S Y M P O S I U M

UNDERSTANDING LEADERSHIP THROUGH

LEADERSHIP UNDERSTANDINGS

KURT B. STUKE

In 1992, Margaret Wheatley urged leadership scholars to search for “new ways of understanding”
(Wheatley, 1992/2006, p. 160). The search, with some exception, has stalled. Leadership studies
remains mired in a philosophical understanding grounded in positivism. Within the current paper, an
exploration of how an understanding is informed by its core philosophical assumptions is presented.
An alternative framing for understandings is explored through the reconstruction of these same core
philosophical assumptions. The benefits of dwelling within the alternative framing are sketched.

Introduction could be overcome, the equally formidable barrier of

It has been 2 decades since Margaret Wheatley ob-
served that “we are moving into a universe that calls
for entirely new ways of understanding” (1992/2006,
p. 160). In that time, the majority of the activity with-
in leadership studies can be more aptly characterized
as variations exploring the theme of positivism. That
is, positivism “still dominates the language of Leader-
ship Studies (particularly in the United States)” (Case,
French, & Simpson, 2011, p. 243).
Why has the search for new understandings stalled?
In part, the need within leadership studies to offer real
solutions for real problems focuses the vision of the field
on producing quantifiable results. As a result, many
leadership scholars and practitioners are content to “go
blissfully about their empirical work without worry-
ing about all that philosophical stuff ” (Boal, Hunt, &
Jaros, 2003, p. 86).
Second, few leadership scholars are trained in philos-
ophy. The application of philosophy may seem esoteric
or even irrelevant to the real business at hand. It is dif-
ficult to overcome such a barrier. Even if the barrier
deconstructing the “subterranean and circuitous dis-
cursive formations” shaping the current “arrangements
of knowledge” would remain (Poirier, 1987, p. 187).
In summary, given the challenging nature of these sub-
jects, their ostensible irrelevance, and the heavy work
required to “take a hammer to” the unchallenged un-
derstanding, the current positivistic understanding re-
mains dominant (1987, p. 187).
In order to rekindle the search for new understand-
ings, four core philosophical concepts assumed by many
current leadership models are presented. The core con-
cepts are then contrasted with Wheatley’s reconstruc-
tions of these same concepts. The purpose of this con-
trast is twofold: First, it illustrates the dependence of
an understanding upon its philosophical assumptions;
second, it offers the opportunity to evaluate both the
assumptions and the understanding. Two philosophical
sketches of leadership and a practical investigation of
the differences a new understanding suggests are then
presented to assist in the critical evaluation of the cur-
rent positivistic understanding.

JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES, Volume 7, Number 2, 2013

©2013 University of Phoenix
View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com • DOI:10.1002/jls.21291 55
 S Y M P O S I U M
Assumption #1: Things Possess Static
Essences
Within the ongoing conversations concerning lead-
ership, it is assumed that the entities under consider-
ation possess identifiable, constant, and enduring es-
sences. An essence may be understood as that special
“whatness” that best characterizes the identity of that
same thing, and, equally important, differentiates
one thing from another. For example, a leader is a lead-
er and is distinct from a follower because a leader has
a certain something that makes a leader a leader. Al-
though different models within leadership studies will
stress different entities or perhaps stress the goal or even
the situation, it is understood that: an entity has a spe-
cific essence and it is the essence that makes an entity an
instance of a thing; essence is knowable; essence is prior
to experience; and essence is both stable and enduring.
One example of a leadership model that assumes a
static essence is the so-called “great man [sic]” theory
(henceforth referred to as “great person”). The theory’s
core assumption that “certain mutations of society were
due to great men, who initiated movement and prevent-
ed others from leading society in a different direction”
reflects the quiet yet present philosophical assertion that
the essence of a leader not only makes a leader a leader
but differentiates a leader from those who follow (Bass &
Bass, 2008, p. 48).
Although the assertion of essence is quite clear within
“great person” theory, the assertion is present in any
model or theory that defines a leader by means of a
static or closed meaning. Note also that a static essence
can allow for movement from potentiality to actual-
ity or for transformation. For example, when George
(2007) defined the “authentic self ” as “continually
growing, adding new layers of complexity,” he also as-
serted that the true self, or “the core self,” endured the
process (p. 77).
Wheatley dismissed the concept of static essences and
forwarded emergence using the language of dissipation
and of dissipative structures. As noted by Wheatley, “The
world is . . . a complex, never still, always weaving tapes-
try” (1992/2006, p. 39). The self from this vantage is not
the self by virtue of a static structure and/or an immu-
table essence; the self, on both a philosophical and lived
level, is an emerging and ongoing reality.
56 JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES • Volume 7 • Number 2 • DOI:10.1002/jls
Assumption #2: Real Knowledge Is
Objective
Knowing, when framed through a positivistic under-
standing, produces several familiar yet tacit leadership
assertions: The universe is knowable and predictable;
objective knowledge is centered in Truth (versus truth);
and meaning is constant and quantifiable. These com-
monly held assumptions tend to facilitate the often
unquestioned belief that we can assess, without error,
what leadership means across any given point in time
and across any conceivable context.
The quest for a General Theory of Leadership (GTOL)
was a test of the viability of assessing the meaning of lead-
ership across time and context. The GTOL project’s in-
ability to produce a unified theory or even to mediate
what Burns has noted as a “scatteration” of concepts and
theories is noteworthy (Wren, 2006, p. 35). The belief
that a GTOL was a theoretical possibility in the first place
is also significant as the belief reflects a positivistic under-
standing and its driving philosophical assumptions.
For Wheatley, the search for an absolute and unchang-
ing center of knowledge is replaced by seeking truths
that will create a difference. Wheatley (1992/2006)
lamented the polarization born of so-called “scientif-
ic objectivity” and exhorted scholars to “stop arguing
about truth and get on with figuring what works best”
(p. 37). As noted by James (1907/1975) in Pragmatism,
the function of a living philosophy is to discover the
concrete differences to “somebody, somehow, some-
where, and somewhen” (p. 30). When knowing is cen-
tered within experience, the purpose of knowing is also
centered within experience.
Assumption #3: Stability Good,
Instability Bad
A positivistic understanding can facilitate the belief that
reality is closed system. If reality is closed and inert, or
machinelike, stability is optimal and instability is less
than optimal. Quantitative methods are preferred over
qualitative methods as quantitative methods are them-
selves stable. Change, or instability, must be managed
in order to minimize the disorder that may be intro-
duced. Leadership, as framed by the current positivistic
understanding, is the science of keeping the machine
in a stable state.
 S Y M P O S I U M
Whereas the preference for stability is commonplace
throughout leadership, consider situational leadership
in particular. Although it is tempting to view situational
leadership as “living in the question,” that is, as allow-
ing for differences in context and meaning, the asser-
tion that different scenarios can be mastered betrays
the positivistic framing and intent at the heart of the
approach (Jones, 2002, p. 41). In order to realize an op-
timal result, situational leadership calls for any poten-
tial dissonance between the current state of the machine
and the operator driving the machine, the leader, to be
minimized or removed. In short, the preference for sta-
bility is intact and a place for imagination, mystery, and
the possibility of the unknowable is minimized.
Wheatley (1992/2006) noted that open systems, on the
other hand, prioritize instability “so the system can change
and grow” (p. 78). Exactly what will emerge and how to
produce an adaptive state is not predetermined. An under-
standing embracing instability would explore the wonder
and mystery of what may lie ahead rather than retreat tac-
tically from uncertainty. Innovation and, by extension, the
ecologies that would foster positive change are encouraged
through an embracing of instability.
Assumption #4: Reality Is Linear
In a linear understanding of reality, a straight line is
drawn from cause to effect and from beginning to end.
Within the clarity afforded by linearity, a primary focus
of leadership studies is therefore causality. The notion of
“control and command” is at the heart of what leader-
ship means when understood through the current posi-
tivistic understanding.
Although the phrase “control and command” can
conjure the specter of Frederick Taylor and of his so-
called scientific approach, there are less obvious and
more subtle applications. The path–goal theory is one
example of a kinder, gentler version of “control and
command.” Within a path–goal approach, leadership
efficacy is measured by how well a leader motivates and
influences “subordinate satisfaction and performance”
(Yukl, 2011, p. 289). The point, however, is not the
strength, the nature, or the grounds of causality but
that causality itself is assumed. The assumption of cau-
sality reveals a positivistic understanding in which real-
ity is not only knowable but manageable.
JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES • Volume 7 • Number 2 • DOI:10.1002/jls
In a nonlinear understanding, ambiguity is assumed.
Change is not a static state managed by leadership; in
living systems, change simply is. In addition, cause
may or may not be proportional to effect. As noted
by Wheatley (1992/2006), “things so small as to
be indiscernible, can amplify into completed unex-
pected results” (p. 120). Within the nonlinear, lead-
ership studies is moved from a focus on the static
states produced to an openness to the transitions
that may follow. In a nonlinear reality, openness
to the moment is both the limit and the height of
leadership.
Philosophical Sketches
The reigning philosophical assumptions force the in-
tellectual superimposition of a Cartesian grid upon ex-
perience. Once the grid is accepted, the understanding
follows. The understanding, however, is not objective
fact. More accurately, the understanding is a mere re-
flection of how we have come to think about leader-
ship through our current assumptions. Like a mood
or sensibility, our favoring of these abstractions could
fade. What sketches of leadership might be drawn
from the reconstructed philosophical assumptions
presented here?
Margaret Wheatley’s Sketch
Within Wheatley’s (1992/2006) sketch, leadership oc-
curs within the “messiness and beauty that name us
alive” (p. 165). Assuming an open context, one in which
all entities present are alive, entails a view of leadership
that respects the right of all life to “participate[s] in the
creation of itself ” and the “freedom to self-determine”
(Wheatley, 1992/2006, p. 161). For leaders and those
leadership theories immersed in the Newtonian legacy
of linear dynamics and reality-as-a-machine metaphor,
the paradox of losing control in order to enable growth
is challenging.
Equally challenging is Wheatley’s (1992/2006) call
to reject the safety of stability. According to Wheatley,
we must reject our deep-seated sensibility of striving
to build a “rigid organization piece by stable piece”
(p. 167). In place of our preference for stability, we
should imitate nature’s preference for allowing free
movement at all levels (Wheatley, 1992/2006).
57
 S Y M P O S I U M
Glimpsing What May Follow
Wheatley (1992/2006) realized that rejecting stability
also entailed the rejection of the intellectual apparatus
that follows from the preference of stability. For ex-
ample, the disjunction and separation assumed by the
Newtonian or traditional view is built upon logic that
is foreign to Wheatley. The traditional understand-
ing as based in positivism assumes static and prede-
termined essences that are logically and ontologically
discrete. Wheatley’s understanding asserts the priority
of connectedness as demonstrated through her priori-
tization of relationships. From this vantage, relation-
ships are the “basic building blocks of life” (Wheatley,
1992/2006, p. 167). In her words, we are “bundles
of potential”; how we “evoke these potentials” shapes
coevolution. (p. 170).
William James’s Sketch
In an address titled “Philosophical Conceptions
and Practical Results,” William James offers another
contrary sketch of leadership. James (1907/1975)
remarked: “Philosophers are after all like poets.
They are both path finders” (pp. 257–258). James
(1907/1975) followed that statement with a meta-
phor in which human experience was likened to
a “trackless forest” (p. 258). Within James’s figu-
rative sketch, the reflex to map and to stabilize re-
ality is transcended by a call to dwell simply—
prereflectively—within the wonders of the forest.
Although the well-trodden paths blazed through the
understanding of positivism give us “a direction and
a place to reach,” they do not give us the “integral
forest with all its sunlit glories and its moonlit witch-
eries and wonders” (James, 1907/1975, p. 258).
Although it is tempting to “think away the grass,
the trees, the clouds” by focusing on abstractions, to
do so is to leave the concrete (Stevens, 1954/1997,
p. 439). The “ferny dells, and mossy waterfalls, and
secret magic nooks” can be inhabited only by “the
wild things to whom the region is a home” (James,
1907/1975, p. 258). Unfortunately, for those who seek
clarity and stability, the unboundedness of the forest
is an “element that does not do for us, / so well” as it
is “A thing not planned for imagery or belief ” (Stevens,
1954/1997, p. 439).
58 JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES • Volume 7 • Number 2 • DOI:10.1002/jls
Leaders and Leadership as “Things in the
Making”
Within the Jamesian view, leadership is better described
as “A moving part of a motion, a discovery / Part of a dis-
covery, a change part of a change” (Stevens, 1954/1997,
p. 440). Much like the flow of an Emersonian essay,
leadership is exceptionally challenging and seemingly
inconsistent. Inconsistency, however, is not an indica-
tion of error or of failure but a suggestion of transition
and exploration. It is the openness to explore and not
our abilities to define, predict, or quantify that becomes
significant within a Jamesian reconstruction.
Much as our own motion, our be-ing, is as figurative
as the reality in which we are immersed according to
Jamesian reconstruction, so, too, is our knowing. The
realizations of the self, “a breathing like the wind,” are
figurative, always forming and never complete (Stevens,
1954/1997, p. 439). Because a preference for stability
will demand a role for quantitative studies, mechanical
responses to a living and open world will persist. But
the “slightly detestable operandum” inherent to stability
is betrayed by the fleeting relevance of any quantifi-
cation (Stevens, 1954/1997, p. 439). Even if univocal
meaning were admitted as possible, given the move-
ment that constitutes that particular reality and that
reality in which the meaning is immersed, the singular
meaning would soon be metamorphosed.
Experience and Nonlinearity
Re-form, at times, feels like an effect caused by our
meanings. The ability of leaders to cause and manage
change has been a core concern of leadership studies.
It is tempting to view the forest as not that dense and
not quite so wild. But if we stay faithful to the prereflec-
tive reality of moving through the forest, the Jamesian
emphasis on concreteness dismisses such rash yet tame
characterizations. To repeat the same concrete move-
ment or to reproduce the same concrete result, even
twice, is unlikely. What tends to produce one outcome
in one situation, more often than not, produces non-
identical if not dissimilar outcomes in other situations.
The root causes to which we would attribute efficacy
typically can be wonderfully and mysteriously unsta-
ble. Often, it is the smallest and seemingly innocent of
concurrent events that, in retrospect, are attributed as
 S Y M P O S I U M
having the most dynamic influence on shaping or
in-forming the future. For James, the nonlinearity that
dwells so unboundedly within the concrete, when re-
flected upon even for a moment by “a human that can
be accounted for” reduces us to silence and wonder
(Stevens, 1954/1997, p. 440). As James (1909/1977)
himself concluded in A Pluralistic Universe, “I say no
more: I must leave life to teach the lesson” (p. 132).
Investigations
If we were to accept a nonlinear and open framing of
reality in which truth was glanced through purpose and
instability was not feared, what differences in under-
standing might result?
First, the impulse to emphasize product, results, or
endgame (even if the aforementioned is mission criti-
cal) is decentered. In its place, a new focus centering on
an organization’s most valuable assets—its people and
their development—is advanced.
Why the inversion? The new set of philosophical
assumptions rejects the priority of abstraction for the
concreteness of experience. Within lived experience, with-
in the chaos and ambiguity that abounds, our relationships
are not noise or distraction. Relations, within experience,
are all that we have. Given the primacy of relationships,
the people involved in any given moment are central.
Does that mean that the endgame or product should
be completely devalued and that the leadership process
is simply a blind roller coaster ride of visceral emo-
tions? No. The product, the result, is of course impor-
tant. Within most institutions it is the “why” behind
our paychecks. But attending to the open, nonlinear,
and often unpredictable relationships lingering within
a moment and floating through and among related
moments becomes primary.
Does the current positivistic understanding prevent
leadership modeling from prioritizing people? No. For
example, when transformational leadership calls for a
leader to define “public values that embrace the supreme
and enduring principles of a people” so that these values
may shape the transformation sought, people, in a cer-
tain sense, are prioritized (Burns, 2003, p. 29). But no-
tice that the focus is set on values and principles. Even
in an examination of transformation, the philosophical
presence of abstraction forces our attention away from
JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES • Volume 7 • Number 2 • DOI:10.1002/jls
that which is moving and living toward that which
is still and lifeless. The possibility of transformation,
however, dwells between, among, and throughout the
wonderfully chaotic and interminably pluralistic ambi-
guity that is our shared experience. The root constructs
of transformation and of a leadership that would seek
transformation should therefore be experiential as well.
Second, the fundamental outlook (or affect) present
within leadership modeling is moved from disjunction
to conjunction; an assumption of separateness and iso-
lation is replaced by an assumption of relatedness and
intimacy.
The tendency to view the individual as “stand[ing]
over against the community as a whole in an external
relationship,” an affect born of abstraction and dis-
junction, is rejected (Rosenthal & Buchholz, 1995,
pp. 25–26). In its place intimacy, an affect suggested by
being among the world and conjunction, is advanced.
As viewed from the temporary stay afforded by experi-
ence, the difference between self and other is blurred.
There are existing leadership models that despite a
positivistic framing embrace an affect of intimacy. One
of the most obvious examples is servant-leadership.
As Zohar (2002) has noted, genuine servant-leaders
“must have a deep sense of the interconnectedness of
life and all its enterprises” (p. 120). But the distinc-
tion between leader and follower, as founded in a
positivistic philosophical commitment, introduces
a disjunction. The disjunction introduces a sense of
otherness that works against the affect of intimacy.
Greenleaf (1997/2002) understood the philosophical
dilemma and sought to resolve the issue by first rejecting
the leader/follower distinction as a logical disjunction
and then by painting the distinction as a perception that
was not subject to the same set of rules as those that
govern concepts. A complete evaluation of Greenleaf ’s
defense is beyond the scope of this paper but an easier
solution is available: Why not evade the problem in the
first place by centering servant-leadership in an under-
standing that does not admit of the disjunction? Instead
of defining the self in stable and fixed terms, the previ-
ously mentioned new understandings describe the self
in terms of openness and transparency—preconditions
of selflessness.
Third, the context of leadership moves from a re-
ality defined as complete, perfect, and determinate
59
 S Y M P O S I U M
to a canvas that is described as emergent, fluid, and
vague.
In the preface to Wittgenstein’s (1953/2001) Philosoph-
ical Investigations, Wittgenstein informed the reader that
he had intended to write a book in which his “thoughts
should proceed from one subject to another in a natural
order” (p. ix). Wittgenstein then confessed that he aban-
doned the notion of attempting to “weld my results to-
gether into such a whole,” and settled for creating an
album of sketches (p. ix). It is not just that we are “weak
draughtsman [sic],” it is also that we cannot contain or
know fully the landscape we view (p. ix). We travel over
wide and open fields, crisscrossing in every direction
as we search, but the wildness and ostensible inconsis-
tency of our tracks betray the nature of dwelling in such
open fields.
As viewed from the new understanding, leadership
occurs in a context that is far from stable and is better
framed as a mosaic composed of “things in the mak-
ing” (James, 1909/1977, p. 117). Within this new
context, the importance of leadership is not found in
the defining of leadership but in leadership’s ability
to embolden us. That is, leadership affords us a “way
of fronting life” (James, 1920, p. 122). Henry David
Thoreau (1849/1983) described each occurrence of
“fronting,” that is, of daring to turn away from the ac-
cepted “surface” of things to the “unsettled wilderness”
as the remaining “true frontiers” (p. 249). A living lead-
ership should dwell and move among such frontiers.
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 S Y M P O S I U M

Kurt B. Stuke is a 2012 graduate of Franklin Pierce
University’s Doctor of Arts in Leadership program and
holds MA degrees in both philosophy and theology.
Stuke has worked in the service industry for 20 years
and his current role is director of quality. Stuke is a
certified manager of quality/organizational excellence and
a Certified Quality Auditor through the American Society
for Quality. Research interests include the philosophy of
leadership, the philosophy of quality, and the application
of American thought to leadership and quality.

JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES • Volume 7 • Number 2 • DOI:10.1002/jls 61