Leadership in the Eye of the Beholder

Theoretical Foundations

The exercise focuses on eliciting Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs). ILT examines the assumptions that individuals carry about what a leader is, how leaders behave, what is expected of them (prototype), and what is not (antiprototype) (Epitropaki & Martin, 2005; Holmberg & Åkerblom, 2006). They can constrain or facilitate the exercise of leadership and acceptance of new leaders (Lord & Maher, 1991). It is important to understand these mental models as people will look for congruency to the mental model when evaluating leaders and their effectiveness (Epitropaki et al., 2013; Lord et al., 2020). The ILT focus is on the perceptual process, and how actions are understood (Epitropaki & Martin, 2004).

Implicit means that people might not be aware that their ILT has been activated or what impact they have. Our exercise brings those frameworks to the surface. ILT is developed through socialization, experience, cultural connections, and childhood experiences (Antonakis & Dalgas, 2009; DuBrin, 2016; Epitropaki et al., 2013;). This implies that they will differ across individuals. While some elements might be common, how they manifest and how important they are will vary. There is evidence that some of the categories in the mental models remain stable over time, but some become more salient in certain contexts and can be changed with planned interventions (Epitropaki & Martin, 2004).

Martin et al. (2018) highlight a shortcoming of leadership training: a failure to address the ILT that might underpin how people are processing the information. They stress that leaders and followers need to develop awareness of what is under the surface. Our exercise directly addresses this need.

It is appropriate to leverage the arts to expand understanding (Adler, 2006). Art and artists stimulate us to see more, broaden our perceptions, and view reality in a different way (Schein, 2013). There is a tradition of relating art and leadership in the literature; a few examples are Adler and Delbecq (2018); Gayá Wicks and Rippin (2010); Greenhalgh and Maxwell (2019); Peterson et al. (2016). Our article expands the field by creating an exercise that focuses on ILT.

Art speaks beyond words, leading to an understanding elicited by integration rather than separation (Adler & Delbecq, 2018). As leadership gets more complex (Woodward & Funk, 2010), the need for integration and the management of ambiguity and complexity becomes more relevant (Heifetz & Heifetz, 1994; Heifetz & Laurie, 2001; Katz-Buonincontro, 2011).

Gallos (2020) lists how art has been used in teaching including: exploring human nature, facilitating growth, and enhancing creativity. Art serves as a counterpoint to the traditional focus on the quantifiable in business schools. Art-based instructional methods offer opportunities to move from hyper-rational approaches to ones that better integrate complexity (Sutherland & Jelinek, 2015) and by so doing tap into the different mental models held on leadership. De Ciantis (1995) points out that art allows the participants to experience both themselves and others in unexpected ways.

The arts can help us see some of our own assumptions as well as the opportunities in the way ahead. This requires sense-making (Weick, 1995) in a way that helps us to simultaneously capture both the whole and the relevant details. This can be achieved by developing an aesthetic sensibility; something as simple as looking at art can have a profound impact.

Beyond eliciting ILT, we also aim to improve the students’ ability to see and appreciate the complexity of the world they inhabit through the complexity inherent in art. The world does not easily separate into discrete pieces and leaders must operate and find ways to be effective in an environment of uncertainty and complexity (Adler, 2006; Woodward & Funk, 2010).

Dolev et al. (2001) reported the significant effect for medical students of having an art appreciation experience; it led them to become better diagnosticians. Pellico et al. (2009) showed a similar effect for nurses. The authors’ conclusion was that learning to pay attention to the details in artworks and looking for meaning enhances their observational abilities in their profession. Teaching our students to be better sense-makers through art can then lead them to better diagnose their situation and the leadership actions that need to be taken.

Learning Objectives

After completing the exercise, students will be better able to:

Exercise Overview

The exercise can be used in a wide variety of courses including organizational behavior, principles of management, and leadership. It can be used at any level of course. The exercise lends itself readily to both face-to-face and online classes. The time needs are varied; a 50-minute class session may not allow time to view all the images in the slide deck, possibly only 8 to 10 images. The instructor can choose which images to display, begin with those, and add additional images as time allows. It is not necessary to go through all the slides to achieve the learning objectives.

We use this exercise at the beginning of the semester to bring up implicit leadership theories and assumptions about leadership. At this point, students will not have studied leadership theories. The key to the exercise is an active debrief session where the students have the opportunity to hear, discuss, or read what others have to say and to create more complete mental models of leadership.

Asking students to elaborate on what they see and to build around what others have said strengthens their insight into leadership and its complexity. The opportunity to listen to different perspectives on the same art piece can lead students to realize how ambiguous and complex leadership is, as the same input produces very different outputs eliciting their ILT.

The only material needed is the slide deck containing photos of artworks. Our slide deck contains a variety of art but mainly paintings, some more direct or indirect in relation to leadership. The list of the artworks can be found in Appendix A and the images in the supplemental materials.

This is just the beginning. Instructors can expand the set to best fits their historical context or cultural affinities. Stout (1997) advised that the selection should be based on the potential to generate ideas, tap into people’s experiences, and elicit the context. Appendix B includes some considerations around representation to keep in mind when selecting images.

In case instructors using this activity do not have strong self-efficacy in discussing art, Appendix C contains tips for evaluating a work of art.

Running the Exercise

At its core, the exercise consists of showing each image and then asking the students how it relates to leadership. The students should then share what they see in the image. The instructor must allow enough time for the students to notice small details, the things that are missing or concealed from a first glance (Adler, 2015). Ideally, the discussion will begin as soon as the slide comes up and continue as the students build on their impressions, each slide should be displayed for at least three minutes. Adequate viewing time results in achieving deeper meaning as well as better awareness of interrelations (Adler & Delbecq, 2018; Stout, 1997; Woodward & Funk, 2010). Initial emotions will be transformed into deeper analysis with adequate exposure (Leder & Nadal, 2014).

Once the first impressions are discussed, the professor can then ask specific questions to further the ideas expressed or take them in directions they have not explored. Appendix D includes a few potential questions to further probe each of the images we have collected with a focus on eliciting ILT.

It is important that the instructor examines their own frame of reference (Stout, 1997) as it might influence their understanding of the artwork. They also need to stay open to new avenues of sense-making coming from the students. The first slide we use is “Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Leutze (1851); this image shows Washington as the focus depicted standing above others. We ask the students, “What does it make you think about leadership?”. Some typical answers include: Washington is focused, has direction, is above the fray, the image of a leader, in charge, you know he is going to get it done. These are some of the assumptions students make about more traditional models of leadership. We pose a question; how would you see things differently if Washington were depicted rowing with his men? Bringing up this question in the discussion opens up avenues of inquiry. Students usually react negatively to this idea, saying he would not seem as strong or decisive, or “it just feels wrong to them.” These answers allow us to bring up those implicit theories of leadership and its prototypes. Further questions could be: What is it about George Washington that says “leader” to you? What are the visual cues? Usually, we hear: he is higher, more clearly depicted, the light is shining on him. Is this kind of larger-than-life figure what you expect from a leader? Students tend to agree but also recognize that it might be a little old-fashioned; however, they still comment on how they would like a leader like that.

The exercise requires vulnerability (Brown, 2018; Sutherland & Jelinek, 2015) from both the instructor and the students. All need to be willing to listen to different points of view and different insights. For example, one of the images we use is an engraving of John Hancock signing the Declaration of Independence (Currier & Ives, 1876). His is the first signature and it is large in comparison to the others. We asked the students how that relates to their idea of leadership. The students surprised us by talking about how self-centered Hancock was to take up all the space. Who did he think he was? They saw him as a showoff. Then we brought up another point: What if the others were afraid of signing and his bold signature helped spur the rest? This changed the discussion; they recognized that the context changes how we see things, and the same action was seen very differently. Then Hancock becomes the hero, a brave figure willing to put it all in the line. We then highlighted the importance of the situation to understand leadership.

Variations

The exercise can be enhanced further with additional assignments or different framings (see Appendix E for some ideas).

Conclusion

This exercise merges the worlds of leadership and art. This provides us with the opportunity to bring up underlying assumptions and mental models about leadership, to improve the ability to notice details about leadership, to be able to see leaders in everyday events, to be introduced to the many different leadership theories, and potentially to become better leaders themselves.

Supplemental Material