The Many Voices of Leadership
Simon Western and Éric-Jean Garcia have facilitated a fascinating collection of leadership voices along with critical analysis that allows the reader to not only more deeply understand the themes that have emerged in Western research and practice on leadership, but to hear the ways leadership is practiced around this diverse globe—listening for both the places of commonality and the places of distinction. Their opening sentence makes their purpose clear: “This book sets out to ‘allow leadership to speak with different voices’, to liberate leadership from how it is portrayed in the dominant academic and popular literature, and to discover local and regional variations of leadership thinking and practice.”[1] In “Global Leadership Perspectives: Insights and Analysis,” Western and Garcia invite the leader to listen to twenty different experiences of leadership in twenty different geographical locations. This makes up Part 1.
In Part 2, the authors dig into analysis, unpacking through four chapters their comprehensive methodology that examines both insider and outsider leadership patterns. They don’t shy away from either critique or encouragement. Regarding the tension between insider and outsider experiences in leadership they say, “This outsider-leadership analysis attempts to identify difference, nuances and hidden forms of leadership that are submerged (sometimes crushed) under the weight of the dominant and normative accounts of leadership that are imposed from the most powerful leadership voices. The dominant leadership discourses are shaped, taught and marketed mostly from Westernized sources.”[2]
I experienced resonance with this statement as I read Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” though I would add that the dominant discourses are shaped, taught and marketed mostly from white Westernized sources.[3] King writes in response to his critiques: “One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: ‘Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?’ The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act.”[4] King’s experience is viscerally different from the white voices around him. For King and his black colleagues, the need for action was urgent because they lived with the horrific, negative consequences of racism and segregation. The white leaders around him did not have this same level of urgency, and so, being shaped by a different set of leadership and cultural practices, they encouraged him and his colleagues to wait, to forebear. I believe this is the incarnational dynamic that Western and Garcia are seeking to address when they quote Petriglieri and Petriglieri: “…leadership has been narrowed “…to a goal-focused activity that can be broken down into a set of skills, on the one hand, or an expansion of it into a virtue’ on the other. They continue, saying this ‘dehumanizes leadership by disembodying and disembedding it, that is by severing its ties to identity, community, and context.’”[5] It strikes me that Mandela had a similar experience in his long fight for freedom in South Africa—the white government and citizens did not understand his urgency and his perseverance because they lived a different reality. These different realities influenced their respective understandings and practices of leadership.[6]
I read three different leadership voices in Part 1 of “Global Leadership Perspectives.” Chapter 1 gave voice to the Arab Middle East: Diwan, Ummah and Wasta: The Pillars of Arab Leadership, by David Weir (I must find out if he is related in some way to Rev. Dr. Ben Weir, a Presbyterian pastor and mission worker who served in Lebanon during the early years of Lebanon’s civil war. He was held hostage for a long while. His teaching legacy continues to live on in Lebanon.). Chapter 17 focused on South Africa: A Racialized and Gendered Leadership Landscape, by Peliwe Mnguni and Jeremias J. De Klerk. Chapter 20 examined the United States of America: Mourning in America: leadership in the Divided States of America, by Zachary Gabriel Green and Cheryl Getz.
It was fascinating to read leadership insights from these different contexts, all a part of who I am as a leader. My interest developed further as I read Western and Garcia’s analysis, mapping these four and the remaining 16 contexts within the four leadership discourses of controller, therapist, messiah, and echo-leadership. This was a new framework for me, and I am still digesting it. Their closing chapter on outsider leadership also hit home for me, especially when they grouped the outlier characteristics into six powerful themes: reclaiming the negative, edgy and disruptive, symptoms of despair, trauma and disenchantment, co-existing differences, and hopeful.[7] They comment that each of these discourses are present in each context, as are these outlier characteristics, but they vary from culture to culture. It’s the variance that makes the difference. This is like Erin Meyer’s insights in her book, “The Culture Map.”[8]
All of this leaves me contemplating how to better equip the young adults who will participate in my NPO to listen for the wide variety of leadership expressions in their context and in one another’s context. I have much to ponder.
[1] Western, Simon, and Éric-Jean Garcia. 2018. Global Leadership Perspectives: Insights and Analysis. Los Angeles London New Delhi Singapore Washington DC Melbourne: SAGE, 2.
[2] Ibid., 182.
[3] Jr., Martin Luther King. 2018. Letter From Birmingham Jail. UK: Penguin Books.
[4] Ibid., 6.
[5] Western and Garcia, 6.
[6] Mandela, Nelson. 2013. Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
[7] Western and Garcia, 262.
[8] Meyer, Erin. 2015. The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think, Lead, and Get Things Done across Cultures. International edition, First edition. New York: Public Affairs.
About the Author
Elmarie Parker
15 responses to “The Many Voices of Leadership”
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It was so interesting to me to read in Western and Garcia that western ideas of leadership have permeated the world over. The west has been so dominant in so many areas of culture, science, education, politics, etc… of course leadership is included in that, but I hadn’t really thought about it the way Western and Garcia analyze it. It is also interesting to note that King, who was greatly influenced by Ghandi, comes from an Eastern tradition, even though he was educated in a Western style.
Hi Troy…thank you for your reflection on my post. Indeed, the West has been profoundly dominant. As so many have said over the years…follow the money; follow the sources of power. Some of our reading from Spring 2022 engages the ‘why’ of this, particularly Polanyi’s “The Great Transformation.” But there is so much else out there these days that trace the impact of Western colonialism; economic, military, and geographic expansionism; capitalism; educational frameworks, the shaping of international organizations like the UN and World Bank, etc. While the impacts have been all along the spectrum of negative to positive, my sense is that today, it is vital for leaders coming from a western (white) context to listen deeply to the voices of others. Our influence is the water others swim in…we have a harder time seeing/recognizing it, but those whose contexts and histories are different from ours and yet impacted by ours can help us to see more clearly. This is part of what has helped me to become a more humble and effective leader across contexts. For everything I learn, I end up with multiples more of questions. This reality keeps me engaged in continuing to listen and learn.
What has been most helpful to you in learning about the impact of white, Western cultures on other cultures?
I really appreciate you noting Ghandi’s influence on King. Indeed, as I understand it, this influence is what formed King’s deep commitment to non-violent means of confronting the racial status quo and the powers of his day.
Elmarie, based on your last paragraph that your NPO just received more input in our short window of time this semester. I trust that as you ponder this week’s input, it will only help your final project. Let me ask a question based on this statement: “the white government and citizens did not understand his urgency and his perseverance because they lived a different reality.” That made me think of the American church culture where people outside of faith increasingly live in a different reality than those of faith. What can churches do to bridge the gap for those in a widening gap of reality?
Roy, do you really think that those in the church live a different reality than those outside of the faith?
No, it would have been better for me to say a different understanding of reality. There is only one reality, but there are differing perceptions of it. Faith informs certain understandings of reality that used to be more shared due to common values. I believe that is less and less the case. Let’s chat about that in SA as well. I’d like to hear your thoughts and also expand on what I’m saying.
Hi Nicole,
Here is my reply to Roy which also takes up a bit of the question you posed to Roy…looking forward to talking further in Cape Town and beyond!
Hi Roy…thank you for your reflections on my post and for your question. I also appreciated the conversation between you and Nicole on your post. In terms of the reality question, I think in part it depends on where one is geographically located in the USA and where those one feels called to engage and learn from are located. In some senses, there is only one reality that we all live. But in other ways, not only do we experience that reality differently, but I do think there are completely different realities that one community experiences versus another community. Perhaps that has to do with the degree of homogeneity in the community in which a congregation is located? For example, in Salem, OR, the reality experienced by the white CRC congregation where I grew up (and my mom still attends), is a very different reality than that experienced by the growing lantinx community on the eastern edges of the same city. If that CRC congregation (whose members mostly drive in from locations up to 1 hour away) wanted to establish any kind of meaning interaction with the lantinx community, they would definitely need to start by listening. And even before that, spending time in the places where latinos and latinas spend time just to begin developing some relationships.
These two steps is at least part of how I would respond to your initial question of how might churches bridge gaps in realities experienced. I love that Western and Garcia emphasize incarnation (my word for what they describe). We in the church have to show up in our communities; we have to be present in ways that allow for genuine relationships to be formed; we have to learn how to listen deeply and learn how to learn from those who are different from us; we have to become more aware of our own identities and what has shaped us and how that might be different from the communities around us.
I’m looking forward to talking further about this and many other things when we are in person together! Safe travels!
Hi Roy…thank you for your reflections on my post and for your question. I also appreciated the conversation between you and Nicole on your post. In terms of the reality question, I think in part it depends on where one is geographically located in the USA and where those one feels called to engage and learn from are located. In some senses, there is only one reality that we all live. But in other ways, not only do we experience that reality differently, but I do think there are completely different realities that one community experiences versus another community. Perhaps that has to do with the degree of homogeneity in the community in which a congregation is located? For example, in Salem, OR, the reality experienced by the white CRC congregation where I grew up (and my mom still attends), is a very different reality than that experienced by the growing lantinx community on the eastern edges of the same city. If that CRC congregation (whose members mostly drive in from locations up to 1 hour away) wanted to establish any kind of meaning interaction with the lantinx community, they would definitely need to start by listening. And even before that, spending time in the places where latinos and latinas spend time just to begin developing some relationships.
These two steps is at least part of how I would respond to your initial question of how might churches bridge gaps in realities experienced. I love that Western and Garcia emphasize incarnation (my word for what they describe). We in the church have to show up in our communities; we have to be present in ways that allow for genuine relationships to be formed; we have to learn how to listen deeply and learn how to learn from those who are different from us; we have to become more aware of our own identities and what has shaped us and how that might be different from the communities around us.
I’m looking forward to talking further about this and many other things when we are in person together! Safe travels!
Elmarie, I agree there is so much to digest from this book and Culture Map.
If you were to consider the Culture Map and these 4 discourses right now before too much more digesting, what discourse makes the most sense for your NPO to flourish?
Ni Nicole…thank you for this thoughtful question. I think the discourse that will resonate most deeply with my audience is that of eco-leadership. They are natural networkers in many respects, and the organic nature of this leadership style fits best with how they engage each other and the world. It’s also a fit for me in terms of how I like to develop teams. At the same time, I think there will be a role for the other three discourses to play. Still so much to ponder!
Great blog. On the matter of urgency, that is a good observation. I have been told that I operate with a sense of urgency. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it can prevent others from participating in the process of coming to their own conclusion, and is thus damaging.
What do you observe about MLK and Mandela and how well they managed their sense of urgency? Do you think it could have been done differently?
Hi Eric…thank you for these questions about the role of urgency (and for sharing a bit of your experience with this in your leadership).
What stands out to me about Mandela’s leadership when it comes to urgency is the way in which he exercised discernment (and this capacity came out of his long years in solitude and how he allowed that time to shape him). He mostly worked to gain consensus among his primary circles of leadership, but there came a time when he sense the window was open to reach out to the white government, and he took the initiative to do so and only later informed his fellow leaders. I find it remarkable the way in which he combined urgency with perseverance. They seem to be a contradiction, but Mandela found a way to stay focused on the main thing (an element of urgency I think) and persevere through so many obstacles.
I think MLK’s journey was prematurely cut-off because he was assassinated. Perseverance is also present in his leadership work. His urgency shows up in the way he kept the focus on the injustices of his time; he pressed the white powers around him to SEE what they did not want to see.
What could they have done differently? That’s an interesting question. I don’t think I’m in a position to judge that. But it would be an interesting question to pose to today’s black leaders who continue to work on voting access, economic justice, education and health care equity, infrastructure equity, etc. What lessons have they taken from both Mandela and MLK? What are they doing differently from Mandela and MLK and why?
Elmaire,
I look forward to discussing these thoughts with you in person. I struggle with how so often oppressed countries so readily are the ones to do the adapting.
Denise: [mic drop]
I’m interested to know both of your thoughts on why that tends to be the case. Necessity? Lifestyle fosters flexibility?
Hi Kayli…this is what I posted to Denise’s question. Sharing it here to continue the conversation with you as well!
Hi Denise…thank you for this question. Indeed, it is quite disturbing…so often it is the oppressed (both as individuals and as societies) who do the adapting. As Kayli noted, I think a lot of it comes down to necessity–it is a survival tactic. It comes down to who has the power and who does not. There are, of course, many layers to power and what survival means. I think what is remarkable about leaders like Mandela and MLK is that they (and those around them) chose to sacrifice relative comfort in order to confront power and seek true liberation and not just the meager leftovers of the society around them that held the power.
I’m also looking forward to discussing this and many other things in person!
Kayli, what are your thoughts on this…I am so going to miss having you with us in person!
Hi Denise…thank you for this question. Indeed, it is quite disturbing…so often it is the oppressed (both as individuals and as societies) who do the adapting. As Kayli noted, I think a lot of it comes down to necessity–it is a survival tactic. It comes down to who has the power and who does not. There are, of course, many layers to power and what survival means. I think what is remarkable about leaders like Mandela and MLK is that they (and those around them) chose to sacrifice relative comfort in order to confront power and seek true liberation and not just the meager leftovers of the society around them that held the power.
I’m also looking forward to discussing this and many other things in person!
Kayli, what are your thoughts on this…I am so going to miss having you with us in person!