CHAPTER 5
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS
“Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth.”
James McGregor Burns (1978, p.2)
Leadership is a broad and complex phenomenon that over centuries has not been wholly understood till the present. As evidence, scores of articles, studies, books, stories, newspaper reports, programs, including artforms such as poetry, films, videos and even games have been created to understand, analyze, interpret, judge, develop, train, raise up, or educate leaders. Newton (2016) recounts that its evolution has spawned a succession of theories from the Great Man and Traits theory of the 19th century to the Shared and Complexity theories of the 21st. The earliest ones focused on character, personality, and behaviors of successful leaders, but in more recent times these theories focused more on what leaders actually do (p.8). The present study dealt with the conceptualization of leadership among educational leaders in the Philippine setting which involved eight higher education leaders randomly selected from both public and private HEIs having fulfilled a set of criteria, with both males and females represented.
In this final chapter, a summary of the results of the study is presented with brief explanations of emerged core categories, how these relate to each other, how they were classified, and the conceptual framework of leadership theorized from responses among educational leaders in selected Philippine HEIs. Multi-grounded theory (MGT) was the more novel approach applied in theorizing the conceptual framework, with the classic GT method of induction used mainly in the initial phase of emerging categories and subcategories. Additional explicit grounding processes (i.e. empirical, theoretical and internal), were applied to generate the theory with more rigor and for stronger validation. Recommendations as to what further studies relevant to the area of leadership and related
disciplines can be potentially carried out in the Philippine setting are discussed. Implications for practice and theory building aside from further research are also included in the following discussions.
The use of the MGT approach is a primary contribution of this study, at least within the researcher’s educational context, as this is a method not as widely used as classic GT or other divergent methods are, such as the Straussian and Constructivist approaches. Although divergent, all of these are still considered as being within the ‘family’ of GT methodology. The use of MGT for a doctoral research/ study is in fact a first for the department to which the researcher belongs. Aside from this, the present study’s contribution to the qualitative literature on leadership studies in the Philippines remains salient, as most of the relevant and recent studies still mention the dearth of materials/ books on the topic and the need for more of these types of studies within the Philippine setting (Ilac, 2018; Labor, 2017; Cimene & Aladano, 2013).The present study serves to validate various studies previously done on leadership, but presents the conceptualization of leadership specifically from the perspective of educational leaders, whereas previously mentioned studies, were mainly from a corporate, political/ administrative or community/ ethnographic point of view.
Understanding how the education sector conceptualizes leadership is important since education has always been recognized as a harbinger of national progress and development.
Summary of Results
Based on the emerged conceptual framework of the present study with its different related categories – how educational leaders view and conceptualize leadership were shown to be identical or similar with those of other sectors - such as those in industry (Ellamil, 2010), in indigenous communities (Ilac, 2018), and in the rural barangays or communities (Ramirez & Talisayon, 1995;
Jocano, 1969, 1988/1989). These results verify how pagkatao or the person of the leader (classified as personhood) is foremost in the Filipinos’ conception of leadership so that charismatic leaders are perceived to be effective and outstanding. This finding is widely supported by various studies and literature in the field, including those mentioned in earlier chapters, as well as cited by credible authorities in Philippine culture including the late Filipino anthropologist F. Landa Jocano (1990, 1999), and leading organizational culture/ HR expert Dr. Tomas Quintin Andres (1981, 1989), who both wrote extensively on Philippine cultural values and the person of the Filipino. Similarly, Project GLOBE, to-date the most extensive study done on the relationships between culture, leadership and organizations as it involved 62 societies over a span of 10 years, reveal the same findings on Philippine culture. The study which “redefined scholarly understanding of how culture and leadership vary by national culture” (globeproject.com, par. 4), reinforce with empirical data that Filipinos find Charismatic/ Value-based leadership to be most effective, with the Team-oriented and Humane- oriented leadership dimensions scoring as next highest consecutively. These three dimensions of leadership within the nine dimensions that were identified and presented in this seminal ground- breaking study, correspond closely to Filipino cultural values which are collectivistic and family- oriented in nature. Furthermore, this preference for leadership that is makatao (or humane) is underscored by the hierarchical needs of the Filipinos as theorized by Andres (1981), topmost of which is pagkabayani (or being heroic), someone who looks after the welfare of others. In fact, this also corresponds to the cultural value of paternalism where an effective leader is seen as one who stands as a ‘father-figure’ among the staff, employees, or members of the organization. Specifically, exemplar traits (an emerged category) such as integrity, courage, being heroic, spiritual, and patriotic, encapsulate some characteristics respondents identified as imperatives for leaders to have.
From this and other categories the present study has emerged the core category of values-based leadership in the conceptual framework.
The other core categories in the emerged framework of a development agenda and economics-driven leadership was derived similarly from the conceptual refinement process.
Categories such as: achievement motives and global perspectives (classified under personhood); and people empowerment, strategic collaboration, institutional differentiation, educational reform (classified under praxis), all accrue to the interrelated subcategories of: persuasive individual and institutional value-propositioning, and investing in national progress, nation-building, and development agenda. The practical realities in the Philippine context, where poverty is widespread is thought to contribute to this, as all of the leader-respondents in the study have mentioned how education must necessarily address this persistent problem in our society. The fact that we are a people-oriented (as opposed to task or performance oriented), humane, family-centred, and collectivist society is already predictive of our view of leaders as those who will help eradicate social ills – the two most pervasive of which are (as one leader-respondent emphatically declared) - corruption and poverty!
In fact, way back in the late 60’s, well-known historian and educator Renato Constantino (1967, as cited in Alfiler & Nicolas, 1997) had stressed the need to define the qualities of a Filipino leader based on his analysis of the state of Philippine society, stating that the country is “beset with the ills of poverty, cultural stagnation and political backwardness…one where mass vision is blinded by myths, where illusion is taken for reality, where what the people think they want is not what they really need” (p.96). Fast forward to the 21st century and this description seems to be even more
amplified with the inevitable increase in population (roughly 110 million based on PSA current statistics), together with all of the political and social upheavals that has since then transpired and are still happening today.
Notwithstanding the era of dictatorship which lasted two decades leaving an indelible mark upon Philippine history and society, the ill effects of which are still being countered to this day.
Leadership has definitely played a flagrant and principal role in the turn of historical events in the country with rippling damaging effects across all domains and sectors of society, especially the economy. The same holds true for Education, which at present is still grappling with the same issues it has borne since colonial times, and again political leadership has to shoulder much of the blame.
Former Secretary of Education (2010-2016) and De La Salle brother, Armin Luistro characterized the state of Philippine education (cited in Colinares, 2010), still applicable to present day: “I do not think that it will be a mistake or it would be fairly easy to claim that Philippine education is in crisis…Philippine education is not in a crisis. The better description of the state of Philippine education is that it is in a chronic illness” (p.118). Thus, highlighting its state as being in a recurrent crisis. The litany of woes confronting Philippine education has been largely attributed to leadership as based on a World Bank study: first, there was no broad political support for real reform and second, a weak institutional environment for change such that there is lack of integrated leadership crippling the ability of policy makers to act strategically across the sub-sectors (Colinares, 2010, p.122). With the current global health and economic crisis brought about by the pandemic, these woes have worsened and exacerbated as students, teachers, and parents, struggle to cope with the migration to digital platforms in education. The Department of Education (DEPed) is constantly in the news these days with media actively documenting all that education stakeholders are going through as they deal
with the social and educational transformations happening at all levels, not only within Philippine society, but across the world.
Social weather stations (SWS) & Pulse Asia’s popularity ratings of the incumbent president continue to be positive (as of this writing), but this was analysed as due to the government’s being able to address basic issues such as the prices of basic goods and commodities, and employment.
Surveys analysis shows that the steepest drops in the president’s approval ratings occurred when inflation rates reached record highs, such as the one in 2018 when the Philippines recorded its highest inflation rate in 9 years (Paris, 2019, par. 15). However, with the dismal state of the nation’s economy at present – with an ongoing ‘technical recession’ and the rate of unemployment at an all-time high (45.5% or 27.3 million jobless according to SWS survey, July 2020) as caused by the pandemic – the political leadership may actually be undergoing a test of stability, even as economic conditions remain bleak. These SWS’s are tangible and direct evidences of how majority of the population perceive the leader’s effectiveness as related to the nation’s economic state. In other words, the Filipino looks at the state of the economy as the president’s report card, with his approval hinging on it being able to stay in the black instead of bordering or worse getting stuck in the red.
Further contribution of the study
With all of the leader-respondents in this study uniformly concerned for building the nation’s intellectual and human capital as well as investing in nation-building, (emerged sub-categories classified under praxis after abstraction), the development agenda and economics-driven core categories emerged as part of the conceptual framework in this study. The core categories of a development agenda and economics-driven leadership has been validated with current studies and
pertinent literature. It has been shown that fairly recently, significant increase in and considerable attention is being paid to leadership studies linking particularly the two fields (of leadership and economics), by both leadership scholars and economists alike.
Other studies done in the Philippine context were reviewed to inform the present study for gaps in the literature without intent to seek for a priori concepts (the initial review of related literature during the proposal stage was exploratory, a more in-depth review was done after the categories have been emerged). The final review done after the conceptual framework has been drawn, was done in order to utilize literature for additional relevant data, and proceed with MGT’s requirement to theoretically match these categories with those found in extant theories. From the literature review and matching process, it was found that the significant contribution of this present study is with regard to the core category of the potency of economics and a development agenda in relation to leadership - being perceived as crucial factors for leader effectiveness.
Thus far, from the compilation of local research studies read or perused for this present study, none has established nor recognized the palpable role of economics in leader preference or its significance in the Filipino’s conceptualization of leadership. Perhaps, the closest data that relates to this is Andres’ (1981) theory of the Filipino hierarchy of needs where he asserts that the second highest need of the Filipino is for social mobility or to attain to a higher social and economic state.
The relationship of leadership to economics has also been universally overlooked in the past, and scholars only now admit this (Garretsen, et. al., 2020; Zehnder, et.al., 2017). Therefore, it can be safely concluded that this similar state (having a dearth of studies) applies to local leadership studies which links these two, except for those earlier studies cited by Alfiler and Nicolas (1997, pp. 101,
110, 116), where the socio-economic backgrounds of Filipino leaders have been surveyed to present a picture of leaders’ demographics revealing that most political leaders in the past belonged to the ruling elite, which was perceived to be beneficial for the country as constituents thought that this was a deterrent for politicos to be dipping into public coffers or may curb widespread corruption since the leader was already wealthy. This, however, seems not proven to be true.
After various categories were emerged in this study, these were classified according to the following: personhood, praxis, and potencies of leadership. Personhood involves the person and character of the leader, with two sub-classifications: exogenous and endogenous features.
Endogenous is from within or having an internal cause so these include the categories of Achievement motive and Global perspective which are both internal in origin. Exogenous, on the other hand, relate to or develop from external causes or is external to the person. These include the following categories:
Exemplars and Professional Competencies. The second set of classification for categories is Praxis, which refer to the actions, exercise or practices of leadership. These include the categories of:
Championing morality and values, People Empowerment, Strategic Collaboration, Institutional Differentiating, Institutional Identification and Valuing, Educational Reform, and Development Agenda. Lastly, the classification set of Potency referring to the affective drivers or rationale for leader preference/ choice or acceptance, which include (as earlier mentioned) the core categories of : Values-based, Development agenda, and Economics-driven. Detailed definitions and discussions of these categories and how they relate are found in the previous chapter, Chapter 4 on Results and Discussion. There are 3 subcategories which were abstracted from the above-mentioned categories, these are: Building human and intellectual capital, Persuasive Individual and Institutional Value Propositioning, and Investing in National Progress and/or Nation-building. Building human and
intellectual capital relate to Personhood of the leader, Persuasive Individual and Institutional Value Propositioning relates to the Praxis of Leadership, while Investing in National Progress and/or Nation-building relates to Potencies of Leadership. These are the totality of categories and subcategories emerged within the conceptual framework of Filipino leadership for this present study.
Implication for practice
A strong implication of the present study’s results would be its instigation for re-thinking how to design leadership development programs that incorporates the positive dimensions of our cultural values in 21st century realities, and reinforcing these through the courses and training programs offered by HEIs. HEIs may also consider integrating leadership development in all courses rather than as a program on its own or as an extra-curricular one. Specifically, if the literature and recent studies show that a makatao or compassionate/ humane leader is seen as effective, then HEIs should ensure that leadership programs/ courses deal with this side of leadership – in other words dealing not just with the skills needed, but also with the attitude, values, and internal/ endogenous aspects of leadership. This actually coincides with recent universal conversations about leadership with the rise of books such as: Compassionate Leadership (Hopkinson, 2014), Emotional Intelligence for the Modern Leader (Connors, 2020) and even an edition of Harvard Business Review Guide dedicated to emotional intelligence (2017). In terms of skills or competencies the study could serve as a starting point to look at how to better equip future leaders to be more knowledgeable or competent not only in their specific fields, but armed also with an in-depth understanding of how economics plays a role in their leadership and vice versa. This may be used to help address how leaders can develop and sustain organizations or industries that are economically efficient, able to sustain development, and are successful, particularly in the rapidly changing landscape across business, media, science and
technology and other sectors in the 21st century. If a leader is not agile, strategic, and globally competitive enough, it is highly possible that they would be unable to maintain their businesses’
profitability and can immediately lose gains in very fluid economic environments. It is imperative with global scenarios that are in constant flux, that would-be leaders be adept in forecasting, strategic planning, analysing, innovating and even disrupting current conditions, systems and technologies in order to keep pace, if not ahead of an increasingly globalized world. For example, the jobs that people hold today and the courses that prepared them for it may not even exist in the next decade. This is a future scenario that is viewed as likely to happen with the quantum leaps in technology, volatile environmental conditions, and the likely possibility of future pandemics happening again. It is imperative that leaders study emerging global trends in education and different sectors, but importantly trends in education.
These scenarios, together with widening economic and social disparities as effects, undeniably provide glimpses of days to come and can be expected to even accelerate changes in the world as we know it. Therefore, if we wish to successfully navigate highly challenging times and thrive, then leaders or would-be leaders especially in education, should be prepared for these with an urgency, even now, not just to adapt to these changes but to envision and intentionally design it. With reflexivity, intentional purpose, and design, education can help lead and craft a world that aligns with its values rather than just be swept along by advances in technology.
Moreover with regard to practice, the implication is that educational leaders are decision- makers in terms of the courses, programs, and trainings being offered by their respective institutions – including those that pertain to leadership development of students. Their conceptualization of
leadership therefore, may have a bearing on the choices of course offerings or leadership development programs that their institutions make available. Bill Gates, philanthropist and founder of Microsoft, in his short video introduction of the top 10 finalists for the Global Teacher Prize in 2018 (one was Filipino) mentioned: “When you think about what drives progress and improvement in the world, education is like a master switch. One that opens up all sorts of opportunities for individuals and societies” (Talking Education, 2018). Overall, education is considered an important sector of any society or economy, thus understanding how representatives from this sector conceptualize leadership will contribute to the aggregation of knowledge regarding Filipinos as leaders and its application or practice can help in producing more effective leaders not just in the education sector itself, but in other sectors of Philippine society as well .
Implications for Theory-building
Implications for theory-building based on the utilization of the MGT approach include the following: the application of more rigorous grounding processes for both internal and external validation is proven to be necessary to arrive at theoretically-tight results and conclusions; a more explicit theoretical matching process with related extant theories strengthens validity, thus must be engaged in thoroughly; an a priori review of related literature and extant theories does not have to bias the researcher and result to forcing, instead it can contribute to the emergence and validation of categories – preconceptions and biases can be constrained with data sensitizing principles as suggested by Thornberg (2012, see Appendix). Finally, internal cohesion between and among categories, subcategories, and core categories is another essential indicator of the validity of the theory. It must be engaged in more in-depth and exhaustively for a more solid argument of the theory’s credibility and validation.
Recommendations
A notable category emerged relevant to this is that of leaders’ having a global perspective, which has not been identified in most extant local leadership studies reviewed, except for Valdez, et.al., (2017), which in their study was identified as global citizenship. Valdez, et. al.’s study done earlier only serves to validate this particular category emerged in the present one. Thus, this can be an added and significant contribution that the present study also made. Ricafort (as cited in Colinares, 2010) recognized this when she said: “It is not sufficient for future leaders to be well-prepared only in the academic and technical fields but to be prepared also to think and act with global leadership qualities” (p.5) [see Global Mindset inventory, p. 148].Thus, it is highly recommended that leadership programs/ courses should incorporate this aspect in their aim, design, and contents. A comparative study of educational systems globally, their organizational structures, operations, including the economics of their organization, should be a standard feature of leadership courses in education. Also, integration of courses/study of emerging global trends in education is so much more relevant now, given the recent compulsory migration of educational systems to digital platforms worldwide due to the pandemic.
The results of this study where educational leaders’ conception of effective leadership (whether academic or political) is seen as linked to the nation’s economy is an impetus then to review whether the leadership development programs we provide our students with, actually factor this in its design, outcomes, and contents. If not, then that would be the strongest recommendation from this study. The design of such leadership programs/ courses should include not only ingraining a global perspective among potential leaders, but also as mentioned earlier, an understanding of economics and the role it plays in leadership.
Recommendations for further research
Additional recommendations for further studies can include research into followers’
conceptions including students and other stakeholders as the present study involved educational leaders alone. There are also other key sectors that are interesting to study within the Philippine context with regard to their conceptualizations of leadership, such as media, the health sector, information technology, and other sciences. Comparative studies on leadership across these various sub-groups may be conducted to add to existing literature. Since the present study was concerned specifically with conceptualizing leadership, it would be additionally important to research how these concepts are practiced in reality, then compare these practices to the concepts emerged. A recent study by the present dean of the DLSU College of Education, Dr. Raymund Sison entitled “Simulchieving Forward” (2018) using classic GT actually dealt with this.
Project GLOBE did a comparison of values and practices among cultures and organizations, but these were mostly self-reported responses in the form of survey questionnaires, which may not have totally precluded some bias. This large-scale study was also done in the area of enterprise/
industries thus, there are other sectors that may still need representation in the area of leadership studies, such as non-government organizations or charitable institutions, for example, and those mentioned earlier. More research into leadership emergence and how this process/ phenomenon evolve over time is also lacking in the local context. Also, the global seismic shifts that are currently happening is an impetus to do more research on how leadership should be exercised in the context of increasing digital organizational networks and platforms, which influence how employees, followers, students or other constituencies engage with each other and with leaders themselves, as this in turn can affect performance and achievement. How leaders address the digital divide and connectivity
issues to make education more accessible, may also be relevant as more and more schools, including HEIs migrate to online learning. Additional recommended topics would be how leaders make decisions as to what students should learn in this global age, how these should be delivered within online platforms, and how they address assessments issues - may also be timely to research on and study. Another important topic for research could be how leaders address and handle crisis, as we see more and more disasters and crises, either man-made or natural, occurring across the globe where leadership plays an important role as to the impact and consequences of these on entire populations.
From an education perspective, this could include how administrators and educational leaders handle events that could negatively impact their institutions such as what has happened in this pandemic, which brought closure to many schools and colleges, especially private ones not just locally but worldwide. Finally, since it has been found that there are no substantial research studies done yet with regard to leadership and economics, and how they significantly relate to each other, this is an area of study recommended with three specific topics that are central (Garretsen, et. al., 2020):
conceptualization, context, and causality. The present study may be extended in this aspect since the emergence of the field of economics in relation to leadership, as shown in the theorized conceptual framework, is relatively new. Further research linking economics and leadership could draw out more of the significance of each field to the other, adding knowledge to both and understanding their relationship more in depth particularly with regard to leadership effectiveness and emergence as Zehnder, et. al., (2017) had recommended.
Former CHED commissioner Nona Ricafort quoted how a sage once said: “Whether we are conscious or not, education is the force that will, more than any other, shape the world’s future”
(Colinares, 2010, p. 3), which underscores how every educational institution has a great and noble
mission to carry out in this global century. Higher education institutions definitely impact society and the significance of its contribution to national progress and development is without question immense as many authors, scholars, even policy-makers concur (Colinares, 2010; Luz, 2011; Valisno, 2012).
One such is former senator and UP president Edgardo Angara (cited in Colinares, 2010) who pronounced the following when the world was just recovering from a global economic crises more than a decade ago:
“Few would disagree that education and training are among the most significant investments a society can make for its own development. As the world slowly recovers from the financial crisis, the key to restoring long-term growth is our ability to innovate, which requires massive human capital development. By investing smart, governments can buffer the downturn, accelerate recovery, and lay the foundation for strong and sustainable growth” (p. 281).
Many of the leader-respondents in the present study have articulated that what is essential for leaders to have, particularly to successfully govern this country is ’will-for-action’, something that others in the literature have also pointed out (Luistro as cited in Colinares, 2010; Cruz as cited in Colinares, 2010; Luz, 2011). How leaders conceptualize and think about leadership, inclusive of the influence of cultural values, then the consequent actions and practices they take in line with this, will vastly matter – Why? Because it counts toward the fulfilment of not just a nation’s aspirations for itself, but for the entire citizenry of nations as we have become more and more inter-connected, our lives more and more intertwined and inter-dependent through the process of globalization. Project GLOBE’s expansive study continues to this day (Phase 4) with grants from various governments - indicative of its importance and the notable contribution this work makes toward the effectiveness of organizations and industries. Also, their research findings benefit both individual leaders and corporate leadership with expectedly positive effects toward national/ societal progress and development with the information and insight their studies offer.
Remembering chaos theory as proposed by Lorenz (1993), where it says that there are certain systems that are quite sensitive so that even minute changes may result to a completely different way the system behaves, or where a minor difference at the start of a process can make a major change in it as time progresses – leads us to an understanding that minor changes in the field of leadership, and more importantly educational leadership at present, may eventually lead to monumental changes in time, proving this theory right. Reflecting on and re-thinking leadership in general and educational leadership in particular, with consequences to its practice is just outright necessary, especially in the current situation where Filipinos as a nation, together with other nations are undergoing these massive and unprecedented transformations in systems and processes within the social, economic, educational, religious, political, and other major societal spheres. It is inevitable, according to chaos theory, that the effects of these unprecedented transformations on humanity, to also be unparalleled, with repercussions globally even to succeeding generations. Leadership, as history gives evidence to, is a potent and strategic force that will determine which way we will ultimately go and what we as humans will end up eventually becoming.
