The Power of Invisible Leadership

How a Compelling Common Purpose Inspires Exceptional Leadership

Gill Robinson Hickman, Georgia J. Sorenson

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781412940177
• eBook ISBN: 9781483314228
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

A powerful force draws people to leadership in countless businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, and social movements—we call it invisible leadership. Invisible leadership embodies situations in which dedication to a compelling and deeply held common purpose is the motivating force for leadership. Common purpose is more than a mission statement. It is a profound sense of common destiny, a life course or calling, aligned with a mission that resonates profoundly with our values and our sense of ourselves and others.

This readable, research-based book shows readers how invisible leadership exists in the space between leaders and followers, artists and subjects, and purposes and people. Rather than reinforcing the idea that leadership is embodied in celebrity leaders or in gifted and charismatic individuals, the well known and highly admired authors of this insightful new book identify "charisma of purpose" as the motivating force for invisible leadership. A brief discussion of how invisible leadership impacts businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, and social movements guides the reader toward an understanding of the antecedents and possibilities of this way of thinking.

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Unmasking Leadership

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This book explores the idea of invisible leadership—leadership in which the common purpose, rather than any particular individual, is the invisible leader that inspires leaders and followers to take action on its behalf. It is an idea that often goes unrecognized in the study and practice of leadership. We will examine stories and organizations where invisible leadership propels groups to the highest levels of commitment, innovation, and success. We will also provide evidence of the power of invisible leadership in action.

What we will describe exists in the space between people and in their shared dreams. Although that space is completely invisible, the effect is immensely powerful. We have called this region “the space between” and compared it to American jazz great Thelonious Monk’s “blue notes.” An evening spent listening to Monk’s jazz saxophone on “Straight, No Chaser” is an experience you will never forget. But why is his music so extraordinary? Jazz critics attribute the genius of Monk’s remarkable musical gift to the nuance, phrasing, and rhythm of the spaces between the formal notes. Indeed, it is the relationship between notes that makes the music soar, not the actual notes themselves. The score shows you the formal notes, not the blue notes, yet it is the blue notes in the performance that stir your soul and transform the musical experience.

Although it is not readily apparent, there is a lot going on that we can’t see, as can be discerned from a number of scientific lenses, from the cosmic to the intrapsychic. Note the recent findings of dark holes in the universe yielding a churning cauldron of organizing dark material. NASA recently confirmed what was speculation by Fritz Zwicky in the 1930s: “Most of the stuff in clusters of galaxies is invisible and, since these are the largest structures in the universe held together by gravity, scientists then conclude that most of the matter in the entire universe is invisible.” This invisible “dark matter” is the rich “space between” of our cosmos (NASA, n.d.).

Noted psychoanalyst Harry Stack Sullivan revolutionized the practice of psychotherapy by working solely within the space between the patient and therapist. He reasoned that whatever the patient’s dysfunction or unhappiness—a tragic childhood, a distant catastrophic event, a numbing malaise, or another disturbing event or condition—it would eventually show up in the developing relationship between the patient and therapist (Barton & Sullivan, 1996). The space was like a mirror to the past; if he remained still and listened carefully, the experience would be replicated in full in the space between him and the patient. He could then work backward toward the genesis of the original dysfunction. We can learn much in the space between ourselves and others and in our shared work toward an inspiring common purpose.

This invisible space, while subtle, is not inaccessible to us, however. Sometimes we sense it in music, such as Monk’s work, or in great art. Take, for example, the extraordinary photographs that short-story writer Eudora Welty made when she was young. Just out of college, Welty was hired by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration to travel her native state of Mississippi. She took along her camera to photograph the people she met on the road. In an undated photograph she titled “Saturday Off,” the sense of intimacy and trust between the photograph’s subject—a young Jackson, Mississippi, woman—and the photographer is profoundly evident. It is this utterly invisible human interaction that makes the photograph great.

Welty described her work this way: “In taking … these pictures, I was attended, I now know, by an angel—a presence of trust” (Pleasants, 2001). The trust is the blue note, the invisible space between, the relationship between the two women that makes this photograph extraordinary. Great art emerges in the space between, that inexplicable sense of connection that goes beyond the technical abilities of the artist.

Revealing the Hidden Leader—The Common Purpose

So what do the ideas of blue notes, unseen spaces, and the space between dark matter and people have to do with leadership, the subject of this book? We think it has everything to do with a concept we call invisible leadership. Invisible leadership embodies situations in which dedication to a compelling and deeply held common purpose is the motivating force for leadership. This common purpose provides inspiration for participants to use their strengths willingly in leader or follower roles and cultivates a strong shared bond that connects participants to each other in pursuit of their purpose.

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Photo 1.1 “Saturday Off,” from the Eudora Welty Collection.

Source: Reprinted courtesy of the Eudora Welty Collection, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and Russell & Volkening as agents for the author’s estate. Copyright ©1936 & 1971 Eudora Welty, LLC.

As we will see in the results of our study of award-winning innovative companies and nonprofit organizations, passionate commitment to and ownership of the common purpose occur when participants join together because the purpose embodies deeply meaningful shared experiences, beliefs, values, or goals. The commonality of participants’ experiences, beliefs, or values moves them beyond self-interest to focus on the well-being of a group, organization, or society. Participants initiate leadership for a common purpose based on a perceived opportunity to act and on their individual or collective self-agency. Opportunity occurs when resources (human, monetary, intellectual, or social capital) become available, or when a precipitating event provides the catalyst for action. Participants rely on self-agency and collective efficacy to advance the purpose and create new approaches, power structures, or institutions, or to defy existing authorities and institutions that are unresponsive or unjust.

Invisible leadership embodies situations in which dedication to a compelling and deeply held common purpose is the motivating force for leadership.

The purpose is more than a mission statement, as many respondents in our study confirmed. Common purpose is a deeply held sense of common destiny, a life course or calling; it is aligned with a mission but resonates profoundly with people’s values and their sense of themselves. It is the substance that binds people together and the aim or reason for their collective leadership. We found that it is often the reason people are attracted to the work of a business, nonprofit, community initiative, or social movement. It is also the reason they stay. This invisible force becomes the space where inspiration, interactions, and connection between a purpose and its leaders and followers ignite to bring about something extraordinary. It is more powerful than the classic Weberian charismatic personality, because it goes beyond individuals and institutions. We call this charisma of purpose.

Think about the first time you read or saw The Wizard of Oz. At the end of the story, you were astonished by the man behind the curtain. He looked and sounded nothing like the larger-than-life image (the great leader) that awed and intimidated Dorothy and her friends.

The story teaches us much about the essence of invisible leadership. At first we are disappointed to see the small person behind the curtain. But Dorothy and her friends show us that there is nothing as motivating and powerful as an inspiring purpose. They need committed involvement with each other to find the wizard (the common purpose, in this case). They must be willing to play leader and follower roles at different times, and even make personal sacrifices to further the group’s goals. One of the most important lessons that Dorothy and her friends learn is that they have the power or self-agency to achieve their cherished goal. While meeting their collective goal, the common purpose, each character gains something different and valuable from the experience. The Tin Man finds his heart, the Lion gains courage, the Scarecrow discovers his brain, and Dorothy finds that she has the power to return to her family in Kansas. They each develop a better and stronger self and form an enduring bond of relationship, leadership, and action in the invisible space between.

Can a common purpose actually inspire leadership? Our research leads us to believe that it can. When you ask most people about leadership, they think of extraordinary individuals—their abilities, experience, traits, circumstances, and situations. Many scholars and students of leadership studies are conditioned to think of leadership in terms of the leader (like the great and powerful wizard) helping a group of followers understand and commit to an important purpose, the leader influencing and persuading followers to do the work and reach the goal. In fact, a great deal of leadership is done this way or at least characterized this way. Our work, however, and the work of other leadership scholars described in Chapter 2, led us to consider other ways that leadership can occur. Invisible leadership does not eliminate leaders. It emphasizes the idea of leader-as-role over leader-as-person, as introduced in the work of organizational behaviorist Robert Kelley (1988, 1992). The use of leader-as-role allows for a more fluid and multifaceted process where responsibility can be distributed among multiple actors or concentrated in one person. The crucial role of leaders in invisible leadership, as we describe in Chapter 6, is to create a context or environment where invisible leadership can thrive and the common purpose flourishes as lived experience among participants.

We asked our colleagues and ourselves: Does leadership involve the same dynamic when people already understand and are committed to an important purpose? When they know what needs to be done and willingly bring their talents and skills to the work? When they hold themselves responsible and accountable for achieving the common purpose? When they sometimes put the purpose ahead of their personal needs or safety?

After some work in this realm, we discovered that the idea of a common purpose inspiring people to initiate leadership is not a new concept. Mary Parker Follett, an early management scholar and practitioner in the United States, first described this concept in 1928. Instead of the accepted or classical view of leadership as people following a charismatic leader, Follett observed that in certain highly effective companies, leaders and followers are both following the invisible leader—the common purpose:

While leadership depends on depth of conviction and the power coming therefrom, there must also be the ability to share that conviction with others, the ability to make purpose articulate. And then the common purpose becomes the leader. And I believe that we are coming more and more to act, whatever our theories, on our faith in this power of this invisible leader. Loyalty to the invisible leader gives us the strongest possible bond of union. (Follett, 1949/1987, p. 55)

Invisible leadership takes into account the people and the processes of leadership but stretches beyond these parameters into a realm of leadership and action that encompasses wholeness of purpose and the transformation of people, wisdom and values within the group, ethics of the purpose, means and ends, and limitless possibilities. Thus, “increasing shareholder value” is not antithetical to a common purpose, as highly successful entrepreneur Béla Hatvany will later tell us. The purpose is the leader and motivating force for all aspects of the enterprise.

The Essence of Invisible Leadership

How did we happen upon this concept? We developed our initial conception of invisible leadership by analyzing situations where leadership appeared to be inspired by the purpose as much as or more than by the influence of particular leaders (Sorenson & Hickman, 2002). We probed case studies of business and nonprofit organizations; studied written accounts of social movements; and examined existing interviews with activists, initiators of change, entrepreneurs, and organizational founders. We examined how other fields (physics, psychology, management, music, and photography) and cultures (Asian, African, and Native American) use the idea of invisible processes. We also explored the concept with focus groups of leadership scholars, educators, and professionals in lectures and workshops, and engaged leadership studies students in a semester-long examination of the topic.

As we distilled our thinking, we settled on three essential points that are fundamental to invisible leadership, although there are numerous subsets of these points that we enumerate in our research design in Chapter 4:

• A compelling and deeply held common purpose,
• A readiness to use individual strengths in either leader or follower roles with or without visible recognition or personal ego, and
• A strong shared bond among participants pursuing the common purpose.

For this study, we surveyed 21 award-winning companies and nonprofit workplaces to test our concepts. The results are detailed in Chapters 4 and 5. We include the survey results in these chapters to encourage further research on invisible leadership. Indeed, our study is a starting point that we hope will lead to further scholarship on this topic.

Invisible Leadership in Action

People tell us they can easily see that compelling social causes with a common purpose, such as the civil rights movement or the environmental movement, can certainly inspire individuals to act collectively and bring about a common good. They are not convinced, however, that other contexts can generate such strong, committed leadership from most people in the process without one prominent leader motivating the group and showing the way. We believe that invisible leadership can and does exist in companies, governmental bodies, nonprofit organizations, neighborhoods, schools, communities, and grassroots and social movements. The examples that follow come from our examination of existing case studies of organizations; written accounts of social movements in autobiographies and biographies; and interviews with activists, initiators of change, and organizational founders (Sorenson & Hickman, 2002).

Illustrations From Nonprofit Organizations

In the nonprofit arena, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is a conductorless ensemble founded on the belief that musicians can create extraordinary music when an orchestra uses the full talents and creativity of every member (Seifter & Economy, 2001). Its purpose is to demonstrate a collaborative leadership style in which the musicians, rather than a conductor, interpret the score. Leader and follower roles are fluid and rotating, permitting members of the ensemble to share equally in the group’s leadership. All the while, the group’s leadership remains invisible to the public. The driving force of the orchestra is its com...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Briefcontents
• Detailedcontents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Unmasking Leadership
• 2. Illuminating the Secrets of Ancient, Hidden, and Modern Wisdom
• 3. Exposing the Ethics of Invisible Leadership
• 4. Lighting the Path: The Invisible Leadership Study
• 5. Seeing the Unseen: Experiences With Invisible Leadership
• 6. Leading Invisibly: The Common Purpose as Leader
• Appendix: Invisible Leadership Survey
• Index
• About the Authors