Professionalizing Leadership

In this chapter, I have looked into what qualifies a profession, and highlighted some conditions of professional status that will be particularly relevant in the later discussions of leadership as a profession. For the purpose of the question of this book, I have chosen three main topics: Education, competence and discretion; Autonomy, ethical rules and self-control; and Monopoly. The question of whether leadership should turn into a true profession also raises questions about the relationship between professions, organizations, authorities and users. Some of these questions concerns Dedifferentiation and De-professionalization, which I address in the end of this chapter.

Although many promote the professionalization of business management, most scholars seem to agree that management currently cannot be labelled a profession, despite disagreement over explanations and the contested nature of what constitutes a profession. Our contention is that management does not qualify as a profession, regardless of the various definitions that exist. In general, managerial elites have not succeeded either to achieve closure over, or institutionalize, management as an occupational field with distinct knowledge and qualification criteria. We illustrate these challenges through a historical case study on three waves of attempts to professionalize top management in Norway. These trends indicate how difficult it is to create an integrated management profession, and justify authority by pointing to the skills and knowledge related to general management.

Can—and should—management become a profession? My answer is “only to a limited extent” and “it depends”, based on lessons drawn from history. While some kind of a professionalization process has occurred, all efforts to develop management into a true profession have failed. In my chapter, I examine historical debates concerning whether management should become a profession and when professionalization aims have been particularly to the fore. I also describe how managerial background (education, career, recruitment) changed over time, reflecting the rudimentary professionalization process. Finally, I lift up key interpretations of why managers cannot form a fully-fledged profession, namely the inability of any educational group to monopolize top management, but also the limited interest among managers to aim for professionalization.

Based on five questions, this chapter discusses to what extent professionalization of leaders is possible and desirable. These questions relate to professional competence in core production, to leadership at different levels of the organization, to individual qualities and skills, to learning and education, and to talents and knowledge. The discussion leads us to the idea that there are no isolated conditions that are independent enough to qualify someone in the designation of professional leader. However, there may be many reasons why we may consider such a conclusion as something positive.

Davis argues ownership is significant in determining organizational purpose and authentic professionalism depends on the existence of a human-centered purpose. He critiques models for professionalization based on codes and guild-style institutions as inadequate. Davis utilizes the co-operative ownership form to develop a Weberian-style ideal type model of “Co-operative Leader” to illustrate his argument. Davis critiques both the Weberian approach to legitimation and Foucault’s focus on individual permanent resistance to power arguing instead that a professional leadership in organizations and associations is possible when the latter’s focus is upon emancipation from constraints to realizing human potential. He concludes the ideal type provides a practical guide to leadership development and performance evaluation when applied to not for profit, social economy and public-owned organizations.

Can leadership become a profession identical with, or at least somehow comparable to, the professions of, for example, nurses, carpenters, physiotherapists? This is the main question we will address in the chapter. Furthermore we will discuss whether leadership is an immanent and latent aspect of professions and whether this is a key difference between profession and leadership. Finally, we will discuss what it would actually take to turn leadership into a new profession comparable to other practices.

Based on the concepts self-formation and phronesis (practical wisdom), this chapter argues against professionalizing leadership. Professionalization implies rules, guidelines, procedures and accreditation standards in relation to contents, curricula and the pedagogy of education. It thus misconceives the role of leadership education to be only a question of acquiring epistemic (rational and universal) knowledge and skills while it fails to acknowledge technê as craft and art, and local and situated awareness and sensitivity. Practical wisdom involves all dimensions. Leadership education is important because of its potential to nurture a creative, critical and responsible relation to the world. Leadership thus requires a practice-based educational program and a “free space” for experimentation, reflection and self-formation, which is inconsistent with turning leadership into a profession.

It is neither appropriate nor practical for leadership/management to become a profession. In this chapter I distinguish between professionalization of a field, for which institutions restrict access to practice, and behavioral professionalism, for which the responsibility is within the individual (Weidner and Kulick, “The Professionalization of Organization Development: A Status Report and Look to the Future.” In Research in Organization Change and Development. Stamford, CT: JAI Press, 1999; Maister, True Professionalism: The Courage to Care About Your Clients, Your People, and Your Career. New York: Free Press, 1997). While many occupations have made the successful transition to becoming a profession, leadership/management is not a distinct occupation. Although leadership may meet the threshold of criticality necessary to be considered a profession, mistaking the field as a profession-in-waiting disregards the wide diffusion of leaders in an array of formal and informal organizations. In such dissimilar settings, all individuals can practice and attain behavioral professionalism; individuals in formal leadership positions can strive to make behavioral professionalism normative within their organizations.

In this chapter, the author is arguing against the professionalization of political leadership through education by analyzing two examples from the past. The first known contribution to this debate is Republic, in which Plato describes his ideal society based on leaders who have passed a long-lasting education before they could take part in the leadership of the regime. The other example is Lenin’s pamphlet What is to be done?, in which he argues in favor of an elite party. Both Plato’ and Lenin’s contributions had negative effects in relation to innovation and democracy.

Being a cross-cutting profession, management is engaged in different types of activities, which is why its current and future position should reflect the modern transformations of work and professions. It also should reflect changes in the object and the conditions of governing. Given such a perspective, this chapter studies the trends that may shape the future of management in the coming decades and its likely professional development. The chapter explores significant global trends in work, knowledge accumulation, the status of professions and the new role of ICT, which are seen as drivers of the potential future of professional management and contribute to its transformation from semi-profession to super-profession, super-authority or enterprising management service. These three perspectives are regarded as three different scenarios of the development of professional management.

This chapter argues the timeliness of establishing leadership as a semi-profession through certification processes driven by managerial professional associations/unions. We point to positioning leadership as a semi-profession as a vehicle for driving a professionalization through knowledge-sharing among development professionals and managers, development of a common vocabulary and not least by directing the attention of scarce, yet often “uneducated” managerial talent to the fact that leadership is a skill that can and should be acquired and nurtured. Although a lack of a grand unifying theory of leadership complicates a certification of leadership, it is argued that the cost of bad leadership and the upside of professional leadership merits that more attention be directed to the development and deployment of professional leadership competence.

The one essential property of a true profession is that, when practiced properly, it promotes the common good. Other attributes of occupations that have traditionally been regarded as professions are accidental properties. Because it possesses the one essential property, the occupation of leadership and management is a true profession theoretically. It is not generally taught and practiced as a true profession, however, because it is not generally understood to be a true profession. It is imperative that we understand, teach, and practice leadership and management as a true profession, so that leaders and managers can actualize their full potential to promote the common good. This is especially true at a time when some of the traditional professions are increasingly considered to be branches of business.

This chapter challenges the views held by scholars in the professions arena asserting that the management occupation is not a profession. The role of civil society is examined and occupational classification systems are used to develop an occupational baseline to enable an assessment of management along a professionalization continuum. A new professionalization framework is applied to assess the degree to which management can be considered as a profession. Leveraging the precedence of medicine as a true profession, common professionalization framework elements are applied to the management occupation resulting in an assessment at Level 2, Emerging Professions.

This chapter explores whether clinically based management in health care is likely to undergo a professionalization process, reviewing literature on the US and UK health care fields. Normatively, it is argued that this development would have important advantages. However, the empirical evidence suggests that professionalization processes have produced only slow and mixed results so far. The UK picture appears to be more difficult than the US, with a slow and chequered trajectory.

While not yet a true profession, leadership can and should aspire to become a legitimately recognized professional activity to provide validity to the study and practice of leadership and precision to the term “leader.” Using a threefold analytical framework as a heuristic, the analysis shows that the areas where leadership falls short as a profession relate to establishing and controlling the abstract body of knowledge that provides its jurisdiction and helps to highlight that doing so is essential to the professionalization process. Developing an accepted scope of services and a code of ethics will help resolve the jurisdictional “ownership” of leadership and elevate its study and practice from a routine organizational activity to a legitimate profession that makes a unique and meaningful contribution to society.

The answer to the question the chapter title poses is a definite YES! Professionalism is carving a niche in almost every work environment. It involves the articulation of ideals and principles to guide the execution of the leadership mandate. Through standardization and formalization of selection and career development procedures, transparency and accountability will be increased. Professionalism is capable of ranking individuals based on their experience, motivation, and credentials. The myths of leadership have led to leadership remaining largely unprofessionalised. This phenomenon has led to poor leadership and a culture of impunity has been perpetuated. Leadership positions do not necessarily attract the best of leaders who have a change vision for their followers. This has been left to any individual who is popular and has convincing power.

Since many skeptics argue that leadership cannot be turned into a true profession, there is reason to outline measures on how it would be possible to accomplish such a transformation. In this chapter a few preparatory measures are suggested, which could assist in creating better conditions for the actual professionalization process. These measures generally focus on updating the general understanding of “leadership” and giving leaders and leadership a better reputation. More specifically, the measures being suggested are: (1) a temporary status reduction of leaders and leadership; (2) a thorough exploration of alternative meanings of “leadership”; (3) that bachelor programs in leadership are given by higher education institutions around the world; and (4) the (re-) installment of dual career paths.

Based on an integrative approach to practical wisdom and theoretical knowledge, the chapter proposes a bachelor program on leadership based on four somewhat controversial propositions: First, theoretical learning is relevant only to the extent that students have opportunities for applying theoretical knowledge in practice. Second, relevance is created by including extra-university communities of practice in teaching and education. Third, the major part of the curriculum is created by the students themselves in terms of analyses and practical experience emerging from the interaction with extra-university communities of practices. Fourth, in consequence, while a baseline of competencies is provided by the program, there is no uniform profile because each student specializes differently.

Large, stratified hierarchies require different models of leadership to produce desired outcomes, especially at strategic levels. To many senior practitioners, strategic leadership depends on intuitive judgment. Indeed, the technology-accelerated pace of the current senior-level leadership environment, and the array of unstructured problems senior leaders face, may not support empirical and evidenced-based processes. Cunningham and Meinhart argue that intuition is experiential, tacit knowledge that can be enhanced by self-reflective techniques. Reflection should be adopted early and strengthened by foundational education in the language and concepts of leadership. They suggest specific reflective practices, inculcated at the baccalaureate level, which can be taught and employed to focus experiential learning as leaders rise through an organization.

Based on our successful training experience, we strongly advocate the practice of the action learning method that is based on a questions-based dialogue in a small group (in its most sophisticated version promoted by the WIAL—World Institute for Action Learning—network) in order to quickly solve complex issues and to efficiently develop the leadership competencies of the students as they become a major and growing stake of the management education for the future. We also recommend new contents for the bachelor curriculum in management, with a much larger place devoted to the human behavior sciences besides the traditional management disciplines.

Drawing on recent research and theory, the chapter suggests that not only is leadership a viable field for academic study and professional application, but also that the discipline’s focus will need to become increasingly collaborative, inclusive, and adaptable as a variety of different goals and worldviews will be required to cohere around mutually satisfying common visions. The chapter considers the changing nature of leadership roles in increasingly globalized social, political, educational, and professional environments. The authors argue that historically unprecedented multinational conditions in these spheres call for similarly unique conceptions of leadership and leadership studies, and they assert that previous understandings of these terms have presupposed a level cultural and social commonality between leaders and followers that can no longer be safely assumed.

This chapter argues that a bachelor in leadership could fill a gap in the Danish education system. While education in Denmark, in general, is state-provided, leadership education is mostly offered at the master’s level. A more flexible undergraduate education is needed to integrate academic knowledge more fully with practice and experience. As vocationally skilled workers make up a significant proportion of the Danish workforce, we argue that formalized leadership education is needed in a form that is easily put into practice and that, at the same time, provides academically sound knowledge without creating an educational gap between those leading and those being led. A viable solution to this is to bridge the existing educational and/or vocational leadership void with a professional bachelor in leadership.

It is argued that higher education institutions around the world should offer bachelor programs in leadership. Arguments for this which are put forward in the chapter include that practicing leadership is about dealing with and taking care of people, something that those taking on leading positions need to be well prepared for through higher education, and that there currently are too many examples of leaders who not take the responsibility that could be expected from them, something that also could be improved via the installation of bachelor programs in leadership. It is argued that bachelor programs in leadership should include a sound mix of theory and practice, on which basis the students would be given opportunities to develop their own, personal “leadership idea”.