266 Strategic Leadership
This ordering of the problem also puts into perspective the dialectical rela-
tionship between strategic leadership as a discipline and the personal attributes
of leaders. We can see, once again, that they provide a threshold that must be
crossed for strategic leadership to be practiced effectively, defining the difference
between unacceptable and acceptable ranges of talent for leadership. If the basic
conditions are not satisfied, the method will be frustrated. The fact that a leader
must satisfy basic standards and have certain qualities is no clearer than in the
realm of values. Leaders must stand for something to do anything. In the applied
discipline of leadership, decisions must include the stamp of authenticity of the
decision maker.
Typically, of course, persons who fail to meet these thresholds are not selected
to exercise authority, and if they are, they are likely to be weeded out quickly.
In most circumstances, persons are chosen for leadership precisely because they
display attributes and skills of leadership well beyond the qualifying level. Under
these conditions, the individual’s talents as a leader are mobilized and ampli-
fied by the rigor and system of a collaborative process. The practitioner of the art
and science of strategic leadership discovers new ways to make sense of personal
and collective experience and to influence the course of events. In turn, the
process reaches higher levels of effectiveness due to a leader’s superior abilities,
genuine virtuosity, or passionate degree of commitment.
Leadership as Sense Making
To be successful, however, strategic leadership does not require heroic, flawless,
or extraordinary leaders. When it takes hold in the decision-making culture of an
organization, it reveals the meaning of leadership itself. Leadership comes to be
understood as a necessary dimension in the development of the social identities
and organizational capacities of human beings. The roots of leadership are not in
hierarchies of power but in methods of sense making that are part of the human
condition. They are tied to human needs and values as they necessarily come to
expression in cultural systems and social relationships. The dramatically diverse
political and cultural artifacts that surround leadership in different societies and
organizations around the globe are predictable aspects of the extraordinary range
of human social experience. They arise, however, from something more funda-
mental than the diversity itself. Humans live through social and cultural systems
of sense making that preserve and enhance what they care deeply and decisively
about, those institutions, beliefs, and relationships in which they invest them-
selves to give purpose to their striving. Ultimately, the leadership of organizations,
including colleges and universities, is about sustaining the values through which
humans define themselves and find meaning in social forms. As a transforming
narrative process, strategic leadership never ceases to explore the meanings that
are hidden in familiar places and events, values and purposes. At its fullest, it
enables a homecoming of the spirit. Through narrative, echoing T. S. Eliot, we
“arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time” (Eliot 1943).