows others to see how the organization and its stewards are defining and fulfilling the public interest. This, by necessity, must be a multifaceted process, as Vaill (1989a) suggests, that considers a variety of important values, not simply economic ones that might drive a bottom-line mentality. An open process provides a natural check on how transformational stewards define and lead progress toward achievement of the organization’s mission. Finally, transformational stewards, throughout the organization, take responsibility (legal, professional, and personal) for the results (Harmon 1990, 1995).

Integrative/Systems Thinker

Thanks largely to Peter Senge’s groundbreaking book The Fifth Discipline (1990), systems thinking has become one of the most important concepts in the field of leadership. But systems thinking is not always an easy concept to grasp or apply. Vaill (1996) notes that continuing evidence demonstrates an absence of systems thinking: our tendencies to think in black and white; to believe in simple linear cause-effect relationships; to ignore feedback; to discount relationships between a phenomenon and its environment; and to ignore how our own biases frame our perceptions. Vaill sees the core idea of systems thinking in the balancing and interrelating of three levels of phenomena that all move dynamically in time: first, the “whole,” or the phenomenon of interest itself; second, the inner workings of the whole—the combining and interacting of the internal elements that produce the whole; and third, the world outside the whole that places the phenomenon in its context (1996, 108–109). Vaill argues that the key to learning systems thinking is “understanding oneself in interactions with the surrounding world” (1996, 110).

Attention to Detail

Transformational stewards know that details do matter (Addington and Graves 2002). Details are often the way in which government programs ensure important democratic values, such as equitable distribution of public benefits or access to public programs. Process “red tape” is often the means by which we ensure adherence to procedural imperatives; however, it should not be used as a cover or an excuse for lack of performance. Rather, transformational stewards need to distinguish between those processes designed to achieve certain public purposes and those designed primarily to impose excessive control. With the latter, transformational stewards might seek waivers, exceptions, etc., to enable the organization to manage itself better to accomplish its mission.

Comfortable with Ambiguity

Transformational stewards recognize that conflicting organizational objectives and priorities often require a careful balancing act: continuity and change; efficiency and equity; and so on. Public and nonprofit leaders, like their private counterparts, live in an era of “permanent white water,” bombarded by pressures from both within and without the organization (Vaill 1996). Transformational stewards recognize that their “solutions” are among many plausible alternatives and must be pragmatically reassessed and adjusted as conditions change.

Interpersonal Abilities/Interactions with Others

Leadership theories increasingly stress the importance of the leader’s interaction with others. For example, the “situational” approach characterizes the leader’s role along a “supportive” and “directive” matrix, based on the development level of the followers (Hersey and Blanchard 1993). Leaders delegate, support, coach, or direct, depending on the capacity of the followers—specifically with regard to the job (competence) and psychological maturity (commitment) of the followers.

Transformational stewards often approach their interactions with others differently than many leadership theories prescribe. The chief goals for transformational stewards are engaging, empowering, and engendering trust in employees throughout the organization, and building coalitions with other organizations and stakeholders that are important to the success of the change.

Trust Builder

Transformational stewards build program success through developing and maintaining trust—with the members of their organizations, their constituents, and their principals. Leadership is mainly about developing trust, with leaders and organization members accomplishing mutually valued goals using agreed-upon processes. “Leaders build trust or tear it down by the cumulative actions they take and the words they speak—by the culture they create for themselves and their organization members” (Fairholm 2000, 91).

Developing trust is about engaging the organization’s employees, building community—“the creation of harmony from, often diverse, sometimes opposing, organizational, human, system and program functions” (Fairholm 2000, 140). Public stewards also must build trust with the citizens they serve and the principals (executives and legislatures) to whom they report. Nonprofit stewards must build trust with their board of directors, their donors, and the community they serve.

Mitchell and Scott (1987) insist that stewardship “is based on the notion that administrators must display the virtue of trust and honorableness in order to be legitimate leaders” (448). Trust is ephemeral—hard to gain, easy to lose. Trust encourages the involvement of citizens and often leads to grants of discretion from principals.

Empowering

Closely related to trust is the concept of empowerment. Trust demands empowerment of an organization’s employees and, where possible, decentralization of authority—real decision-making—throughout the organization. Follett, writing in the 1920s, put it this way: “Many are coming to think that the job of a man higher up is not to make decisions for his subordinates but to teach them how to handle their problems themselves, teach them how to make their own decisions. The best leader does not persuade men to follow his will. He shows them what is necessary for them to do in order to meet their responsibilities…the best leaders try to train their followers themselves to become leaders” (Follett in Graham 2003, 173).

Developing leaders for a common purpose is a key function of transformational stewardship. Stone (1997) makes a useful distinction between the market and the “polis.” In the market, economic principles and incentives are the norm. In the polis, the “development of shared values and a collective sense of the public interest is the primary aim” (Stone 1997, 34). To the extent that leaders empower others (employees and citizens), they become co-leaders and stewards in fulfillment of the public interest. This is a fundamental role and opportunity for transformational stewards throughout the organization.

Democratic

Becoming co-leaders and stewards in fulfillment of the public interest, as Stone suggests, requires transformational stewards to engage in democratic processes that ensure the widest possible involvement of others in defining the public interest and in acting on that definition. Harmon suggests a “unitary” or “process” conception of democratic governance based on the notion of “collaborative experimentation” (2007, 71). Decisions would use criteria that are local, context-specific, and flexible, rather than relying on inflexible decision rules.

Harmon suggests starting with a generic question, “How shall we live together?” This would be followed by a more context-specific, “What should we do next? (140). As public servants, we promote democratic governance by focusing on what kind of government (or nonprofit organization) can best contribute to the development of its citizens; it is that development that leads to mutual collaboration among citizens, public officials, and public and nonprofit administrators in “both defining and contending sensibly with problems of shared concern” (159).

Power Sharing

Transformational stewards rely less on positional authority for their power and more on personal power sources, persuasion, and moral leadership to effect change (Hill 1994). Beyond personal power, transformational stewards rely on “group power.” Follett claims that “it is possible to develop the conception of power-with, a jointly developed power, a co-active, not a coercive power.” And “the great leader tries…to develop power wherever he can among those who work with him, and then gathers all this power and uses it as the energizing force of a progressing enterprise” (Follett in Graham 2003, 173, emphasis added).

Coalition Builder

Transformational stewards recognize that they cannot fully meet the organization’s mission with their given resources (people, dollars, etc.) without involving others. They know that horizontal relationships and coalition building with other organizations within government, in the nonprofit sector, and in the for-profit sector are essential for their success. Such coalitions might be critical for the organization’s successful transformation or vital when the organization is faced with a crisis (such as Hurricane Katrina). Coast Guard Admiral Joel Whitehead refers to the importance of developing “preneed” relationships, noting that this is one of the Coast Guard’s fundamental principles—a recognition that they cannot do everything and must rely on others as partners in achieving their organizational mission (Whitehead 2005).