Leadership Toolkit

The need for leadership

Students need to develop their potential for leadership at university because it will be required in many of the contexts in which they find themselves after graduation - not only in business and the professions, where organisational change is fast and furious, but in the wider community and family contexts, where interpersonal relationships matter so much.

For example, the Business Council of Australia, in its latest report New Concepts in Innovation: The Keys to a Growing Australia (2006), is concerned about graduate employability skills in Australia's work force.  It argues “that Australian education systems are failing to develop employability skills such as communication, problem solving, ongoing learning, creativity, cultural understanding, entrepreneurship and leadership.  However, the responsibility for developing the necessary graduate attributes should not be shouldered by universities alone; employer groups surely can be expected to take a more active role.”

Green, W., & Hammer, S.  (2006). Working on work skills.  The Australian Higher Education Supplement, 3 May, p. 29.

For decades, leadership was perceived as something that only those with certain backgrounds, qualities and capacities possessed, or could possess.  However, leadership is now seen as something that many can develop, given the opportunity and appropriate context or situation.  Much current literature on leadership argues, for example, that:

“Leadership qualities and skills can be learned and developed.  Today's leaders are made, not born.  Leadership effectiveness begins with self-awareness and self-understanding and grows to an understanding of others...Learning about leadership and developing as a leader is a lifelong process involving preparation, experience, trial-and-error, self-examination, and a willingness to  learn from mistakes and successes.”

Komives, S., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T.R. (1998).  Exploring Leadership:  For College Students Who Want to Make a Difference.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, p. 5 and p. 30.

For some students, however, 'followership' rather than leadership is more comfortable.  There can't be leaders without followers, just as there can't be followers without leaders.  The two are inseparable.  It is common for people to be leaders in one context and followers in others, as Lee and King (2001) argue:

“Leadership in family and community situations may allow you to try new skills, styles and levels of responsibility.  It often allows more flexibility in terms of the length of time you hold a leading role and how long you choose to do so.  For some individuals who love to lead, the best expression of their values may be to remain primarily individual contributors at work and leaders in a non-work setting.”

Lee, R.J., & King, S.N. (2001).  Discovering the Leader in You:  A Guide to Realizing Your Personal Leadership Potential.  San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass & Center for Creative Leadership, p. 9.

The terms 'leadership' and 'management' are often used interchangeably, but they are two different things. It is important that students recognise the difference between the two:

“Leadership is different from management, but not for the reasons most people think.  Leadership isn't mystical and mysterious.  It has nothing to do with 'charisma' or other exotic personality traits.  It is not the province of a chosen few.  Nor is leadership necessarily better than management or a replacement for it.  Rather, leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action.  Each has its own functions and characteristic activities.  Both are necessary for success in an increasingly complex and volatile business environment.  Management is about coping with complexity...Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change...”

Kotter, J.B.  (1990). What leaders really do.  Harvard Business Review, 68(3), pp. 103-104.

Further, leadership and management are distinct, but complementary.  For example:

“The manager asks what and when; the leader asks what and why.” 

Bennis, W. (1989). Quoted in Sheldon, B.  Leadership in the Workplace.
Retrieved from the World Wide Web on 30 October 2006:
http://www.txla.org/pubs/tlj75_4/work.html

“The function of leadership is to create change while the function of management is to create stability.” 

Barker, R.A.  (1997). How can we train leaders if we do not know what leadership is?  Human Relations, 50 (4), p. 349.

It is crucial, then, that teachers and students are very clear about what it is that is being learned - whether it is management, leadership or followership.

Understanding leadership in the curriculum

Can leadership be taught? Can it be learned? The territory is too large and too complex for us to explore in detail in this Toolkit. We have not set out to present theoretical analyses of the various kinds of leaders and leadership.Rather, we recognise that in the current workplace, new graduates are often appointed to, or find themselves in leadership positions much earlier in their careers than in previous generations.

We therefore are more concerned about providing some teaching and learning approaches and assessment examples relevant to teachers and students who want to develop their leadership potential in today's crowded university classroom. 

We have taken the view that opportunities to develop leadership potential can be built into the curriculum, with or without being formally assessed.   It takes time, and effort, and it's not for everyone.  This Toolkit aims to help the academic staff member who wants to provide leadership opportunities in class and to help students recognise that they can develop their own leadership identity with a set of relevant skills.

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