265. Change Leadership Theories and Implications for Staff Discourse

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In this solo episode, host Lindsay explores change leadership theories and their implications for educational settings, including staff discourse around change initiatives. She focuses on how these strategies support transformative growth towards educational equity and justice. 
Lindsay draws on her work experience with the Department of Education in Massachusetts to support turnaround schools that are designated for support, as well as her scholarship background through her PhD research in leadership and change. 
Why? 

Change leadership is critical in any strategic planning conversation, especially for schools with turnaround status. Understanding change leadership theories and practices can enable schools to navigate complex challenges while fostering equity and justice.

What?

Lindsay draws on her 2018 PhD dissertation to compile this curated list of education-related change theories that can support educators in your unique context. You can access her entire published thesis here, in which these four frameworks are expanded on in pages 36-41.

Noting that adaptive leadership is an important framework embedded into the following — and expanded on in podcast episode 267 — these are four frameworks that help educators navigate change leadership. 

1. Social Justice Leadership: This framework posits that leaders strive to deepen their awareness of societal injustice and act to eliminate it. Preskill and Brooksfield are key scholars of this framework and point to how social justice leaders are open to the contributions of others, reflect critically on their own practice and the ideas of collective leadership, learning democracy, and creating community. 
   
2. Inclusive Leadership: There are several theorists around this framework, including Lisa Boysen who defines inclusive leadership as an “ongoing cycle of learning through collaborative and respectful relational practice that enables individuals and collectives to be fully part of the whole, such that they are directed, aligned, and committed towards shared outcomes for the common good of all, while retaining a sense of authenticity and uniqueness.” This is about recognizing difference and valuing diversity. 
   
3. Positive Leadership: Scholar Cameron describes positive leadership as having three orientations: positively deviant performance (looking for what is good), affirmative bias (focusing on strengths) and facilitating the best of the human condition. This requires a positive climate full of compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude that supports positive relationships and communication. 
   
4. Shared Leadership: Mary Parker Follet was the original scholar of this model, and asserted that, “ Genuine power is not coercive control, but co-active control. Coercive power is the curse of the universe. Co-active power, the enrichment and advancement of every human soul." She believed in creative integration, where the goal was not to do away with differences but seek clarity. 
   

Drawing on these theories — each of which are expanded on in the episode — Lindsay concludes that there are three critical components that any leader needs for effective change leadership: 

• Critical awareness: reflecting on, understanding, and questioning positive and negative attributes to oneself and society in order to foster equity and growth. 
  
• Inclusivity: enabling all members to fully participate and learn from each other. 
  
• Positivity: Applying a strengths-based lens to facilitate growth and enable flourishing. 
  

Key Takeaway

Discourse is the tool we use to move from dialogue and discussion to decision-making. To facilitate this type of discourse and live out leadership theories, we should build out the culture and grow relationships, dive into hard conversation, seek out different viewpoints, and stay focused on shared values. 

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Discourse Analysis Framework with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 265 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Quotes: 

• 2:42 “Social justice leaders are often open to the contributions of others. They reflect critically on their own practice, as well as ideas of collective leadership, learning democracy, and creating community.”
  
• 6:27 “ Inclusive leadership is built on a foundation of recognizing difference and requires reciprocal understanding, standpoint plurality, which is valuing diverse perspectives, knowledge, and experiences.”
  
• 10:29 “ Positive leadership has three orientations: positively deviant performance, so we look for what is good … Affirmative bias, which is a focus on strengths rather than deficits, and facilitating the best of the human condition.” 
  
• 15:54 “ Follet insisted the best way to address conflict is through what she called creative integration she said, quote, ‘The object is not to do away with differences, but to do away with muddle.’ So let's get clear, right? She argued that conflict is necessary to identify various stakeholders' desires.”
  
• 29:02 “ Don't underestimate the power of dialogue. Relational and positive leadership, both of these theories, say that this is critical. We need to just truly, deeply listen to each other.”
  

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TRANSCRIPT

Lindsay Lyons: Welcome back to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. This is episode 265, and today we're talking about change leadership theories and the implications for staff discourse around change initiatives. For context, my work with the Department of Education in Massachusetts, called DESE, with Turnaround Schools, uh, which are designated for support, um, and just my background in strategic planning, my scholarship background in leadership and change.
My doctorate comes out of Antioch University, which focuses on leadership and change across many disciplines. Obviously, mine was education. Um, really wanna kind of think about how a theory of change has been important for schools and strategic planning, particularly those in Turnaround status. And what I'm hoping to do is bring you a curated list of education-relevant change leadership theories to support that transformational growth that you're pursuing in your context, um, towards equ- educational equity and justice.
So here we go. Let's take a look at some frameworks I'll name that what I'm doing is actually reading a lot of times, which sounds silly, but I, I think is hopefully better than reinventing the wheel here. From my published dissertation, so that's a 2018 publication that you can find online. I will link to it in the blog post for this episode, located at lindsaybethlyons.com/blog/265.
And really, I'm reading from that literature review chapter, pages 36 through 41. If you're at all interested in finding those resources, there's of course, uh, citations at the end that you can go dig deeper into it. We are going to talk about the following frameworks today: social justice leadership, inclusive leadership, which is also connected to relational leadership, positive leadership, and shared leadership.
I also talk a lot about adaptive leadership. There's actually another episode coming about adaptive leadership, kind of change leadership connected and discourse connected as well. That's gonna be Episode 267. So we won't touch on adaptive leadership quite as much here, but know that it is integral and, and kind of embedded in a lot of these, and very, um, complementary.
There we go. Okay. So first, social justice leadership. The theory of social justice leadership posits leaders strive to deepen their awareness of societal injustice and act to eliminate it. So Preskill and Brookfield are two scholars here in this, uh, leadership theory. They have published a couple different books that are helpful, one, Learning as a Way of Leading, and I cannot remember the other one, but it's about discussion and teaching.
And so they named supporting the growth of others as one of the tenets of social justice leadership. And so while leaders are expected to grow, so too are the members. This is relevant for, uh, students as well as staff. They point out social justice leaders are often, um, open to the contributions of others.
They reflect critically on their own practice, as well as ideas of collective leadership, learning democracy, and creating community. The, quote, "Care and concern for vulnerable, marginalized, disenfranchised, and disadvantaged populations," end quote, is a priority for social justice leaders. This comes from Noble, published in 2015.
And Noble insists that leaders in their communities have to examine the underlying issues of social problems. So think root cause analysis here, very popular in strategic planning initiatives. And she says to do this effectively, social justice leaders need to understand really important terms, so things like privilege, oppression, cultural salience, intersectionality, critical consciousness, and social equity.
So there needs to be kind of a building of that knowledge. She also says, um, I'm sorry, Preskill and Brookfield say that social justice leadership involves analyzing institutions, so we're not just at the individual level. We have to understand those institutions and analyze those. But to do this, leaders have to examine the dynamics of power and privilege and ask what stories are not being told in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the situation.
They posit social justice leadership is like Gramsci's notion of an organic intellectual, in that leaders are members of an oppressed group that work to empower their community. So thinking a lot about this dissertation was written for student leadership, but also thinking about teacher leadership, family leadership.
So having that shared leadership connection where everyone has the potential work of a leader. And so Gramsci's work stems from Marx, so that work is in direct response to the unequal distribution of resources and power within a capitalist society. And so the most important component of social justice leadership really is the redistribution of power.
Uh, George Theo Harris actually talks about how leadership is-- that's not focused on and successful at creating more just and equitable schools for marginalized students is indeed not good leadership. So this is really, um, the, the moral compass here. Uh, Brookfield and Preskill I wanted to also name. They say that the essence of dialogue, which we're gonna connect to at the end here, is entering a conversation in which ideas will be questioned and explored with a willingness to change one's mind.
They claim, quote, "Discussion and democracy are inseparable because both have the same root purpose: to nurture and promote human growth." End quote. I absolutely love this. Um, this is, you know, I think at the heart of all that we do here on the podcast, but I think a lot of your central missions are social justice oriented.
So I really wanted to name that those big higher level kind of like critiquing systems of power, that is part of a leadership theory. Embed that in your theory of change if that feels helpful to you. I imagine it does to anyone who's engaging with this podcast. All right, next piece. So we have, uh, inclusive leadership.
There's several theorists around here. I draw a lot on Lisa Boysen, who is the, uh, one of my prof- was one of my professors at Antioch University, and so she defines inclusive leadership as an ongoing cycle of learning through collaborative and respectful relational practice that enables individuals and collectives to be fully part of the whole, such that they are directed, aligned, and committed towards shared outcomes for the common good of all, while retaining a sense of authenticity and uniqueness.
And that's that direct quote and definition. Um, Pless and Mack are two other scholars in this space, and they say, you know, inclusive leadership is built on a foundation of recognizing difference and requires reciprocal understanding, standpoint plurality, which is really like we value diverse perspectives, knowledge, and experiences.
These are actually critical for understanding society and what's going on, and the particularly folks at the margins are the ones to offer those unique insights that are going to help us understand collectively what is going on and what is the path forward. So again, hearkening to that shared leadership, like we can figure out this thing together, which is what adaptive leadership says, right?
It says these big, sticky, complex problems, you can't solve those with one leader saying, "This is what we're doing." It has to be a group effort. Um, back to Pless and Mack's, uh, things that are required for inclusive leadership. They say also, uh, it has to be mutually enabling, the, the foundation. Um, there has to be trust, integrity, and an overarching inter- intercultural moral point of view that is centered on democracy, empathy, and moral awareness.
So again, audience members, I believe that this is you, right? You center democracy, empathy, and kind of this moral compass that is really critical for this type of leadership. Um, Boysen notes that inclusive leadership involves collaboratively co-constructing an organizational value frame. Do we have shared values?
Many of us do. And leveraging diversity so everyone can be comfortably him or her, or I would add them, theirselves. In schools, um, Ryan, another publication and author, um, asserts policies should promote inclusion, and the process to make school policies should be inclusive, again, hearkening to shared leadership.
This concept of inclusive leadership is highly relational in nature, and so therefore, relational leadership theories come into play as well. Relational leadership posits that growth happens in connection with others. This is a concept from Jean Baker Miller. A lot of these names, just noting, I have only ever read them and I've not heard them spoken, so I'm hoping I'm pronouncing everyone's name correctly, um, which posits this idea of growth and connection, posits growth occurs through relationships with others.
Like, that's actually how we grow. So she underscores growth is rooted in mutuality and empowerment, and if it's successful, actually, members are gonna reap these five benefits, which I love: zest, empowered action, increased self-esteem, new knowledge, and a desire for more connection. So it is, like, fulfilling itself, which is super, super cool.
Fletcher, who writes about this a lot, um, talks about dialogue, uh, where... Excuse me. Cunliffe and Erickson talk about dialogue whereby participants recognize and work through difference. Fletcher talks about how we have to have kind of this willingness to learn, or in relational leadership, we demonstrate a rel- a willingness to learn from others, and that is actually gonna en- enhance, as a leader, our relational capital.
So yeah, this is really similar to adaptive leadership, where it's, it's really about the process more than the final destination. Like, how do we engage with everyone? Um, relational leadership, again, adopts that concept of shared leadership, where we have power with rather than power over. We'll talk about that a little bit, um, later on in the episode.
So basically, this idea of inclusive and relational leadership are kind of ways of being in the world with relational integrity, relational mindfulness, and relational agility, and that comes from Cunliffe and Erickson. Additionally, Beck, another author in the space, contends remaining in caring relationships is actually one of the three activities of care after hearing others' perspectives and responding to the new insights gained.
So we wanna deeply listen, we wanna respond to what we learn, and we need to maintain those caring relationships. Really critical, particularly during change leadership. Okay, let's go to positive leadership. Cameron is one of the leaders in this field. So they describe positive leadership as having three orientations: positively deviant performance, so we look for what is good.
Where is the positive deviant? Not working in most places, well where is it working and how is that happening, right? And let's learn from that. Affirmative bias, which is a focus on strengths rather than deficits, and facilitating the best of the human condition. So he wrote about four strategies to promote positive leadership.
First, a positive climate is full of compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude. So we have to kind of build that up. Positive relationships, uh, according to Dutton and Regan, are a source of, quote, "enrichment, vitality, and learning." End quote. Cameron noted studies of successful organizations indicate high-performing organizations employ positive communication.
And this harkens back to some marriage research , I believe, of making five positive statements for every one negative statement, and balancing the ratio of inquiry and advocacy statements. So think about how many times we say, "This is my point of view," right? We actually have to make sure that to be, um, in this positive organization or high-performing organization, we have to balance the number of times we ask a question and take an inquiry stance with the amount of times we say, "Hey, I think this is what we should do," or, "Here's my thought," right?
I'm advocating for something. Um, also needs to be in balance other-focused and self-focused statements. So if we're always saying me, me, me or I, I, I, we need to balance that out with more other-focused language. Additionally, um, they found that members were more engaged and exchanged more information when communication was positive.
So this is, just to clarify, this is not that Pollyanna, everything is good, we always have to be having fun. This is that true balance, um, of, of the, you know, inquiry and the advocacy. It is thinking about compassion, forgiveness, gratitude. That means sometimes things are hard, but we are holding onto this.
We are holding onto what is working. We are strengths-based more than we are deficit-based. That does not mean that we don't confront challenges or name the challenges. We have to, right? But I just wanna clarify that this is not just like rah-rah all the time. That is not what this theory is about. Um, strategies for delivering feedback include, and I love this, this comes from Laura Morgan Roberts, who was also one of my professors, um, the reflected best self.
So this is where a person asks 20 people to share stories of when they remember them at their best. So cool. I mean, just that activity of thinking about asking 20 people, w- h- when, "Remember me when I was at my best and tell me that story." So cool. Very strengths-based, right? And you could do that for your staff.
You could do that with students. You could do that with a lot of people. Um, and supportive communication is another strategy for delivering feedback in which the critical feedback is given in a way that describes behavior and suggests solutions without judgment. That comes from Rogers. Finally, positive meaning is integral to organizational success.
So Cameron insisted the purpose of the organization should actually be to build a supportive community and improve the wellbeing of as many people as possible. The related field of positive change contributes additional strategies for organizational and personal growth, like appreciative inquiry. So again, trying to find that positive deviance, wondering what's going well.
Um, this is from, uh, Cooperrider and Sri- Srivastava, Srivastava, excuse me. And the awesome, like, reframe of SWOT analysis, so where we have strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, becomes SOAR, uh, strengths, opportunities, aspirations, results. Love that. Love that shift. So if you are doing a SWOT analysis in your strategic planning, try a SOAR analysis instead and see what happens.
Appreciative inquiry. Um, so basically building on the strengths of the organizations to further develop. Okay, that brings us to our final leadership theory, which is shared leadership. So the concept of shared leadership first appeared in the writings of Mary Parker Follett. Follett? I'm not sure. Anyways, it's quite interesting to me that she is only cited one time in Jackson and Perry's seemingly comprehensive leadership book published in 2011.
Aside from a quick mention of ancient Rome, Jackson and Perry referenced James MacGregor
Burns as the oldest citation relating to a shared process of leadership. In 1978, Burns wrote, "The leadership approach tends often unconsciously to be elitist. It projects heroic figures against the shadowy background of drab, powerless masses." End quote. While his critique of the stark imbalance of power inherent in traditional leadership certainly contributed to the growth of collective leadership and shared leadership, Follett was writing about the value of sharing power with followers over half a century earlier.
So this misattribution may be a sign of the perpetual mental model that men are leadership experts, or perhaps it's a disdain for, quote, "women's work", seeing as Follett's largest contributions were geared toward community organizations rather than the management of large corporations. It's probably a combination of the two.
In Follett's book in 1924 called Creative Experience, she addressed conceptions of power and the process of leadership and decision-making. She started by asserting, quote, "Genuine power is not coercive control, but co-active control. Coercive power is the curse of the universe. Co-active power, the enrichment and advancement of every human soul."
End quote. Falla insisted the best way to address conflict is through what she called creative integration she said, quote, "The object is not to do away with differences, but to do away with muddle." So let's get clear, right? She argued that conflict is necessary to identifying various stakeholders' desires.
Throughout the book, she reiterated, quote, "The experience of all is necessary to democracy." End quote. She insisted on the benefits of integration rather than compromise, noting integration has the ability to reduce loss and increase gain for everybody, as no one is giving up what they desire. And this is huge when we're gonna note adaptive leadership's role here, too.
They talk a lot about resistance as loss. If you're facing a lot of resistance from some sort of initiative or new policy, there may be loss there, and we have to name that and address it and confront that as full human beings, right? And she's saying that actually, if we wanna just reduce the feelings of loss, we want integration rather than compromise.
I think this is why I've been so interested in discourse lately and ways to get away from the binary, like it has to be this or this, right? No, what can ... What is a new path forward? And that's kind of what she's talking about here. Creative integration requires imagination, right? She says that creative integration begins with the organization's vision, and the process is of the utmost importance, so again, process over product.
In what she deems to be the most important sentence of the book, she insisted opportunities, quote, "Should be provided for integration to take place normally." End quote. So this should not just be for strategic planning. It should be in how we live out school and how we do leadership. Follett warned, quote, "The suggestion box is not a democratic device, although often so-called.
Democracy does not register various opinions. It is an attempt to create unity." End quote. She insisted diverse stakeholders come together to cooperatively gather and analyze information, relate the information to each person's life, and create new ideas that meet all stakeholders' desires. Love it. All individuals must contribute to the process, so then, quote, "We cannot stand outside and judge the purpose of the state.
We ourselves become part of that purpose." End quote. Right? If you embed stakeholders in the creation of the policy or the way forward, we are a team now. We can't stand outside and criticize it. I love that point she makes. She adds, "Stakeholders have a duty to constantly develop and grow." She believed a great leader is a true representative and emphasized, quote, "We should send our representatives not to win a victory but to come to some agreement on the basis of an enlarged understanding on both sides."
End quote. If you've been listening to me talk about discourse lately, this is exactly what all the discourse scholars say. The purpose of discourse is that we come together to enlarge our understanding, to deepen our thinking, to think something new that we could not have thought about alone. So herein lies the power of her term power with, which she used to refer to the democratic power generated through freeing each other of static beliefs to work collaboratively to integrate individual desires and create benefiting all parties She stated the concept of power with, quote, "Takes time, and education, and training to develop.
It involves a process, and a slow process. It is concerned with neither granting power nor grabbing power, but with evolving power. Opportunity must be given for this process." End quote. She once again refuted the notion of zero-sum power when she stated, quote, "First, by pooling power, we are not giving it up.
And secondly, the power produced by relationship is a qualitative, not a quantitative thing." End quote. Gosh, she's brilliant. While she admitted integration is more difficult than simply choosing a side, she wrote in her conclusion that confronting and integrating desires, quote, "Means a freeing for both sides, an increased total power or increased capacity in the world."
End quote. Shared leadership by nature promotes flat organizations as better than hierarchical ones. Jackson and Perry discussed shared leadership within their chapter on critical leadership perspectives, identifying the model as one whose purpose is to disrupt traditional power structures. Reister et al.
and Theo Harris argue that principals need the skills to empower staff through setting up collaborative and shared decision-making structures that allow sta- staff time and space to craft their practice. A shared leadership model, quote, "Rejects the distinction between leaders and followers." That's from Jackson and Perry.
Jackson and Perry noted there is a continuum of shared leadership that extends on the, quote, "Radical end" to Jeffrey Neilson's idealized model of, quote, "Peer-based communities", and Carson, Tesluk, and Morone determine three attributes of teams that facilitate the development of shared leadership. One, members share a commitment to a common goal.
Two, they receive emotional support from one another. And three, they feel their individual voices are valued. So important in a class as well as a staff. Their review noted shared leadership can lead to positive results. They, quote, "Found that teams relying on multiple members for leadership performed better than those in which internal leadership was relatively scarce."
End quote. And additionally, they wrote, quote, "When team members feel recognized and supported within their team," like social support, "they are more willing to share responsibility, cooperate, and commit to the team's collective goals." End quote. Right? So that recognition, that support from their team, that social support is so critical.
If we have it, people are more willing to share the responsibility of pursuing the goal, cooperate with others, and commit to the goal itself. That is so huge So in synthesis, what I did in my dissertation was say, "Hey, these are three competencies that after reading through all of that stuff, I think student leaders should have."
And I would also argue teachers and family leaders and administrative leaders, all leaders should have. And these are, three things are critical awareness, inclusivity, and positivity. So critical awareness I defined as reflecting on, understanding, and questioning positive and negative attributes of oneself and society in order to foster equity and growth.
Inclusivity closely mirrors Boyton's definition, which is enabling all members to fully participate and learn from each other. And positivity, which is applying a strengths-based lens to facilitate growth and enable flourishing. Absolutely love that word, flourishing. Now, how is this all connected to discourse?
Well, discourse really is the place where we grapple with all of this stuff and do the shared leadership. Like, shared leadership was my entry into this, and now discourse is kind of like the how. Okay, we're all together at the table, now how do we actually talk about this stuff and move from dialogue to discussion to decision-making together?
'Cause that is a process, right? You can't just put everybody in a room and then say go, which is what I probably thought like eight years ago when I started this journey. So connecting to discourse, again, Brookfield and Preskill from Social Justice Leadership say that discourse helps learners explore the diversity of perspectives, increases awareness of and tolerance for ambiguity or complexity, right?
How intolerant are we as a society of ambiguity and complexity? I would say very intolerant right now. We wanna increase our tolerance for that. It also shows respect for learner voices and experiences, affirms learners as co-creators of knowledge, leads to transformation, and requires humility. You'll see a lot of or hear a lot of learning language in there, um, that learner language used to be students, and I tried to shift that language to think about, like, learners in general So that's staff, that could also be students.
The goal of discourse, uh, makes me think of this Bella et al 1991 publication, where they say democracy means paying attention. I love that. Uh, they also talk about how really it's being aware of the whole conversation. So I just love this idea of democracy means paying attention. Whoa. Um, the context, uh, I think that I have in my head too, right, is one of equity and social justice, where Bell Hooks talks about, in her 1994 publication, she talks about how, you know, the privileged students in a class know that their opinions count, right?
They might be the frequent talkers, right? They believe that they have a right to say whatever. Working class students are told not to speak, right? And she's saying you need to be aware of that dynamic because we need to disrupt it. And she says, you know, we really need to treat students as whole human beings.
That's her quote, "whole human beings." Right? So I think the same goes for staff. We treat them as whole human beings, right? We treat people in general as whole human beings, and we recognize the power dynamics at play. Um, Cornel West has talked about, uh, the barrier of t- to dialogue, which is that he says, "Dialogue is lost due to obsession with power."
Right? So if we are obsessed with power, and I mean even in a smaller sense, thinking about, not smaller sense, but different sense, thinking about the teacher who doesn't wanna let c- c- control go, right? I don't wanna let go of control 'cause then my class is gonna get out of whack and, like, n- I'll never be able to regain order or calm, right?
I mean, one, that's like a very compliance-centered philosophy, but also, um, like that fear, right, is going to actually inhibit true dialogue, which is an interesting thing to think about. Similarly, at the leadership level. Okay. So now what do you do? Let's wrap this up. Let's think about what are the go-to steps.
So action steps to facilitate this type of discourse and live out these leadership theories: One, we gotta build the culture. So build and continue to grow relationships. This connects to our relational leadership concept, specifically that idea, uh, from Jean Baker Miller, the growth in connection. We have to have those foundational relationships.
We can't just dive into a hard conversation. Two, we need to prompt the seeking out and sharing of different viewpoints. I think of James Nottingham's work, and we had a podcast episode with him earlier. Um, but thinking about that idea of inclusive leadership as well, is that we need those different viewpoints, right?
Folks at the margins are gonna have a unique experience that's valuable for everyone to understand the whole thing, the what's going on, what's the way forward, right? We need that thinking, and so we need to prompt people. I'm thinking also of Maria Nichols' idea around discourse, um, where she talks about how we need to value and cultivate the valuing of diverse perspectives.
We need to think about how our thinking has shifted, and if it-- we've realized that it hasn't, then we need to make sure that we are going out and finding new perspectives to, to deepen it. A positive communication ratio of five to one, that comes from the positive leadership theories. Appreciative inquiry, also coming from positive leadership theory.
So we need to make sure that our, uh, questioning stance, right, our seeking out of the positive deviance is present when we're doing all of these analyses of, of what's happening currently and where we go next. We need to make sure that we lay the discourse foundation. I've talked before about baseline understandings, um, which brilliant guests on the pod have shared, and shared team values.
If you don't have them, we should have them, right? So baseline understandings being like, "Here's what we agree to, and here's what is not up for debate because we believe X," you know, whatever X is. Um, this aligns to inclusive leadership's moral grounding, I think. Remember, that was democracy, empathy, and moral awareness were key components of inclusive leadership.
So if that's true for you, I think that's the move, is to make sure that you agree on your shared team values and come up with some baseline understandings, right? We need the shared goal. That was present in many of these leadership theories, and we can't just, like, have a goal that a couple people contribute to.
We have to truly all believe in the goal and co-create the way that we get to the goal, right? The baseline understandings, the shared values, the team agreements for discussion. We need to build critical consciousness and knowledge of systems, power, oppression, to be able to analyze them, right? Thinking about that social justice leadership framework.
We can either co-create or select together a framework that exists or maybe, like, a lenses chart of, you know, what are these different lenses or ways of thinking? What are these constructs that we need to learn and build awareness of, um, and use when making decisions and having discourse and dialogue We need purposeful prompts and protocols.
So there's so much. If you, if you go back to last, I think last July, 2025, I think July, there were so many leaders on talking about how to facilitate staff meetings and different protocols for different purposes that align with, you know, the various types of discourse. So dialogue, discussion, decision-making.
They are brilliant. I would check them out, return there. Um, but we have to know, are we in dialogue where we're seeking to understand? Are we in discussion mode where we're defining success criteria or analyzing potential impacts of, you know, action steps or plans moving forward? Or are we in decision-making where we just need to come to consensus and, and do the thing, right?
We need to figure out where we're going. I think that typically it's an arc, but it doesn't always go linearly, dialogue, discussion, decision-making. Sometimes you kind of hop around, but in general it feels like an arc to me. Um, and I, I would say don't underestimate the power of dialogue, right? Relational positive leadership, both of these theories say that this is critical.
We need to just truly, deeply listen to each other. I would also think about the prompt for discussion. A free resource is coming soon, uh, maybe in a couple episodes, for you to consider how you would reframe away from, like, a, "Do we like this policy, yes or no?" to more of, like, e- embracing different avenues for conversation that are gonna deepen our understanding and help us come to a better consensus, um, rather than pit one group against another, which is not usually helpful.
I would also say that, I mean, regularly, in addition to at the end of any discourse opportunity, appreciate one another. What did you appreciate about your peers as you engaged in conversation? Like, name it. That's part of positive leadership, and it is also gonna contribute to your five-to-one positive to challenging ratio.
Um, and, you know, if you have time, how cool, do a reflected best self activity. So again, stories. To ask 20 people, it doesn't even need to be 20, but ask people, different people in your life, it could be colleagues, it could be friends, family. Encourage people to put together their stories of when they were at their best and, like, share that with people.
What a cool share that would be. Okay, I have talked a lot in this episode. Way more, uh, scholarly and read-y than usual, but would love to hear your thoughts. Let me know if this was interesting to you. Let me know if this was not helpful for you. Uh, I will link to the various things that I cited and referenced verbally in the blog post for this episode, which once again is located at...
Where are we located? Lindseybethlyons.com/blog/265. And I also just wanna name that you can access the free resource for this episode at the blog post, which is gonna be our leadership playlist, which has a ton of leadership support.

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