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Developing Culturally Relevant Leadership Learning


Kathy L. Guthrie
Tamara Bertrand Jones
Laura Osteen

EDITORS





Number 152 Winter 2016

Jossey-Bass

San Francisco

Editors’ Notes

Leadership education focuses on pedagogical practices that center on cultivating organizational, group, and individual capacities to work collaboratively with shared goals in mind (Allen & Roberts, 2011; Dugan & Velázquez, 2015). As such, leadership educators have much to learn from the intersection of culture and leadership, especially when focused on collaboratively working with others across diverse cultures. In discussing this relationship, Chen and Van Velsor (1996) suggested that diversity research brings to leadership the understanding of identity groups, unconscious sociopsychological processes of prejudice, and individual perspectives, whereas leadership research brings to diversity the understanding of attribution theory, leadership prototypes, and behavioral complexity. Leadership educators have the vital responsibility to develop the identity, capacity, and efficacy of diverse individuals to lead and to engage in the leadership process. Bridging diversity and leadership helps leadership educators better understand the contribution of identity to leadership development, the leadership perspectives of individuals from diverse backgrounds, pluralistic engagement, and the programs and practices that are effective in developing future leaders (Guthrie, Bertrand Jones, Osteen, & Hu, 2013). In so doing, we acknowledge how racism, sexism, and religious oppression, as well as heterosexism/cisgenderism and classism, advantage and disadvantage all student lives in myriad ways.

In this volume, we present a model of culturally relevant leadership learning in order to develop all student leaders. Leadership learning includes four areas: education, training, development, and engagement (Guthrie & Osteen, 2012). These four areas expand Roberts and Ullom's (1989) training, education, and development model. Leadership education, which occurs both in and out of the classroom, is the broad understanding of leadership knowledge, skills, and values. However, leadership education is a deeper commitment to the teaching and learning of leadership knowledge, skills, and values with a longer duration in mind. Leadership training is the acquisition of leadership skills and is often shorter in duration. Leadership development is the reflection and integration of leadership knowledge, skills, and values. Leadership engagement is the application and practice of leadership knowledge, skills, and values. As a whole, leadership learning provides a context for constant discovery through the interaction between theory and practice (Roberts, 2007).

The notion of culturally relevant leadership learning builds upon the ideas of developing leader identity and leadership capacity of diverse students. It proposes infusing the leadership development process with an understanding of how systemic oppression influences educational contexts and with an engagement in and across cultural differences. Our contexts and differences influence knowledge of self, knowledge of others, knowledge of cultural systems, and ultimately students’ knowledge and enactment of leadership. To this end, culturally relevant leadership development programs equip all students with the knowledge and skills to navigate diverse settings and lead culturally diverse groups and teams.

With the current climate of our world, it is apparent that more than ever we need diverse leaders who are able to lead diverse groups. In updating our thinking from past writings (Guthrie et al., 2013; Guthrie & Osteen, 2012), we wanted to provide applicable scholarship on students’ knowledge of self and others, cultural and systemic contexts and their relevance in the work we do as educators. We were astounded by how emotional this work became for us and how incidents on our campuses, in the United States, and around the world continued to remind us just how important it is not only to engage in this conversation but also to actually take a stand to create spaces for all students to feel welcome in developing their leadership identity and capacity.

Transforming the framework for how leadership programs are designed will result in contextually relevant leadership development programs and an increase in the breadth and depth of a diverse leadership cadre for our society. The societal issues we face cannot be solved by a few, individual leaders or by the narrow, dominant leadership narratives that often inform leadership development programs. It is the collective and pluralistic ability across our diverse perspectives to create shared understanding and responses that is needed to solve our seemingly intractable societal issues.

Kathy L. Guthrie
Tamara Bertrand Jones
Laura Osteen
Editors

References

  1. Allen, S. J., & Roberts, D. C. (2011). Our response to the question: Next steps in clarifying the language of leadership learning. Journal of Leadership Studies, 5(2), 65–70.
  2. Chen, C. C., & Van Velsor, E. (1996). New directions for research and practice in diversity leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 7(2), 285–302.
  3. Dugan, J. P., & Velázquez, D. (2015). Teaching contemporary leadership: Advancing students’ capacities to engage with difference. In S. K. Watt (Ed.), Designing transformative multicultural initiatives (pp. 105–118). Sterling, VA: Stylus.
  4. Guthrie, K. L., Bertrand Jones, T., Osteen, L., & Hu, S. (2013). Cultivating leader identity and capacity in students from diverse backgrounds. [ASHE Higher Education Report, 39(4)]. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  5. Guthrie, K. L., & Osteen, L. (2012). Editors’ notes. In K. L. Guthrie & L. Osteen (Eds.), New Directions in Student Services: No. 140. Developing students’ leadership capacity (pp. 1–3). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  6. Roberts, D. C. (2007). Deeper learning in leadership: Helping college students find the potential within. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  7. Roberts, D., & Ullom, C. (1989). Student leadership program model. NASPA Journal, 27(1), 67–74.