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Drew Biddell

LDRS 1015- Clegorne

15 December 2014

Final Paper

In his book, Community: The Structure of Belonging, Peter Block highlights an

alternative future, a Transformed Community, which prospers on the sense of belonging it

provides to all of its citizens. This Transformed Community is juxtaposed by the Stuck

Community in which we live today. This comparison and the differences between these two

societies that emerge help illuminate Block’s beliefs. Through this, we can relate Block Trait

Theory, Skills Theory, Leadership Behavior, Situational Leadership, Contingency Theory,

Authentic Leadership, Adaptive Leadership, and finally, my own beliefs.

Because he is more focused on the inclusion of communities, Block spends little time

talking about leaders and the traits they may possess. Trait Theory is the idea that leadership can

be categorized by traits. Stogdill organizes trait theory into five main categories of traits that the

average leader exceeds other people in. These include capacity, achievement, responsibility,

participation, and status. While Block may not write about the traits of leaders, he does write

about the traits of communities. Block translates the ideas of Christopher Alexander to identify

properties of community that create “wholeness and aliveness.” These are “Deep Interlock and

Ambiguity, Contrast, Roughness, Simplicity and Inner Calm, Not-Separateness.” (Block, 2009,

p. 19) There are obviously differences in the traits of leaders versus the traits of communities, but

I believe it is important to make this parallel to highlight the tendency of Block to treat the

community as one being of development.

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All leaders possess both skills and traits, but they are by no means the same thing. “Skills

are what leaders can accomplish, whereas traits are who leaders are.” (Northouse, 2013, p.44)

Block first introduces skill as something necessary to help create his transformed community in

his interpretation of Werner Erhard. He claims the larger change desired for community can be

created by having new conversations and altering communication. The transformation requires a

shift in listening as well. Block wrote that “this insight forces us to question the value of our

stories, the positions we take, our love of the past, and our way of being in the world.” (2009, p.

15) I believe that there is a connection between this idea of transformed communication and the

skill theory of leadership because creating this new type of communication is a human skill.

“Katz (1955, p.34) suggested that effective administration (i.e., leadership) depends on three

basic personal skills: technical, human, and conceptual.” (Northouse, 2013, p. 44) Human skills

are those related to talking to and working with people, exactly what Block wants us to shift and

enhance.

I have come to understand Leadership Behavior, Situational Leadership, and Contingency

Theory through their connections to one another in describing how a leader goes about

performing leadership. Each one progressively gets more and more specific about the connection

between the characteristics of a leader and the characteristics of that leader’s followers, but each

is based on fundamental questions of how task oriented and how leadership oriented that leader

is. I also think it is important to build each upon the other as they are related to the ideas of Block

because he hopes to create such a specific community that calls for particular behaviors, creating

a unique situation which leadership is contingent upon.

Herschey and Blanchard said “the behavior of some leaders is characterized by rigidly

structuring activities in terms of task accomplishments, while others concentrate on building and

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maintaining good personal relationships between themselves and their followers. Other leaders

have styles characterized by both task and relationships behavior.” (Wren, 1995, p. 145) This

theory can be organized on a graph with a separate axis for both tasks and relationships. To relate

this to the Transformed Community, Block says “Leaders are held to three tasks: to shift the

context within which people gather, name the debate through powerful questions, and listen

rather than advocate, defend, or provide answers.” (Block, 2009, p. 73) It is clear that the leader

is not expected to have a task oriented behavior, for they aren’t even supposed to provide

answers. Leaders according to Block don’t bring people together with their own knowledge.

They bring people together through questions that spark thought in the followers and develop

knowledge.

That being said, I believe that Block calls for a leader who cares about his followers and

works on those relationships. This is because Block’s community is founded on the importance

of belonging. “Restorative community is created when we allow ourselves to use the language of

healing and relatedness and belonging without embarrassment.” (Block, 2009, p.48) There is no

way for people to heal each other through language without putting emphasis on relationships,

and therefore Block calls for leaders to have a high concern for relationships.

Situational Leadership adds in the factor of the followers. Since not every leader has the

same followers, there is no perfect combination of emphasis on tasks and relationships. This

theory does, however, claim that leaders who have relatively low task behavior and high

relationship behavior will be best to, as labeled on Herschey’s visual representation of

Situational Leadership, “share ideas and facilitate in decision making.” (Wren, 1995, p. 211) The

key word here is facilitate, for the actual jobs of making decisions and solving problems shift

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over to the followers. I believe that this description of a leader is an accurate portrayal of Block’s

conversation-based leader.

Since the leader described by Block has been defined and now matched to its functions,

the followers that this type of leader would be successful at leading should match Blocks model

of the Transformed community as well. The followers for this particular leadership style have a

readiness of R3. According to Herschey and Blanchard, “People in this development level are

competent but have variable commitment toward the assigned task.” (Wren, 1995, p. 210) Of the

followers in this category who have lower will, some may simply be insecure and need the

support to realize their high competence. Others, however, may be unwilling and need

motivation. In Block’s ideal Transformed community, all citizens would be highly motivated and

always confident, but the world today is not yet there. Realistically, this variable commitment of

followers having compatibility with the leader described by Block is promising for the journey

toward Restorative Community because the leaders of this community will be good with all

types of followers along the way.

Lastly, “Contingency Theory suggests that situations can be characterized in terms of

three factors: leader-member relations, task structure, and position power.” (Northouse, 2013, p.

124) Based off what has already been determined, the Restorative Community requires good

leader-follower relations and low task structure. The new variable here is the position power of

leaders. Block, however, seemed more interested in the power of followers. Interpreting John

Mcknight, he writes “that most sustainable improvements in community occur when citizens

discover their own power to act.” (Block, 2009, p.14) With more power to the citizens and in a

community where the leaders want them to have that power, it is safe to say that the Transformed

Community creates little to no position power for the leaders. This matches Block’s transformed

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community up with a leader who scores is very relationship oriented, once again agreeing with

the connection between Leadership Behavior, Situational Leadership, and Contingency Theory.

Influence and power are directly related to one another. That being said, the power in the

hands of the people that we have already established is very important in connecting Block to

influence. Hughes, Ginnett, and Murphy “defined power as the capacity or potential to exert

influence; influence tactics as the behaviors used by one person to modify the attitudes and

behaviors of another; and influence as the degree of change in a person’s attitudes, values, or

behaviors as the result of another’s influence tactic.” (Wren, 1995, p. 350) Since influence is

directly proportional to one’s power, this would mean that leaders have less influence than

followers. Typically, this may sound like it could lead to tyranny. I believe that it would be very

hard to reach the point where all citizens would use this power to build community instead of

tear it down, but Block’s Transformed Community assumes that this is the case because he holds

that “citizens who use their power to convene other citizens are what create an alternative

future.” (Block, 2009, p. 31) If this were the case, the Transformed community would be

positively influenced by its own constituents on a regular basis because they have the power

needed for influence. Through looking at the behavior of leaders in specific situations and

contingent upon the power that lies within the people, it is evident that Block is able to

consistently hold his idea of Transformed Community through multiple intertwined leadership

theories.

I believe that Block would be a strong advocate for Authentic Leadership in his

transformed society. If Block himself were a leader in his society, he would automatically satisfy

part two, three, and four of the Authentic Leadership theory when it is drawn out into four points.

“(2) authentic leaders are motivated by personal convictions, rather than to attain status, honors,

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or other personal benefits; (3) authentic leaders are originals, not copies (pp. xx); that is, they

lead from their own personal point of view; and (4) the actions of authentic leaders are based on

their personal values and convictions.” (Avolio and Gardner, 2005, p. 321) Block would satisfy

this because he obviously believes in the society that he bothered to write a book about and

would therefore lead based on his own values and convictions. I’m sure Block would also hope

that other leaders of this society would agree with him as well. The first part of Authentic

Leadership is as follows; “(1) rather than faking their leadership, authentic leaders are true to

themselves (rather than conforming to the expectations of others).” (Avolio and Gardner, 2005,

p. 321) It would be hard to create the sense of belonging desired by the transformed society with

leaders who aren’t true to themselves, and for that reason, I believe that Authentic Leadership is

an absolute necessity for the Transformed Society to create a structure of belonging.

Lastly, Block can be compared to Adaptive Leadership, “the practice of mobilizing

people to tackle tough challenges and thrive.” (Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky, 2009, p. 2) I view

this as very different from the ways that Block wants change because Adaptive Leadership is

gradual. Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky also write that “successful adaptive changes build on the

past rather than jettison it.” (2009, p. 5) Would Block say the same? On page 34, he says that

restoration can occur only once we stop talking about the problems of community and instead

focus on the “breakdown” of it. From this, it sounds like Block is looking to throw out all we’ve

got and start from scratch. Furthermore, Block inquires the reader about creating a community

“that is not just an improvement, but one of a different nature from what we now have.” (Block,

2009, p. 5) Block does want to jettison the past, and he therefore refutes this part of the Adaptive

Leadership theory.

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Both Block’s Transformed Community and Adaptive Leadership theory have too much

depth to stop there. On top of the extent of change, Block focuses on change in a different form

than Adaptive Leadership. Adaptive Leadership theory establishes that when we think people are

resisting change, they are actually just resisting their potential personal loss. Block, however,

doesn’t look at individuals at all when it comes to change. “To create a more positive and

connected future for our communities, we must be willing to trade their problems for their

possibilities.” (Block, 2009, p. 4) Block focuses on the potential risks of communities, not

individual people. He later explains that the transformation of individuals will follow the

community’s transformation. I think this second difference in Block and Adaptive Leadership

can be attributed to the much larger scale at which Block hopes to make his change.

I believe that leadership is the ability of someone to see the potential in a situation and do

whatever they can to help a group of people reach that full potential. Leadership is based on

understanding. In addition to leading from the front, a leader in my definition could also lead

through hard work and set an example for others or bring group members together and unite

them without ever declaring themselves the so-called ‘leader.’

Unfortunately, when the word ‘leader’ is thrown around in the media and politics, it is

assumed that the leaders are indeed leading from the front. This is where I believe that there is a

crisis of leadership. The idea and legacy of leadership among most of society took a wrong turn

somewhere and was limited to only a small fraction of what it really is. Leadership isn’t only

practiced by Barrack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Pope Francis, and other governmental leaders

around the world. Leadership is practiced by regular citizens every day. Citizens of the world

should stop looking to the governmental leaders of their country for everything that isn’t perfect.

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Instead, they should look inside themselves and find ways to demonstrate their own acts of

leadership to unlock the full potential in every day.

While great leaders in powerful positions are important, there is a leadership crisis hidden

in the depths of society. Leadership requires a mentality that I believe anyone can acquire, which

includes taking responsibility for oneself and going the extra mile to take on the responsibility of

having followers once they choose to follow you. Too many citizens of countries today neglect

this responsibility and put all of their trust in the leaders they complain about.

Trait theory is also a large part of my leadership philosophy. I believe that certain traits

are more likely to be found in active leaders than other traits, and certain people may be more

likely to become leaders because they have these traits, but these traits by themselves cannot

create leaders. There are many regular people who embody many of these leadership traits; some

may even have more leadership traits than some nationally renowned leaders do. The possession

of specific traits often outlined in many trait theories, such as intelligence, sociability,

determination, and charisma, to name a few, simply give someone the ability to become a great

leader if they get the chance. The actual creation of a leader itself is extremely situational and

circumstantial and also requires the choice to lead.

In my opinion, Trait theory also doesn’t outline traits that are all an absolute necessity to

have in order to become ‘the perfect leader.’ Rather, I like to think of it as all of the toppings at

an ice cream bar. Once you have your bowl of ice cream, dumping a lot of every single topping

on top won’t make the best ice cream sundae. It isn’t advisable to put sour patch kids and fudge

in the same ice cream bowl. You have to pick and choose the right toppings that go well together

to make the best sundae. Similarly, trait theory highlights many traits that can be beneficial to

leaders. Good leaders, however, have the right combination of traits to make them into the

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successful leaders that they are today. Not all good ice cream sundaes taste the same; not all

good leaders function in the same way. Some leaders lead from the front and embody charisma

and determination. Others have lots of integrity and sociability and gain great respect from

followers for who they are as a person. In addition to this, the ice cream represents the intangible

characteristics of leaders. Without good ice cream, sundaes aren’t good regardless of the

toppings. Leaders must also hold some intangible qualities not outlined in Trait Theory that

allow them to be good leaders.

Just as I believe there are different ways to make a good ice cream sundae and different

traits that can build a good leader, I believe that leaders can be successful despite their leader

behavior in relation to tasks versus relationships. Here, what I believe to be important is the

connection of Behavior Theory to Situational Leadership and Contingency Theory. I agree with

Situational Leadership that any leader behavior can be best at some point in time, but the best

leader behavior for any given time is the behavior that best matches its followers. Furthermore, I

agree with the Contingency Theory that the amount of power in the hands of the leader should

also play a role in the style of leadership that is used.

A large part of my view on leadership stems from my summer job as a counselor at Camp

Cheerio in Roaring Gap, North Carolina. I lead activities and run a cabin of fourteen twelve and

thirteen year old boys. Every session of camp, the dynamics of the boys in my cabin changes and

therefore I have learned the importance of being able to adapt to followers. Some weeks, my kids

come in quiet and nervous and I have to loosen them up a bit to make sure they get comfortable

with each other and have the fun camp experience they want. Other weeks, cliques of recent

middle school graduates walk into my cabin acting like they already own it and I have to enforce

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the rules strictly until they learn their place. While my leadership style varies, one thing remains

the same; my job each week is to serve the campers in my cabin.

When I initially read about Servant Leadership, I wrote “CAMP COUNSELOR” in huge

letters in the margins of my notes. Just as is promoted by servant leadership, I am taught as a

counselor first to serve my campers. On top of this though, we strive to empower our campers

and help them develop to be good servants and leaders around camp and within their cabin. The

ten main characteristics of servant leadership as defined by Dierendock are listening, empathy,

healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to growth

of people, and building community. Every single one of these apply directly to camp counseling.

Because being a camp counselor, where I am responsible for the health and safety of fourteen

boys, has been one of my largest leadership experiences of my life, the leadership philosophy of

camp has a large impact on the way I view leadership today. I am a huge advocate for servant

leadership.

I agree with Block that we should “transform the isolation and self-interest within our

communities into connectedness and caring for the whole,” (Block, 2009, p. 1) but I see this as

something that we should strive to do within our ever adapting community of today, whereas

Block is calling for a larger and more sudden change from our Stuck Society to the Transformed

Society. I don’t believe that it is necessary to transform our community as a whole; rather, I

would consider the change we need an adaptation to community and a transformation of, as it

has been expressed above, the isolation and self-interest within our communities.

I don’t agree with Block on the scale of the change needed in our society because there

were multiple times throughout the book when Block made points that were too extreme for me

to agree with. For example, Block writes that “fault marketing rests on the belief that if we can

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assign blame and find cause, it is useful to society and somehow reassures us that it won’t

happen again. To me, this thinking is irrational thinking.” (Block, 2009, 38-39) To me, this is

irrational thinking by Block. The government doesn’t arrest criminals because it believes that

crime will never be committed again, but because the only way to ensure that the crime will

happen again is to not find the perpetrator. There is power in analyzing what is wrong on society

to help understand how to fix it. Block may not say he agrees with this principle, but he did use

it.

If Block disagrees with the way we always highlight the negative things happening

within our communities to try to improve them, why does he spend so much time talking about

why our current community is Stuck? If he practices what he preaches, shouldn’t he have written

a book solely on his Transformed Community? If an argument in Block’s defense is made that

readers could not have understood the application of Block’s community to the world we live in

today without the problems of the Stuck community, does this not disprove Block’s argument

against marketing fault and fear? Block even says himself, “To create a new story, we first need

to terms with the current one.” (Block, 2009, p. 37) I don’t believe the community we live in

today markets fear and fault. It brings us to terms with the current world we live in.

By comparing Peter Block and his beliefs expressed in Community: The Structure of

Belonging to various modern leadership theories, the changes that would need to be made to our

community today to reach the Transformed Community he described become even more clear.

Block’s community is only possible under a very particular set of circumstances and community

cooperation. Though I agree with Block on some of his points, the focus of my leadership

philosophy is less on the community and more on the leader. I believe a leader’s job is to

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maximize the potential in any group through group unity, which can be done by anyone, despite

the traits they were born with, as long as they focus on serving their followers.

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Bibliography

Block, P. (2009). Community: The Structure Of Belonging. San Francisco: Berret-

Koehler Publishers.

Dierendock, D. (2010). Servant Leadership: A Review and Synthesis. SAGE

Publications.

Heifetz, R., & Grashow, A. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership: Tools and

tactics for changing your organization and the world. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Press.

Gardner, W. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive

forms of leadership. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Northouse, P. (2013). Introduction to leadership: Theory and practice. Los Angeles:

Sage Publications.

Wren, J. (1995). The leader's companion: Insights on leadership through the ages. New

York: Free Press.