Leadership development and reflection: what is the

connection?

Iain L. Densten
Senior Lecturer, University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia
Judy H. Gray
Director of Graduate Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Leadership development has emerged as an

important theoretical and practical stream of
management. As an area of higher learning,
leadership draws from numerous academic
Abstract
fields (e.g. psychology, sociology, and
Examines the relevance of critical
history) and real life sources (e.g. work,
reflection practices in leadership
development. The article provides family, and social experiences) and therefore
suggestions for incorporating
requires integration of knowledge with
critical reflective practices in a
experience. There is an implicit assumption
leadership development program.
that leadership is important, that leaders
A constructivist approach is
adopted from educational
make a difference, and that positive group
literature which advocates using
and organizational effects are produced by
critical lenses to enable students
to build on previous experiences of leaders and the leadership process (Pierce
leadership and to incorporate new and Newstrom, 2000). According to Rost
learning. Reflective processes
(1993), leadership is an influence relationship
encourage multiple perspectives
among leaders and followers who intend real
to be generated that challenge
changes that reflect their shared purposes.
teachers and future leaders to
excel in complex and uncertain
Further, work environments require leaders
environments. Consequently,
to engage and mobilize colleagues to act on
leadership development and good
new ideas and to challenge conventional
teaching practices depend on
reflection-in-action.
thinking (Jones et al., 2000). Critical
reflection can assist leadership to play a vital
role in this process. This paper examines
how critical reflection can be integrated into
leadership development programs.
Keywords

Leadership,
Management development,
Learning

Critical reflection

The International Journal of

Educational Management
15/3 [2001] 119124
# MCB University Press
[ISSN 0951-354X]

According to Reynolds (1999, p. 538), critical

reflection involves ``a commitment to
questioning assumptions and taken-forgranteds embodied in both theory and
professional practice.'' The capacity to
reflect relates directly to how effectively
individuals can learn from their personal
experiences (Boud et al., 1985) and therefore
reflection provides a meaningful way for
leaders to gain genuine understanding.
According to Dewey (1933, p. 12), such
reflective thinking is distinct from other
forms of thought because ``it involves (a) a
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state of doubt, hesitation, perplexity,

mental difficulty in which thinking
originates, and (2) an act of searching,
hunting, inquiring to find material that will
resolve the doubt, to settle and dispose of
the perplexity.'' The main objective for
integrating reflection in leadership
development programs is to maximize
individual potential by allowing students to
evaluate the significance of their
experiences from a leadership perspective.
Brookfield (1995, p. 8) argues that
``reflection is not by definition critical.'' He
suggests that critical reflection can be
characterized by a deeper, more intense,
and more probing form of reflection. In
leadership education, deep reflective
learning requires students to consider the
underlying dynamics of power and to
question basic assumptions and practices.
For example, students could be required to
question the power they use in leadership
situations to achieve the results they want.
Engaging in critical reflection can create
student discomfort and dissonance
(Brookfield, 1994; Dewey, 1933; Reynolds,
1999). However, where reflection is absent,
there is the constant risk of making poor
decisions and bad judgments (Brookfield,
1995). For example, in the quest to achieve a
vision, a leader may be so driven by
personal ambition as to ignore or fail to
question the consequences of his actions.
Without reflection, leaders may be
convinced by past successes of their
invincibility and fail to consider other
viewpoints, with possibly disastrous
consequences. Similarly, leaders may avoid
reflecting on a course of action because
according to Conger (1990), such reflection
might challenge their favorable perceptions
of themselves.
Teachers have difficulty encouraging
students to reflect on practices which
challenge their fundamental beliefs

[ 119 ]

Iain L. Densten and

Judy H. Gray
Leadership development and
reflection: what is the
connection?
The International Journal of
Educational Management
15/3 [2001] 119124

concerning their expectations. This view is

supported by Mezirow (1991) who contends
that we are trapped inside our own meaning
schemes and perspectives. Consequently,
teachers presenting alternative leadership
behaviors may have to counter negative
beliefs in order to promote the intellectual
development of students. By doing so,
teachers can assist students to understand
themselves.
Learning through critical reflection is
assisted where students have three
attributes, namely: open-mindedness;
responsibility; and wholeheartedness
(Dewey, 1933). Yost et al. (2000) interpreted:
.
open-mindedness as a desire to listen to
more than one side of an issue, to give
attention to alternative views, and to
recognize that even the firmest beliefs
may be questioned;
.
responsibility as the desire to actively
search for truth and apply information
gained to problem situations; and
.
wholeheartedness as the attitude whereby
individuals can overcome fears and
uncertainties to make meaningful change
and to critically evaluate themselves,
organizations, and society.
The attributes of open-mindedness,
responsibility, and wholeheartedness may be
restricted in some individuals who have little
sense of involvement in their own learning
(Main, 1985). Thus, the role of the teacher in
developing reflective leadership is to start
with students' experiences rather than with
the teacher's predefined agenda and then to
emphasize the critical analysis and
reformulation of that experience. The goal is
to advance the level and quality of student
observations to the point where students
begin to engage in ``reflection-in-action'' and
ultimately in the formation of new concepts
(Kaagan, 1998).
Experience is more than the events and
involves the perceptions of the events.
Leaders actively shape and construct their
experiences by selectively attending to
particular situations. These perceptual sets
are affected by feelings, needs, prior
experience, and expectations (Hughes et al.,
1999). Often leaders are unaware of their
perceptual sets and biases. Thus, an
important function of leadership education
is to provide opportunities for student
reflection so that students gain
understanding of how they perceive and
interpret their observations. Further,
reflection is important for leadership
development as it can provide leaders with

[ 120 ]

a variety of insights into how to frame

problems differently, to look at situations
from multiple perspectives or to better
understand followers.

Constructivism
The educational approach of
constructivism involves the integration of
new ideas with previous experiences and
seeks to change existing cognitive
structures by allowing students to explore
and discover new alternatives (Yost et al.,
2000). A constructivist approach
encourages students to act as investigators,
where knowledge is constructed in a social
and cultural context (Scarr, 1985). Reality is
not discovered but rather a series of
constructed hypotheses are produced by the
students concerning what individuals
expect to experience. As individuals
develop, they expand their systems of
hypotheses. Viewing reality from this
perspective has a major impact on
leadership because the first responsibility
of a leader is to define reality for their
followers (DePree, 1998). Leaders must be
able to understand the difference between
reality and their vision in order to maintain
the creative tension needed to facilitate
significant change (Senge, 1998). To be
understandable and effective, visions
generated by leaders must fit within the
framework of understanding of their
followers.
The teaching of leadership can enable
students to develop realistic hypotheses
based on contemporary leadership theories
and observed behaviors. The constructivist
approach achieves this by assisting
individuals to make sense of their
environment in terms of the situational and
sociocultural context (Richardson, 1997).
This approach encourages students to
recognize that knowledge is continually
undergoing construction and
transformation, and rarely remains as a
static concept (Lave, 1988).

The role of leadership theory

Teachers can draw on relevant leadership
theory to promote such intellectual
development in students. However, teachers
are faced with the challenge of presenting
underlying theories in a way which will
demonstrate the relevance of theory to their
students. Underpinning theories may only

Iain L. Densten and

Judy H. Gray
Leadership development and
reflection: what is the
connection?
The International Journal of
Educational Management
15/3 [2001] 119124

make sense through practice, but practice

makes sense only through reflection as
enhanced by theory (Raelin, 1997).
Consequently, the teaching of leadership is
conducive to student-driven learning where
contemporary theory is linked to actual
experience. Pratte and Rury (1991) argue that
the true understanding of a discipline cannot
be imposed from theory above, but rather
needs to grow out of experiential knowledge
and ongoing practice. Thus, this approach to
learning has been depicted by Nonaka (1991)
as transforming what is implicit into
something that is explicit, especially through
spirals of ongoing interaction between
individuals, work teams, and organizations.
The approach can be adapted to an
educational setting where students have
some practical leadership experience to draw
upon.
The constructivist approach empowers
students to take responsibility for their own
learning. Similarly, the best leaders
encourage followers to feel independent,
confident, powerful, and capable. Thus,
leaders can motivate and enhance the
ability of followers to challenge existing
views, to engage in self-development, and to
develop independent perspectives (Howell
and Avolio, 1998). Therefore, by
empowering and being responsive to
students, the teacher provides a role model
for future leaders.
Teachers face many challenges in
designing programs to enhance the
leadership capabilities of their students.
Charismatic leadership is viewed by many
researchers as the most effective type of
leadership (Bass, 1985; Conger, 1990; House
and Howell, 1992) and research suggests that
education and personal feedback can
improve charismatic leadership abilities
(Kelloway et al., 2000). As a starting point,
teachers can encourage students to draw on
past experience to critically evaluate
common or established leadership behaviors
which appear to have some success. For
example, some students have learned that
physical punishment and verbal abuse
imposed by leaders are successful ways of
controlling behavior and therefore, some
students have difficulty evaluating
alternative leadership behaviors. A common
justification by these students is that
physical punishment ensures individuals
know they have made a mistake and
therefore, they will not make the same
mistake twice. Such a myopic approach to
leading individuals can have significant

detrimental effects on the punished

individuals and the organization's culture
where physical punishment is accepted as
the norm. Thus, evaluation of alternative
practices is a starting point for critical
reflection and leadership development.

Integrating critical reflection in

leadership development
The process of reflective thinking is
valuable for students wanting to improve
their ability to lead others and themselves.
A student's private self-consciousness, selfmonitoring, and understanding of purpose
in life are important elements in being a
charismatic leader (Sosik and
Dworakivsky, 1998). Charismatic leaders
are guided by situational factors, and these
individuals are capable of accurate
modifications of their behavior to
correspond to social situations. In contrast,
non-charismatic leaders are guided
primarily by internal, dispositional aspects
such as attitudes, values, and other
personality traits (Anderson, 1990).
Reflection may assist the development of
charismatic leaders by enabling future
leaders to gain insight and to take into
account the complexities of situations. The
aim of reflective learning that integrates
previous experiences with new learning
should be to assist future leaders to adopt
more sophisticated self-monitoring
behaviors.
Developments in teacher training can be
applied to leadership education. According to
Brookfield (1995), four critical lenses can
assist the reflective process in teacher
training:
1 student autobiographies;
2 students' eyes;
3 colleagues' experiences;
4 theoretical literature.
Putting these lenses into a leadership
development context, student
autobiographies encourage students to
record how they perceive actions and
experiences. The resulting personal
journals document experiences that are
tacit in nature but when recorded become
explicit and form the foundations for
further learning. Through deliberately
reviewing their thoughts and actions in
light of rational reflection, students should
gain a deeper understanding of the
leadership and learning episodes they
experience (Loughran, 1996).

[ 121 ]

Iain L. Densten and

Judy H. Gray
Leadership development and
reflection: what is the
connection?
The International Journal of
Educational Management
15/3 [2001] 119124

[ 122 ]

A reflective journal chronicles the

``thoughts, feelings, successes, and
frustrations that are a part of each student's
journey as an emerging professional'' (Banta
et al., 1996, p. 114). The journal allows
students to reflect on the activities in their
own time. This process is similar to Schon's
(1983) suggestion of ``reflection-in-action'', the
development of a capacity beyond technical
expertise which invites professionals to
respond to uncertain and complex
circumstances. Kaagan (1999) believes this
approach is particularly helpful for
leadership development where social
interaction, definition of purpose,
accomplishment of task and evaluation of
results are crucial.
The second lens of ``students' eyes'' can be
equated in a leadership context to
followers' perspectives. Critical reflection
is viewed as a social process (Brookfield,
1995) and is most successful as a
collaborative effort (Osterman and
Kottkamp, 1993). Leaders need to
understand how their followers perceive
the leaders' actions to build shared vision
amongst their followers. Understanding
followers' viewpoints is essential for
building trust which is critical for
developing creative tension needed to
encourage follower learning. In contrast,
over-emphasis on control strategies and
follower compliance, often lead to follower
self-denial and loss of self-worth resulting
in followers acting as programmed robots
(Kanungo and Mendonca, 1996).
The third lens draws on the experiences
of colleagues to provide new insights on
various situations. Engaging colleagues in
critical conversations allows students to
examine differing views from their own.
According to Loughran (1996), traineeteachers who become accustomed to seeing
their experiences from different
perspectives, and who are able to be more
detached from their personal feelings about
their teaching tend to develop their ability
to reflect more readily. The parallel
situation in leadership has been referred to
as ``double-loop'' learning (Hughes et al.,
1999) which involves a willingness to
confront one's own views and an invitation
to others to do so, too. Double-loop learning
is based on the notion that openness to
information and power sharing with others
can lead to better recognition and definition
of problems, improved communication, and
increased decision-making effectiveness.
Observing colleagues in leadership roles

can provide positive and negative models

and a resource for effective leadership
development. Therefore, reflective learning
in association with colleagues allows
leadership behaviors to be modified by
encouraging students to question their
hypotheses about others, and their roles in
organizations.
The final lens refers to reflection on
theoretical literature which can provide
multiple perspectives on familiar
situations. Hughes et al. (1999) argue that
formal study of leadership theory provides
students with a variety of ways of
examining a particular leadership
situation. Without such study, students
would have to rely on pseudo-knowledge to
investigate their leadership experiences
(Schon, 1991). Some leadership theories
focus on the behaviors and activities of
individual leaders (e.g. Bass, 1985; Kotter,
1988), while other theories focus on the
effect of leader behavior on follower
outcomes (e.g. Conger and Kanungo, 1998;
House and Howell, 1992). Theory can
provide an integrated framework for
analyzing leadership. For example,
Hollander (1978) developed the
interactional framework which provides
three components, namely leader,
followers, and situation for the analysis of
leadership. However, the overriding
consideration in terms of student relevance
is the integration of theory and practice.

Conclusion
This article examines how leadership
development can be improved by
encouraging leaders to engage in critical
reflection. Students can enhance their
leadership ability through evaluating the
significance of their experiences from a
leadership perspective. Using critical
reflection, students studying leadership can
explore, question, and describe their
professional development. This process
encourages problem recognition and the
development of hypotheses which are
catalysts for further critical reflection.
Student empowerment and change are
enhanced by reflection where students take
an active role in the construction of
meaning. This reflective process
encourages multiple perspectives to be
generated that challenge the students'
background, knowledge, and experiences.
Future research needs to investigate the

Iain L. Densten and

Judy H. Gray
Leadership development and
reflection: what is the
connection?
The International Journal of
Educational Management
15/3 [2001] 119124

relationship between critical reflection and

leadership effectiveness.
Leaders need to practise critical reflective
thinking. Only a reflective process can
encourage future leaders to gain greater
understanding of their environment. In
conclusion, to meet emerging challenges,
reflective learning can assist leaders to
acquire the knowledge and skills to make
better judgments in ambiguous situations.
Critical reflection is at the core of leadership
development.

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Further reading

Smyth, J. (1989), Critical Perspectives on

Educational Leadership, The Falmer Press,
London.