Running head: PHLOSOPHICAL LEADERSHIP STATEMENT

Dario Ogaz
Philosophical Leadership Statement
March 19, 2014
EDAD 570
Dr. Monica Nixon
Seattle University

PHILOSOPHICAL STATEMENT

When I hear the word leadership, I am immediately compelled to think of people who
are considered to be leaders, such as President Barack Obama or Mahatma Gandhi, because of
their actions and abilities to organize and inspire large groups of people. While these people are
indeed leaders, I am very aware that there is a difference between enacting leadership and
being considered a leader. This distinction may seem like trivial play on words, but it is one
that informs my opinions about what it means to practice leadership and those who choose to do
so. Leadership is a process that we all have the opportunity and potential to engage in and when
we do, we begin to understand who we are as individuals, what motivates us, and how we choose
to live out all of our identities. It is through this process that we begin to develop an identity as a
leader and articulate what practices, skills, and abilities we use to inspire those around us.
The purpose of leadership has been defined in many different contexts, and because of
this there are many definitions and theories describing what it means when someone chooses to
engage in it. In the post-industrial paradigm, leadership has been described as a process, rather
than an attribute or skill that one possesses. Gardner (2000) offers one perspective about
leadership as process in The Nature of Leadership, saying, Leadership is the process of
persuasion or example by which an individual (or leadership team) introduces a group to pursue
objectives held by the leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers (p. 3). While I do
not think this definition of leadership completely aligns with my own definition, I do agree that
one significant purpose of leadership is to help motivate a group reach their goals or objectives.
This process of persuasion is crucial to leadership because it is what helps create action and set
groups of people in motion to work towards a common goal or purpose.
Gardner (2000) continues to describe this process by saying that just because someone
enacting leadership is motivating a group of people does not mean that the other members of the

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group are dependent on the leader. I find this to be crucial in my understanding of the purpose of
leadership because just as leadership is about the process, it is equally not about the status or
power of an individual. This may seem counterintuitive because leadership is often associated
with those who are in positions of power in an organization, such as a manager or head
administrator that supervises other employees, however, leadership goes beyond using ones
power to manipulate others into completing goals or tasks. Gardner (2000) labels this distinction
as one being the process of leading and the other being the process of managing. In my
experiences I have found that often leaders are required to balance both roles. I myself have had
to balance the two roles in my professional experiences. When I am directly supervising a group
of students in their work as resident or desk assistants, I am simultaneously acting as a leader and
as a manager. I am required to supervise their performance and completion of tasks as a manger,
as well as guide them and work with them to reach the goals that we set together as a team. This
balancing of roles creates a sense of commitment to one another and to our team as a whole.
This is a significant component of leadership that cannot be forgotten when there are power
dynamics at play.
I believe that the purpose of leadership is to use ones strengths and resources to inspire
and empower the people around them to reach a common goal, while engaging with one another
to foster personal and communal growth. This belief is informed by my own personal
experiences with leadership as well as concepts of persuasion, motivation, and power that
Gardner (2000) discusses. This purpose is still developing and will likely change as I continue to
grow and the world around me and myself.
Keeping my belief about the purpose of leadership in mind, there are several practices
and qualities that I think effective leaders can choose to practice. One of the most important

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tasks of a leader is to engage in reflection and opportunities that allow them to become more
self-aware. Knowing oneself is, in my opinion, simultaneously one of the most difficult and
rewarding pieces of development that a leader can engage in and use in their practice. If I do not
know what I value and believe in, I would have a hard time connecting with others and working
with them to develop a goal or objective that we were equally motivated and passionate to
achieve. This process is difficult and requires a leader to ask themselves difficult questions
about their values, beliefs, and desires and to revisit their answers frequently so that they can
continue the developmental process. This process of being self-aware is one that Lowney (2003)
discusses in Heroic Leadership and considers to be one of the four pillars of leadership. Like
Gardner, Lowney (2003) discusses leadership as a process that one is constantly engaging in, and
one crucial part of the process is a leader deepening their self-awareness their strengths, their
weaknesses, and their motivations. This is a crucial step in becoming an effective leader that
must be revisited throughout their leadership development.
One practice that has been considered crucial to effective leadership is the ability for a
leader to build relationships with the people they are working with and collaborating to reach
goals. The ability to connect with others allows for a deeper commitment to the goals of the
group as well as makes it easier to collaborate with one another to create change and solutions.
This practice of collaboration is one of the main elements of the Social Change Model described
by the Higher Education Research Institute (1996). In addition to valuing the practices of selfawareness and viewing leadership as a process, the Social Change Model advocates for the
practice of collaboration, saying that it empowers self and others through trust (p. 23). This
trust encourages all members of the team to use their strengths and talents to creatively come up
with solutions and ideas to help the team reach their goal. It is crucial for an effective leader to

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allow for collaboration by building relationships with members of the team and encouraging the
team members to do the same. The combination of group collaboration and positive
relationships among group members is one that I have personally benefitted from in my
experiences. As both a group member and leader, I know that I personally am more committed
to working towards a goal when I feel like I am being heard, my strengths are being valued, and I
can trust the people I am working with to support me. When my supervisor allows me to lead a
staff discussion about a topic that interests me or that I am knowledgeable about, I feel like I am
able to contribute in a meaningful way to the team. By recognizing a particular strength or
interest of mine, my supervisor makes me feel like I matter in the team and that I can be trusted
to use my strengths for the betterment of the team.
The last component of effective leadership is strongly tied with my views of my own
leadership identity: the belief that anyone can be a leader. Many leadership scholars and
leadership models posit that anyone can be a leader, and some even say that everyone should be
a leader. The Social Change Model (1996) argues that anyone can be a leader in creating
positive change in a community. Jesuit understandings of leadership, according to Lowney, say
that everyone is a leader and we are constantly in the process of leading (2003). In Eight Roles
of Symbolic Leaders, Deal and Peterson (2000) argue that every member of an organization has
leadership roles that are crucial to the maintaining and improvement of an organization. All of
these sources of information recognize that each person, no matter what their position or title
may be, has the opportunity to be a leader and to exercise leadership. It is crucial for an effective
leader to understand this concept, and to recognize the potential of the people they are working
with so that they can also begin to develop their leadership capabilities. By giving the
followers or other members of a group the opportunity to engage in leadership, the leader of

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the group is recognizing the groups talents and strengths and allowing them to develop as
individuals with potential to be leaders. In order for all members of a group to engage in
leadership, they must be provided with resources, information, and trust from the leaders of the
organization. Wheatley (1997) discusses this concept in Goodbye Command and Control, saying
that leaders must move away from micromanaging and stifling the followers of the
organization. By giving all members of the organization the autonomy to solve problems and
propose more efficient processes, all members of the organization can act as leaders and move
the organization towards their goals and away from passivity. This process of empowerment and
autonomy allows members of a team or organization to begin exploring their own leadership
identities and engage in the process of determining their strengths and abilities and using them in
their work. Saying goodbye to command and control fosters leadership in all members of the
organization, not just those who are at the top of the hierarchy.
The idea that anyone can be a leader if given the opportunity strongly resonates with me
because that is how I first started to develop my own leadership identity. My first true leadership
experiences were the result of a mentor giving me the opportunity to exercise my strengths and
participate in a leadership role. As I continued to become more comfortable with myself and
further developed my own talents and strengths, I continued to have the opportunity to engage in
leadership and assume leadership positions. This helped me to become more comfortable with
the idea of being considered a leader. The various forms of leadership that I was able to
experience (president of a student organization, resident assistant, desk manager, etc.) all taught
me new things about leadership and what that identity means for me. As I continue to have the
chance to engage in leadership opportunities, my own understanding of what it means to be a
leader and how I personally choose to be one continues to shift and grow. It is because of all

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these opportunities and the ability to grow in my own leadership development that I have formed
the opinions that I have discussed about leadership and what it means to be an effective leader.
As I continue on my leadership journey, I am struck by the importance that identity
development has on my ability to be a successful leader. Each of us is a multifaceted individual
with various identities that simultaneously create who we are and what we value. This directly
influences how we each engage in and practice leadership. The foundations and sources of
strength that many leaders tap into are often informed by their unique experiences that are
shaped by their various identities. In my own journey, my personal identities were crucial in my
leadership development and the way that I understood my various leadership roles. By
understanding my own identities and recognizing how they are still dynamically developing, I
can better understand how I identify as a leader and what frames my leadership endeavors and
motivations.
In The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Heifetz et al (2009) discuss the importance of
leaders viewing themselves as complex systems that are navigating through various contexts.
What the authors mean by this is that each of us is a unique combination of our various social
identities, life experiences, cognitive and emotional abilities, and personality traits. This
combination of factors creates a system that informs how we make decisions, relate to others,
and practice leadership. This idea deeply resonates with me in that I believe we each are unique
individuals who offer valuable insight and contributions because of our unique experiences and
opportunities. By tapping into those unique life experiences, we often find passion and
motivation to lead others and ourselves to new solutions or goals. In my own experience, I know
that many of the leadership opportunities that I have chosen to be part of were strongly
influenced by my own personal identities. For example, I was involved in several leadership

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positions within the Latino Student Alliance at my undergraduate institution, eventually

becoming the President of the organization during my Third Year. My identity as a Latino male
in predominantly white institution was both my motivation for becoming involved in the
organization and my foundation as I navigated the various challenges that came with being a
smaller organization with limited resources. This leadership position required me to take
challenges head on and be comfortable in situations that were often tense and awkward.
My leadership experience within the Latino Student Alliance connects well with another
aspect of adaptive leadership that Heifetz et al (2009) discuss in regard to reconciling ones
individual complexities with the intricacies of the larger system that surrounds you and those you
are leading. As President of the Latino Student Alliance I was figurehead of the organization
and often the voice of the organization to other power structures within the university. This duty
required me to be aware of the complexities of the institution that we were part of and it was
necessary to be adept in navigating power structures, regulations, and codes of conduct that were
not necessarily accessible to the average student. This complexity was challenging enough at
face value and it would have been even more daunting if I did not have a solid foundation of
understanding who I was, what I was passionate about, and a desire to help my community
succeed in an environment that was not necessarily created with my organization in mind. This
reminds me of an aspect of Servant Leadership that Sergiovanni (2000) discusses in Leadership
as Stewardship, called leadership by outrage. Like most institutions, the end of the academic
year marked a time period of relicensing and budgeting for student organizations that would go
into effect the following academic year. One of my last challenges as President was to help
create a budget proposal to send to the Undergraduate Student Government Finance Committee
so that we could have funds for programming and organizational expenses for the following

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year. We spent a lot of time and energy strategically planning our budget so that we would have
the resources for our annual events as well as new initiatives to continue growing our presence
on campus. After all of that effort we, the executive board, were shocked to learn that the
Finance Committee had allocated us less than half of our requested funds. At the time, I had no
idea what leadership by outrage was, but looking back I realize that I was experiencing this
concept in practice. Our zealous appeal of the allocation decision was driven by the idea that our
organization had value on the campus and deserved resources to continue our efforts. The appeal
meeting was led by the newly elected President and Vice President of the organization and
attended by nearly half of our organizations general members. I strongly encouraged our
members to show their outrage about the decision and the unfairness of denying our organization
the necessary resources to be present on campus. It was important to me that they understood
that their voices could and should be heard in political arenas like budget allocation. This sense
of outrage motivated our organizations leaders to stand up for the organization and the
community that we represented. This further connected and empowered traditionally
underrepresented and underserved community on campus.
Reflecting on the experience with the Latino Student Alliance, I realize that much of the
leadership that I experienced and the skills that I used are under the framework of Leadership as
Politician as described in Bolman and Gallos (2011). In the university environment described
by Bolman and Gallos (2011), organizations and departments operate in a jungle-like context
where resources are limited and stakes to attain those resources are high. Leaders must navigate
these jungles to advocate for their own interests and negotiate with other leaders (2011). This
framework was necessary to employ when I was navigating the jungle that is private
undergraduate institution politics. Two skills that I particularly needed while in that leadership

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position were the ability to network and build coalitions as well as bargain and negotiate. I
needed to use my connections within the Undergraduate Student Government, especially those
on the Finance Committee, to help advocate for my organization as well as work with other
student groups who were displeased with their allocation. Using my network allowed me to
appeal on a personal level to those who had the power to influence the decision of the Finance
Committee. It feels somewhat awkward to recount my use of this tactic to help my organization,
but the truth is that it was a crucial component in redistributing funds so that the organization had
an acceptable budget for the following year. If I had not employed that skill, it would have been
much more difficult and unlikely that our organization would have received the necessary
resources. Not surprisingly, other cultural groups such as the Asian Student Alliance and the
Black Student Alliance were given less than they requested, so working with those groups to
build a coalition that could stand up to the committee were important steps in appealing their
decisions. In addition to having a united front from my own organization by having both
executive board and general members attend the appeal, we were supported by other student
organizations who were appealing their own allocations. The coalition of student organizations
who were displeased with the unfair budget allocations had a combined influence on the Finance
Committee that I believe truly helped each of our own individual appeals. These skills were
crucial to the survival of the Latino Student Alliance and it was my duty as President to practice
them as well as share them with other leaders in my organization. While it was necessary to work
within this particular framework, I found that it to be exhausting and I eventually experienced
some burn out after leading in such an environment. Because of this, I cannot positively say that
I most identify with the Leader as Politician framework. I certainly see its value and recognize
that institutions of higher education, like all institutions, are political arenas that require political

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skills, but this particular mindset does not feed my soul or truly reflect how I prefer to engage
with and lead others. Be that as it may, I learned a lot from that experience about how we must
sometimes lead in uncomfortable and tiring contexts in order to achieve the goals of a team or
organization. If I was not passionate about the work that my organization was doing and the
community that it was serving, I doubt that I would have been so committed to being a political
leader. The fact that I had personally experienced the support from the organization every single
day of my undergraduate experience inspired and motivated me to use those political skills to
advocate and lead the organization.
Thinking outside the context of my leadership within the Latino Student Alliance, I find
that a lot of my experience involves encouraging and developing others to find their passions and
understand who they are as individuals. As a Resident Assistant I found that I most enjoyed
interactions with residents that got them thinking about their experiences and what opportunities
they could seek out that would tap into their talents and develop their passions. Whether this was
through a program or through a one-on-one conversation in my room, I found that by showing
others that I care about their success and happiness I also feel satisfaction with my leadership
ability.
Bolman and Gallos (2011) discuss the Human Resource Leadership framework in which
leaders act as servant, catalyst, and coach to encourage and empower others to present their best
selves and their skills in their work. The three roles within this framework value individual
connection and seek to create a sense of family and care within the team. This speaks to my true
passion as a leader. I consider myself to be a naturally empathetic person who truly cares about
others and their well-being. When I interact with others, I often find that my strength manifests
in my ability to put myself in their position to better understand what they care about and what

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they need from the interaction. This is helpful in building relationships because it encourages
others to trust me as a peer and as a leader. This strength aligns well with Bolman and Gallos
(2011) description of the servant. The role of the servant is to decipher the interests and needs
of both the individuals and the larger institution and reconcile them so that they can work in
harmony. By using my strength of empathy, I can get to the heart of the matter and use the trust
I have built with the individual to help find compromise and harmony with larger institutional
interests and goals. I engage with this approach with the RAs that I help supervise through our
one-on-one meetings each week. In these meetings I get to know them on a more personal level
and learn about their passions, desires, worries, hopes, and goals. By empathetically listening
and connecting with them, I foster a relationship that allows them to trust me to provide for their
needs and advocate for them. Furthermore, I can use the relationship as an opportunity to
reconcile larger departmental or university policies and goals with the RAs. This connection is
what makes the Human Resource framework productive and conducive to learning.
While I find the Human Resource framework outlined by Bolman and Gallos (2011) to
be the framework that I have the buy in and affinity for, I recognize that there are several areas
that are challenging to my natural disposition and skillset. An area that I could grow in within
this framework is the ability to balance autonomy and empowerment with accountability.
Bolman and Gallos (2011) describe this concept as bounded autonomy where individuals are
given the power to create solutions and ideas while also being aware of the boundaries. This is
an area of growth for me because at times, I find that I can be too trusting of people I am
working with and give them too much autonomy. I have found that this stems from being
empathetic and wanting others to trust that I understand them and their needs. When I focus on
the relationship building and autonomy and ignore the accountability portion, it can often lead to

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less than ideal results. Finding a balance between the two is something that I must continue to
learn and develop if I want to use the Human Resource framework as a model and guide for my
academic leadership.
My leadership journey has been ripe with challenges, small victories, and most
importantly, self discovery and awareness. Reflecting on the various experiences in which Ive
engaged in leadership and been a leader, I have come to realize that I am still in the process of
determining how I view my own leadership abilities and my identity as a leader. While I
definitely most identify with the Human Resource framework of leadership, there are aspects of
Politician framework that I know I have the ability to employ in my work, which shows me that I
am still in a process of discovery and negotiation in my leadership practice. I am choosing to
embrace this fluidity and liminal space as a process of discernment that will eventually lead to
new discoveries about my values, motivations, and goals. I am confident in my current abilities
to lead with empathy, empowerment, and personal connection and will continue to pursue
opportunities that will challenge me to further develop these skills as well as employ new skills
to lead my peers and team members along the path to achieving our goals.

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References

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Bolman, L.G., & Gallos, J.V. (2011). Respecting and managing differences: Leader as
compassionate politician. In Reframing academic leadership. (69-87). San Francisco,
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Deal, T.E., & Peterson, K.D. (2000). Eight roles of symbolic leaders. In Jossey-Bass, The JosseyBass reader on educational leadership (pp. 3-12). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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Higher Education Research Institute. (1996). A social change model of leadership development:
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Lowney, C. (2003). Heroic leadership. Chicago, IL: Loyola Press.
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