I must catch up to them, for I am their leader...

A google scholar keyword search for leadership returns over 18,000 hits for 2011 alone. If I limit the search terms to entries where "leadership" is in the title, scholar reports about a third less (~6,000) total entires. I don't have the time to rifle through all of them, so I skimmed the results until I stumbled across this interesting article:

Klein, K. J., A. P. Knight, et al. (2011). "When team members’ values differ: The moderating role of team leadership." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 114(1): 25-36.

The one thing that I recognize is that teams are diverse, even those typically thought to be fairly homogenized. Within any given team, there are a range of opinions, values, and communication styles.  According to Klein and her colleagues, this increases conflict and reduces the effectiveness of the group to get things done. They argue that the ability of a group to get things done depends highly on the behavior style of the group's leader. They break this down into two broad types of leadership: person-oriented and task-oriented. They argue that person-oriented leaders allow for team members to express their diversity, but that could lead to greater conflict and reduced effectiveness. Conversely, a task-oriented leader limits individual expression which could reduce conflict. Overall, they suggest that the intra-group conflict mediates the effect of diversity and leadership on the group's effectiveness. They surveyed 845 people who were members of 100 different groups and assessed the values, leadership styles, and the group's effectiveness.  Between the two leadership types, they found that each was beneficial for reducing conflict and increasing group effectiveness, but for different reasons.


What does this mean? Basically, defining the right leader depends on the dynamics for the group, and when group diversity is high, it may be best for a leader to take a task oriented approach in order to reduce group conflict. I think that this may be too limited, however, because I get the sense that leadership in groups with a lot of conflict become an exercise in delegation. Delegation can be problematic for a number of reasons, especially, when group members are not always privy to the bigger-picture objectives of the group. They become a cog in the machine, mindlessly performing tasks. This may be the ideal fate for some, but it could lead to reduced group effectiveness when the overall project or goal requires a complex set of interrelated tasks. Even in highly "task-oriented" situations it is important to stress the common shared value of reliability. Team members need to be able to count on the capabilities of each other, and an effective leader can foster that kind of atmosphere whether they use a personal or task-based approach.

Miff-muffered Moof

I was scrolling imdb the other day and I stumbled across this gem:

Some might say I have a minor infatuation with the Lorax, but it's not my fault.  It all started a long, long way back when I was an outdoor education instructor at the Blue Ridge Outdoor Education Center. I had always liked the Lorax, but when I started sharing it with my students, I started to love the Lorax.  From then on, I carried a copy with me everywhere. As an instructor at Wolverine Camps in Northern Michigan, we would put on elaborate productions, and I would always narrate. I read it so many times, that now I pretty much have it memorized. Every once and a while now, I can be caught reciting it to my future nephews, and I have no doubt that this will be the first book I read to my kids. 

To be blunt, I'm not sure how I feel about a Lorax movie. They've changed the basic premise to a love story. Our doe-eyed boy who stumbles down the Street of Lifted Lorax is there because he wants to get a tree to impress a girl. Apparently, they live in a world completely devoid of real nature, and they're stuck with highly polished artificial nature, a simulacrum of paradise. Therefore, there is no other reason to go seeking "nature" besides a girl. In a world so vividly clean and suburban, who would want real nature mucking up the pristine, manufacture landscape. This to me is the biggest break and my biggest worry about this movie. Seuss, on the first page, paints a picture of a wasteland. One haggard Swomee-Swan hangs in the air and a few twigs stand are limply scattered across the hillside. This is no paradise. 

To me this perverts the entire message of the Lorax. It's not about staying true to the book in a strict sense, but it is about staying true to the message. The message is UNLESS you care about the environment, it will be destroyed. It's hard to see how living in a suburban world where nature is artificially reproduced would ever cause people to "care a whole awful lot." It's not something you can buy in a store; it's not something that can be manufactured. It's not even really something that you can buy with fifteen cents, and a nail, and the shell of a great, great, great grandfather snail. It's about stewardship stupid.