The Art of Creating Leaders:
Popular Culture Artifacts as Pathways for Development
Jamie L. Callahan J. Kori Whitener Jennifer A. Sandlin
The problem and the solution. Leadership development is arguably one of the most important activities undertaken by human resource development (HRD) professionals.The process of leadership development has implications for each of the three primary categories of action that characterize the field of HRD: career development; train- ing and development; and organization development. Thus, exploring alternative and innovative approaches to understanding leadership should take a prominent role in the practice of HRD. Although not a new concept, popular culture is one such innovative approach to teaching leadership. Although there has been increasing interest in techniques of leadership development in HRD, the field of HRD has not fully explored how popular culture artifacts—such as film, televi- sion, and fiction/nonfiction books—can be used in leadership develop- ment.This article explores the literature regarding popular culture as it relates to shaping audience perceptions, the role of popular culture as a teaching tool, and key characteristics for choosing effective popu- lar culture artifacts for leadership development.
Keywords: leadership development; popular culture; fiction, film;
nonfiction
Leadership is a much studied field, characterized by a variety of theories ranging from the simple to the complex. The depth and breadth of theories in the field, as well as their complexity, make it difficult for individuals to learn and apply leadership theory in meaningful and productive ways. Leadership development is arguably one of the most important activities undertaken by human resource development (HRD) professionals. The process of leadership development has
Advances in Developing Human Resources Vol. 9, No. 2 May 2007146 –165 DOI: 10.1177/1523422306298856
Copyright 2007 Sage Publications
implications for each of the three primary categories of action that characterize the field of HRD—career development; training and development; and organi- zation development. Leadership development may improve an individual’s career opportunities (Hanson & Court, 1998), typically occurs within the con- text of either training or development (Collins & Holton, 2004), and fosters or- ganization development (Turnbull & Edwards, 2005). Thus, as HRD scholars and practitioners in a field concerned with teaching and developing leaders, it is valuable to find innovative new ways to teach leadership theory and aid in the application of theory. This issue is targeted at any scholar or practitioner who engages in facilitating leadership growth and development. Although not a new concept, using artifacts from popular culture is one such approach to teaching leadership (e.g., Champoux, 2005; Cohen, 1998; English & Steffy, 1997).
We suggest that one way to teach leadership theory, develop leaders, and trans- fer learning to application is through the use of various written and visual media emanating from popular culture—what we are calling in this article “popular cul- ture artifacts” (PCA). PCA are ideal for teaching leadership because they allow learners to both identify with current trends and process concepts by using tools that capture their interest. In addition, PCA teach learners to make connections and draw conclusions about phenomena from everyday life. The assumption is that if individuals can apply theory to PCA, they will be able to apply and use those theories in the everyday contexts, similar to those found in PCA, in which they live and work, thus fostering theory-to-practice thinking. Through the arti- cles in this issue, the authors develop, define, and explain more fully the concept of PCA and how they can be used to facilitate leadership development.
Although there has been increasing interest in techniques of leadership development in HRD (Collins & Holton, 2004), the field of HRD has not fully explored how artifacts from popular culture—such as film, television, and popular fiction and nonfiction books—can be used to teach leadership and, ultimately, develop leaders. At their core, popular film, television, and fiction and nonfiction books are essentially stories. Stories facilitate the sensemaking processes of individuals, helping them cope with and negotiate their organiza- tional environments (Trice & Beyer, 1993). By providing leaders with popular culture-based stories as sensemaking tools, we can help to better prepare them to deal with situations that fall outside their normal organizational reality.
Jackson (2001) asks, “Why is the marriage between art and management such an instructive one? What can we do to make it even more instructive?”
(p. 488). We seek to address these questions in the context of HRD. Thus, the purpose of this issue will be to explore the use of different forms of PCA as vehicles for teaching general concepts associated with leadership and, in turn, developing leaders. This issue looks in-depth at how several different types of stories—namely movies, television, and fiction and nonfiction books—can be used meaningfully to help individuals better understand the nature of leadership. In this article, we first explore the broad range of leadership theories informing HRD practice that are subsequently applied in the articles
of this issue. We then define more fully the concept of popular culture and how artifacts emanate from that culture. We also provide a guide for choosing appropriate PCA to facilitate leadership education. We also discuss how these artifacts can be used to develop leaders in both academic and organizational settings, and we conclude with the relevance and implications of these tech- niques to the theory and practice of HRD.
Leadership Theory
The six content articles of this issue address a variety of leadership theories that inform research and practice in HRD today. The ten theoretical approaches incorporated in the subsequent articles of this issue include:
•
Power (see Keller, Whitener, and Rosser of this issue)•
Traits (see Whitener and Sudbrack & Trombley of this issue)•
Skills (see Keller, Browning and Sudbrack & Trombley of this issue)•
Style (see Browning of this issue)•
Contingency Theory (see Browning of this issue)•
Situational Leadership Theory (see Keller and Rosser of this issue)•
Path-Goal Theory (see Whitener and Sudbrack & Trombley of this issue)•
Transformational Leadership (see Mathis, Whitener, Rosser, and Sudbrack & Trombley of this issue)•
Leader-Member Exchange (see Mathis and Sudbrack &Trombley of this issue)
•
Team Leadership (see Keller and Sudbrack & Trombley of this issue)The ten theoretical approaches to understanding and enacting leadership included in this issue can be categorized into three broad conceptual perspec- tives that generally trace the chronological development of leadership theories:
leader-focused theories, situational theories, and social dynamic theories. The sections below provide a brief refresher on the key elements of each of the the- ories applied in this particular issue.
Leader-Focused Theories
Leader-focused theories or approaches are those that attempt to describe leadership through the characteristics and behaviors of the leaders themselves.
Early conceptions of leadership focus on these behaviors and characteristics and include trait approaches, leader skills, leadership style, and power.
Trait approaches to leadership represent the earliest attempts to understand why some people emerged as leaders and others did not. Explorations of leader traits can be found throughout history from ancient Chinese texts (e.g., the works of Lao-Tzu) to Greek epics (e.g., Homer’s Iliad) and to medieval treatises (e.g., Machiavelli’s The Prince) (Zaccaro, Kemp, & Bader, 2004).
This school is often referred to as the “great man” approach to leadership because it suggested that leaders had particular characteristics, or traits, that enabled them to emerge as leaders (Antonakis, Cianciolo, & Sternberg, 2004;
Northouse, 2004). Traits repeatedly cited as being associated with leader emergence include intelligence, sociability, determination, self-confidence, and integrity (Northouse, 2004). For decades, trait theories of leadership were criticized by scholars and left unstudied; however, recognition of the funda- mental importance of traits in understanding effective leadership has reemerged, and traits have resumed an important role in the development of full-range leadership theories (Northouse, 2004; Sashkin, 2004).
The skills approach to leadership is also leader-focused, but rather than using stable traits to identify leaders, this approach focuses on developable behaviors and skills that serve as hallmarks of effective leaders (Northouse, 2004). Perhaps the most well-known skills approach was articulated by Robert Katz, who suggested that leaders at various levels of organizational structures have differential needs for technical, human, and conceptual skills (Northouse, 2004). Also fitting into the skills approach to leadership are competency-based understandings of leadership. These include the capabilities identified by Mumford and his colleagues—problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge—that enable leaders to be effective (Mumford, Zaccaro, Connelly, & Marks, 2000). The study of leader competencies can be challeng- ing because it may be difficult to separate learnable competency behaviors from stable personal characteristics (i.e., traits) of leaders (Sashkin, 2004).
Nevertheless, leader skills are an important and growing approach to under- standing part of what makes leaders successful.
Leader style is another behaviorally oriented approach to understanding leadership that suggests leadership can be categorized into two types of behav- iors: task and relationship behaviors (Northouse, 2004). This categorization emerged from three primary studies conducted in the mid-20th century at Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, and Harvard University (Sashkin, Gorman, Higgins, Johnson, & Schwandt, 1995). Initial interpreta- tions of these studies suggested that individuals who focused strongly on task behaviors were more likely to emerge as leaders whereas those who focused more on relationship behaviors were less likely to emerge as leaders. However, subsequent interpretations have suggested that the most effective leaders are those who engage in both task and relationship behaviors. Perhaps the most popular approach to understanding leadership based on style is Blake and Mouton’s Managerial (or Leadership) Grid (Blake & McCanse, 1991 (see Figure 1).
This theory of leadership follows the task-versus-relationship categoriza- tion and structures these behaviors as two continua of high or low concern for people and concern for results, creating a grid of encompassing key styles of leadership (Northouse, 2004):
•
country club management—a focus almost exclusively on the human relationship needs of workers, resulting in a comfort- able and friendly work environment that may or may not result in operational productivity;•
team management—a high focus on both people relationships and task productivity;•
middle-of-the-road management—a moderate focus on both concern for relationships and concern for task efficiency and productivity;•
authority-compliance—a focus on operational efficiency while ensuring that human relationship issues are minimized;•
impoverished management—a lack of focus on either human relationship or productivity needs.In addition to the styles that fall within specific categories of the grid, those who actively incorporate multiple styles when it suits them personally apply the “opportunistic” style of leadership.
Concern forPeople
Concern for Results High
(9)
Low (1)
High (9)
1,9
Country Club Management
9,9
Team Management
1,1
Impoverished Management
9,1
Authority-Compliance Management 5,5
Middle-of-the-Road Management
FIGURE 1: The Leadership Grid Adapted from Northouse, 2004
The final leader-focused theory reviewed here is power. Although power is conceptually distinct from leadership (Antonakis et al., 2004), it nevertheless forms a foundation from which leadership emerges. Without some type of power, a leader cannot act. French and Raven’s (1959) work on bases of social power is perhaps the most well-known research in this area. It serves as the foundation for much leadership research in the 20th century. This approach suggests that there are five essential forms of power: reward, coercive, legiti- mate, referent, and expert (see Table 1).
Situational Theories
Recognizing that leadership was also influenced by situational factors, later researchers began to consider context as they formulated leadership theories such as contingency theory, situational leadership theory, and path-goal theory.
These theories suggest that the situation itself serves to inform leader behaviors.
Contingency theory couples leader style, either task- or relationship-oriented, with levels of control in situations in order to determine leader effectiveness (Ayman, 2004; Northouse, 2004). Developed from empirical evidence by Fiedler (1964), this model of leadership suggests that leaders who tend to be relationship oriented are more effective in situations that are under moder- ate control, and those who are task oriented are more likely to be effective when control is either low or high. One of the most well-validated theories of leadership, contingency theory has three situational variables (see Figure 2)—
leader-member relations (good or bad), task structure (high or low), and position power of the leader (strong or weak).
Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory suggests that leader effectiveness and choice of applied style is conditioned upon the task maturity of followers (Ayman, 2004; Northouse, 2004). This maturity, or developmen- tal level, of the followers is based on the extent of both the competence and commitment of the follower to accomplish a particular task (Northouse, 2004).
This theory of leadership includes four essential behavior patterns of leaders
TABLE 1: Five Forms of Power
Reward Exchanging something of value to obtain compliance of others Coercive Forcing, either explicitly or implicitly, others to do something against
their will
Referent Using charm, charisma, or friendship to get others to do what you want them to do
Legitimate Using the authority of a role to get others to do something
Expert Relying on technical skill or knowledge to get others to do what you want them to do
Adapted from French & Raven (1959)
that fall within the task- or relationship-oriented categories of leadership style.
A good leader is able to identify when and with whom each style would be most effective (see Figure 3). When followers are unwilling and unable to accomplish a task, the leader should engage in a directing style. When follow- ers are willing and unable, the leader would use a coaching style. When followers are unwilling yet able, the leader would enact a supporting style.
Finally, when followers are willing and able, the leader should engage in a del- egating style. It is important to note, however, that although this approach is widely used and is intuitively appealing, most validation attempts have revealed little to no support for the theory or measurement instrument for
Leader- Member Relations
Good Poor
Task Structure
High Structure Low Structure High Structure Low Structure
Position Power
Strong Weak Strong Weak Strong Weak Strong Weak
Preferred Leadership
Style
Moderate to High Task Orientation
High Relationship Orientation High Task Orientation
FIGURE 2: Key Elements of Fiedler’s Contingency Theory Adapted from Northouse, 2004
SupportiveBehavior
Directive Behavior Low
High
High Supporting
Delegating
Coaching
Directing
FIGURE 3: Key Elements of Hersey & Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory Adapted from Northouse, 2004
Situational Leadership Theory (Vecchio, 1987; Ayman, 2004; Northouse, 2004).
The final situation-oriented approach explored in this issue is Robert House’s Path-Goal Theory. Like Situational Leadership Theory and Contingency Theory, Path-Goal Theory is concerned with the ways in which contexts influence the effectiveness of leadership. Because Path-Goal Theory is grounded in expectancy theory, meeting follower motivation needs serves as the catalyst for selecting an appropriate leadership style in a given context (Northouse, 2004). The theory consists of three primary elements: leader style, subordinate characteristics, and work setting (see Figure 4). Again, the styles of leadership are derived from task- or relationship-oriented behaviors identi- fied through the earlier university studies. The task-related behaviors in House’s theory include directive and achievement-oriented behaviors, and the relationship-related behaviors include supportive and participative behaviors (Ayman, 2004). The motivation component of leader’s task is to define goals, clarify for subordinates a path to obtaining the goals, remove obstacles to achieving the goals, and provide support for followers on the path (Northouse, 2004). The task and subordinate characteristics are influenced by the leader’s behavior.
Leader Behaviors Directive Supportive Participative Achievement-Oriented
Subordinate Characteristics Work Setting
Characteristics
Subordinate Motivation toward Goal
FIGURE 4: House’s Path-Goal Theory of Leadership
Social Dynamic Theories
Most recently, scholars began to add another dimension to the understanding of the nature of leadership: social dynamics. Social dynamics of interactions between leaders and followers play an important role in the enactment of leadership; this led to the development of theories such as transformational leadership, leader-member exchange, and team leadership.
Transformational leadership finds its roots in the political sociology writ- ings of James MacGregor Burns (Northouse, 2004; Sashkin, 2004). It is one of the most popular leadership theories in recent years, and scholars such as Bernard Bass, Warren Bennis, Marshall Sashkin, Robert House, James Kouzes and Barry Posner, Jay Conger and Rabindra Kanungo have proposed various versions of this approach to understanding leadership. Theories in this new paradigm of leadership center on traits and behaviors of leaders, the situational context of leadership, and the relationships between and among leaders and followers in the context. In general, a hallmark of transformational leadership is the extent to which the leader influences, or transforms, followers. Across the various transformational leadership approaches, Sashkin (2004) contends that there are common characteristics. First, three behavioral characteristics are shared by multiple transformational leadership theories: communicating a vision, creating empowering opportunities, and showing caring and respect for followers. Second, three personal characteristics (or traits) can be seen across multiple theories: vision, power and its need for expression, and self- confidence. Finally, multiple theories highlight the role of organizational cul- ture or context as part of transformational leadership.
Leader-member exchange emphasizes the interactions between leaders and followers (Northouse, 2004). Originally known as vertical-dyad linkage theory, this theory is most effective when it looks specifically at the relationships between leaders and followers (Antonakis et al., 2004). Early conceptions of the theory focused on in-groups and out-groups. Leaders who form close relationships with followers who engage in work behaviors well beyond their
Phase 1 Stranger
Phase 2 Acquaintance
Phase 3 Partner
Roles Scripted Tested Negotiated
Direction of Influences Uni-directional Mixed Reciprocal Nature of Exchanges Low quality Medium quality High quality
Locus of Interest Self Self & Other Group
Time
FIGURE 5: Key Elements of Leader-Member Exchange Adapted from Northouse, 2004
negotiated job roles form the in-group, whereas followers who focus their efforts only on formally defined job roles form the out-group (Northouse, 2004). As development of the theory progressed, the focus shifted to the process of leader making through interactions with followers. There are three phases to this process (see Figure 5): stranger, acquaintance, and mature part- nerships. These phases differ in the nature of the follower roles (scripted, tested, or negotiated), the direction of the influence patterns (uni-directional, mixed, or reciprocal), the quality of the exchanges between leader and follower (low, medium, or high), and the focus of interest (self, self and other, or group).
Finally, team leadership focuses specifically on dynamics of leadership within the context of groups (Northouse, 2004). Like many of the other approaches to understanding leadership, the theory is closely connected to leader styles of task- or relationship-oriented behaviors. It is important to note that this approach to leadership does not necessarily ascribe leadership to one particular person or role; rather, any member of a well-functioning group may very well assume leadership roles and behaviors. Critical leadership functions, as identified by McGrath (1978), include leadership behaviors of monitoring and taking action as well as foci of internal or external environments. The team leadership model suggests that the leader’s role is to determine when, and how, to intervene in the team’s dynamics to improve team effectiveness.
Popular Culture Distributed through Artifacts
Stories convey metaphors that help us better understand abstract phenom- ena. As art forms, they create a realistic picture of human interaction in which leadership situations are likely to occur (Phillips, 1995). Thus, they become lenses through which people can learn about leadership. One of the primary reasons stories are so effective for teaching is that people understand, commu- nicate, and make sense of concepts through the use of tropes, or metaphors (Hamilton, 2003). Storytelling has been a vehicle for teaching, learning, and sensemaking throughout history; one need only think of epic tales such as Beowulf or the Odyssey to be reminded of lessons taught through stories.
Because of the important role they play in community learning, sensemaking, and communication, these stories are embedded in our popular culture and, indeed, are vehicles for transmitting that culture.
Nevertheless, popular culture is difficult to define, and some cultural theorists point not to a single definition but to a range of definitions, asserting that what is understood to be “popular culture” shifts over time and according to one’s the- oretical position (Bennett, 1980; Storey, 1998). Storey (1998), for instance, out- lines six definitions of popular culture ranging from “simply culture that is widely favored or well liked by many people” (p. 7) to “the culture that is left over after we have decided what is high culture” (pp. 7–8) to “mass culture” pro- duced for mass consumption (p. 11) to folk culture generated “from the people”
(p. 12) to a site of struggle between resisting subordinate groups in society and
groups seeking to enact hegemony. Browne (1987) states that popular culture is,
The everyday lifeblood of the experiences and thinking of all of us: the daily, vernacular, common cultural environment around us all, the culture we inherit from our forbears, use throughout our lives, and then pass on to our descendents. Popular culture is the television we watch, the movies we see, the fast food, or slow food, we eat, the clothes we wear, the music we sing and hear, the things we spend our money for, our attitude toward life.
Despite competing definitions of what constitutes popular culture, there is a growing consensus in the field of curriculum theory that popular culture is important to study and utilize in educational settings because popular culture is a pedagogical site (Giroux & Simon, 1989). Giroux (1999) calls popular culture a site of “public pedagogy” and argues that mass media
has become a substantial, if not the primary, educational force in regulating the meanings, values, and tastes that set the norms that offer up and legitimate particular subject positions—
what it means to claim an identity as a male, female, white, black, citizen, non-citizen. Media emanating from popular culture define childhood, the national past, beauty, truth, and social agency. (pp. 2–3)
Indeed, it may also define the very concept of leadership. PCA, and popular culture in general, influence individuals from a very early age and initiate the social education process (Lester, 1997; Hobbs, 1998).
Popular Culture and Pedagogy
Dolby (2003), drawing from cultural studies theorist Lawrence Grossberg, outlines three major pedagogical functions of popular culture. First, popular culture helps form what we come to see as “common sense” or “taken-for- granted” knowledge about the world. That is, “what we ‘know’ about the world is largely formed through our interactions with popular culture” (p. 263). Second, popular culture serves as a prominent “affective force” in our lives. Through our interactions and lived experiences with popular culture we come to feel a wide range of emotions, including joy, pain, and pleasure, Third, popular cul- ture helps to shape our identities and therefore is “the location of considerable struggle for consent” (p. 263). This final insight points to the fact that we are not simply passive recipients of popular culture; rather, audiences have agency to reject dominant meanings and to re-create or produce their own meanings from popular culture (Giroux & Simon, 1989).
Whereas many educators who discuss popular culture examine how it operates as a form of informal education, others explicate how it can be brought into more formal educational programs and used as part of the more formal curriculum. Guenther and Dees (1999), drawing upon Browne (1987), note that popular culture can be used “to overcome illiteracy, to keep people in school, to encourage life-long learning, and to energize schooling and teaching methods” (p. 36). They believe that popular culture can provide a rich source for classroom teaching that draws upon and engages learners’
experiences and knowledge—that is, popular culture has the potential to energize classrooms. They also agree that because popular culture is a site of negotiation and contestation, it is the task of the educator to both build upon learners’ knowledge of and from popular culture and help learners to decon- struct and problematize this knowledge. They provide examples of how they draw upon PCA such as film and television situation comedies in their teacher education classes to help foster understanding of both social issues and course content. Learners in their classes had widely varying interpretations of and feelings about the cultural texts they used in class and many were resistant to the teachers’ “critical” readings. Eventually, however, educators must “accept the multiple readings that occur within popular culture” (p. 41). One message gleaned from their discussion is that while PCA hold great promise for classroom pedagogy, educators must be prepared to negotiate multiple and complex readings of them.
One artifact of popular culture employed by Guenther and Dees (1999) is visual media in the form of television. In one class, they offered an episode of The Simpsons that dealt specifically with schooling. This partic- ular episode “revealed the problem of school funding, challenged the notion that anyone could teach, and offered an absurd, albeit successful solution (combining a prison with a public school) to increase the financial capital of our public schools” (p. 39). Although Guenther and Dees saw this episode of The Simpsons as a great way of engaging their learners in a crit- ical discussion of problems of school finance, some of the learners in their classroom rejected their critical reading, and others rejected the use of The Simpsons altogether.
Such critical reception of PCA in adult education settings may well be
“because the stuff of popular culture is easily denigrated and, consequently, ignored by those of us who tend to value more esoteric commentaries on our lives” (Smith, 1999, p. 50). Nevertheless, most learners are delighted by the use of visual media and may “spontaneously break into cheer when the video cart is wheeled into the room” (Hobbs, 1998, p. 262). In the last 20 years, access to popular film and television clips for educational purposes has increased dramatically (Champoux, 2005). Visual artifacts are especially useful in educational settings because research has shown that supplementing verbal and textual material with visual material enhances the effectiveness of learning (Champoux, 2005).
In addition to visual media, textual artifacts from popular culture are playing an increasing role in educational settings. While text-based artifacts have played a periodic role in academic classrooms, especially in K-12 settings, mainstream interest in using storytelling to teach abstract concepts to adults is relatively new (Cohen, 1998). Nevertheless, it is a powerful means of demonstrating abstract human concepts; as Averback (1998) notes, “literature is a playing ground for the discovery of what it means to be human” (p. 380), or in this case, a leader.
Emerging interest in literature as it informs and illustrates management concepts
can be seen in a new genre of literary business books (Jackson, 2001). If chosen wisely, fiction and nonfiction books have the power to generate in learners
“insight, knowledge, and understanding” (Short, 1997, p. 179).
Choosing Wisely: Effective PCA for Leadership Development
Simply using PCA in a leadership development program or to teach leadership concepts in a classroom setting is not a recipe for successful devel- opment of leaders. These artifacts should be used as a tool within an overall leadership development program—either in a classroom or organizational setting.
In their influential work on instructional design, Smith and Ragan (1993) high- light some key factors for designing effective instruction: it “encourages advo- cacy of the learner; supports effective, efficient, and appealing instruction; and facilitates diffusion/dissemination/adoption” (pp.8–9). In addition, Astleitner (2005) explicates several principles for effective instruction:
instructing based on a design for reflexive learning; knowledge acquiring and applying in varying context; supporting and evaluating basic knowledge but also higher-order skills; stimulating argu- mentation skills; realizing and guiding self-regulated learning; increasing the efficiency of the learning; arousing and sustaining interest; increasing positive while decreasing negative feelings;
establishing respect and responsibility; and using self-instructional learning materials. (pp. 4–7)
PCA can provide the vehicle to meet all of Smith and Ragan’s (1993) and Astleitner’s (2005) requirements for effective instruction. However, in order to meet these instructional requirements, the PCA need to be integrated with strong activities that facilitate reflection, transfer learning, and allow the learner
“hands-on” experience with the leadership theories and skills being taught. It is, therefore, key to choose specific PCA first and then design specific lesson plans around the theories, themes, and stories highlighted in the chosen PCA.
Without integration into the overall program instructional design, the PCA have the potential to fail to facilitate learning and only be seen as a waste of time.
The stories we choose to help facilitate leadership development will ultimately impact a leader’s cultural script. It is vital to make sure that, when choosing PCA, trainers and teachers question the underlying messages and biases embedded in those artifacts and use those elements as discussion points in the training or learn- ing session. In addition, some PCA are simply devoid of good leadership examples and, just because an instructor is drawn to a particular artifact, does not mean it is appropriate for use in a leadership development program. The key things to consider when choosing vehicles to facilitate learning are universal themes and messages, hidden biases, transferability, and complexity.
Universal Themes and Messages
Some would argue whether we can use PCA to teach leadership given that the stories most organizations encounter are unique to that environment and
not universally applicable. Most organizations, and individuals for that matter, like to think their stories are unique. However, it has been demonstrated that organizational stories that are thought of as unique actually have quite similar characteristics (Martin, Feldman, Hatch, & Sitkin, 1983). The three primary causes for similarities among organizational stories are: (a) people in organiza- tions face similarly difficult concerns and conflicts with no easy solution; (b) universally most people want to claim successes and blame failures on others;
and (c) people want their organization to be unique either to distance them- selves from the bad in the organization or claim the good as unique and a result of their work (Martin, et. al. 1983).)
So why is this important for choosing PCA? It illustrates that organizations, and individuals within those organizations, share common realities and challenges.
Instead of utilizing organizationally specific stories, which are often erroneously thought of as unique and incomprehensible to organizational outsiders, to facili- tate leadership development, PCA provide stories with universal themes experi- enced without organization-specific bias. This ultimately allows the learner to see how a situation can be found in a wide variety of settings and helps facilitate flex- ibility in thinking about how to address an issue in numerous ways and environ- ments. This fosters a theory-to-practice-to-theory interchange by challenging learners to think about abstract concepts in both universal and context-specific environments and situations. Thus, when choosing PCA, it is important to make sure the selection has universal themes that can cross organizational boundaries and speak to a variety of individual truths and realities. PCA that can bridge a variety of complex issues and be seen as both universal and context-specific pro- vide the richest stories to develop leader skills and knowledge.
Hidden Biases
As discussed previously, popular culture is shaped by the stories presented.
This popular culture shapes our perceptions. Thomas, Mitchell, and Joseph (2000) argue that all knowledge is socially created and is embedded in and influenced by social culture. They make the assertion that, given the social nature of knowledge, it is important to consider and address culture when designing instruction. Henderson (1996) highlights that “instructional design does not exist outside of a consideration of culture” (p. 86). As a result, when choosing PCA to use in leadership development programming, we argue that it is critical to consider our own cultural biases as well as those of the individ- uals participating in the instruction.
It is thus important to examine carefully the artifacts we choose for biases that have the potential to impact both the learning and the ultimate leader’s performance and own biases. These could include biases regarding race, national culture, gender, age, and a variety of other issues surrounding power and class within organizations and society. However, because all forms of cultural artifacts have biases, it is important to understand those biases in the
chosen works and to discuss and process those biases with the learner. This will actually raise awareness of the biases leaders deal with in their everyday realties and facilitate skill development and learning around those issues.
Transferability
To ensure effective use of PCA, it is important to choose visual and textual media to which learners can relate and that is relevant to their environments.
When designing instruction in general it is important to provide the learner with opportunities for “knowledge acquiring and applying in various contexts”
(Astleitner 2005, p. 5). “Through practice, learners construct schemas for problems they solve”. (Jonassen, 2000, p. 77). If the learner is unable to relate to and understand the PCA chosen, then the lessons will not be transferred back to the leader’s work environment and schema construction may be hin- dered. Utilizing PCA that individuals can relate to aids in the vicarious attain- ment of experience and allows the learner to see and process appropriate models of behavior as well as behavior to avoid when faced with a similar experience (Bruner, 1990; Polkinghorne, 1988). In addition, choosing works that are relevant to “real-world” work environments facilitates the use of leadership skills and knowledge—both theoretical and practice-oriented in nature—to specific future situations (Ertmer & Russell, 1995). The ultimate goal is therefore to choose PCA that increase transfer of leadership skills back to the learners’ work environments.
Complexity
In addition to choosing PCA that are transferable, the artifacts must also con- tain enough complexity to mirror organizational situations but not be so complex that their lessons cannot be easily learned and unpacked during the course of a leadership development class or program. Funke (1991) states that com- plexity is determined by the number of “issues, functions, or variables involved in the problem; the degree of connectivity among those properties; the type of functional relationships among those properties; and the stability among the properties of the problem over time” (Jonassen, 2000, pp. 67–68). The complexity of the chosen artifact allows the learner to understand the univer- sal themes and lessons inherent in the story; it also adds to the perception of authenticity of the story. This helps individuals learn how to deal with com- plex organizational situations in which leadership is necessary.
Implications for HRD
Through watching popular film or television or reading popular fiction or nonfiction, future leaders reap a host of learning experiences. Perhaps most
important, popular media engage learner interest; Hobbs (1998) notes that society now accepts the influence of popular culture as a basic assumption. Pop- ular culture infuses literally every aspect of individuals’ lives and, as a result, pro- vides a natural connection to the familiar as an anchor for learning new concepts.
In providing such an anchor, artifacts from popular culture serve as vehicles to accomplish several learning goals. First, PCA provide examples of practical application of theories—decisions can be seen in context; connections can be drawn between leader beliefs, values, and actions; and implications of interpersonal interactions can be assessed immediately (English & Steffy, 1997). Second, PCA offer vicarious learn- ing experiences—one need not learn hard lessons by making the mistakes personally. And third, PCA increase critical analysis skills because indi- viduals are asked to make connections between abstract concepts and a variety of simulated situations.
In this issue the PCA that serve as the vehicle for learning are narrative in nature—books, movies, and television. There are other narrative forms of media that could also be used. Poems and their musical equivalent, lyrics, also convey stories that can be linked to leadership. Performance media can also play a role. For example, dance tells a story through bodily movement, but it also serves as a vehicle for learning about self and self in interaction with others (Callahan, 2005). Gibb (2004) also notes the importance of theater as an educational tool. Although attending theater performances as a group is not likely to be feasible, theater can be enacted in the learning environment through script readings, role playing, or improvisation.
As noted earlier, culture is conveyed through popular artifacts. This means that the lessons we learn through PCA are largely tied to the lan- guage and culture of the vehicles of those PCA. All of the vehicles pre- sented in this issue represent Western culture, primarily British, Australian, and American. With few exceptions (e.g., Lost), the selections are fairly homogeneous. The authors of each chapter selected a work of interest to them and as a result, the PCA represented in this issue may not be as mean- ingful to those of, or working in, non-Western cultural contexts. One of the difficulties of representing leadership using originals with non-English- speaking media is that language transmits culture and culture informs lan- guage (Geertz, 1996). For example, many argued that the English language remake of the Japanese film Shall We Dance lost much of its meaning when viewed through the lens of a different culture (GoogleGroups, RecArtsDance, September 18, 2004–October 7, 2004). As such, future areas of research interest may include the extent to which we can truly understand the nuances of a culture when the vehicles of that culture are translated into another language.
Cultural understanding is but one area of importance associated with the study of leadership that is beyond the scope of this general introduction to using PCA to facilitate leadership development. Other topical issues that can
be explored include gender, division of labor, sexual orientation, disabilities, age, and more. However, as indicated previously, it is important to note that PCA often represent stereotypical understandings of phenomena (Livingston, 2004). The facilitator must be aware of these biased representations and learn to critically challenge the representations.
Finally, this journal issue suggests that incorporating PCA—particularly fiction and nonfiction books—into educational experiences helps model a bal- anced life. As members of a goal-oriented society, we have observed an erosion of balanced, authentic lives (Mestrovic, 1997). By granting learners permission to read noninstrumental works, we believe that the importance of reading for the sake of reading can be reinvigorated.
Issue Overview
The remaining articles, the final one excluded, profile examples of how to use written artifacts, such as nonfictional and fictional books, and visual arti- facts, such as television and movies, to teach leadership concepts. The sec- ond article uses the nonfiction work Into Thin Air to explore leadership skills, team leadership, situational leadership theory, and power. The third article uses Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, another nonfiction work, to explore leadership skills, leadership style, and contingency theory.
The fourth article explores leader-member exchange and transformational leadership in the fictional novel The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
The fifth article uses another novel, The Year of Wonders, to highlight leader traits, path-goal theory, transformational leadership, and power. The sixth article uses the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to demonstrate power, situational leadership, and transformational leadership. The seventh article is based on the popular U.S. television show Lost and explores traits, skills, team leadership, transformational leadership, path-goal theory, and leader-member exchange. The final article highlights how the various PCA tools and leadership theories described in this issue can be utilized as a les- son plan for an academic course on leadership or an organizational program for developing leaders.
With the articles in this issue, we have attempted to provide a generalist overview of leadership through the Western perspectives from which these leadership theories were developed. We acknowledge, however, that there are many issues of great importance to leadership, leadership development, and leadership research that are beyond the scope of this particular issue.
For example, we do not explicitly address the challenges associated with gender in leadership, although several of the works have prominent female leaders. We also do not focus on cross-cultural issues of leadership, although one of the works has leaders from multiple national, racial, and ethnic groups. Our purpose with this issue is to provide a theoretically grounded practical guide on how to use PCA to teach leadership theory in both
academic and private-sector settings. Together, these articles serve as a complete lesson plan for teachers and trainers interested in facilitating leadership learning and application.
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Jamie L. Callahan is an associate professor in the Educational Human Resource Development Program at Texas A&M University. Her primary research interests focus on emotion management and its relationship to organizational learning, leadership, and culture. A former United States Air Force officer specializing in human resources and organization development consulting, she continues to actively consult with public, pri- vate, and nonprofit institutions.
J. Kori Whitener is currently an adjunct instructor and full-time doctoral student at Texas A&M University in the Human Resource Development program. She has extensive corporate experience as a corporate consultant and trainer working in a wide variety of industries from telecommunications and software development to hospitality, retail, and health care. She holds a Master of Science degree in human resource development from Texas A&M University and a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include leadership development, organizational culture, and organizational image.
Jennifer A. Sandlin is an assistant professor of adult education at Texas A&M University. Her primary interests focus on popular culture, consumer education, and critical pedagogy. Her work has appeared in such publications as Adult Education Quarterly, Journal of Lifelong Learning, Adult Learning, and more. She has also pre- sented at multiple meetings of the Academy of Human Resource Development national and international conferences.
