Author: Anna Marston

I really enjoyed reading “Redefining Leadership in the Next Century” because it was applicable to my generation’s future endeavors to become leaders; it is worth noting that in a corporate organization, leading now is much different than 30 years ago, and the definition of leading “successfully” is constantly changing. The Jepson School of Leadership Studies mission statement aims to educate students to “look at leadership as it was, as it is, and as it should be”– this article emphasizes the “should be” for the future of leadership. McFarland, Senn, and Childress address the changes happening in different leadership contexts and the world, and how we must adjust our mindsets to meet these differences. I was most intrigued by the leader’s growing need to embrace all different types of qualities and differences; this reminded me of the growing controversy over Trait Theory. Many scholars say trait theory is ineffectual and unrealistic for studying the effectiveness of leaders due to its failure to take into account situational and environmental factors. I was impressed by the authors’ inclusion of becoming a holistic leader because it helps break down the idea that there is one type of successful leader: “the successful leaders of the 21st Century will in fact have to approach their lives and their organizations from a much more holistic standpoint, embracing within themselves a broad range of qualities, skills, and behaviors,” (McFarland, Senn, and Childress, 462). In applying this holistic view to themselves, leaders and figures of authority in corporate organizations can better accept differences in their followers and employees.

Anna Marston

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In Howard and Jane Giles’ “Ingroups and Outgroups” chapter, I found the concepts highly applicable to studying leader/follower dynamics on small and large scales. I appreciated that the authors acknowledged that people might have multiple facets to their identities (i.e. being Korean American) that are central to a person’s identity depending on the circumstance. Furthermore, I was particularly interested by the idea of “intergroup boundaries” presented by the authors; specifically, the example of the differences in table manners among Brits and Americans. While the two nations share the “ingroup” quality of speaking the same language (despite dialectical differences), there is an intergroup boundary of food and drink. When traveling to any country, it is important to familiarize oneself with the cultural knowledge of a habit such as eating practices. A “bilingual eater” would speak both eating “languages” of Britain and the United States, and these differences are important to understanding group dynamics of a particular culture. Furthermore, when traveling to another nation, it is important to think about how you might be labeled due to your national origin, as a categorization threat could occur.

Reading “Ingroups and Outgroups” for a second time (I did so before in Leadership and the Social Sciences” gave me a reminder of the importance of calling out stereotypes and being conscientious of them on a global level. After learning about leadership concepts specifically correlated to the humanities, I had a different reaction to the article; learning how literature/art, oratory, and history impact leadership, the concept of ingroups/outgroups are largely applicable to several contexts.

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Reading “Why Women Lead” by Judy B. Rosener went hand-in-hand with the reading I recently completed for my Justice class: Make Love, Not War by David Allyn. While Make Love, Not War predominantly focuses on the sexual double standard, “Why Women Lead” ties in the double standards against women in the workplace. Rosener states, “men and women received different signals about what was expected of them…women have been expected to be wives, mothers, community volunteers, teachers, and nurses,” (157). The push of women into “pink-collar” jobs persists today and contributes to phenomena such as the wage gap, the wealth gap, and the feminization of poverty. Women were expected in the home to support their spouses (specifically, their husbands, due to the heteronormative view of the American family) and enter the “helping” fields such as the ones listed above.

While I thought that Rosener did a good job outlining the results found in the IWF Survey of Men and Women Leaders, I think the article itself had limitations that must be acknowledged when studying women’s leadership. While the author acknowledged that “linking interactive leadership directly to being female is a mistake,” she did not elaborate upon that conclusion. She also made points that oftentimes women were only given these leadership positions due to a company’s own turmoil or need for employees. Again, the author does not elaborate upon why this is problematic, and that women are only entering certain fields at the expense of a company’s organizational failure, rather than their own skills. 

Additionally, I found the conclusion from the survey results that “both men and women leaders pay their female subordinates roughly $12,000 less than their male subordinates with similar positions and roles” was extremely problematic. Statistics such as this one show the impact that class has on one’s acquisition of power and wealth; women are very well pervading sexism against their poor counterparts just as men are. We must take into account all facets of one’s identity to recognize that while women have been discriminated against since the beginning, factors such as race and class come into play as well.

 

Anna Marston

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Robert Kelley’s “In Praise of Followers” is a comprehensive account of who a follower is, what followership can look like, and the different types of followers we see in corporate contexts. I enjoyed this change of pace from most of the leadership education I have received thus far because it is so significant to acknowledge the population being led as well as the leaders cultivating the qualities we admire. I felt as if the quote, “Followership is not a person but a role, and what distinguishes followers from leaders is not intelligence or character but the role they play,” (Kelley 10) encapsulates the goals of our education at the Jepson School. Just on the Jepson website, we see leadership defined as “leadership not only as a position but also as a process and a relationship among people,” which relates directly to Kelley’s article. Kelley is arguing that in order to create prosperous organizations and leadership teams, we need the “effective followers”: the “risk-takers, self-starters, and independent problem solvers,” (5). I would agree that effective followers help organizations thrive and we must not discredit the driven, passionate individuals who contribute as much– if not more– than the leader.

However, a problem I had with this article is that Kelley ultimately favors extroverts. He fails to acknowledge that not everyone is confident enough to come off right away as courageous, or that racial or sexual discrimination in the workplace can limit individuals from maximizing productivity and success. In my Gender and Work course, we discuss workplace discrimination in-depth, and this article completely disregarded its prevalence. “Followers” in a workplace setting cannot possibly be honest if their employer is not accepting of their sexual orientation, race, gender identity, ability, or nationality, for example. I read an article written by a woman of color who implicitly found herself not speaking up in discussions due to the stereotype of black women being “bossy”; how can she possibly be an “effective follower” if her voice is not recognized? While Kelley acknowledges that effective followers do receive mixed responses from their leaders, he does not mention that a great proportion of people do not meet these criteria if they are introverted or discriminated on the basis of their identity, but does that make them a “less effective” follower?

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On Thursday, October 24th from 12:00-1:00 PM, the Office of Common Ground and the Boatwright Memorial Library presented Dr. Camilla Nonterah of the Department of Psychology. Her program covered how the social, economic and physical environment in which one lives influences his or her overall health and well-being. Dr. Nonterah introduced the concept that humans conceptualize health differently– health is typically seen as a byproduct of things that one is not doing right such as exercising, eating well, or other habits. However, factors such as income, class, education, social support, genetics, access to health services, sex, and gender identity. Dr. Nonterah explained the concept of social determinants of health, which are nonmedical factors associated with overall health. Examples of the social determinants of health include living in a food desert, living in an area affected by violence (walkability), racial discrimination, and the stresses associated with living in severe poverty. Social determinants of health can result in health disparities, which are differences that are preventable such as disease, injury, violence, and access to optimal health. 

 

Dr. Nonterah’s discussion related to leadership and the humanities through her connection of health disparities to public health policy as well as the connections to intersectionality, implicit biases, and race issues. In order to reduce health disparities, local, state, and federal political bodies must act to close the gaps in overall health. In class, we discussed how implicit biases against disadvantaged groups occur all the time without us realizing; this may seem harmless in conversation, but in the scope of healthcare, implicit bias is extremely detrimental. For example, Latinx and black patients were found to not be treated for health conditions due to implicit bias; Asian Americans were not being screened thoroughly for cancer symptoms, resulting in cancer advancing and becoming fatal. We see the history of redlining and discriminatory housing policies putting minorities in the most unsafe, inaccessible, lowest-funded areas and therefore diminishing their access to good health.

 

Anna Marston

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In the “Jonestown” episode from the Bad Ideas podcast, the speaker, Tony, runs through the reasons people join a cult such as the one led by Jim Jones: the Peoples Temple. He was very active in the racial equality movements and evangelical circles; he claimed to be psychic and healing, making his followers feel like they were witnessing something “surreal and powerful”. Many people joined his church because they believed in his message and the actions he was taking to effect change– essentially why people join cults. He tried to micromanage everything within the Church to appeal to people that he was essentially doing good for his community. Jim Jones in the Church recruited people by fear, force, public shaming, and isolation from their families. When people entered Jonestown, they had to hand the custody of their children to the Church and worked backbreaking labor; in return, they were building a community with the same values and making lives for their leader, Jim Jones.

 

When followers do not dissent, they will ultimately “drink Flavor Aid”– both literally as in Jonestown and figuratively in other leader/follower dynamics. “Dissent” is defined by Cheney and Lair as “the rejection of views that most people hold”– but what happens when people do not counter conformity? Followers will be coerced into a figurative (or literal, in this case) “suicide”– or succumbing one’s individual identity. I would argue that the followers become equally as toxic as the leader. Tony, in Bad Ideas, notes that Jim Jones was a huge proponent of Hitler, and the first thing I thought of was the millions of Germans who went along with the “Final Solution” and did not dissent. Excluding those forced into the Schutzstaffel (SS) against their will or because they were scared, Hitler’s followers who did not dissent against his ideology helped Hitler’s endeavors continue to annihilate billions. 

 

Anna Marston

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On Friday, October 18th, I attended the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement’s Weekly Brown Bag Discussion that was titled “RVAIDS: The AIDS Impact in Richmond” from 12:30-1:30 PM. It was led by panelists Dr. Patricia Herrera, Dr. Laura Browder, Lindsay Bryant, and Dr. Eric King. Dr. Herrera and Dr. Browder teach a class that has started a project called RVAIDS with the mission to share the voices of those suffering from “Richmond’s hidden epidemic” of HIV and AIDS. HIV/AIDS positivity disproportionately impacts people of color, immigrants, young people, and LGBTQ+ folks. The virus infects the African American community– specifically black women– due to disparities in healthcare and education. We talked about in Thursday’s class how healthcare access and research are so unequal because research has largely been done on white men. HIV/AIDS was only thought to infect gay white men, but in actuality, women of color are the largest group living with the virus. 

 

While this talk may not have explicitly related to leadership itself, the speakers highlighted the discrepancies in healthcare policy that are embedded in racism and sexism as well as ways to become an advocate for the cause. Dr. Eric King was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1985 at the age of 36, and he has lived with the virus ever since; his personal perspective on the issue brings to light the hardships of living with such a stigmatized virus. Additionally, the panelists added a segment on what it means to be an advocate for a cause and how to become a leader on a micro or macro scale. Specifically to HIV/AIDS due to the stigma against it, the first step to bringing rates down is to talk about it– about safe sex, about HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and about the stigma. It is impossible to be a leader for a cause or to attempt to bring awareness to an issue without talking about it and serving the community to make a change. I would say that Lindsay Bryant, the program coordinator of Nia, Inc. through her church, is a servant leader because she is putting the needs of victims of HIV/AIDS first to evoke change in the community. She utilizes “education, love, empowerment, and compassion” to serve as a leader with the goal to end to the HIV/AIDS epidemic through support groups (building community), expertise on the issue (awareness), and providing her service to others (stewardship).

 

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I had heard of the term “groupthink” in my past psychology classes at UR and in high school, but after reading Irving Janis’s analysis of the term, it is evident to me how pertinent of a term it is with regard to different leadership methods. Janis’s definition of groupthink in regard to norms reminds me of the experiment we performed in my Leadership 102 class; we had to attempt to balance a tennis ball on a small metal ring attached to strings from one destination to another. My group was relatively comfortable with one another and a lot of group members were prior friends with one another. As Janis notes that there is evidence that “as the members of a group feel more accepted by the others, which is a measure of increased group cohesiveness, they display less overt conformity to group norms,” (Janis 362). Because we felt comfortable expressing how we felt and arguing with one another, there was relatively little conformity to group norms. For example, if one team member was suggesting to pull the strings extra tightly to the point that the tennis ball fell off, other members would feel comfortable enough speaking out against that idea rather than conforming to the suggestion as a group. 

However, the idea of groupthink is was not present in this activity, although my first thought was that it did. Groupthink conformity argues that it involves the “greater the inner compulsion on the part of each member to avoid creating disunity, which inclines him to believe in the soundness of whatever proposals are promoted by the leader or by a majority of the group’s members,” (363). A groupthink situation would occur when the followers go along with whichever suggestion the leader makes and does not criticize it. For example, if a group leader in our tennis ball activity suggested we pull the strings tighter, and no one opposed the idea despite the logic that this would result in failure, that would demonstrate groupthink. When groups show “symptoms” of invulnerability, rationale, morality, stereotypes, pressure, self-censorship, unanimity, and mindguards, groupthink is a very reasonable affliction to be worried about.

Anna Marston

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Richard Couto’s article offers an in-depth description of “transforming leadership” as defined by James MacGregor Burns in his 1978 book, Leadership. Couto notes that transforming leaders “engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality” (Couto 103). The author notes that while his definition of transforming leadership was an important contribution to the field of leadership studies, but Bernard Bass reclaimed the idea to more applicable terms. Couto argues that the idea of transforming leadership may be unattainable because it can “distract us from the important task of being as effective as one can be to transform this set of conditions and causal factors in the here and now with little hope of epoch change” (107). Therefore, Bass’s reclaimed idea of “transformational leadership” as a one-way influence of leaders onto their followers, rather than the interaction of leaders and followers. Bass’s term means a form of leadership where leaders essentially transform their followers through idealized influence, inspiration, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation.

Couto explains that Burns and Bass sought to define this type of leadership in different contexts; for Burns, in social movements, and for Bass, in formal institutions such as schools and industry. This article got me thinking about examples of who Burns would define as a “transforming” leader and who Bass would define as a “transformational” leader. Burns qualifies “Lenin, Mao, Gandhi, and Luther” (106) as transforming leaders. Bass, however, focuses on leaders that may apply in “formal organizations and institutions” (106), such as “school principals, CEO’s, and military officers,” (106). A leader in a school setting, for example, may possess similar traits as leaders such as Gandhi, but it would be a stretch to argue that they can be measured on the same scale. Couto offers an explanation on the differences between transforming and transformational leaders and how scholars should make the distinction when analyzing leaders in all different contexts.

 

Anna Marston

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In my opinion, Robert Greenleaf’s paper is well-reasoned and makes a great case for the newly-developed concept of “servant leadership”. He begins his essay with the anecdote of Leo in Journey to the East, defines servant leadership, states the problems/contradictions with it, and applies the term on a micro and macro level. In a modern context, I think our class discussions and many studies on leadership focuses on political figures, so I was a fan of this paper because Greenleaf shifts away from solely focus on politics but applying to all sorts of leaders. Servant leaders and followers are “always searching, listening, expecting that a better wheel for these times in the making” (Greenleaf 80-81) and are able to apply these skills to create a better society. There is a difference between verbalizing what you believe in and being all talk, but Greenleaf really drives the point that servant leaders actually take action against injustice. With prior experience of being a civil servant (i.e. through a nonprofit, campaigning for legislation, etc.) followers can trust that as servant leaders, they can make changes.

I was intrigued by Spears’s article as well because of the parallels his characteristics of servant leadership had with charismatic leadership. Some examples include the intersections of “foresight” with being visionary, “awareness” with emotional expressiveness, and “commitment to the growth of people” with enthusiasm and drive. While I don’t believe charismatic leadership and servant leadership are the same thing, I don’t believe they are mutually exclusive and a leader could exhibit both leadership methods.

Anna Marston

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In Niccolò Machiavelli’s famous 16th-century work, The Prince, the author presents a guide of written solutions to successfully ruling a regime with an absolute monarchy. His argument is concise: big, radical ideas lead to political divisiveness. Machiavelli says, “there is nothing more difficult to carry out, more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order” (105). In this response, I want to focus on this idea that Machiavelli presents saying that brand new ideas can result in a weak government and scare away followers’ loyalty. In his first few chapters, the author presents all different leadership scenarios and different ways that princes may have seized power. This framework for the rest of the book allows Machiavelli to present various situations a prince might put his values before those of the people, leading to a detrimental effect on the people. Conversely, Machiavelli argues that princes “must not mind incurring to the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and faithful,” (119) meaning that leaders sometimes have to make immoral decisions in the best interest of the people. However, what is important is that the prince appears to be one of the people, even if that is not necessarily true.

 

The Prince reminded me of many of the same principles of Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave and the discussion we had in class today that leaders may not always be 100% truthful to their followers. This idea ties into Machiavelli’s argument that if a prince presents lofty ideas to his people, the government will be weak, and the opposite effect if he makes a seemingly “cruel” decision. Plato’s work argues that a leader cannot give followers reality all of the time and that we cannot know everything and anything, while Machiavelli argues that the appearance of being reliable may be just as important as actually executing that promise. The idea of the “real”, the “model”, and the “shadow” apply to lead in situations such as those presented by Machiavelli in the earlier chapters of his book.

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On Tuesday, September 24th, I attended the first lecture in the Audacious Voices WILL*/WGSS Speaker Series, If They Come For Us: An Afternoon with Fatimah Asghar. Fatimah Asghar is a poet, screenwriter, educator, and performer; she is the writer of If They Come for Us, the writer and co-creator of Brown Girls, and the co-editor of Halal If You Hear Me. I am a member of the WILL* program and a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, but I also attended this talk to analyze from the leadership studies lens. Fatimah is an extremely influential artist whose creative expression makes statements about her identity as a queer, Muslim woman in the United States. She told a fascinating story that an editor read her poems and said he “loved how her poems about nature didn’t make political statements like many modern-day poets”. Fatimah noted that if people can’t understand that her art expressions were standing for political activism, that epitomizes his political stance right there. Her poetry addresses gender-based issues with bodily autonomy and gender expression as well as being a Pakistani Muslim woman in the United States today. Fatimah’s points reminded me a lot of our class’s initial discussion of what leadership is and what it might not come in the form of public speaking or overt activism, but art forms and literature can make equally profound impacts. If someone or their work has a following (in Fatimah’s case, the readers of her poems and viewers of her screen series) then they can be analyzed from a leader/follower perspective. Fatimah’s emotional, verbal, and written expressions not only make statements about her life as a queer, Muslim woman but also speak to readers in similar minority positions AND privileged positions as a call to action.

I went to a WILL* dinner and discussion with Fatimah following her talk, and she spoke a lot about her life experiences working in theater, education, literature, and as a student. A point I took away from her was her definition of a “good mentor”; she told me that the most impactful mentors she’s had in her life have been the ones who haven’t tried to put her on a specific path that aligns with their values. I found this extremely valuable with regard to smaller-scale leadership roles– such as parenting or mentoring in the community– because followers do not come to action if they feel they are being told what to do. Her interdisciplinary work tied not only into my WGSS education but also what I’m learning about in Leadership and the Humanities because of her incredible work as a mass influencer.

Anna Marston

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I personally loved this podcast from Lady Science; I am a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, so it was very interesting to draw parallels between my two disciplines. I appreciated and agreed with the speakers on the podcast that “there is no room for women in the Great Man Theory,” and deciding the stories that should be told in history is arbitrary. In history classes since elementary school, we are ingrained with “stories” about [typically male] figures who have made some sort of influence. We have discussed this in class– who decides how we should tell history? Historians pick out what is “important” and who we decide to include in historical accounts, but the voices of women have been silenced unless they epitomize typically “masculine” leadership traits. For example, in the MLK articles we have read, the great strides made by Coretta Scott King in the Civil Rights Movement have been greatly silenced by historical accounts. The article we read from the professor completely discounted her work and MLK’s disloyalty to her as his experience, not her historical legacy.

I was also intrigued by the “HERStory” approach to studying history– telling history from a feminist point of view– because so much history is attributed to men. Instead of silencing the women who have made valuable contributions to society and crediting the majority to men, the feminist response is to uphold these women. Recognizing this issue from an intersectional lens allows consumers and students to understand the societal structures preventing women from elevating themselves. Lady Science uses the example of the lack of women in the STEM field today; through gender analysis, we see that women are pushed out of high-paying professionalized fields due to pay inequity, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination, so there are a limited number of women in the field. 

 

Anna Marston

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Dr. Bezio’s paper, “Crooked Politics: Shakespeare’s Richard III and Leadership in 21st Century America,” is one of many examples of toxic leadership traits pervading both medieval and modern leadership. We discuss in class many medieval examples of leadership– whether it be charismatic, toxic charismatic, tyrannical, or any possibility– because there are so many modern-day connections we can make to leaders such as Donald Trump. Although technology and political ideas may have shifted, “We are as likely to fall victim to toxic charisma as were medieval nobles or early modern playgoers,” (Bezio 5) because followers will inherently fall for the same tricks toxic charismatics play to gain acclaim. The comparisons are endless: promising economic stability, division of partisan lines, the objectification of female leaders, lack of political experience, convincing higher-power representatives of candidacy, bigotry, and many more. Although we had discussed medieval leadership as a precursor for modern leadership, I did not realize how blatant the parallel was.

I was also intrigued by Bezio’s speculation that women entering the political sphere today can “save” us. We often hear the quote from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” (Lavoie, The Harvard Gazette); Bezio discusses the “unruly” women present in Richard III use powerful words against Richard to knock him down. Despite his misogyny and accusations of the women’s witchcraft, these women are part of what gets Henry to power. Comparing this medieval literary account to modern-day political implications is important in studying patterns of leadership methods. Women in politics such as Rashida Tlaib and AOC make their cases against Trump through their oratory to be “unruly” against Trump’s main ideologies. It is these women in power– particularly women of color, LGBTQ+ folks, and individuals with intersecting identities– who will help shift the public opinion against a toxic charismatic such as Donald Trump.

 

Anna Marston

Ulrich explains that well-behaved women should make history

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The Jepson School of Leadership Studies has in its school description that “Students look at leadership as it was, as it is, and as it should be,” (University of Richmond); my first thought when reading these two works about Martin Luther King, Jr. was that he is a prime example of a leader as it was and should be. While to some he might be representative of a holiday we celebrate in January or a piece of our history class, he holds one of the most important legacies for leaders in the struggle for racial inequality and for leaders in general. Bill George, in “Leadership Lessons from Martin Luther King, Jr.” indicates that MLK holds a legacy of “…staying true to your beliefs, pursuing your purpose, and exhibiting courage under pressure and profound lessons for leaders in all walks of life,” (Camerota, Harvard Business School). MLK’s progress toward racial equality was a pivotal turning point in the history of the American South through his implementation of civil disobedience, civil rights protests, and charismatic leadership methods such as those from Riggio’s empirical article from The Encyclopedia of Leadership.

The readings about MLK directly connect to the lesson in class on charismatic leadership because he is the epitome of a charismatic leader, in my opinion. Carson’s article is introduced by saying that his effectiveness stems from his “…that of effectively communicating Negro aspirations to white people, of making non-violent direct action respectable in the eyes of the white majority,” (Carson 27). Charismatic leadership traits include that of effective communication skills and being influential to followers (Riggio 3). MLK was able to appeal to the masses through his charismatic leadership methods. His eloquence in works such as the famous “I Have a Dream” speech and enthusiasm in his marches on Montgomery and Washington represent charismatic leadership, in my opinion.

I agree with the author that he had a much greater contribution to racial equality and to the future of leaders; he utilized “other forms of intellectual and political leadership” (Carson 29) in addition to charismatic methods. Labeling MLK’s leadership methods as charismatic are sufficient, but we must not do so in a way that eliminates the efforts of other leaders such as Rosa Parks and E.D. Nixon, just to name a few. Analyzing MLK’s charismatic skills as the influential figure as he was is significant, but when studying leadership it is important to acknowledge all sides of the struggle. After reading this article, I want to ensure my future endeavors in leadership are not in a way that discredits significant contributors to the cause or issue at hand.

 

Anna Marston

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Hero- RBG

Leader- Barack Obama  Role Model- Abby Wambach

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