10 Strategic Leadership
Followers bring expectations and criteria to the relationship based on mutual
respect between them and the leader. As James O’Toole suggests, “Treating people
with respect is what moral leadership is about” (1995, 12). People expect their
voices to be heard, their problems to be addressed, their needs to be satisfied, and
their hopes to be fulfilled. They seek security and protection from threatening
circumstances (Messick 2005). If the goals they entered into the relationship in
order to secure are not reached, in time their support will dissolve. It is at their
own peril that leaders forget that support is always conditional. Authority is not
an absolute but is always conveyed in the name of larger social and organizational
ends, and measured by the criteria that those purposes entail (Heifetz 1994).
Leaders and followers together serve a “third thing,” a common cause that defines
their relationship. Whatever the social context, followers always have means to
influence and to assess the effectiveness and legitimacy of their leaders (cf. Hol-
lander 1993). From the gathering of the elders to the ballot box, from passive
resistance to violence in the streets, followers know how to influence and replace
their leaders.
Because of the depths to which leadership reaches, followers have explicit
moral expectations of their leaders. The support of followers is conditioned on
the leader’s legitimacy, trustworthiness, and credibility. Should there be many false
notes, the leader’s credibility soon begins to fade. If lies or duplicity are revealed,
the leader’s trustworthiness vanishes overnight. Nor is trustworthiness just accu-
racy in communication, for it involves integrity in the leader’s conduct and com-
mitment as well. To be credible, the leader must embody the values for which the
institution stands, or the leadership relationship will be weakened or broken (cf.
Hogg 2005). When leaders use careful ethical reasoning, establish and enforce
high standards, live the values that they claim, and sacrifice their own interests
to do so, they become respected or even hallowed figures in the eyes of their fol-
lowers. Contemporary leadership scholars such as James O’Toole (1995), Ronald
Heifetz (1994), Joanne Ciulla (1998, 2002, 2005), Douglas Hicks and Terry Price
(2006) Terry Price (2005), Howard Gardner (1995), John Gardner (1990), and
James MacGregor Burns (1978, 2003) place ethics and moral integrity at the
heart of leadership.
Leadership, Conflict, and Change
Invariably, changing circumstances or the leader’s chosen directions will stir
up resistance and engender conflicting interests among some constituents, which
reveals another defining characteristic of leadership. Since the resources of time,
space, attention, and money are always strictly limited, and everyone’s values,
interests, and appetites can never be fully reconciled, inequality and conflict are
at the heart of social experience. Leaders work tirelessly to resolve conflict in a
variety of forms and at every level of the organization.
The leader also has to address threatening forms of change that create fear
and resistance and that may stir up bitter conflict of its own. So leadership is