Leadership Attitudes Assessment Project

The leadership project grew out of a desire to examine differences among college students in both attitudes toward and behavior regarding the assumption of engaged and responsible roles in the academic community and the larger social community beyond.  The project evolved from the experience of teaching Mansfield University students in two leadership courses (Leadership Skills and Advanced Leadership) and the new First-Year Seminar course.

Students arrive at college with varying degrees of awareness of or commitment to being engaged citizens and change agents in the academic community.  I am interested in understanding the component factors in these attitudes and choices, and how background factors, previous experience, and the college experience can affect them.  Initially I am interested in understanding what students say when they first begin their college experience.  The instrument we are using addresses several attitudinal factors, self-perceptions of leadership qualities, socio-demographic background factors, and previous behavioral involvement in leadership and other socially engaged roles.

Leadership Defined

The Project assumes that “leadership” is a natural outgrowth of engagement in social/community processes that have at their core shared interest in improving the lives of people in their communities.  This kind of leadership should ideally be an imperative of successful engagement in a liberal arts college education.  This project is grounded in the following assumptions:

• Leadership development is an imperative

• A liberal arts education equals leadership development

• Students are continuously making positive or negative leadership choices

• Personal background, values, experiences and the learning environment determine leadership choices

Leadership is meant here to include a sense of responsibility and being an active participant in those groups and activities that affect the community in which a person lives.  Specifically, a student who has a positive attitude toward leadership not only seeks to participate in the life of the community but notices when there are needs in the community and accepts responsibility for making the situation better and meeting those needs.

The leadership literature suggests that “leadership” as used here …

• is relational
• implies shared vision & purposes; common good
• involves change through collective action
• involves commitment
• is purposeful and intentional
• is transformational

My working definition of leadership tries to integrate these concepts:

Leadership is a relational process whereby individuals commit to discover and inspire shared vision and purpose for the common good and then motivate and implement action to achieve that purpose.

Dimensions and Origins of Leadership Attitudes

Attitudes of participation and responsibility are presumed to exist along a hypothetical continuum anchored by apathy and denial of personal responsibility at one end, to full engagement and a high level of ownership and personal responsibility, at the other.  Engagement and responsibility will manifest themselves in action to assist positive change in the groups, organizations, and activities of the community.  The breadth of these activities or the “importance” of any single activity is less important than the desire to want to see things improve and to take ownership for that improvement.

Where a student sits on this continuum is a function of prior experiences and factors that have shaped the student’s attitudes in this arena.  Variables such as socio-economic background, previous academic performance and success in school, self-perception of efficacy, and size and type of home community might affect these attitudes.  The socio-political climate of the student’s earlier experience could also affect these attitudes.  Culture-based attitudes, shaped by societal norms and values, might even vary with national origin and be affected by societal expectations regarding the responsibility of those with resources to care for those without resources. 

Differences in approaches to health care, social services, levels of poverty, and national policies affecting the well-being of workers and families could reasonably affect a person’s attitudes toward “making a difference" in the community.  Earlier experiences, family and community background, and the culture's view of social responsibility likewise drive attitudes toward community service and the notion of “gaining by giving.”  Differences in leadership attitudes should be detectable across national boundaries and within countries as a function of the various socio-economic and cultural variables described here.

A preliminary typology of leadership attitudes includes:

• Belief in the goodness of group, organizational, or institutional engagement (It’s the “right thing to do”)

• Belief in personal responsibility for improving the “community” (It’s my duty as a citizen)

• Belief that improving community groups, organizations, or institutions is in one’s own self interest  (tangible personal benefits)

• Belief that helping others enriches the helper (personal growth benefits)

• Desire to be “in charge” (to control outcomes rather than be the victim of them)

• Desire to improve the well-being of those who are less fortunate (altruism).

Based on the conceptual framework described above, the Leadership Attitudes Assessment Project began in the Spring 2003 semester and includes the following steps:

• A pilot attitude and experience assessment instrument was developed in the Spring 2003 semester and given to 165 college students in Introduction to Psychology and the First-Year Seminar.

• The revised instrument was given to a larger sample of first-year students in the Fall 2003 semester to create a baseline of attitudes among first-year students.  To see the report of the data analyses from this sample, click here: MU Leadership Attitudes Report Fall 2003.

• A comparison sample was obtained on the same instrument in the Winter term early in 2004 from Nipissing University in North Bay Ontario.  The results of this sample can be seen in a linked file: MU-Nipissing Leadership Attitudes Comparison.

• Through-out this process qualitative interview data are being collected from selected groups of students to better understand the student experience in each setting and to provide contextual depth to the interpretation of the data from the quantitative instrument.

Resource information on leadership can be found via my Links page.  Faculty or Student Affairs professionals interested in this project can contact me in a number of ways – See the Contact Information page.

- Denny Murray (Fall 2005)

References

Astin, H. & Astin, A. (Eds.). (2000).  Leadership Reconsidered: Engaging Higher Education in Social Change.
 Battle Creek, MI: W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Bass, B. M. (1990). Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications (3^rd ed.). New York: Free Press.

Bennis, W. & Nanus, B. Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.

Burns, J.M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.

Ciulla, J.B. (Ed.). (1998). Ethics, The Heart of Leadership. Westport, CT: Quorum Books.

Heifetz, R.A. (1994). Leadership Without Easy Answers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Komives, S.R., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T.R. (1998). Exploring Leadership: For College Students Who Want to Make a Difference. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Kouzes, J .M. & Posner, B. Z. (2002). The Leadership Challenge (3^rd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.  

Northouse, P.G. (2004). Leadership: Theory and Practice (3^rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wren, J. T. (Ed.). (1995). The Leader's Companion. New York: The Free Press.