**4. Case study—the second iteration**

Over the winter months of 2020–2021, the author decided to not abandon effort on the Implementation Plan. He incorporated it into a spring 2021 senior seminar: this time a seminar in Business Strategy. It too would be taught via zoom.

#### **4.1 A senior seminar in business strategy**

In keeping with Department expectations, the author planned to navigate a textbook and analyze case studies with students. As well, he designated the Plan as the "consulting project" for the course; that is, the team of seven students would provide advice to the co-originators—and as well to the author who had served as internal coordinator—about how the Plan could be improved.

To create context, the author once again assigned as reading pertinent documents, such as the Strategic Plan of the College, the original Proposal, progress reports, and the written Plan. As well, the author scheduled zoom-based visits with some senior members of the Administration. His rationale was that the team was attempting to offer constructive criticism of an innovation intended to bring value to the College, and he wanted students to hear strategic-level perceptions about current College challenges and opportunities from leaders.

Very early on, the two co-originators had a zoom conversation with the students. The students quickly understood and appreciated the co-originators' determination, dedication to the College, and fierce advocacy of a liberal arts education. During the conversation, the author said he and the students would provide two deliverables to the co-originators.

#### *4.1.1 Deliverable 1: an assessment of the plan*

The first deliverable would be a formal assessment of the Plan according to the seven steps of strategic management explained in the textbook [21] and a corresponding set of strategic recommendations. Unfortunately, for a few reasons,

*The Imperative—and the Challenges—of Introducing a Citizen-Leader Development Program… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100002*

a formal assessment that navigated all seven steps proved too ambitious. Instead, analysis and conversation remained focused on strategic vision, and yielded three key points.

First, the students surprised the author when they said that as presented, the Proposal and Plan were developed in top-down fashion: they would be imposed on students by others who thought this was "the next best thing." The author recognized that he owned responsibility for that shortcoming, since he had not recruited any student leaders to serve on the Implementation Plan Team.

Second, informed by class conversations and a segment in the textbook that referenced the work of Kotter [22], students developed an alternative vision statement for the Plan, on grounds it was more student-focused and better adhered to Kotter's criteria3 than did the statement in the original Proposal. Their statement:

"Self-aware students compellingly describe their experience-informed values, capabilities, and aspirations, and their contributions to collaborative endeavors."

Third, the students suggested there were two unarticulated tensions in the Plan: (1) between a student's individual development and growth in group efforts; and (2) between evaluation of performance by others and by one's self-evaluation. The insight led the students and the author to create early drafts of the two-bytwo matrix of **Figure 2**. Each cell in the matrix includes generic questions that an individual student may ask themselves about their progress over time.

The first tension is depicted on the horizontal axis. Individual development and relationship-based engagement are each an objective of the four-year liberal arts experience.

The second tension is depicted on the vertical axis. Evaluation by others and self-evaluation by individuals of activities and outcomes both take place during an undergraduate education. When evaluated by others—the two cells in the lower tier of the matrix—students receive recognition of individual contributions and group success. When evaluated by self—the two cells in the upper tier—students gain awareness of their emotional and social intelligence.

The author fine-tuned the content in summer 2021—more work remains—and numbered the cells from 1 to 4. He speculates the sequence represents increasingly more sophisticated combinations of objectives and evaluations. That is, keeping leadership in mind, the ability of an individual to accurately assess the quality of their engagement in group projects (cell 4) represents the highest level of development.

#### *4.1.2 An inspirational story*

As a second deliverable, each student would make a recording that explained how their leadership characteristics reflected the power of a liberal education, given characteristics were the byproduct of (1) the common features of projects encountered in all domains of a four-year experience and (2) their awareness of how those common features had contributed to their leadership potential. Those stories would provide examples of "proof of concept" for the Proposal as imagined by the co-originators.

In this case as well, the seniors did not deliver what was promised. In seminar, the author once again encountered unanticipated lines of conversation initiated

This list is the summary of Table 2.2, pg. 18, GPT.

<sup>3</sup> An effective vision statement is *Graphic* (paints a picture); *Directional* (forward looking); *Focused* (specific enough to provide guidance); *Flexible* (permits adjustment to developments); *Feasible* (within the realm of what can be achieved); *Desirable* (makes sense); and is *Easy to Communicate* (can be explained and is amenable to a slogan).

#### **Figure 2.**

*Objectives and outcomes during the process of leadership development. Source: Created by undergraduate students and author.*

by the students. Over four years, a student certainly could have a powerful experience; but the various support systems and safe spaces provided by the College were required to enable the student to properly process the experience, and thus be able to share at a more general level the outcomes and implications of the experience. Any story shared had to first and foremost benefit the student. A student should not be expected to tell a story for the purpose of promoting a proposal or a plan: that could be viewed as exploitative.

The author kept those concerns in mind and recognized that trust by students in in him, in one another, and in the process was essential. To avoid feeling exploited, students had to have final say as to whether or with whom their stories would be shared.

To provide a rationale for a story, the author and the students turned to Cashman [2], especially his chapter about the need for a leader to be able to tell a personal story to inspire others. To help appreciate the power of a story, the author and students watched expert Simmons [23] make her TED talk case.

Over a two-week period near the end of the semester, students first created outlines and then drafts of their stories. During class time, groups of two or three students went to breakout rooms and shared stories with one another. In another class session, each student delivered a non-recorded dry-run story to the rest of the group and took supportive comments. Finally, each student created a five-minute story on their cell phone from the comfort of their home and submitted it on the final exam date.

The author realized that despite the course being taught via zoom, students had in fact decided that in the senior seminar, the mutual support they received from each other and the organizational culture of the seminar enabled them to talk about some transformative episodes. The author was impressed by all and "blown away" by a few. He thanked each student for giving him the gift of sharing their respective stories.

The author now wonders if stories, informed by the content of **Figures 1** and **2** might be the appropriate vehicle for providing evidence of the students' growth as leaders.

*The Imperative—and the Challenges—of Introducing a Citizen-Leader Development Program… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100002*

### **4.2 Conversations about key stakeholder groups**

In the spring of 2021, the author had two one-on-one conversations with administrators who reminded him that an innovation had to connect with key stakeholder groups.

The VP of Admissions explained that even if a program created genuine value for students, if outcomes were nuanced and did not result in clearly demonstrable outcomes, the program would not resonate with students and families who were engaged in the college search process.

The new VP of Advancement gifted the author a copy of Langley [24] and explained the current realities. Higher education is a participant in a highly competitive marketplace. In the higher education sector, 80% of the contributions come from 1% of the givers. Today, the primary rationale of donors is no longer giving "to" a college based on loyalty; instead, it is giving "through a portal of purpose" that permits the donor to be a steward of an initiative that will deliver impactful outcomes.

#### **4.3 The leadership plan and the foresight thinking plan revisited**

After both the Leadership Plan and the Foresight Thinking Plan received qualified approval, the author once again heard the plans should be merged. This time, the message came from the Office of Advancement. Therefore, near the end of the spring 2021, the author asked to meet the co-originators of the Foresight Thinking Plan.

The author's counterparts explained that their Plan emphasized systems thinking, environmental scanning, system mapping, and scenario planning. They also asked the author if he thought that leadership was on an equal footing with those capabilities. The tone of the question implied that they did not. The author said Yes and quickly became defensive and antagonistic. Simply speaking, the conversation was not fruitful.

### **5. Reflections**

The opportunity to submit this Chapter for consideration helped provide focus for the author during the summer of 2021, as he reflected on events of the past two years. He engaged in further study about leadership concepts and gained the clarity needed to create and explain **Figure 1**. As well, he managed to strengthen and finetune the underpinnings of **Figure 2**, an outcome of the joint work completed with students in the spring 2021 semester.

#### **5.1 Conceptual and operational challenges**

While the Leadership Proposal was *about leadership*, translating it to a Plan *called for leadership* within the context of a collaborative endeavor. That made things tricky for a few reasons.

First, as previously described in more detail, the Proposal envisioned a process whereby members of the community developed a common vocabulary about students' engagement in projects as the key to leadership development; but it did not identify the characteristics important to a leader. Furthermore, despite a good foundation of interdisciplinary knowledge and engagement in many initiatives, the author did not have deep knowledge about leadership concepts (**Figure 1**, Characteristic B): that served as a limiting condition. Taken together, those two

factors contributed to the struggle on the part of the Implementation Team to move much beyond the Social Change Model of Leadership Development and Kolb's Cycle of Experiential Learning as the central theoretical components of the Implementation Plan. That was one of the reasons the written Plan failed to impress the Panel, Board of Trustees, or Administration: they regarded those models dated and not innovative.

Second, on the positive side of the ledger, the author did organize an Implementation Plan Team of twelve people who represented important domains of the College; did facilitate conversations that encouraged participants to describe their interests and ideas; and did incorporate in the Plan those ideas and interests that represented the greatest square-footage of common ground. On the negative side of the ledger, the author did not do a good job of sharing responsibilities for the Plan or for writing drafts of sections of the Plan: in short, the author tried to maintain too much control. That was a shortcoming of relational leadership that resulted in an inadequate sense of ownership among other team members, and less than satisfactory communication with the co-originators. The processes depicted in **Figure 1** inform those self-criticisms.

Third, as previously described, while the author did submit a start-up budget and set of timelines to the Panel by the required due date in November of 2020, most of the funding was dedicated to workshops to form the common vocabulary over a period of two years. That was a long lead time before students would become the target stakeholder group.

Fourth, in the presentation to the public in November of 2020, the author had not yet absorbed the lesson of including in the pitch an inspirational story [2, 18, 21] intended to provide a unifying image to the Panel, Administration, Board members, and potential donors. When the next opportunity for trying to win approval arises, either the author or another representative must develop a story that excites constituents about the overarching purpose and envisioned outcomes.
