CHAPTER 8 TEACHING AND LEADERSHIP
3.6 TEACHING AND LEADING: SCIENCE OR ART?
3.6.2 Art and science in terms of leadership
The search for knowledge about leadership and its development as a science (i.e. something that can be understood, taught and learned) has gathered momentum since the 1940s. Since then erudite insights have been achieved with regard to situational leadership, styles of leadership, functional leadership, principles of leadership, Douglas McGregor’s Theory X vs.
Theory Y, Ouchis’s Theory Z, transformational leadership, sources of power and influence, behaviourist theories, and contingency theories (Sadler, 2003). Our current store of knowledge is great. Cawood (1989) has described leadership as a general phenomenon that is supported by a body of knowledge.
Mankind is constantly evolving in its knowledge about the world (Owen, 2000). Once there was Thales of the sixth century who believed everything (i.e. the universe) “originally came from water and in the end returned to water” (Frost, 1942, p.2). Then there was Pythagoras, whose teaching was that God created everything mathematically in patterns. Next came Plato and Socrates, who invited ‘dialogue’ for new understandings. Aristotle, a pupil of Plato, categorised and codified the knowledge of his age, thereby laying down the foundation for Western scientific thought. Years later, the seventeenth-century scientist Isaac Newton formulated a set of laws that completed the contributions of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Descartes, and provided a theory of a mechanistic world that allowed for the industrial
66 revolution and dominated scientific thought until well into the twentieth century (Owen, 2000). Albert Einstein’s two papers, published in 1905, were to change scientific thought forever, as they provided the world with the relativity and atomic theories, the latter of which paved the way for quantum physics and chaos theory. Owen (2000, pp. 108-113) reflects on all these scientific developments in terms of how they have affected the understanding of leadership:
Will science give us the understanding of our world we need to become leaders? […] Much of the scientific view of the world is still Newtonian, and it is in this paradigm that leadership is at present being taught, which is why this leadership is more management than leadership […]. Our world in the century has been created very much by the activity of science […]. It is also created institutionally in our political and administrative procedures, and in the way we organise our society […]. The most we can say is that science is an organised attempt to understand reality. However it has its limits.
In support of the notion of leadership as an art, Senge (1996, p.11) argues that “one of the gifts of artists is to see the world as it really is”. Senge’s comment resonates with that of De Pree (1989, p.11) to connect leadership and art, when he declared: “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.”
For Starling (2007), artists create vision. They share their art by reaching out to people and demonstrating that art. He argues that great leaders are, in this way, artists through their leadership, and that truly great leadership is thus a form of art. Sweet (2004, p.11) has described leadership as the “art of the future”.
To be a good leader in spite of all the challenges of the twenty-first century one must have:
considerable imagination and inspiration, the ability to ask the important questions, and the creativity, innovation and courage to deal adaptively with necessary change. This is the stuff of art. Speaking at the First International Convention of Principals, Warner (1993, p.102) said:
67 While leadership may be an inexact science – difficult to quantify in
many respects – leadership is not an inert science. Leadership is also not a theoretical science; it is an applied science, because leadership in any nation and school regime requires action, planning, organisation, and the personal commitment of the leader […] and, as with all things that are visionary, leadership is an art.
“The fact that leadership comprises both a knowledge or science component as well as an art component is […] generally accepted” (Cawood, 1989, p.14). This idea is represented diagrammatically in Figure 3.2 below.
FIGURE 3.2: LEADERSHIP: A SCIENCE AND AN ART
Source: Cawood, Kapp and Swartz (1989). Dynamic Leadership. Adapted for this study.
Knowledge about leadership (generic and relevant or typical– see above) as a general phenomenon might include, for example, knowledge about: human nature; the characteristics of effective historical and contemporary leaders; the styles, theories and results of research studies into leadership; and the all important aspect of a leader’s knowledge of him-/herself.
Knowledge about specific leadership situations (relative leadership – see above) differs according to one’s context, and in the case of a teacher may include: knowledge of the subject taught; knowledge of teaching methods; knowledge about how young people develop and learn; and knowledge about the individual children being taught. Whilst the term
‘giftedness’ may include the ideas of intelligence and talent, it refers more to such relational aspects as a high Emotional Intelligence level, a sense of humour, ubuntu, warm-heartedness and balance (which were once considered ‘feminine’ or ‘soft’ competencies). ‘Inspiration’
and ‘enthusiasm’ refer to desirable qualities in the would-be leader, as well as to the ability to inspire and enthuse others. As with fine art and music, experience enhanced by reflection and
Knowledge about leadership as a general phenomenon SCIENCE
Knowledge about specific leadership situations LEADERSHIP
Giftedness
ART Inspiration and enthusiasm Techniques and skills
68 consideration and applied effort improve one’s ability to lead and is a vital factor in good leadership (Cawood, 1989).
What is both notable and inescapable is the similarity of discourse amongst those who have searched for the answer to the question of ‘Is this a science or an art?’ in terms of the separate contexts of teaching and leadership. Both sets of researchers have had to accept that, ultimately, each is comprised of both science and art. This suggests some similarities between teaching and leading. There is, in other words, synergy between the two disciplines.
“Teaching is a work of Heart”, claimed Coetzee and Jansen (Chapter heading, 2007, p.1).