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LARRY A. BRASKAMP AND JON F. WERGIN

Inside-OutLeadership

Leaders withvocation leadfrom witii in butthey keep theirleadership effortsfocused on some-thing outside ofthemselvesthe institutiona programor a cause

EFFECTIVE UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP h a s b eenboth the focus of concent and the target of cri t -icism for most ofth e p ast half-century. U nive r-si ty leaders, i t seems, can 't do any thin g righ t . If

they focus on intel lectual leadership, they arecriticized for ivory-towe r ism and for n ot bein gsufficiently engaged with the ir comm un it ies.If they t(Kus on e xtern al const i tu en cies, the yare accused of ne glect ing th e core purposes ofth e academy, or worse, of intel lectu al cow-ardice. We believe th at i t's t ime for a reframing

of wh at , exactly, un i-versi ty leaders sh ould

be . We offer such a reframing in th is art icle.

Ou r argumen t i s hased on two re la tedpremises. First, academic leade rship is not just

for designated leaders but is a responsibi l i ty o fa ll memb ers o f t h e acad emi c co mmu n i t y.This wil l require a return to a collegial modelof governance bu t wi th a mode m twis t . Ou rsecond premise ho lds th a t l eadersh ip i s morethan someone in formal authori ty trying to per-suade fol lowers. All members ofth e acade micco mmu n i t y h av e b ot h t h e o p p o r t u n i t y an d t h eresponsibi l i ty to step up and take on leadershiproles, whether formally or informally, andthe choice to do so is anchored by vocat ion , asense of cal ling to a higher purp ose.

Those who lead from the inside out engage

in two in terde pen den t ac t iv i t ies . The y d iscovert h e i r v o ca t i o n s (an intrapersonal ac t iv i ty ) ,and they lead wi th vocat ion (an interpersonalac t iv i ty ) . Th e in terp lay of these two ac t iv i t iesresu l t s in a form of leadersh ip th a t is inne r-based and ou ter-focused , an institutionalactivity (see fig. 1).

LARRY A. BRASKAMP 5 senior fe ow at theAssociation of American Colleges and Universities,an d JON F. WERGIN is professor of education alstudies in Antioch University s PhD P rogram inLeadership and Change.

Living w ithVocation

Leading w ithVocation

DeveiopingCommunitywith Vocation

Figure 1

Living with vocationFind ing your voca tion is a l ifelong p rocess o

d iscovering wh o you are , who you desi re tobecome, and how you want to l ive your l i fe. is a dyn amic p rocess f ill ed wi th tens ions , cof l ic t s , cha l lenges , and d isappoin tments , bu talso with joy and fulfil lment. Living with vocat ion involves th ree in terconnected e lemenl i s ten ing , re f lec t ing , and commit t ing .

Th e wo rd vocation i s der ived from th e Lat inword vocare, which means to ca l l , a nd onecannot talk about vocation without fi rst consering th e not ion of being cal led. Living withvocation begins with th e expe rience of l istening for, he arin g, and following a call. A pers on

finds his or he r cal l ing by looking inward. A sJoh n Neafsey describes it (2004, 4), from a pschological persp ective, the voice of vocationcan be un derstood as the voice of our ' t rue seor 'best self. ' Man y refer to th is as fol lowingone 's pass ion , bu t vocat ion is deep er tha nthat; i t inevitably requires sacrifice and hardwork . Find ing a vocat ion is a deep ly person aprocess of going int o the si lence an d cre at in gspace th at w ill al low us to l isten t o ourse lves

Liv ing wi th vocat ion a l so requi res engageme nt in ser ious re f lec t ion . As Neafsey no tes(2004 , 4 ) , howe ver we un der s tan d i t , th e

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sense of vocation is an experience of someoneor something which speaks to our hearts in acompelling way that calls for us to sten a nd ollow This requires, first of all, a capacity tohear th e voice as it speaks with in ourselves orthrough our life experiences. Once we haveheard the call, we then face the challenge ofmaking intelligent and discerning and coura-geous choices to follow where it is leading. Inthis process of reflection, two major q uestionsneed to be addressed: Who am ? And, howdo I best serve others?

Tlie first question concerns self-identity andself-identificationd eveloping a sense of selfThis dimension represents the source ofth ecalling, both internal and external. We get to

know ourselvesour talents, values, and aspi-rationsnt)t only through reading, studying,

and think ing, but also through interactingwith others and inviting them to challengeour assumptions of what the w orld is like andwh at our role in it should be (Mezirow andAssociates 2000 ). Th e second question refersto the need to incorporate the social and in-terpersonal dimension into finding a vocation.How do we live and contribute in ways definedby our relationships with o thers and w ith soci-

ety in general? To what extent is service toothers a central focus of our discernm ent andaction? From both religious and secular per-spectives, social responsibility is more virtuousthan self-centeredness. This does not meanthat the ideal or only true voca tion is one inwhich a person is involved directly in h elpingothers, however; not everyone needs to he-come a pastor or a stKial worker.

The third major element in l iving withvocation is making a commitment to act uponthat vocation. Through listening and reflec-tion, a leader with vocation determines what

he or she truly stands for and commits to act-ing upon his or her values and beliefs. Thisprocess is never strictly linear. One can feel acalling without fully understanding it. Onemay even act on a calling and only then beginto reflect on its meaning and its implications.Life experiences can reinforce and build onpersonal commitments, but they may also beopportunities that lead to comm itment .

Leading with vocationTh ere is a big difference b etween com mit-men t the intention to act based upon a senseof purposeand action. Knowing how andwhen to express this intentio nality is the m arkof a good leader. Leading is essentially a n inter-

personal relationship between leaders and fol-lowers. Leading with vocation requires givingvoice to others, building relationships, andrecognizingand rewarding^^the contribu-tions of others . It requires that leaders notonly discover their own vocations but also inspire othe rs to find theirs (Covey 20 04, 5).O ne does not ha ve to have a formal leadershipposition in order to be a leader. Rather, aleader has simply to find his or her voic e,a compelling reason to step forward.

One ofthe most treasured images of academiccomm unity is that of a collegium whose m em-bers are collectively responsible for the goodofthe whole. With the growth of a managerialcultu re in the past several years, th e need forindividuals throughout the academic commu-nity to become leaders in place has becomeacute (Wergin 2007). The concept of leader-ship in place stands in contrast to other formsof leadership that seek only to influence or toprotest . Leadership, whe ther som eone is aformal leader or not, requires a commitmentto helping others find their voices. One canspeak from passion and experience, with the

firm belief that motives are honorable andthat the message needs to be heard, and stillnot be a leader. One can sound off at a fac-ulty meeting about th e latest ad ministrativeincursion into faculty autonomy, and thenretire to th e sanctity of a private office withthe smug satisfaction that comes from beinga voice in the wilderness. Or that same personcan commit to something much riskier:helping oth ers find their voices in a com moncause. By help ing oth ers find th eir ownvoices, leaders play a special role in the livesof their colleagues.



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inside-out ieadersDaniel Go leman , of emo-

t ional in te l l igence fame,recognizes the power and im-portance of relationships. Henotes that the emotionally in-telligent leader requires both personal and social com-petence, and that the leader's primal task is building res-ona nce with others. By be-ing attuned to how others feel in themo men t, Go lem an writes, a leader can sayand do what 's appropriate, whether th atmeans calming fears, assuaging anger, or join-ing in good spirits. This attu nem en t also lets aleader sense the shared values and prioritiesthat can guide the group (2002, 30). Gole-man's sense of social com pete nce is not basedupon giving voice to others, but rather con-sists of reading oth ers' emotio ns in ways tha tare most likely to increase the leader's influ-ence. Our notion of relationship-building isquite different. By finding his or her ownvoice and then encouraging others to findtheirs, the leader who leads with vo catiim n e-gotiates a relations hip th at is built upon iden-tifying mutual values and purposeseven,and especially, if not all those values and pur-poses are congruent.

Leaders of all kinds are keenly aware thatthe con tributio ns of followers are a key deter-minant of their own success. They recognizethe work of others. The first step necessary toturn ideals about relation ships in to reality is,simply, to respect people.

[Respect] begins with an understanding ofthe diversity of their gifts. Un dersta ndin gthe diversity of these gifts enables us to be-gin taking the crucial step of trusting eachother. It also enables us to begin to th ink ina new way about the strengtlis of others.

Everyone comes with certain giftsbut notthe same gifts. True participation and en-lightened leadership allow these gifts to beexpressed in different ways and at differenttimes (DePree 2004, 25-6).Given the press for scholarshipespecially

entrepreneurial scholarshipin the modemuniversity, DePree's advice is no t often heed ed.The differential contributions of faculty mem-bers, even if recognized in theory, are oftennot recognized in practice.

How does the leader with vocation draw outand maximize these different qualities? One

by definitionrecognize a callingto exert leadership

in a given situationor context

and then becomeleaders-in-place

way is by building on the con -cept of organizational motiva-tion (Staw 1983; Wergin 2003).In order to enhance organiza-tional motivation that is, thedesire to work on behalf of thegroup instead of individualself-interestthe leader needsto instill both identificationwith the institution and effi-

cacy, or the sense that one's efforts will havetangible positive impacts. An effective leaderhelps others identify with th e organization bybuilding a relationsh ip based on shared valuesand goals, thus making th e organization a sourceof community and emotional support. He orshe also helps others find their o rganizationalniche, that place where they feel they are usingtheir gifts in ways that make a unique andvisible contribution.

Finally, tbe leader with voc ation recognizesthe unique contributions of others by explic-itly rewarding their uniqueness. In a vocation-driven organization, people are evaluatedaccording to performance criteria that focuson t heir ability to bring their gifts and talentsto bear upon the good of the whole.

Deveioping comm unity with vocationWe began by focusing on the centrality of selfawareness because the personhood ofth eleader is vitally important. Yet leading fromthe inside out requires more than just k nowingoneself and building relationships. Leadersneed also to know what to stand for and why,and their motivation should always be directedtoward the goal of making the institution bet-ter. Leaders with vocation lead from within,but they keep their leadership efforts fcxusedon something outside of themselves the in-stitution, a program, or a cause. Simply stated,

leading is inner-based and outer-focused, notouter-based and inner-focused. Accordingly,developing community with vocation, thethird aspect of inside-out leadership, requiresleadership practices that are focused on theorganization as a whole. To that end, we rec-ommend that leaders consider three practicalsteps: first, create a sense of shared purposeand hope for the future; second, develop acollective consciousness; and third, reflectcritically on results.

Creating a shared purpose, like creatinggood working relatio nship s, is a matter of

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careful neg otiation of diversevoices. The inside-out leaderbalances individual and orga-nizational n eeds, and does so indep enden t of consensus orpopularity (Collins 2005,11). This may seem like a dif-ficult or even impossible task.If leaders are ambitio us first and foremost forthe cause, and if they must have the will todo whatever it takes to make good on the am-bition (Collins 2005, 11), then leadershipwould seem to be a matter of rallying oth ersaround the cause rather than empoweringthem to make their own voices heard. But ifthe leader has built and nurtured relationships

and given explicit and deliberate attention toorganizational motivation, then the paradox

what and howstudents learn anddevelop and not onhow successful the

teachers and leaderswish to be

dissolves. Th e group will have found its com-mo n cause, and th e leader's job will be t omake that cause explicit.

Much has been writ ten about the impor-tan ce of a shared vision with in an organiza-tion, but as Peter Senge (1990) has pointedout, a shared vision is not necessarily the sumtotal ofthe individual visions, and it is notnecessarily shared by everyone completely.That's fine. Conflict within an organization isnatu ral, and it is essential to organization al

growth. Th e key is to negotia te conflictswhile m aintain ing a larger focus, to be con-scious of organizational motivation at all times,and to dev elop a sense of bo tb individual andcollective re.sponsibiliry. Both the successesand the failures of the organization belong toeveryone; everyone has a stake.

Th irty years ago, James McG regor Bum spublished eadership (197 8), which has be-come a seminal work on the subject. Bums'sdistinction between the transformativeleader and the transactio nal leader has earned

a permanen t place in the leadership lexicon.

What has been lost in mostquarters, how ever, is his defin-ition of transform ative ac-tivity as that wh ich raises thecor\sciomness of both leaders a ndfollowers Because conscious-ness had long been dismissedas an unscientific co ncep t un -

worthy of rational study, this was a revolu-tionary notion at the time. In a broad sense, conscio usness reflects one's way of being andone's ethical and moral orien tation. Thu s,consciousness reflects ho th the intetiority ofthe self s well as the activity that one per-forms in the world (Dary anan i 2006, 4)-

The inside-out leader helps others find this

awareness. Jack Mezirow's theory of transfor-mative leaming posits that the only way adultscan learn deeply and change ingrained behav-ior is throug h perspective transformation, asignificant shift in the way in which one viewsthe world (Mezirow and Associates 2000).Psychologist R obert Kegan (1 994 ) suggeststha t the most critical perspectival transforma-tion in adults is the ability to cope w ith seem-ingly irreconcilable stresses. This requires ahigher-order consciousness th at displays anability to look at life in terms of systems, andan awareness that value judgments have to bemade in the face of competing tensions. Asimilar point is made by Ron Heifetz (1 994 ),who suggests that the truly effective leader isable to manage adaptive work that is, difficult situations in whicb neither the problemnor its solution is easily defined.

Thus , balancing individual and collectiveinterests is no t th e only artful task facing theinside-out leader. Leadership also demandsrecognition of other tensions, all of which re-late to a single common phenomenon: tbebalance between challenge an d support People

have th e greatest amo unt of intr insic m otiva-tion when challenge and support are in bal-anceor more precisely, when the perceivedchallenge of a task is just barely beyond one'sown resources (Csikszentmihalyi 1997; Parks2000; Braskamp, Trautvetter, and Ward2006). Th e result ing dissonance generates as-piration and energy. This positive dissonancecan take several organizational forms: framingproblems in ways that challenge con ventio nathinking, taking reasonable risks, and exhibiting patience and persistence in the face ofchang e that is neit her predictab le nor linear.



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A group's purpose and collective voice maybe clear, its aspirations energizing, an d its com-mitm ent to collective responsibility total, butunless the group cares about and reflects uponthe qu ality of its work pro duct, little organiza-tional learning will result. The inside-outleader will also want the grou p to reflect criti-cally on its work and to commit as a group toleaming from what it is doing. As StevenBrookfield has observed, critical reflection o c-curs wh en we identify an d scrutinize the as-sumptiims that undergird bow we work (1995,xii). ln higher education, assessment is a majoravenue for critical self-reflection. The leadermust insist that the institutional contributionsfocusing tin student leaming and developmentare the focal point of all assessment endeavors.Th at is, the focus is on what and how studentsleam and develop, and not on how successfulthe teachers and leaders wish to be. The ulti-mate payoff is enhanced student leaming anddevelo pmen t, no t increased power or status forthe faculty or the administration.

Today, an increasing num ber of collegesand universities worry ahout students' devel-opment of values and habits of mind, ln build-ing a culture of critical reflection. Inside-outleaders at such ins titutions w ould facilitatediscussion ofthe assumptions that underlieeducational practice: What are we doing withour students, and why are we doing it thatway? W ha t do we think this will accomp lish,and how will we know? Then, instead of d e-veloping a list of student competencies forwhich faculty will be held accountable, theinside-out leader asks: W ha t will we do withthe evidence about student leam ing and de-veltipmen t we've collected? How will we talkabout the data and make meaning of it? Hou'can we leam from our experience?

The inside out ieader

At the beginning oi this artic le, we called for aneo-collegial model of leadership that giveseveryone an opportunity to take on significantleadership roles. The reader may have gainedthe impression from th e preceding pages that the leader must (xcupy some position of for-mal authority. If so , we should emphasize tha tinside-out leaders b y definition recognize a call-ing to exert leadership in a given situation orcontext, and then become leaders-in-place.W het her designated leaders or not, they engagein intrapersonal reflection, develop a serise of

personal comm itment, move beyond themselvesto relationships with oth ers in ways that galva-nize their comm itmen t to a commo n purpo.se.They then work to create a community of hopethat reflects honestly on what it accomplishes.And then they step back so that others canlead in place as well. n

To resp(md to this article, e-mail [email protected] the authors rwmes on the subject line.

REFERENCESBmskamp, L. A., L. C. Trautv etter, and K. Wa rd.

2006. Putting students first: How colleges developstudents purposefully. Bolcon. MA: Anker.

BrookfielLl, S. 1995. Becoming a critically reflectiveteacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Collins, J. 2005. Fnmi good to great and the soci i sectors.Boulder, CO : Jim C ollins.

Covey, S. R. 2004. The Sth habit: Prom effectiveness togreatness. New Y ork: Free Press.

Csikzentmihalyi, M. 1997. Finding/low. New York;Basic Books.

Daryiinani, A. 2006. Ejcphrir^ group consciousness.Unpublished manuscript, Antinch University PhDProgram in Leadership and Chan ge.

DePree, M, 2004. Leadership is an art. New York:Currency Douhleday.

Goleman, D. 2002. Prlirml leadership: Leaming to leadwith emotional intelligence. Boston: Harvard Busines.'iSchool.

Heifeti, R. 1994. Leadership without easy answers.Cambridge, M A: Beinap Press.

Kegan, R. 1994. In oi erintr heads: The mentaldcmaruh ofmixiem life. Camhridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Mezirow, J., and As.sociates. 2000. Learning s trans-formation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress.San Francisco, CA: jossey-Bass.

Neafsey, J. P. 2004- Psychological dimemions of thediscernm ent of vocation . In Revisiting the idea ofvocation: Theohgical explorations, ed. J. C. Haughey.Washington. DC: Th e Catho lic U niversity ofAmerica Press.

Parks, S, D. 2000. Big (Questions, worthy dreams. SanFrancisco: Jossey Bass.

Seng e, P. M . 1990. The/i/t/i discipline: The art and

practice ofthe leaming organization. New York:Currency Doubleday.

Sraw, B.M. 1983. Motivation research versus the artof faculty m anag em ent. In J.L. Eiess (Ed.) , Collegeand univtfTsit:y organization: insighLs from the behaviinalsciences. New York: NYU Press.

Wergin, J. F. 2003. Departments that work: Building andsustaining cultures o/excellence in academic programs.Boiton, MA: A nker.

Wergin, J. F. 2007. Leaders/tip in place: Hoiv academicprofessionals can find their leadership voice. Bcilton,MA: Anker.

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