Transformative Leadership Conversation: Toward a Conceptualization and Theory of Action for Educational Leaders

Sensemaking and Learning Dialogue

TLC combines three forms of conversation—dialogue, sensemaking, and learning—to activate the capacity within individuals and groups to take ownership of social realities they desire to cultivate. Dialogue sets a tone for conversation, structuring talk to be a reciprocal meaning-making process that involves as much listening and reflecting as it does sharing and expressing (Bohm, 1986; Palmer, 1998). Sensemaking sets a purpose for dialogue, constructing a mental representation of a social reality school members aspire to cultivate (Ancona, 2011; Weick, 1995; Weick et al., 2005). Learning moves dialogue into action by making sense of complexities, tensions, and nuances that unfold as school members work individually and collectively to turn aspirations into reality (Argyris, 2008; Garvin, 2000; Schon, 1983). In what follows, we describe each form of conversation individually before discussing their integration as sensemaking and learning dialogue.

Talk is constant in schools, but actual dialogue is rare. Dialogue, as Bohm (1986) describes, is not simply talking about ideas or communicating information; it is not discussion or rhetorical debate to persuade; and it is not discourse used to control or regulate people. Isaacs (2001) and Bohm (1986) define dialogue as a meaning-making process in which thoughts underlying actions are explored individually and in community with others. Freire (1998, 2000) deepens the function of dialogue beyond meaning-making in arguing that dialogue does not end with deeper awareness and understanding. Rather, dialogue is active and transformative; it is a state of being in which individuals, groups, and social orders are constantly becoming (Freire, 1998, 2000).

TLC relies on dialogue to generate the introspection, awareness, and intentional action from which individuals and groups co-construct new realities. Dialogue is not easy, but when used effectively it is a catalyst for transformation (Freire, 2000; Isaacs, 2001). Dialogue generates awareness of latent assumptions and thoughts that Argyris (2008) argues is necessary to transform social structures. Weick (2012) describes such inquiry as sensemaking. Sensemaking adds an important structural component to dialogue. Sensemaking directs dialogue to the mental representations that affect how people make sense of their experiences, how they view and understand reality, and how they negotiate dynamic situations and events (Holt & Cornelissen, 2014; Weick, 1995; Weick et al., 2005).

For TLC, sensemaking dialogue has two purposes. First, it is used to construct a mental representation of the concept representing an aspirational reality. The aspirational reality can be any desired future state or condition. For example, it could be a teacher working with a school leader to improve student transfer and application of concepts. It could be a university department looking to engage in community-based scholarship. It could be a school community interested in increasing deeper learning. In these examples, knowledge transfer and application, community-based scholarship, and deeper learning are subjects of dialogue. Because concepts often mean different things to different people, listening and learning how people see and understand the concept is essential to constructing a shared meeting together (Isaacs, 2001; Schein, 2003; Weick, 2012).

The second purpose of sensemaking dialogue is to construct propositional relationships that specify how participants might organize the work environment to achieve the aspirational reality. Propositional relationships form a type of theory of action that connects the aspirational reality to structures, processes, and/or practices theorized to bring the reality into existence. For example, sensemaking dialogue on community-engaged scholarship would surface strategies and actions for how a department might deepen and expand scholarship in and with community. Mental representations constructed through sensemaking dialogue establish a road map for how people can navigate and negotiate tensions and dilemmas associated with re-ordering social conditions.

Learning dialogue uses conversation to make sense of changes in action (Edmondson, 2002). An example of learning dialogue would be a leader facilitating a conversation to understand how planned strategies to increase community-engaged scholarship are developing in practice. In this case, knowledge and meaning are constructed as people reflect on their experiences and learn how actions are supporting and/or constraining the desired reality of community-engaged scholarship. Different from sensemaking dialogue that engages people in conversation about what might be done to achieve a different reality, learning dialogue raises questions about what is happening in working toward the reality. At the group and organizational level, learning dialogue weaves together people, mental representations, and system functioning to activate collective learning.

As illustrated in Figure 1, sensemaking and learning dialogue when integrated leads transformation through three interactive dialogues: dialogue with self, dialogue with others, and dialogue with the social context. Dialogue with self aims to raise awareness of preconceptions, assumptions, and biases that shape mental representations of a desired reality, as well as beliefs about conditions that help to achieve such a reality (Bohm, 1986; Buber, 1923). Dialogue with others moves sensemaking from one’s latent mental representation toward a community-constructed understanding of how desired realities may be lived through actions and interactions people have with each other and with organizational structures (Freire, 1998). Dialogue with social context examines how the system is functioning in use and practice (Isaacs, 2001; Weick, 2003).OPEN IN VIEWER

To summarize, sensemaking and learning dialogue is a reflective process; it uses an inner transformation in thoughts and feelings to drive an outward change in behavior and habits. The use of sensemaking and learning dialogue for TLC is not limited to dedicated time and places when people convene to talk. Certainly, dialogue will happen in formal and informal contexts, but dialogue does not end when the outward conversation stops. Dialogue happens as much within a person as it does between individuals and with the environment (Bohm, 1986; Cooper et al., 2013; Isaacs, 2001). The ongoing flow of sensemaking and learning dialogue brings meaning and action together within individuals and groups. Maintaining the flow of dialogue to keep beliefs and actions in motion requires a specific type of power, what we refer to as transformative power.

Transformative Power

In a mechanical context, power is a force behind the movement and action of objects. Electricity powers modern technology, fossil fuels power manufacturing plants, and gasoline powers cars and trucks. Power is not limited to the movement of mechanical objects; it is just as instrumental in the movement of people and social structures (Dahl, 1957; Pfeffer, 1992, 2013). Keltner (2016) notes that social power is active and at play in every interaction and relationship, no matter the context or scale of actors involved. Social power is the invisible force that people, groups, leaders, employees, organizations, and countries are constantly working to build and use in ways that influence and control the actions of others (Fiske & Berdahl, 2007; French & Raven, 1959). Transformative power is a different force than social power; it is a human kinetic energy residing in the natural motivational processes of people. To conceptualize transformative power, we first define it then compare its properties to social power.

Informed by self-determination theory, we define transformative power as the energy to fundamentally change social arrangements through the autonomous motivation and action of people (Brown et al., 2017; Ryan & Deci, 2020). Autonomous motivation and action reflect self-determined and volitional behavior that emanate from an integrated self rather than being manipulated and controlled by external factors (Ryan & Deci, 2000). People flourish in their environment, they persevere through adversity, they grow from tension and uncertainty, and they perform at peak levels when motivation and action are autonomously derived (Vansteenkiste et al., 2020). The inner re-ordering from which social re-structuring might emerge is not likely without autonomous motivation and action leading the way (Stone et al., 2009).

In contrast to transformative power, social power attributes the force behind change to conditions external to people. Social power is the relative weight that an external force—whether a person, process, or formal structure—has in influencing the actions and valued outcomes of others (Keltner, 2016). Social power is not of one unitary form; it varies by mechanisms external actors use to influence and control behavior. French and Raven (1959) initially classified mechanisms by five power bases: legitimate, reward, expertise, referent, and coercive. Since this initial conceptualization, types of influence have been broadly categorized along a soft-hard continuum, with soft power appealing to personal values, affect, and human needs and hard power playing on fears and perceived personal gains or losses (Nye, 2009). Irrespective of how social power is employed—soft or hard forms—the influence behind change comes from a force external to the person or people.

Transformative power and social power derive from different assumptions about human motivation and behavior. Social power aligns with behavioral theories. These theories essentially assume that human behavior is controllable by and through external mechanisms used contingently to reinforce a set of desired beliefs and behaviors (Ryan et al., 2019). Based on this logic, external agents gain power if their use of external controls produces enough motivation for people to comply with specified practices, processes, norms, and outcomes (Etzioni, 1975; Fiske & Berdahl, 2007). External controls can be useful when the intent is to force compliance to simple, algorithmic tasks, but for complex pursuits that require prolonged engagement, external controls reliably undermine autonomously engaged performance (Etzioni, 1975; Ryan & Deci, 2000, 2020).

Transformative power is based on an organismic framing of human motivation. An organismic framing assumes that motivational forces exist naturally within the psychological states of people, not within the external social structures of a system. Accordingly, as active organisms, people are naturally endowed with inner motivational energy to engage their social environments proactively and volitionally (Vansteenkiste et al., 2020). This inner motivational energy, which operates independent of external reinforcement (Deci & Ryan, 2016; Ryan & Deci, 2000), is part of our evolved psychology to be active, curious, and growth-seeking (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Autonomous motivation and action are inherent states of individuals that are activated by our human psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Transformative power exists naturally in people and can be either nurtured or thwarted depending on the satisfaction of psychological needs (Deci & Ryan, 2016; Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013).

TLC is not a form of social power; its use is not intended to control or manipulate thoughts and actions of individuals and groups in order to foster compliance with strategies, practices, or objectives. Instead, sensemaking and learning dialogue generates humanizing conditions from which autonomy, competence, and relatedness spark and sustain autonomous motivation and action. In sensemaking and learning dialogue, leaders ask questions more so than talk. They listen with curiosity to gain perspective and understanding from other positionalities. They facilitate thinking and conversations so that new meaning around a central concept can form (Isaacs, 1999). They foster mutuality and reciprocity with others. The very act of sensemaking and learning dialogue situates transformative power within the inner resources and capacity of people.

Conceptual Summary

TLC is used purposefully in the coordinated and collective pursuit of an imagined social reality. It leverages the most commonly available resource for leaders—conversation—to approach transformation as a process that begins within individuals and moves outward to the relational context where actions and interactions define social structures (Mezirow, 1994, 2008; Rohr, 2020). Sensemaking and learning dialogue is the leadership component of TLC. Dialogue is an active, meaning-making process that occurs within oneself, with others, and with the social context (Bohm, 1986; Isaacs, 2001). The intent of sensemaking and learning dialogue is to engage social change through the purposeful thoughts, motivations, and behaviors of individuals and groups. Transformative power situated in autonomous motivation and action is the inner energy that keeps transformation moving toward an aspirational reality.

Framing

TLC is atypical of most communication and talk in which school leaders engage. Being new and different, requires thoughtful and ongoing inquiry by leaders as they seek to structure conversation as sensemaking and learning dialogue (Cook & Yanow, 2011). Framing is the mental planning process that occurs in advance of and even within the conversations (Fairhurst, 2005). For TLC, framing has two purposes: to set the subject of conversation and to establish a structure of conversation.

Framing sets a direction for sensemaking and learning dialogue by establishing a subject of conversation. In framing the subject, leaders identify the general concept to talk about, and they reflect on the readiness of individuals and groups for transformative work. As described in the conceptualization, the general concept represents the social reality school members envision cultivating (Fairhurst, 2005; Rein & Schon, 1996; Van Hulst & Yanow, 2016). Along with framing the subject, those leading conversations consider the readiness of individuals and groups for sensemaking and learning dialogue. For instance, without first establishing shared meaning about a desired reality, individuals and groups would not be ready to move sensemaking dialogue toward propositions for how the reality might be generated.

Framing also involves conceptualizing a conversational structure, which directs leaders toward personal thoughts about their contextual and self-awareness (Fairhurst, 2005). Contextual awareness considers the context and conditions in which TLC occurs. TLC can occur in one-on-one conversations with another person, in a department or team meeting, in planned dialogue circles, or in other organizational arrangements. Each context presents different power dynamics and needs that will affect sensemaking and learning dialogue. Self-awareness primes the mind to structure conversation as sensemaking and learning dialogue. The purpose is to prepare mentally to enter dialogue from a position of interest and curiosity, being receptive to thoughts different from one’s own, listening to feelings and emotions behind words, and seeking understanding, not judgment (Bohm, 1986; Isaacs, 2001).

Questioning

Questions, as Berger (2014) notes, have become valuable currency for leaders as they negotiate challenges, explore opportunities, and address seemingly intractable social problems. The right questions can spark re-imaginations, inspire creativity, uncover performance tensions, chart new visions, and engender collective action (Berger, 2019). Questions allow people to explore the depth behind the things we do and how we behave individually and socially (Adams, 2016). Critical and socratic questioning have become valuable methods to raise awareness of hidden factors regulating social life (Paul & Elder, 2007). Brookfield (2011), in describing critical thinking, argues that questions invite people to see, appraise, and test their assumptions about phenomena. TLC draws on critical and Socratic questioning as the means to enter and sustain sensemaking and learning dialogue.

TLC uses critical questions to shift power from authority positions down to the autonomous motivation and action of people engaged in transformative work. Asking questions can spark critical thinking and ignite actions from which to build new realities (Brookfield, 2011; Paul & Elder, 2007), but many leaders do not ask meaningful questions and are not adept at asking questions in optimal ways (Berger, 2014; Brooks & John, 2018). For this reason, TLC organizes questions by three purposes, what we refer to as the three “I”s: to Investigate an aspirational reality, to Imagine new social arrangements, and to Integrate sensemaking and action.

⁃ Investigative questions start conversations by thinking deeply about the general concept of interest—the social reality that school members desire to transform. The purpose is to explore and understand the general meaning of the concept as defined in literature and as it is experienced by different people. Investigative questions make space for thinking about the concept before doing, allowing inquiry to precede solutions (Berger, 2014; Gregersen, 2018). This exploration involves dialogue within self and dialogue with others. The intent is to arrive at a shared meaning and understanding of the reality of interest.

Investigative questions are simple and open, usually beginning with what, how, or why and seek to explore the concept as situated in daily organizational life (Berger, 2014). Using the concept of deeper learning as an example, investigative questions might include the following: What does deeper learning look like to you? What elements of deeper learning are observable in our curriculum/pedagogy? Why is deeper learning important? How do you engage students in deeper learning? How do we engage teachers in deeper learning? How do our assessments constrain elements of deeper learning?

⁃ Imaginative questions move sensemaking and learning dialogue toward future possibilities. Different from investigative questions, yet connected, the intent behind imaginative questions is to step outside current structures and norms, to journey toward a new way of doing and being. Berger (2014) likens such questions to the difference between holding on to what is and asking what if. What if questions elicit divergent thinking in which new ideas to engage work are reflected on and explored.

Imaginative questions can be framed by what if and how might prompts. For example, What if we/you could change assessments in your classroom to align with deeper learning? How might you assess for knowledge transfer? What if you could design an instructional strategy around deeper learning? How might you focus on intrapersonal competencies? What if you could help students see the usefulness of math in everyday life? How might you engage students in instructional activities? Imaginative questions build out the mental representation of the desired reality by forming tentative propositional relationships between actions and desired change. For instance, a school focused on deeper learning might change its grading system to measure cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal competencies, rather than the simple understanding of basic content knowledge and procedures. Imaginative questions set the stage for learning dialogue activated through integrative questions.

⁃ Integrative questions guide individual and collective learning from which transformation takes shape in practice by asking how changed structures and/or actions are affecting social conditions. Continuing with deeper learning, we might ask: How is the assessment for knowledge transfer developing students’ competencies to reason mathematically? Questions that prompt dialogue around how ideas are being enacted guide conversation toward action. The intent is to raise awareness of how changes are working in practice.

Investigative, Imaginative, and Integrative questions are used to structure sensemaking and learning dialogue while serving distinct purposes. Investigative questions start a dialogue with self and with others on the meaning of an aspirational reality. Imaginative and integrative questions steer dialogue toward the social context, focusing sensemaking and learning on changes conjectured to nurture and support transformed reality. We see the different questions as useful for entering into an intentional dialogue depending on the purpose as identified in the framing process. To keep sensemaking and learning dialogue in motion requires more than asking the right questions; it depends on how we approach and engage listening.

Listening

Sensemaking and learning dialogue does not occur without listening (Marshak, 2004, 2019), and while listening is recognized as a natural part of conversation, it is a practice that requires intentionality and earnest engagement (Brearley, 2015; Floyd, 2010). Whereas investigative, imaginative, and integrated questions may begin conversations, what Marshak (2004) refers to as deep listening nurtures and sustains discourse that has the potential to reach cognitive structures behind unconscious and conscious thoughts. Sensemaking and learning dialogue has as much to do with deep listening as with talking.

Deep listening is different than the active listening popularized by Carl Rogers. Active listening acknowledges and affirms that you heard the words and emotions expressed by someone (Rost & Wilson, 2013). To do this, the listener typically responds with statements or questions related to what the speaker expressed. These responses allow the person to probe thoughts and feelings behind the expressions (Weger et al., 2014). Deep listening extends beyond active listening in that its purpose is to process information about the mental representations, mindsets, and dispositions reflected in thoughts and feelings expressed by the other actor (Marshak, 2019). The listener focuses on what is said, what is not said, and unexpressed feelings behind words, thoughts, and actions (Marshak, 2004).

Deep listening is a whole-body experience where the listener listens with her eyes, ears, mind, and heart (Murphy, 2019). It requires a mindset of curiosity, interest, and presence with a focus on understanding the speaker’s perspective, not judging or evaluating her thoughts and actions (Berger, 2014; Brearley, 2015; Marshak, 2004, 2019; Murphy, 2019). Deep listening and questioning are inextricable and together keep sensemaking and learning dialogue flowing. In returning to questions, general investigative, imaginative, and integrative questions start conversations. Listening deepens and extends conversations by informing questions that relate to how individuals and groups think about the subject of the conversation (Marshak, 2019).

Framing, Questioning, and Listening as an Interactive Process

Sensemaking and learning dialogue structured by framing, questioning, and listening does not follow a script or set of guidelines. The framework allies with the nuanced struggles and complexities inherent in transformative work. Transformation is messy and filled with paradoxes and contradictions that call for reflective action derived from learning in and with community (Palmer, 1998; Rohr, 2020). Framing, questioning, and listening function effectively when leaders find balance and harmony among the parts. Framing sets the stage for the general purpose of the conversation and questions. Questions activate dialogue with self, others, and the social environment. Listening nurtures and sustains dialogue as information is shared, processed, and reflected on in ways that surface important understandings and lead to purposeful action and continued sensemaking and learning.

TLC engaged through framing, questioning, and listening is not a passive conversational approach. Instead, TLC is a framework to guide leaders in using sensemaking and learning dialogue to be an active, disruptive, and constructive process in re-ordering relationships with self, others, and the environment. Leaders do not merely frame conversations, ask questions, and listen deeply in a structured, lock-step manner. Neither do leaders force sensemaking and learning to fit with the reality they aspire to shape. Sensemaking and learning dialogue activated through framing, questioning, and listening embraces complexities, adapts to non-uniform realities, adjusts to uncertainties and ambiguities, leans into tensions, and welcomes divergent thoughts and experiences (Payne & Calton, 2004; Sharma & Good, 2013). The intent is for people to work thoughtfully and cooperatively in how they adapt and modify actions and interactions to transform social structures they aim to fundamentally change.

Testing the Conceptual Nature of TLC

The argument for TLC is that it aligns with dynamic social-psychological processes involved in transformative work. Specifically, we argued that TLC activates an inner-outward approach to transformation, seeking to shift mental representations as a precursor to fundamentally altering individuals’ and groups’ ways of being and doing. Sensemaking and learning dialogue is the leadership mechanism of TLC. This form of dialogue brings people together to generate new meaning about desired realities, and it establishes relational conditions that ignite autonomous motivation and action. Thus, the following three propositions are advanced:

Proposition One: Sensemaking and learning dialogue builds shared mental representations as participants work to construct new social realities.

Testing the Theory of Action

TLC’s inner-outward approach to generating new social realities is not a conventional leadership process. Most leadership approaches rely on social power, external controls, and simple resources to lead change and improvement from formal authority positions (Schlechty, 2009). TLC departs from leadership conversation used to control and motivate action through discourse. TLC relies on transformative power generated from the inner motivational resources of people working cooperatively and collectively in pursuit of an aspirational reality. Thus, engaging sensemaking and learning dialogue requires a shift in leaders' thinking and actions and will likely take time and learning through trial and error for leaders to incorporate framing, questioning, and listening into their conversational strategies. As leaders grow in their use of framing, questioning, and listening they will gain a deeper perspective and understanding of people’s experiences, and they will set in motion conversational patterns that foster a need-supportive relational environment.

Proposition Four: Educational leaders can learn how to use framing, questioning, and listening to engage individuals and groups in sensemaking and learning dialogue across a variety of contexts (e.g., informal interactions, school-wide meetings, supervision and evaluation, coaching, learning communities, department meetings, and other team meetings).

In closing, TLC takes on greater significance when considering the need for educational systems to adapt to unprecedented challenges and unpredictable shifts in the external environment. Adaptation is considerably more dynamic and complex than responding swiftly to immediate crises. Movement from crises to adaptation requires a conversational structure that parallels the unique dynamics of transformation. This is where TLC comes into use for educational leaders. TLC aligns with the natural state of individual and organizational adaptation. It enables leaders and groups to collectively embrace complexities, adapt to non-uniform realities, adjust to uncertainties and ambiguities, lean into tensions, and welcome divergent thoughts and experiences (Palmer, 1998, 2014). The intent of TLC is for people to work thoughtfully and cooperatively to transform social structures they aim to fundamentally re-shape. Put simply, TLC is a process that educational leaders can use to ignite and sustain adaptation.