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Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning
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Collaborative and Transformational
Leadership in the Environmental Realm
Nicole M. Ardoina, Rachelle K. Goulda, Elin Kelseyb & Priya Fielding-Singhc
a Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and Graduate School of
Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
b Elin Kelsey and Company, Pacific Grove, CA, USA
c Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Published online: 09 Sep 2014.
To cite this article: Nicole M. Ardoin, Rachelle K. Gould, Elin Kelsey & Priya Fielding-Singh (2014):
Collaborative and Transformational Leadership in the Environmental Realm, Journal of Environmental Policy
& Planning
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2014.954075
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Collaborative and Transformational Leadership in the
Environmental Realm
NICOLE M. ARDOIN∗, RACHELLE K. GOULD∗, ELIN KELSEY∗∗ &
PRIYA FIELDING-SINGH
†
∗Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and Graduate School of Education, Stanford
University, Stanford, CA, USA
∗∗Elin Kelsey and Company, Pacific Grove, CA, USA
†
Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
ABSTRACT The environmental sector is often characterized by ‘wicked’ problems: pro-
blems that are ever-changing and difficult to define, have multiple causes and affected
parties, and lack a clear solution. To explore scholars’ suggestion that wicked problems
necessitate leadership that is collaborative and transformational, this study analyses
how community-based environmental leaders—those who emerge from community need
and are propelled to address pressing environmental issues—discuss their leadership
styles. Drawing on data gathered through narrative interviews with 12 leaders from
diverse sectors in the San Francisco Bay Area (California, USA), we use a leadership typol-
ogy to consider the role of collaborative, participatory, and transformational leadership
styles. We found that the majority of leaders describe their work as collaborative and trans-
formational, but that almost all respondents also discussed an equally transformational,
but less than fully collaborative/participatory, style. Interviewees also described three
kinds of leadership work suggested as key components of transformational and collabora-
tive leadership: bridging difference, reframing discourse, and unleashing human energies.
We reflect on these findings as they relate to recent work on participatory processes in
environmental management; the importance of relationships, trust, and meaning in leader-
ship; and the role of learning in environmental behaviour and management.
KEY WORDS: Community, environmental action, diversity, learning, meaning,
participation, practices, trust
Highlights
.Leadership models are increasingly cooperative, democratic, and participatory.
.Community-based leaders describe their work as collaborative and transforma-
tional.
Correspondence Address: Rachelle K. Gould, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
and Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, 485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford,
CA94305, USA. 650 488 7725; Email: rachelle@post.harvard.edu
Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 2014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2014.954075
#2014 Taylor & Francis
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.In some cases, less independence from the leader may be appropriate and
desirable.
.These leaders change the discourse, build bridges, and can unleash human
energy.
.Relationships, trust, and meaning are critical to effective environmental leader-
ship.
Introduction
Environmental issues have often been called ‘wicked’ problems. Take, for
example, the question of how to feed the world’s growing population while main-
taining some degree of ecological sustainability. This issue is fraught with politi-
cal, ethical, and philosophical concerns; is affected by a dynamic global climate
system; involves diverse actors from small-scale farmers to international govern-
ing bodies and corporations; and touches on knowledge from diverse fields
including biology, economics, sociology, and policy, among others (Allen &
Gould, 1986). Thus, this issue exhibits many characteristics of wicked problems:
difficult-to-define, multi-causal, without a clear solution, unstable, beyond the
capacity of any one organization to understand and respond to, and characterized
by disagreement about both the causes and appropriate solutions (Head, 2008).
These problems also require multiple forms of expertise, knowledge, and perspec-
tives on ways of organizing and perceiving the world (Ludwig, 2001; Verweij &
Thompson, 2006). Addressing wicked problems typically involves changing the
behaviour of large and influential groups or of a critical mass of all citizens, as
well as working across both internal and external organizational boundaries
and engaging individual and organizational stakeholders in policy-making and
implementation (Conklin, 2006).
Individuals possessing high levels of expertise and familiarity with the tech-
nical aspects of these problems often become key leaders in implementing sol-
utions. Scholars have proposed that wicked problems necessitate leadership
that is collaborative and transformational (Grint, 2010; Shaffer, 2012; Uhl-Bien,
Marion, & McKelvey, 2007). These forms of leadership have received increasing
attention in recent scholarly work on leadership: collaborative leadership is pre-
sented in opposition to more hierarchical forms, and transformational leadership
is presented in opposition to more transactional forms (Garcı
´a Morales, Jime
´nez
Barrionuevo, & Gutie
´rrez Gutie
´rrez, 2012).
Research on environmental leadership reflects the notion that environmental
problems require new forms of leadership, namely collaborative and transforma-
tional styles. Although the limited research on environmental leadership does not
often use the terminology of wicked problems, collaborative leadership, or trans-
formational leadership, we propose that the uncertain and unstable (i.e. wicked)
nature of many environmental issues has made particular leadership forms and
attributes relevant. Sustainability researchers have highlighted the importance
not only of top-down, formal leaders, but also of bottom-up, emergent leaders
in driving change. The latter could be considered collaborative leaders, and
they play a critical role in driving change on multiple levels (Brouwer & Biermann,
2011; Brown & Clarke, 2007; Olsson et al., 2006). A transformational leadership
style has, in addition, been commonly associated with environmental leaders
(Danter, Griest, Mullins, & Norland, 2000; Gordon & Berry, 2006; Smith &
Sarros, 2004).
2N.M. Ardoin et al.
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We analyse qualitative data from interviews with environmental leaders, to
explore how they describe their leadership. We use a framework proposed in lea-
dership scholarship (Grint, 2005) and consider where the leadership styles of these
individuals fall on ‘collaborative’ and ‘transformational’ dimensions. We then
assess to what extent—if at all—these individuals describe employing leadership
practices associated with collaborative and transformational leadership. Our pro-
tocol included prompts asking interviewees to describe and reflect on their overall
leadership activities; we did not specifically focus on leadership style. In the
course of these responses, discussions related to leadership style emerged. By
categorizing the types of leadership that interviewees discussed and the practices
they employ, we aim to: (1) explore empirical justification for the proposal that
wicked problems beget collaborative leadership styles; (2) share insights from lea-
dership research with the environmental field; and (3) explore the (sometimes-
implicit) assumption that deeply collaborative leadership is always ideal for
addressing environmental, or wicked, problems.
Literature Review
Collaborative leadership models, as well as related models of distributed, partici-
pative, shared, and collective leadership, have displaced traditional ‘person-
centred’, or charismatic, views of leadership with ‘group-centred’ models
(Ospina & Foldy, 2010). Instead of focusing on formal leaders and their uni-
directional flow of influence on followers, collaborative leadership focuses on
the mutual influence among members of a less hierarchical, more egalitarian
team (Fletcher & Ka
¨ufer, 2003). As such, the attention in these models shifts
from leaders’ characteristics to their practices, or—in other words—from who
leaders are to what leaders do to engage people. Collaborative leadership is charac-
terized by joint problem-solving, shared decision-making, and open processes.
One commonly discussed characteristic of collaborative leadership is constructive
controversy or constructive dissent: the notion that open and energetic discussion,
including critique and mild conflict (especially related to the leaders’ ideas) will,
within a framework of cooperative interdependence, lead to creativity and inno-
vative problem-solving (Tjosvold, 1998).
Transformational leadership, although generally investigated and discussed
separately from collaborative leadership, is similar in its emphasis on a ‘shared-
goals’ orientation. Transformational leadership heightens consciousness of collec-
tive interest among members and helps to achieve collective goals. Transactional
leadership, in contrast to transformational, focuses on promoting leaders’ and fol-
lowers’ individual interests and meeting contractual obligations between the two
by establishing objectives, monitoring actions, and controlling results (Bass &
Avolio, 2000). Transformational leaders’ effectiveness, in contrast, arises from:
the ability to articulate visions for sustainable initiatives; express enthusiasm
and confidence; and communicate clearly and frequently (Taylor, 2009,2010).
Transformational leadership emphasizes emotions and values, encouraging crea-
tivity in followers. Followers are seen as a complex and rich resource, rather than
as simple task-doers, and leaders within this structure take responsibility for and
promote the professional development of followers (Bass & Avolio, 2000; Garcı
´a
Morales et al., 2012).
Recent studies with social change organizations have helped to illuminate
common characteristics of collaborative and transformational leadership. This
Leadership in the Environmental Realm 3
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work suggests a distinction we use in this paper: between leadership style (general
approach) and types of work (specific practices). These studies have suggested three
primary types of work carried out by leaders with collaborative styles: reframing
discourse, bridging difference, and unleashing human energies (Ospina &
Foldy, 2010). These characteristics condense and translate the broad concepts of
transformational and collaborative leadership into actionable practices
(i.e.‘work’). Specifically, reframing discourse is largely about transformational lea-
dership; bridging difference relates to collaborative leadership; and unleashing
human energies integrates the two dimensions.
The framework of leadership styles that we use, developed by Grint (2005),
has informed research on leadership in diverse areas, including tourism manage-
ment (Benson & Blackman, 2011), training of future public leaders (Jameson,
2013), and the public sphere more generally (Brookes, 2008). Similarly, others
have applied the concepts in Ospina and Foldy’s (2010) research to a variety of
areas, from studies of particular leadership theories, such as relational leadership
(Cunliffe & Eriksen, 2011), to theory-building work addressing the need for civic
capacity in public leadership (Sun & Anderson, 2012). More broadly, leadership
research increasingly investigates the nature of leadership in public multi-sector
situations (Sun & Anderson, 2012). This research often builds on the same work
on which we base this study (Grint, 2005; Ospina & Foldy, 2010).
Beyond leadership research, there are movements towards collaboration, and
away from more conventional hierarchical models, in a variety of arenas, includ-
ing natural resources management (Pinkerton, 2011), public governance (Ansell &
Gash, 2008), and social change organizations (Ospina & Dodge, 2005; Ospina &
Foldy, 2010). Despite this attention to less hierarchical leadership styles, few
researchers have empirically investigated the prevalence of these more collabora-
tive and transformational leadership styles in situations characterized as wicked
problems. Therefore, we take a novel approach by applying leadership theory
as a framework to empirically investigate how leaders in a range of environmen-
tally related, community-based sub-fields discuss their leadership practices.
Methods
We conducted this study as part of a project investigating environmental learning
in everyday life. The project aims to understand how, when, where, why, and with
whom people learn about the environment and what motivates people to under-
take sustainable, pro-environmental behaviours. Study components include a
Random Digit Dial survey (n¼1204), community-based focus groups, an organ-
izational network analysis, in-depth case studies, and the interviews described in
this article.
For this study, we interviewed 12 environmental leaders, defined as those
who had in some way responded to community need to provide innovative
vision, services, or organizing capacity related to ‘the environment’, broadly con-
strued. Important to note is that many of our interviewees created the contexts in
which they are leading. Much scholarly work on leadership focuses on leaders in
established roles, such as managing a conventional business. Many of our inter-
viewees grew into their roles as leaders and function as leaders in communities
that may or may not have stable membership or be traditionally geographically
bounded. This characteristic makes their work more similar to that of social
change leaders than that of business leaders (Ospina & Foldy, 2010), yet because
4N.M. Ardoin et al.
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many of our respondents exhibit characteristics discussed in both fields, we draw
from both literatures in this study.
We interviewed individuals whose primary work focuses on the 12-county
region in California, USA, known as the ‘San Francisco Bay Area’ (the ‘Bay
Area’). The area has a population of 7.9 million people, with a diversity of socio-
economic backgrounds (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). It covers 33,000 square kilo-
metres and encompasses a variety of land cover types, including coastal,
estuarine, redwood forest, and oak woodland, interspersed with urban centres,
suburban areas, and rural areas.
To select interviewees, we used a purposive stratified selection approach,
with the goal of acquiring a diversity of perspectives through a small sample
size, rather than a statistically representative sample (Patton, 2002). We chose
leaders from varied fields to represent the environmental arena’s breadth.
Because food and transportation emerged as dominant topics related to environ-
mental learning and behaviour in other components of the study, we selected two
interviewees working on each of these topics. The remaining eight interviewees
addressed other primary topic areas: the arts, environmental conservation, faith,
philanthropy, recreation, social media, toxic chemicals (exposure), and waste.
We also worked to diversify across race/ethnicity and gender of participants
(Table 1), not for the purposes of comparison between groups (given our small
respondent pool) but to contribute to our effort to reflect the diversity of the
environmental movement and the range of approaches to environmental action
(Bonta & Jordan, 2007).
Table 1. Interviewee background
No.
Primary topic
of work
Description of work/
organization Ethnicity Gender
Organization
type
1 Food Green agriculture and
microfinance
Latino Male Business
2 Faith Green religion and climate
change
White Female NGO
3 Recreation Outdoor recreation African-
American
Female NGO
4 Philanthropy Green philanthropy African Male NGO
5 Conservation Marine conservation White Female NGO with integrated
income generation
6 Transportation Bicycling activism African-
American
Female NGO
7 Transportation Sharing economy:
car sharing
White Male Business
8 Exposure Toxic exposure African-
American
Male NGO
9 Arts Youth-led, green, social
marketing and events
organization
African-
American
Female NGO
10 Arts/waste Reclaiming materials for
art, building, and waste
reduction
White Female NGO with integrated
income generation
11 Food Urban food production Middle
Eastern
Female NGO with integrated
income generation
12 Media Green social and online
media
White Female Business
Leadership in the Environmental Realm 5
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We learned about leaders in desired fields through two primary mechanisms:
consultation with professionals with awareness of environmental initiatives in the
study area, and the organizational network analysis conducted as a component of
a larger environmental learning project. Interviewees were fairly established in
their leadership roles, having served in some (often informal) leadership capacity,
for at least 2 years and some for more than 20 years. Though a number of the
initiatives represented had a relatively non-hierarchical organizational style, we
selected individuals widely recognized as leaders (largely due to their roles as
founders who currently play a management role). We interviewed 12 individuals,
which allowed for adequate coverage of topical areas of interest and understand a
variety of perspectives on environmental leadership while keeping the scope of
the study feasible.
The same researcher conducted 11 interviews by Skype and 1 by telephone.
Although remote interviews have limitations (notably, less interpersonal
rapport and inability to communicate via body language and facial expression),
this remote approach increased convenience for interviewees and avoided
unnecessary CO
2
emissions associated with travel for a one-hour meeting. Inter-
views, which lasted one hour on average, were semi-structured (Patton, 2002),
using an interview guide but deviating from specific prompts as appropriate to
the conversation (see Table 2). Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed
verbatim. All research was conducted in accordance with the regulations of
the Human Subjects Committee of the Institutional Review Board of Stanford
University.
We used NVivo 10 (QSR International), a qualitative data software package,
to assist in data coding and analysis. For data analysis, we used selective
coding, examining for pre-determined themes (Maxwell, 2005). We designed
the coding scheme based on a framework for categorizing leadership styles,
Table 2. Primary questions in semi-structured interview
1. You are recognized by some as an ‘environmental thought leader’. How does that feel to you?
2. What connections do you see between your work and the aspiration of helping people live more
sustainability or within a healthier environment or community?
3. Think about the people who look to you as a leader—what do you think they expect of you when you
are in that role?
4. Who influences how you think about sustainability and/or the environment? Who are your trusted
sources? In other words, are there places, people, or sources of information that your community or
initiative could not get along without?
5. Was there an issue oropportunity that sparked your emergence as a leader? Can you tell me the story
of how your engagement started and where you are now?
6. What critical transitions or ‘tipping points’ have transformed the way you create influence? How
about within your community or related to the issue you are passionate about?
7. Some say the nature of the issues we are facing is super complex while, at the same time, people are
questioning authority more than ever. How do you exert influence in this crowd-sourced world, a
world where so much is online and so much decision-making is grassroots and decentralized?
8. How does social and environmental justice fit specifically into your work and your leadership role?
What do you think are the critical drivers for helping people live more sustainably in their everyday
lives in the Bay Area? How about barriers to that?
9. If you were invited to give a TED talk that highlighted a profoundly important, innovative twist on
the notion of environmental learning and meaningful action, what story would you tell?
10. Who else should I talk to? Who do you feel is leading or exerting an impressive influence in
environment and sustainability in the SF Bay area, and perhaps beyond?
11. What have not I asked you that I should have?
6N.M. Ardoin et al.
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specifically in light of the levels of independence and attention to collective goals
present in those styles. The framework is displayed in Figure 1, which highlights
how the interaction of these two principal dimensions (independence from leader
and collective goals) creates four leadership styles. Grint (2005) characterizes these
styles as:
Figure 1. Results of coding of leadership styles.
Note: Circle sizes are roughly proportional to number of interviewees discussing each leadership style
or efforts to avoid it.
Leadership in the Environmental Realm 7
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.Wheelwright: high commitment to collective goals, high independence from
leader;
.White Elephant: high commitment to collective goals, low independence from
leader;
.Emperor: low commitment to collective goals, low independence from leader;
.Cat Herder: low commitment to collective goals, high independence from
leader.
Within the interviewees’ responses, we used an a priori coding process to
code for discussions of leadership guided by the four types of leadership out-
lined by Grint (2005). The content of the questions, which did not directly relate
to leadership style, decreases the likelihood of social desirability bias impacting
responses (Fisher, 1993); that is, because we did not specifically ask about lea-
dership style, there was less pressure for respondents to characterize their lea-
dership in a way perceived to be socially acceptable or desirable to the
researchers. For the selective coding categories related to leadership style
(Wheelwright, White Elephant, Emperor, or Cat Herder), two researchers inde-
pendently coded each transcript. Percent agreement was 97.0%, indicating that
the two coders agreed on the coding for all but 3% of the words in the tran-
scripts. Given that 80% inter-coder agreement is considered acceptable and
90% highly reliable (Lavrakas, 2008; Lombard, Snyder-Duch, & Bracken,
2002), this level of agreement strongly suggests that our coding is consistent
and reproducible.
As we coded for leadership styles, we noticed a distinction between leader-
ship styles and leadership work. As we observed that interviewees commonly
described collaborative leadership styles, we further explored what work is
believed to characterize collaborative leadership styles. Ospina and Foldy (2010)
present three types of leadership work: bridging differences, reframing the dis-
course, and unleashing human energy. We thus had one researcher reanalyse all
transcripts and code descriptions of these three kinds of work.
Results
Leadership as Transformational and Collaborative (‘Wheelwright’)
Most of our interviewees described a leadership style that is both collaborative
and transformational, or what is characterized as the Wheelwright leadership
style (see Figure 1). All but one interviewee described his or her leadership as
fitting this style, and of 234 total passages coded as leadership style, 53% were
coded as such. One interviewee encapsulated the idea of transforming values in
a collaborative way, saying,
We have to work backwards from what people’s values are. We can’t
overlay our values on other people, other cultures, and assume that
those values would be adopted. We ... hear this phrase ‘Meet people
where they are’, but you have to know where they are to even know
where to meet them, right?
In addition, many discussions of leadership style involved interviewees
describing their desire to avoid less collaborative or less transformational styles
(a total of 21% of 234 total passages coded as leadership style were coded as
8N.M. Ardoin et al.
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Not White Elephant, Not Emperor, or Not Cat Herder), such as this interviewee
discussing a desire to avoid an Emperor leadership style: ‘So, this story
becomes something [community members] can identify with—as opposed to
me getting up there and preaching about how you shouldn’t drive as much,
and how you should be thinking about the environment.’
Leadership as Transformational, with a Strong Role for Leader (‘White Elephant’)
Although discussions of the Wheelwright leadership style predominated, inter-
viewees also frequently mentioned the White Elephant style (24% of 234 total pas-
sages coded as leadership style). Comments exemplifying this style incorporated
references to transformational action, but with less emphasis on collaboration and
more emphasis on the particular contributions of the leader. One interviewee, for
instance, discussed what she saw as followers’
1
desire for inspiration (transforma-
tional leadership) coupled with specific guidance from the leader (less collabora-
tive leadership):
Because of the changes going on with our environment, I think people
mainly look to me—or look to people like me—for guidance and some-
thing to hold on to in terms of direction; what they should do about all
the environmental problems we face. I think people ... are looking for
something helpful and inspiring to hang on to.
Most interviewees discussed a combination of leadership styles in the course
of the interview. The most common combination of approaches was evidenced by
those who spoke primarily of the collaborative – transformational Wheelwright
style and then occasionally described their leadership in accordance with the
White Elephant style. In other words, these interviewees emphasized the impor-
tance of being collaborative and transformational (‘Wheelwright’), but also recog-
nized the contributions that come from being an individual leader (‘White
Elephant’). In some cases, interviewees referenced multiple leadership styles in
the same comment. One interviewee described a process in a White Elephant
fashion (i.e. high collaboration/low independence), then immediately followed
with the subsequent thought, which suggests a Wheelwright style (i.e. high collab-
oration/high independence):
I don’t personally see it being uniquely just for me to do. I believe and see
that it’s a role that we all have to play as human beings, as members of
society. Then, I understand why many people don’t [play that leadership
role—i.e. lead community action].
Actionable ‘Leadership Work’ of Collaborative, Transformational Leaders
Many of our interviewees discussed employing the types of leadership work
described as collaborative. Table 3 presents the frequency with which the three
types of work were discussed concurrently with various leadership styles, reveal-
ing that they were most frequently discussed in conjunction with the Wheelwright
leadership style and rarely discussed in conjunction with the Emperor style.
Below we describe each type of work and provide examples of respondents’ dis-
cussions of each.
Leadership in the Environmental Realm 9
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Bridging difference; bringing diverse actors together. Central to the leadership
practice of bridging difference is the idea of bringing different perspectives and
actors together, but without attempts to reduce diversity or meld all perspectives
into one. By revealing and even celebrating the variety of topics relevant to a par-
ticular issue, this leadership practice highlights interdependencies (Ospina &
Foldy, 2010).
The goal of bringing people together and creating new relationships was
common among interviewees: 9 people raised this notion a total of 30 times.
One interviewee said:
You have to find ways for people to connect with others and feel that
they’re engaged in some kind of a meaningful process. I think: How
can we help that process to happen? I think we’ve got to work from the
top and the bottom, so to speak.
Another interviewee described a specific way that she advocates and facilitates,
bridging differences. She does this by creating open conversations between ‘envir-
onmentalists’ who are trying to increase involvement in outdoor activity and
people from communities traditionally underrepresented in those activities. The
interviewee described the need to
give those people who already have that influence an opportunity to share
what the values and needs are of their constituency so that solutions can
be highly relevant; so that people are not scratching their heads and won-
dering what ‘those people’ [those underrepresented in outdoor activity]
need. But ... you actually have people from that community who are
able to articulate needs and also go back to the community and articulate
the benefits in a way that’s [relevant]—and from someone who’s already
trusted.
Of the three kinds of leadership work presented as collaborative –transforma-
tional, ‘bridging difference’ is perhaps the one that most distinguishes Wheel-
wright from White Elephant leadership. A leader employing a White Elephant
(i.e. high collaboration/low independence) style gravitates towards like-minded
individuals; a Wheelwright (i.e. high collaboration/high independence) leader,
however, tends to also seek dissent and contrasting opinions. One interviewee,
in a passage coded as White Elephant leadership, implied the lack in that leader-
ship style of emphasis on diversity of opinion:
Table 3. Coding of leadership work types
Bridge difference Reframe discourse
Unleash human
energy
# ppl # mentions # ppl # mentions # ppl # mentions
In total 9 30 11 65 12 83
In conjunction with leadership styles
Wheelwright 9 18 9 26 9 31
White Elephant 3 3 5 12 5 10
Emperor 0 0 0 0 2 3
Note: No interviewee described his/her approach as consistent with a ‘Cat Herder’ style.
10 N.M. Ardoin et al.
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Even though we [an NGO-produced environmental periodical] didn’t
have very many subscribers, we turned out to have a huge influence.
That was very interesting because ...the individuals who were reading
us were themselves of a similar mind and they were very, very active,
and they were leaders wherever they were.
Reframing discourse. Collaborative leaders tend to inspire action and creativity
by reframing the discourse (Foldy, Goldman, & Ospina, 2008). This practice is con-
sistent with a transformational leadership style in which inspiring a new way of
seeing or addressing problems is key.
Our interviewees often discussed reframing discourse; all but one intervie-
wee mentioned this practice, and, in total, interviewees shared 65 instances of
it. One interviewee shared an anecdote describing encouragement that he com-
monly offers to his followers. The essence of the anecdote is an upheaval of domi-
nant societal discourse:
My theory is that, in time ... whoever knows how to grow food, that food
is going to be worth more than gold. People are going to need to eat. ...
The growers feel like they’re looked down at because their hands are
dirty and their boots are dirty and their clothes are dirty. They don’t
work in an office, they’re not educated. I tell them otherwise. I tell them
people with all those credentials and preparation are going to be
looking up at you. Guess who’s going to have the beet in their hands?
It’s gonna be you, not them. They’re gonna pay you what their suit is
worth for that beet.
Another interviewee, this one with extensive experience in underserved
urban communities, described her approach as a reframing of the mainstream
environmental discourse:
The ‘the-planet-is-about-to-die-with-all-of-us-on-it’ approach is not
gonna fly .... You can’t go into a community and talk about it in that
way. If I can frame it in a way that’s like, ‘Hey, come to this hip-hop
concert,’ we get to the hip-hop concert that happens to be running off
solar power. The food that you’re eating happens to be organic and
super healthy. There’s a table over here that’s telling you about an organ-
ization that you can sign up for and get trained up for a green job. Or,
‘Here’s some wonderful social entrepreneurs that you need to know
about who are taking things like coffee grounds and making eight
million dollar companies off of it by creating them into mushroom kits.’
That’s a different frame.
Unleashing human energies. Collaborative leaders, instead of directing followers
towards particular tasks, display an attitude that invokes a sense of working
together towards a common vision and shared goals. Success using this approach
requires able, creative, and diverse followers. The practice of unleashing human
energies is based on the notion that knowledge is power, and that the most effec-
tive and meaningful knowledge/power combination derives from the community
itself (Berkes, 2004; Freire, 2000; Ospina, 2011). The practice of unleashing human
energies assumes that followers have ‘a deep knowledge of the problem, which is
Leadership in the Environmental Realm 11
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derived from their own lived experience’ (Ospina, 2011, p. 3). A leader employing
this practice creates conditions for transformational learning, empowering fol-
lowers to fully realize their potential to create change.
Our respondents spoke frequently, and with substantial nuance, about prac-
tices that help people to realize their potential. All 12 interviewees discussed this
practice, mentioning it a total of 83 times. The following sub-categories, which
could be considered mechanisms for unleashing human energies, emerged from
the data: providing tools, promoting followers’ learning, and learning with fol-
lowers.
Providing tools, opening doors to existing talent or wisdom. One mechanism for
unleashing human energies was providing tools or training that allows followers’
knowledge or experience to blossom. As one leader described, ‘I’m really moving
with my thought that is about creating models for ourselves ... and connecting
people to the tools and resources to fulfill their dreams.’ Another leader described
the peer-to-peer model underlying his organization as a tool ‘where you’re creat-
ing a platform and empowering the people ... . It is decentralized and it relies on
... the motivations and the power of large numbers of people. I think that there’s a
lot of power there’.
There was nuance in how our respondents saw their roles in unleashing
human energies. One interviewee, for example, saw her role as helping people
live in accordance with what they already know, largely by expressing and
reminding people of that deep awareness:
When you express the principle that is true and ... look at the complexity
through that lens, then that will always be ... credible. People will listen
to it because it’s based on what they themselves know as true. They
don’t have to be persuaded if something is true. ... They will believe
you because they have the internal knowledge and the internal truth
that we all share; that you’re looking at the world through that shared
truth and shared heart.
Promoting followers’ learning. In our respondents’ discussions, the role of learn-
ing was, at times, explicit, while, at other times, subtle. Many respondents in some
way addressed the aim of promoting learning among community members, with
a number of interviewees referring to themselves as ‘teachers’. One interviewee
discussed learning in this way:
We have to believe in the power of human response to truth and to
exposure to the world ... If people had exposure to these things, all
these academic arguments disappear .... I am a huge believer, massive
fan, of teaching rigorous knowledge. I’m never going to teach people
without exposing them to the things that we’re talking about.
Similarly, interviewees saw their role as helping people reflect on and under-
stand their actions. One interviewee said:
We have a lot of habits that aren’t good for us, right; and so [I try] to help
people think about, ‘I’ve done this my whole life, but it might not make
sense.’ It’s tough to change those patterns, but with the right motivations
and the right education, it’s possible.
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Another interviewee described a similar approach, but with a slightly more direc-
tive bent. She saw a critical driver for helping people live more sustainably as
gathering information and providing it to people about the impacts—the
negative impacts and positive impacts—of their behavior. You tell ‘em
how their actions are affecting the natural world and other people. You
tell ‘em what actions will improve the impact, and you tell ‘em and tell
‘em, and tell ‘em.
Learning with followers. For many of our interviewees, learning was bidirec-
tional: our respondents not only described facilitating others’ learning, but
also recognized their own process of continual learning. Interviewees recog-
nized that, even though they may take a leadership role, their effectiveness
was facilitated by continually learning from others. One interviewee empha-
sized the importance of scientists for herself and her community members:
I always say to people that we couldn’t work on climate change without
the ... scientists to help us understand it and back us up. I couldn’t ask a
clergy person to step out [on] the pulpit and give a sermon on climate
without the information to back up what that person is saying, and we
get that from the scientific community.
Another interviewee described her work as a collaborative process of learn-
ing with others:
This really allows us to explore the ways in which the industrial or
modern colonial seed system is failing us and has really caused significant
disease and poverty and that alienation ...between us and the environ-
ment—being able to learn and practice together how to grow food and
take care of our community, and then cook together.
Discussion
Recently, leadership theory has focused less on leaders’ characteristics and
more on what leaders do, positioning leaders as actors embedded in contexts
(Foldy et al., 2008). This study, with its emphasis on how environmental
leaders discuss their leadership styles and work, is consistent with this
approach. We found that environmental leaders (many of them working
within the context of fluid or unknown constituencies) often discussed their
leadership as both collaborative and transformational (‘Wheelwright’), but
also discussed their leadership as transformational but not particularly colla-
borative (‘White Elephant’). Although they sometimes enacted less collabora-
tive styles, however, leaders discussed employing all three types of work
associated with collaborative leadership (Ospina & Foldy, 2010). In this discus-
sion, we present reflections on, and possible additions to, existing theory in
both natural resources management and leadership fields, with the aim of
informing environmental management. While reflecting on notions of the
wicked problems that commonly characterize environmental decision-making,
we discuss three points: while full collaboration/participation is often desir-
able, in some situations it may not be optimal; relationships, trust, and
meaning play an important role in leadership at all levels of independence
Leadership in the Environmental Realm 13
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and collaboration; and learning (and learning theory) have substantial contri-
butions to make to leadership theory.
Collaboration and Participation
Collaborative leadership, and related concepts of distributed, participative,
shared, and collective leadership, are core to this study. These leadership
models focus on mutual influence among team members in situations less hier-
archical and more egalitarian than those described in other leadership models
(Fletcher & Ka
¨ufer, 2003). These ideas of bottom-up decision-making are closely
related to concepts of participation in policy, international development, and
natural resources management (Gallardo & Stein, 2007; Konisky & Beierle,
2001). One theory that discusses solutions to wicked problems in these fields
posits that ‘clumsy solutions’ can facilitate the incorporation of multiple voices.
Collaborative, participatory approaches to natural resource management and
rural development, which have advanced substantially in the past 30 years
(Chambers, 1994; McCool & Guthrie, 2001; Wondolleck & Yaffee, 2000), can
have myriad benefits over more top-down approaches. These benefits include
more equitable decision-making and durable outcomes (Reed, 2008).
Our results suggest, however, that while these participatory styles and pro-
cesses might be appropriate at times, they may be less than ideal at others
(Agrawal & Gibson, 1999). This finding begs the question: When might these
approaches—and their related outcomes—be preferable? Might the nature of
environmental problems—which are informed by diverse and dispersed data
(McCool & Guthrie, 2001) and characterized by ever-changing conditions—beget
a desire or create space, in some cases, for more directive forms of leadership?
Our results suggest that the goal in environmental leadership perhaps need
not always be a fully participatory approach. Although collaborative, participa-
tory approaches can be highly effective and are, indeed, often preferred in the
majority of circumstances and at the macro level, what we find—the presence of
a ‘White Elephant’-style leadership—may not be undesirable. That is, the
matrix (see Figure 1) is not a hierarchy, but rather presents diverse interaction
styles. Among the leaders we interviewed, commitment to community goals—
which we associate with transformational leadership—was a common emphasis
in almost all discussions of leadership styles; this emphasis is present in both
Wheelwright and White Elephant leadership.
A high degree of independence from, or even active dissent with, the leader—
which we associate with collaborative leadership—was not always present
alongside discussions of transformational leadership. While almost all of our
interviewees discussed valuing collaboration, they also described contexts in
which participation was less of a focus. This idea of not aiming for full partici-
pation at all times is prevalent in recent scholarship on participation. In some
circumstances, community members may not have the resources (e.g. time,
money, mental space) to be fully participatory in every aspect of their lives; in
certain cases, they may prefer to leave decision-making to others. Levels of partici-
pation are often conceptualized using a ‘spectrum of public participation’, ranging
from ‘informing’ to ‘empowering’ (International Association for Public Partici-
pation, 2007; Orenstein, Moore, & Sherry, 2010). The decision about where to
fall on this spectrum often depends on weighing the time or resources available
against the type, content, and potential implications of the decision being made.
14 N.M. Ardoin et al.
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Our results do not at all suggest that collaboration is unimportant or
unnecessary; on the contrary, they reveal collaborative leadership as the most
common style employed by the diverse leaders interviewed. Our findings,
however, complicate the notion that completely participatory, non-hierarchical
leadership is desirable and effective in every circumstance. Similarly, the literature
addressing collaborative decision-making demonstrates that individuals (e.g.
leaders or coordinators) can play key roles in collaborative processes (Weber &
Khademian, 2008). This work and our results suggest a fruitful area for future
exploration: identifying circumstances in which more directive forms of leader-
ship are appropriate, especially when tackling wicked problems.
Relationships, Trust, and Meaning
When full participation is not possible or ideal, people often seek out a trusted
source for knowledge and action (Dalrymple, Shaw, & Brossard, 2013). Many of
our interviewees whose leadership-style descriptions were consistent with Wheel-
wright or White Elephant approaches discussed the centrality of relationships,
trust, and meaning. Leadership is no longer necessarily associated with occupying
the apex of a hierarchical pyramid; rather, in many cases, it seems to be conceptu-
alized and manifested as a web of interconnected interpersonal relationships
(Doyle, 2004). The concept of ‘followership’ (a sub-field within research on
leadership) posits that leadership and followership are deeply intertwined;
consequently, most effective leadership involves sensitivity to followers’
needs, emotions, and potential contributions (Hollander, 1992). Similarly,
relationship-based leadership involves recognition that followers have diverse
expertise, skills, and experience, and that this diversity can, when effectively
marshalled, contribute to common goals (Ganz, 2010). One researcher ’s
summary of relationship-based leadership was that ‘there is as much heart as
head in this style of leadership’ (Murphy, 2002, p. 77).
Leadership theory also addresses the importance of trust. Trust is particularly
relevant within the context of leadership in social movements, to which many
aspects of environmental management relate: the concept of base building in
social movements is largely about building relationships, which in turn have
trust as a foundational principle (Starr, 2001). The sociological distinction
between strong and weak ties is pertinent to leadership, particularly the informal,
broad-reaching type practised by our interviewees. Strong ties facilitate trust,
motivation, and commitment, and weak ties broaden access to salient information,
skills, and learning (Granovetter, 1973); successful leaders often combine strong
and weak ties (Ganz, 2010). Weak ties have received attention as counter-
intuitively important to social activity, as they can be critical for bridging
difference (a type of work we analyse). In addition to mentioning weak ties, our
interviewees frequently discussed the importance of stronger ties, for which
trust and meaning are central.
Another focus of leadership theory, particularly theory about transforma-
tional leadership, is sense-making and meaning-making (Foldy et al., 2008;
Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991). Although using different terms and found in different
segments of the literature, this idea of leaders as sense- and meaning-makers is
consistent with the importance of trust and relationships. This leadership
approach involves influencing followers’ perceptions, beliefs, and goals to
Leadership in the Environmental Realm 15
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increase commitment to the organization or common purpose. People who engage
in sense-making or meaning-making
emerge as leaders because of their role in framing experience in a way that
provides a viable basis for action, e.g. by mobilizing meaning, articulating
and defining what has previously remained implicit or unsaid, by invent-
ing images and meanings that provide a focus for new attention, and by
consolidating, confronting, or changing prevailing wisdom. (Smircich &
Morgan, 1982, p. 258)
This meaning-making has clear relevance to environmental management, particu-
larly in the context of wicked problems when ‘getting on the same page’ is critical
and can be challenging.
Learning
Related to the interviewees’ frequent references to White Elephant leadership is
another critical theme emerging from this study and one that may warrant
further study: the importance of learning in environmental leadership and as a
practice of collaborative and transformational leadership styles. Although leader-
ship theory rarely highlights learning as central, it offers learning-related insight
relevant to environmental management. Collaborative leadership often involves
bidirectional learning (Drath, 2001), which shifts attention from the unidirectional
influence of formal leaders to the relational processes that encourage co-leadership
within a group. According to the theory, transformational leaders must have char-
isma, provide inspiration, and promote intellectual stimulation. These character-
istics encourage communication processes and organizational learning (Conger,
1999), or the capability of an organization to grow and improve based on experi-
ence (Manz, Bastien, Hostager, & Shapiro, 1989). Our data were consistent with
these descriptions of learning: in particular, sub-themes emerging under the
‘unleashing human energy’ type of work (providing tools, promoting learning,
learning with followers) intertwine with concepts of organizational and bidirec-
tional learning.
According to Morris and Staggenborg (2004), early stages of a movement
centre around participants sharing stories, exploring ideas, and co-constructing
meaning, not around an enthralling leader. One interviewee mused:
I feel often like ... a pioneer [more than a leader] because I’m making up a
new field. In some ways, I’m making up a new profession, and so it really
has been essential to have people to talk to and bounce ideas off of, and to
work with me through this journey of creation.
Furthermore, the commitment of leaders in this study to fostering trust and
meaning-making enhances their capacity to engage others with environmentally
related content and action. This is because people’s interactions with science are
rarely, if ever, based simply on knowledge (Layton, Jenkins, Macgill, & Davey,
1993); rather, other aspects—such as the source of the science, emotions, social
relationships, and social structures are also critical in influencing action (Kelsey,
2003). How a message is conveyed, and by whom, can be as important as the
message’s content (Weiss & Tschirhart, 1994).
The construct of social learning shares key characteristics with what
leadership theory refers to as bidirectional and organizational learning, and
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social learning is of increasing interest in environmental management research
and practice (Bos, Brown, & Farrelly, 2013; Wals, 2007). Social learning is a
process that (1) involves a change in understanding; (2) is situated within a
social context (e.g. a community); and (3) involves learning through social inter-
action (Reed et al., 2010). Social learning is recommended, alongside related
work on social-ecological systems (Ostrom, 2007) and deliberative processes
(Schusler, Decker, & Pfeffer, 2003), as important for environmental management
(Bos et al., 2013; Ison, Blackmore, & Iaquinto, 2013), particularly in wicked situ-
ations (Ison et al., 2013; Wals, 2007). Investigating social learning in deliberative
natural resource decision-making suggests that particular process characteristics
encourage social learning (Schusler et al., 2003). Most of these characteristics—
for example, open communication, diverse participation, constructive conflict,
democratic structure, and multiple sources of knowledge—are consistent with
the leadership styles and types of work discussed above (Schusler et al., 2003).
Moreover, although social learning tends to encourage action-taking and involve-
ment, the structures needed to sustain co-learning and action are ‘unlikely to form
without intervention by a local change agent’ (Schusler et al., 2003, p. 324)—i.e. a
leader. Similarly, work on the role of knowledge and networks in addressing
wicked problems discusses the critical importance of Collaborative Capacity
Builders: individuals who coordinate networks and facilitate knowledge-
sharing between diverse parties (Weber & Khademian, 2008). One critical charac-
teristic of these Collaborative Capacity Builders is ‘an undeniable passion and
commitment to the collaborative process’ (Weber & Khademian, 2008, pp. 343–
344). The people we call ‘leaders’ could as easily be called ‘Collaborative Capacity
Builders’.
Our results confirm previous findings of the practices associated with both
social learning (Wals, 2007) and collaborative leadership (Ospina & Foldy, 2010).
We suggest another potential area for future exploration: the centrality of learning
in leadership processes—particularly leadership for complex wicked problems.
Although previous work on collaborative leadership (Ospina & Foldy, 2010) does
not claim these practices to be the exclusive provenance of collaborative leaders,
our results demonstrate that two of the types of leadership work—specifically
reframing discourse and unleashing human energies—are frequently employed
by leaders operating in a somewhat less collaborative fashion (Table 2).
How these forms of leadership interact with increasingly common concepts and
practices of social learning is an area ripe for future research.
Conclusion
In the mid-1990s, development specialist Robert Chambers (1994, 953) noted
changes occurring in the rhetoric of rural environmental management. ‘These
shifts’, he wrote, ‘include the now-familiar reversals from top-down to bottom-
up, from centralized standardization to local diversity, and from blueprint to
learning process.’ Our core argument is that these concepts of bottom-up,
diversely sourced, and learning-based action also characterize activities of
current environmental leaders. We found that environmental leaders described
their leadership process as collaborative and transformational, consistent with
the shift that Chambers observed.
Yet our interviewees’ discussions of a more directive, while still highly
transformational, leadership style suggest a need for understanding which
Leadership in the Environmental Realm 17
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aspects of environmental management may benefit from thoroughly egalitarian
and participatory approaches, and when and where more directive leadership
may be appropriate. Our results also suggest the importance of relationships
and trust in environmental management processes. Finally, our interviews
revealed learning processes to be core to how leaders create change. The learning
work employed by collaborative and/or transformational leaders coincide with
many practices of social learning, a body of concepts and practices increasingly
relevant to environmental management.
Our findings confirm shifts in leadership theory and practice, offering insight
for environmental decision-making processes and community mobilization. They
demonstrate the increasing prevalence of, in Chambers’ words, bottom-up
approaches that honour local diversity, facilitate learning, and recognize the
trust and relationships required for working with and coalescing diverse constitu-
ents. These new and increasingly organic forms of leadership in the environ-
mental realm can bring together communities around a range of issues—from
pollution to habitat restoration, from urban planning to water conservation—to
engage people authentically and deeply in collaborative and transformative ways.
Acknowledgements
We are deeply grateful to the 12 inspiring individuals who shared their time to
speak with us about their work. We are also grateful to K. C. Busch, Kathleen
O’Connor, and Noelle Wyman Roth for help with data coding. Amanda
Cravens provided valuable insight on participation theory.
Funding
We thank the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation for their generous support of the
Environmental Learning in the Bay Area project.
Note
1. We use this term while recognizing that it is not accurate for many of the leadership contexts
described by our interviewees. A more accurate term would be ‘those working with the leader’,
but we use ‘followers’ to maintain ease of reading and consistency with the literature (Hollander,
1992).
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