Leadership in Canada

In 2009 and 2010, Tim and I conducted a literature review of leadership in Canada. Our objective was to identify what leaders and pundits of leadership in Canada had to say on the subject before delving into a critical analysis.

In what may be one of the most comprehensive literature reviews on leadership in Canada, we discovered ample bench, blog and twitter chatter, plenty of fist pounding postulating but only a modest amount of empirical evidence, qualitative or quantitative data on the subject. That insight stood alongside theorists, researchers and practitioners who agree organizations rise and fall on leaders (Anderson, 1998; Collins, 2001). Russ-Eft and Brennan (2001) wrote no human organization can survive long without it; the success of organizational change is dependent on it (Weiss & Molinaro, 2005).

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It has long been recognized that great leaders can take an average group and bring it to excellence (Henein & Morissette, 2007) and Johansen (2009) confirms leaders make the future while acknowledging they exist throughout the hierarchical structure of organizations, institutions and communities. Despite its significance, leadership and its development are mostly left to chance (Henein & Morissette, 2007).

Henein and Morissette interviewed a representative sample of leaders in diverse environments e.g. public, profit and not-for-profit, to verify the presence and absence of leaders and leadership in Canada. Contributory research notes the discourse on leadership in the public sector has been the object of some rhetoric but precious little study (Dutil, 2008). The Conference Board of Canada’s (CBofC) revealed a troubling leadership gap (Benimadhu, Gibson, 2001). Research on community leadership found the knowledge about Canadian community leadership development was clearly limited (McKenzie, 2001).

Researching leadership in multiple contexts revealed four factors negatively impacting leaders and leadership in Canada:

1. Absence of a commonly accepted definition of leadership,
2. Change and complexity of leadership in the 21st century,
3. Limited understanding of the traits and attitude of leadership,
4. Deficit and development of leadership.

It is understood and evidenced over time, across sectors, disciplines and cultures, the definition and practice of leadership shifts and evolves. It is also recognized that commonly accepted principles apply e.g. Canadians are most accepting of transformational leadership (Howell & Avolio, 1993, Howell & Frost, 1989). Transformational leadership is a practice that changes what is, e.g. institutions, circumstances and people (Burns, 1978) through a leaders' ability to guide and inspire others to follow (Bass, 1985).

Lester B. Pearson, Canada’s 14th Prime Minister was a transformative leader, making a modern Canada as evidenced in a compassionate, progressive, bilingual country (Cohen, 2008). Canada’s 15th Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau worked to deliver the dream where the rights of the individual would coexist peacefully with the responsibility of the state (Poliquin, 2009).

After 30 years of study, numerous studies and more than a thousand interviews, Kotter (1999) says a new substance-based leadership style is required for the 21st century. Today’s employee will need to know more about both leadership and management than did his/er predecessor and today’s manager will need to know much about leadership. Understanding leadership is not management but a complement of two distinctive and complementary systems of action (Kotter) . . .  managers are becoming leaders (Dutil, 2001), yet what it took to develop managers may inhibit developing leaders (Zaleznik, 1992). Leaders of the future will have to do three things for the organizations and the systems they work in:

1. Foster innovation,
2. Ensure sustainability, and
3. Build resilience (Archer, 2009).

In upcoming blogs Tim and I will continue this dialogue on leadership in Canada. In the meantime we invite your input on the subject and ask you to explore these questions –

1. Is there a common definition of leadership, why/why not?

2. What are present and preferred traits and attitudes of leadership in Canada?

3. What can be done about the deficit of leadership in Canada?

References provided.

Anderson, T. D. (1998). Transforming leadership: Equipping yourself and coaching others to build the leadership organization (2nd ed.). New York: St. Lucie Press.

Archer, D. Cameron, A. (2009). Collaborative leadership; how to succeed in an interconnected world. San Francisco, CA: Butterworth-Heinemann

Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectation. New York: Free Press.

Benimadhu P. & Gibson J. (2001). Leadership for tomorrow: playing catch-up with change. Ottawa, ON: The Conference Board of Canada

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row
Cohen, A. (2008). Lester B. Pearson; biographies of extraordinary citizens. Toronto, ON: Penguin Books (Canada).
Collins, J. (2001). Good to great: why some companies make the leap … and others don’t. New York: Harper Business.
Dutil, P. (ed.). (2008). Searching for leadership; secretaries to cabinet. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press
Henein, A., Morissette F. (2007). Made in Canada leadership: Wisdom from the nation’s best and brightest on leadership practice and development. Mississauga, ON: John Wiley & Sons.
Howell, J.P., Avolio B.J. (1993). Transformational leadership, transactional leadership, locus of control and support for innovation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 891-902.
Howell, J.P., Frost, P.J. (1989). A laboratory study of charismatic leadership. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process, 43: 243-269
Johansen, B. (2009). Leaders make the future: 10 new leadership rules for an uncertain world. San Francisco: CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc.
Kotter, J. (1999). On what leaders really do. Boston, MASS: Harvard Business Press.
McKenzie, B. (2001). Developing a community leadership model for leadership Victoria. Victoria, BC: Royal Roads University.
Poliquin, D. (2009). Rene Levésque. Toronto, ON: Penguin Group (Canada).
Weiss, D.S., Molinaro, V. (2005). The leadership hap; building leadership capacity for competitive advantage. Mississauga, ON: John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd.
Zaleznik, A. (1992). Managers and leaders: are they different pg 61 – 88 in Harvard Business Review on Leadership – 1998, HBR, Boston MASS