Leadership Definitions Among Community College Administrators

Overview of the Eddy and VanDerLinden Study

The article by Eddy and VanDerLinden (2006) examines how alternative definitions of leadership are replacing traditional leadership concepts. Specifically, the authors assess emerging definitions of leadership in terms of how community college administrators self-identify as leaders. Using a survey method to collect data, the researchers asked respondents to identify their own definition of leadership. The purpose was to determine whether administrators viewed leadership in terms of their position at the college or in terms of other variables.

The researchers noted that, traditionally, community colleges have been described as bureaucratic in nature, with positional leadership serving as the dominant type. Today, however, administrators in these colleges self-identify using a variety of different leadership ideas. These leaders are thinking more complexly about leadership rather than linking it to position or to a single characteristic. The authors argue that it is important to nurture these alternative definitions of leadership by providing additional leadership development and training opportunities.

Eddy and VanDerLinden (2006) also show that a large percentage of community college administrators still see their leadership as tied to their position or role within the college. The encouraging finding, however, is that roughly half of respondents used different terms and variables to define their sense of leadership, rather than simply citing their institutional position as the source of that definition.

Methodology and Internal Validity

The researchers sampled 682 respondents across a variety of position codes, yielding a sample size large enough to be generally representative of the population. As a result, the study contains internal validity and its findings can be considered generalizable. The only evident bias in the study is that the researchers assume, to some extent, that the traditional way of thinking about leadership in higher education is inadequate to meet today's challenges and demands on community college administrators. No full justification for this belief is provided, leaving it as an assumption the reader may accept or reject independently.

The researchers do provide a substantial literature review of leadership theories developed over the years, including theories of women's leadership (Chliwniak, 1997; Townsend & Twombly, 1998), theories of multidimensional leadership (Peterson, 1997), and the learning organization model (O'Banion, 1997).

References

Chliwniak, L. (1997). Higher education leadership: Analyzing the gender gap, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, 25(4). Washington, DC: ASHE.

Eddy, P. L., & VanDerLinden, K. E. (2006). Emerging definitions of leadership in higher education: New visions of leadership or same old "hero" leader? Community College Review, 34(1), 5–26.

O'Banion, T. (1997). A learning college for the 21st century. Phoenix, AZ: American Council on Education Oryx Press Series on Higher Education.

Peterson, M. (1997). Using contextual planning to transform institutions. In M. Peterson, D. Dill, L. A. Mets, & Associates (Eds.), Planning and management for a changing environment (pp. 127–157). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Townsend, B. K., & Twombly, S. B. (1998). A feminist critique of organizational change in the community college. In J. S. Levin (Ed.), Organizational change in the community college: A ripple or a sea change? (pp. 77–85). New Directions for Community Colleges. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.