Building bridges from the margins: The work of leadership in social change organizations

The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 292–307

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The Leadership Quarterly j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / l e a q u a

Building bridges from the margins: The work of leadership in social change organizations Sonia Ospina ⁎, Erica Foldy Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, The Puck Building, 295 Lafayette St., 2nd floor, New York, NY 10012, United States

a r t i c l e

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Keywords: Leadership practices Relational leadership Collaborative governance Constructionism Social change leadership Cognitive shift

a b s t r a c t Attention to the relational dimensions of leadership represents a new frontier of leadership research and is an expression of the growing scholarly interest in the conditions that foster collective action within and across boundaries. This article explores the antecedents of collaboration from the perspective of social change organizations engaged in processes of collaborative governance. Using a constructionist lens, the study illuminates the question how do social change leaders secure the connectedness needed for collaborative work to advance their organization's mission? The article draws on data from a national, multi-year, multi-modal qualitative study of social change organizations and their leaders. These organizations represent disenfranchised communities which aspire to influence policy makers and other social actors to change the conditions that affect their members' lives. Narrative analysis of transcripts from in-depth interviews in 38 organizations yielded five leadership practices that foster strong relational bonds either within organizations or across boundaries with others. The article describes how these practices nurture interdependence either by forging new connections, strengthening existing ones, or capitalizing on strong ones. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In a shared-power world, each of the individuals, groups and organizations affected by complex, intractable public problems have only partial authority to act on them and lack the power to resolve them alone (Crosby & Bryson, 2005, p. 22; O'Leary, Gerard & Bingham, 2006). Collective action is, therefore, essential, but it cannot happen without first connecting across differences. Bridging differences within a complex web of interconnected yet separate actors is not easy. Achieving a common purpose may require resolving significant conflict (O'Leary & Bingham, 2007). Yet the potential for connectedness is always present in human beings. When fostered, it can promote reciprocal relations and commitments in groups and organizations that, in turn, generate the collaboration required to achieve collective goals. Leadership scholars argue that a functional requirement of organizing in contemporary society is fostering and strengthening relational bonds among stakeholders with differing perspectives (Fletcher & Kaüfer, 2003), that is “the ability to work from a multi-group perspective—one that not only fully understands each group's needs, but also successfully bridges these needs and moves toward the goal of producing a greater good for everyone” (APALC, 2003, p. 6). Scholars argue that this “boundary-spanning collaboration” requires a particular type of leadership (Gasson & Elrod, 2006). Crosby and Kiedrowski (2008) call it “integrative leadership,” which they define as “fostering collective action across boundaries to advance the common good” (p. 1). Scholarly interest in the conditions that foster connectedness both across and within boundaries has grown considerably over time (Fletcher & Kaüfer, 2003; Jackson & Parry, 2008). Some refer to this as the relational dimension of leadership; Uhl-Bien has articulated the various streams into a coherent approach that she calls “relational leadership theory” (2006).

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 1 212 998 7436. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Ospina), [email protected] (E. Foldy). 1048-9843/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.01.008

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In the public management field, conflict resolution researchers also inquire into the conditions for collaboration (Bingham, O'Leary & Carlson, 2008). They join the broadening interest in the dynamics of “collaborative public management” (Agranoff & McGuire, 2003; Milward & Provan, 2006; O'Leary & Bingham, 2007) and “collaborative governance” (Ansell & Gash, 2008), associated with increased cross-agency coordination and the growth of cross-sector policy networks to address public problems. Their research on antecedents, processes and outcomes of collaboration provides insights about the requirements for connectedness. However, this work has yet to converge with leadership scholarship, despite its conclusion that “good leadership demands collaboration” (Bingham, O'Leary & Carlson, 2008, p. 5). Our work fosters this convergence, while focusing on the civil society side of the governance equation. We draw on data from a national, multi-year, multi-modal qualitative study of social change organizations and their leaders, which explored the ways in which communities trying to make social change engage in the work of leadership (Schall et al., 2004; Ospina & Dodge, 2005).1 These organizations represent disenfranchised communities with few material resources at their disposal. Yet they aspire to influence policy makers and others in order to change the conditions that affect their lives. They are thus part of the collaborative governance arrangements needed to “make or implement public policy or manage public programs or assets” (Ansell & Gash, 2008, p. 547). Their success depends largely on their capacity to develop partnerships that cut across the traditional boundaries dividing social groups, including race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and class, as well as geography, sector and specialized interests. Our research question is “How do social change leaders secure the connectedness needed for collaborative work that advances their organization's mission?” In this article, we identify and analyze five leadership practices that foster strong relational bonds either within organizations or across them. We explore how these practices nurture interdependence within and among organizations by forging new connections, strengthening existing ones, or capitalizing on strong ones. The answer to our question thus illuminates the antecedents of collaboration from the perspective of social change organizations engaged in processes of collaborative governance.2 The paper starts with a discussion of the benefits of a relational leadership lens, and the use of practice theory as a theoretical anchor for implementing this type of research. It then describes the methodological implications of choosing this perspective, documenting the methods used during our study. The findings are structured around the presentation of five leadership practices and two cross-cutting themes. A discussion section analyzes how the findings advance the convergence of the leadership field's interest in relational leadership with the public management field's interest in collaborative governance. The conclusion discusses contributions and limitations. 1. Advancing a relational leadership perspective to explore connectedness Reviews of the current discussion in leadership research (Uhl-Bien, 2006; Jackson & Parry, 2008) suggest that leader-centered and follower-centered models of leadership have given way to perspectives that attend, instead, to the “space between” leaders and followers (Bradbury & Lichtenstein, 2000), thus highlighting the relational processes of leadership. Relationality refers to the theoretical understanding that self and other are inseparable and co-evolve in ways that must be accounted for. An agenda that explores the question of how connectedness is developed to ensure collaborative work in social change organizations greatly benefits from this perspective. 1.1. Relational leadership theories and the need for connectedness Two distinct ways of approaching the role of relationships offer different understandings of the appropriate focus of attention in researching leadership. The first, which Uhl-Bien (2006) calls “the entity approach to leadership,” examines relationshiporiented behavioral styles such as consideration, and relationship-oriented leadership behaviors based on high quality, trusting, work relationships. Examples of relationship-based approaches to leadership are Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) Theory (e.g., Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995), charismatic theories of leadership (e.g., Kark & Shamir, 2002) and social identity leadership theory (e.g., Hogg, 2001).3 These approaches tend to assume that a form of leadership-strengthening relational bond among stakeholders is increasingly necessary and apparent, given the functional demands of contemporary organizing; in other words, they see relational leadership as a trend (e.g., Pearce & Conger, 2003; Fletcher & Kaüfer, 2003; Crosby & Bryson, 2005). In contrast, the second approach in Uhl-Bien's frame, “the constructionist approach,” views leadership as the outcome of human social constructions emerging from the rich connections and interdependencies of organizations and their members. In this view, 1 Our experience in the Research and Documentation component of the Leadership for a Changing World (LCW) program informs the ideas we have developed in this article. We would like to acknowledge the many contributions of co-researchers and partners, who, over the course of the years, have been active participants in shaping our learning. We also thank the Ford Foundation for its generous support of the LCW research. 2 Ansell and Gash (2008) narrow their definition of “collaborative governance” to include only those collaborative efforts initiated by the government. In this paper we study the leadership dynamics of collaboration in the context of civil society organizations engaged in social change, which might require engaging government in collaboration. Independent of where the effort originally initiated, collaboration between these social change organizations and government agencies must be considered part of the collaborative governance arrangements in a given polity. 3 LMX theory for example defines leadership as effective relationships (partnerships) between leaders and followers that result in incremental influence and mutual gains. Charismatic scholars also define charisma as a social relationship, inquiring into the qualities of followers that lead them to identify leaders as charismatic and the relationships that foster the perception of the leader as charismatic. Social identity theory highlights the reciprocal nature of leadership, viewed as a “relational property” of a group: “leaders exist because of followers and followers exist because of leaders” (Hogg, 2001, p. 185).

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persons and organizations are constructed in process, rather than being the makers of those processes (Hosking, 2000). Relational approaches thus give attention not only to relationships between individuals, but to their embeddedness in a broader system and to the processes that help to define and constitute such relationships. These approaches view leadership as constructed within communities precisely to take joint action and, therefore fundamentally as a relational phenomenon; in other words, they view relational leadership as a lens (e.g., Hosking, 2007; Drath, 2001; Ospina & Sorensen, 2006; Uhl-Bien, 2006). 1.1.1. The relational trend For some scholars, the relational dimensions of leadership have become salient as contemporary organizations have shed layers of hierarchy and experimented with new leadership models in order to adapt to unpredictable external environments. This approach emphasizes the need for various manifestations of working groups throughout organizations and systems. It also recognizes the need for leadership that has “the ability to create conditions under which relational outcomes such as coordinated action, collective achievement and shared accountability can be achieved” (Fletcher, 2008, p. 2; Fletcher & Kaüfer, 2003). Considering relational leadership as a trend, public leadership scholars are inquiring into the type of leadership needed to foster collective problem-solving and citizen engagement, given a shared-power world (e.g., Crosby & Bryson, 2005; Chrislip & Larson, 1994; Huxham & Vangen, 2000; Bryson, Crosby & Stone, 2006). Some scholars rely heavily on the conflict resolution and negotiation literatures, which identify the behaviors, skills and practices that help groups overcome conflict and engage in cooperative behavior (Deutsch et al., 2006). Supporting the notion that organizational networks require new forms of leadership, some public management scholars have coined the term “collaborative public management” to describe the “process of facilitating and operating in multi-organizational arrangements to solve problems that cannot be solved or easily solved by single organizations” (O'Leary & Bingham, 2007, p. 11, citing O'Leary, Gerard & Bingham, 2006). The focus here is explicitly in understanding collaboration in the context of public interorganizational networks, though a few scholars make reference to the leadership dimension of this goal (Huxham & Vangen, 2000; Agranoff & McGuire, 2003; Milward & Provan, 2006). Research that views relational leadership as a trend makes a very important contribution, but is not complete. Constructionist approaches suggest that relational leadership is not just a trend, but a lens. 1.1.2. The relational lens In contrast to exploring the types of leadership relationships needed for new organizational forms, another group of leadership scholars call attention to the processes and conditions that facilitate the collective achievement of organizing and change (Hosking, 2007; Drath, 2001; Ospina & Sorensen, 2006; Uhl-Bien, 2006; Hosking, 1995). In this perspective, leaders, followers and their relations do not exist prior to and separate from the leadership process itself (Uhl-Bien, 2006). Rather, they are elements of broader social processes within which perceptions, intentions and behaviors are constructed. Due to these processes, certain understandings of leadership become dominant over time (Drath, 2001). Relational leadership is therefore not a trend or type of leadership, but a way to characterize the phenomenon in all its forms, whether hierarchical, shared, or networked. This has two implications for research. First, relationships produce reciprocal effects among those in relation (also called interdependence). Second, they produce ‘knowing’ among those in relation, generating multiple meanings and perspectives associated with this inter-subjectivity. This approach implies entering the empirical reality of leadership with an explicit intention: transcending concerns with interpersonal dynamics to explore what goes on as groups and communities engage together in efforts to produce collective achievements through concerted work (Drath, 2001; Ospina & Sorensen, 2006; Uhl-Bien, 2006). These efforts help explain why one particular form of leadership rather than another emerges in a particular context. More specifically, given an interest in integrative leadership, using this approach in research can reveal what the work of leadership (Heifetz, 1994) looks like when there are contextual requirements for engagement from multiple stakeholders. While the theoretical underpinnings of leadership as lens have developed over decades (Hosking, 1988; Hosking et al., 1995; Drath & Palus, 1994), empirical developments lag behind. Research applications of this constructionist approach require a careful match of lens, focus and method to ensure the integrity of the design (Ospina & Dodge, 2005; Prasad, 2005). Considering relational leadership as a lens implies explicitly implementing a constructionist theoretical frame and methodology in empirical work. 2. Developing a constructionist methodology to match constructionist understandings of leadership A constructionist perspective of leadership defines it as a community process of meaning-making, which unfolds as the group sets direction, creates commitment and faces adaptive challenges (Parsons, Bales & Shills, 1953; Drath, 2001). As the property of a group (Dachler & Hosking, 1995), leadership is found in the work of that group, not in specific individuals. Meaning-making does not just occur in people's minds, however: it always occurs in relationship (Schall et al., 2004; Ospina & Sorensen, 2006). Furthermore, meaning-making processes are embedded in historically grounded structures of power and are influenced by the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that characterize social relationships. Therefore, constructionists resist the tendency to incorporate only elite voices and experiences into the dominant narratives of leadership. Ospina and Sorensen (2006) summarize the implications for research: first, a focus on the work of leadership, on the collective agreements that facilitate this work and on the practices that embody them; second, involvement of those engaged in the work of leadership as co-inquirers rather than subjects of the research, to illuminate the experience from the inside out; third, groundedness in a given context with sensitivity to issues of power and its effects on the configurations of relationships that define

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the context; and fourth, inclusion of multiple perspectives, ideally combining several interpretive methods that emphasize narrative. However, we are left with the question of how to dissect this complex configuration of interdependent sensemaking. Practice theory points toward an answer. 2.1. Studying the work of leadership: Drawing from practice theory Social theorists such as Bourdieu (1998), de Certeau et al. (1998), and Giddens (1984) contend that “practices” represent the basic unit of analysis in the social world (Reckwitz, 2002). These practice theorists argue that social action is the product of a dialectical relationship between humans and their world (Schwartz, 2006; Jenkins, 1992). ‘Practice’ as a social construct is located within the collective rather than the individual realm. That is because practices are the outcome of collective meaning-making; they rest upon a shared knowledge that is largely implicit historically and culturally specific (Reckwitz, 2002; Swidler, 2001). Bringing a “practice approach” to the study of leadership allows us to analyze the work of leadership as collective achievement, breaking it down into component parts (Schatzki et al., 2001). Practices are human interventions that make things in the world different from what they were before, altering the status quo (Polkinghorne, 2004). These routinized, embodied patterns of behavior (Reckwitz, 2002) are organic in that they are situationand time-sensitive. While they are strategic because they address particular needs and interests (Bourdieu, 1998), they mix elements of both instrumental and expressive logics (Polkinghorne, 2004). Our research has focused on identifying and exploring “leadership practices” that set the stage for explicit collaborative work. Using a relational, social constructionist approach highlights the collective action underlying all leadership, but here we illuminate those practices that are deliberately undertaken to bridge divides, whether within one organization or across organizations. The focus on a constructed relational experience of leadership led us to collect data that illuminated how groups of actors engage in meaning-making about their work. Ultimately the frame of “practice” became helpful in breaking down the indistinct processes of collective meaning-making among multiple and complex configurations of relationships into discrete elements that could be illustrated and compared. 3. Methods Drawing from stories about the work of leaders in 40 US organizations, this study used interpretive, narrative inquiry techniques (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Ospina & Dodge, 2005; Reissman, 2002) to identify the leadership practices that promote the vital boundary-crossing capacity needed by organizations working with marginalized communities. There are two members of a larger research team, whose make-up changed somewhat over the long course of the research, but included multiple faculty members, doctoral students and master's students. 3.1. Sampling frame The organizations studied were part of a five-year leadership recognition program starting in 2001, that annually chose an average of 18 organizations as award recipients from among thousands of nominees.4 (In some cases, a single leader represented one organization; in others, a team of leaders was recognized.) For this study, we drew from a rich qualitative data set about leadership in the first two cohorts of the program. (For list of organizations studied, see Appendix A.) The leadership program used a rigorous process to select the participants from a pool of 1000–1500 nominations per cohort.5 Selection criteria included evidence of their capacity to bring about positive change using a systemic solution to address a tough social problem, being “strategic,” and bringing “different groups together.” The high nominee-to-award recipient ratio (at least 50:1) and the rigorous selection process and criteria suggest that the recognized organizations can be considered exemplars of success in advancing progressive social change. Because of the sponsor's mission of social and racial justice, politically conservative organizations were excluded. Therefore, we can't generalize from these organizations to the broader range of politically active organizations in the United States. Overall, these organizations meet Chetkovich and Kunreuther's (2006) definition of social change organizations, that is, small, grass-roots, nonprofit organizations that “aim not only to serve those who have been disadvantaged, but to address systemic problems in a way that will increase the power of marginalized groups, communities or interests” (p. 2). Working on issues such as homelessness, education reform and immigration, these groups use various combinations of advocacy, organizing, community development and service delivery to address these key problems, engaging their constituents in the work. They leverage what power they have to change the systemic conditions at the root of the public problem they address. They thus operate in highly uncertain, complex, hostile environments characterized by material scarcity, social divides and contested paradigms about what constitutes change and success. 4

Under the auspices of the Ford Foundation, over time a total of 150 leaders from 90 organizations participated in the program. Researchers played no role in the selection process, which consisted of the following steps: individuals and teams were nominated by colleagues or supporters. A national committee selected about 250 top candidates who were passed to one of six regional selection committees. The regional committees selected five primary and four secondary regional finalists. These were whittled down to 36 semi-finalists who hosted site visits from the reviewers. A national selection committee reviewed all the materials from the semi-finalists, and by consensus recommended 24 finalists, 17 to 20 of whom made the final cut for a total of 90 organizations over five cohorts. 5

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3.2. Data collection Our research question was “How do social change leaders secure the connectedness needed for collaborative work to advance their organization's mission?” A constructionist approach suggested an interpretive, narrative method for data collection, which would elicit stories about the work that produced each organization's collective achievements. Narrated in the context of conversations with the award recipients and selected organizational stakeholders, these stories offer a window into the collective interpretation of their work (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Ospina & Dodge, 2005; Reissman, 2002). We had to create a flexible interview protocol to capture stories that would result in roughly comparable data from organizations that ranged widely in their issue focus and in their organizational structure and activities. Therefore, we kept the structure of the interviews the same, but varied the specific content of our questions. Data collection began with a phone call asking awardees, “What are the two to three dimensions of the work that you do with others in your community that you would most like to explore in your leadership story?”6 Responses ranged from their organization's focus on citizenship education to its capacity for grass-roots democracy to the role of ethnic culture in shaping its work. We then used these to develop interview protocols that would elicit narratives about the work rather than about attributes or behaviors of individual leaders.7 We carried out at least two sets of group interviews per organization: one with the awardees, and one with other stakeholders—including staff, board members, constituents, funders, allies and, in some cases, public officials. Sometimes we also interviewed individuals alone. Overall, we included informants who could speak to the particular dimensions of our inquiry as identified in the phone call. On average, between eight and nine people per organization were interviewed, with a low of four and a high of 19. We asked participants to tell us why the identified dimensions of their work were important; what factors facilitated or impeded organizational efforts to excel in their work; and what could be improved. They talked about how they organized their work to achieve milestones, and offered instances where conflict, obstacles and sometimes failures occurred. 3.3. Data analysis There were multiple rounds of data analysis, beginning with largely descriptive summaries of each organization's leadership practices and ending with higher-order analyses that required interpretation and synthesis across the dataset. In the first round, two members of the research team—including the person who had conducted the interviews—developed and wrote an “analytical memo” for each organization, based on their analysis of interview transcripts as well as additional program documentation. (This analytical memo is roughly comparable to a case description.) In the second round of analysis, the research team read all the analytical memos systematically to identify cross-patterns of themes associated with the work of leadership. At this point particular practices became salient and, ultimately, the focus of analysis, as the team generated a list of practices engaged in by multiple organizations within the dataset. For example, we noted that many of the organizations attempted to influence how external audiences saw key elements of the organization's work, while a large subset of organizations drew on cultural identity as a source of strength and connection. Then, in the third round of analysis, subsets of the research team undertook methodical investigations of individual practices by going back to the original transcripts, systematically coding the interviews for examples of those practices, as well as for antecedents and consequences. This resulted in a number of finished and working papers on how particular practices worked in multiple organizations. As we worked on these papers, we noticed that many of them illuminated practices that, when combined, seemed to comprise the basic elements of a broader approach that we thought of as “building bridges across difference.” We decided to bring together insights from these papers to identify specific practices that are associated with building connectedness, both within and across organizations. In this way, we were able to draw on the previous systematic analyses to build a more expansive theory.8 In addition to drawing on material from these earlier papers, when necessary we returned to the transcripts to clarify or elaborate certain points. Therefore, this paper relied also on a fourth round of analysis; not a systematic one, but one designed to deepen or broaden our understanding as required. For example, the material on the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Sacramento Valley Organizing Committee, under the “engaging dialogue” practice, was garnered from additional analyses. Ultimately, these four rounds of analysis produced the findings we relate in the next section. 6 To avoid influencing the informants, we resisted giving examples. Rather, if informants appeared confused, we would ask what made their work successful or what aspect of their work would they like others to be aware of. 7 See Schall et al. (2004), and Ospina and Dodge (2005) for details. 8 Given that we are drawing on multiple papers, we cannot provide all the codes we used. However, here we provide several examples of the kinds of codes or constructs used in the earlier papers on each practice (and references to the paper for more detailed information). In our study on “promoting cognitive shifts,” we identified examples in the transcripts of organizations that were re-framing the way external audiences viewed the issue that the organization focused on (Foldy et al., 2008). We further distinguished between re-framings of the problem and of the solution. In our study on “naming and shaping identity,” we first looked for organizations in which race-ethnicity was central to organizational work practices. From this search, three grounded categories emerged: “multiple narratives,” “cultural traditions,” and “lived experience” (Ospina & Su, 2009). “Engaging dialogue about difference” came out of an analysis that coded for specific enablers of dialogue across difference, including “making race discussable” and “connecting events”—workshops or other events that had an emotional impact, bringing down barriers among groups (Foldy & Ospina, 2008). Our analysis of “creating equitable governance mechanisms” and of “weaving multiple worlds together through interpersonal relationships” was developed using constructs like “trust,” “structure,” and “nurturing” (Ospina & Saz Carranza, 2005; SazCaranza & Ospina, submitted for publication).

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4. Findings We identified five leadership practices which create conditions that bring diverse actors together and facilitate their ongoing ability for collaborative work: prompting cognitive shifts; naming and shaping identity; engaging dialogue about difference; creating equitable governance mechanisms; and weaving multiple worlds together through interpersonal relationships. Some practices operate at the intra-organizational level—they bring together potential supporters with very different interests into one organization—and others are inter-organizational—they create alliances among existing organizations. However, they all reveal a sphere of interdependence within which collective action becomes an obvious approach and collective achievements a natural expectation. (For distribution of practices across organizations, see Appendix B) We also found two assumptions that helped to give coherence to the bridge-building work of leadership across all practices: the importance of minimizing power inequities, and recognition of the strategic value of “difference.” These practices and assumptions offer a preliminary answer to our question, “How do social change leaders secure the connectedness needed for collaborative work to advance their organization's mission?” In real life, these practices often overlap. For example, naming and shaping identity may produce cognitive shifts in how particular issues or concerns are understood, and may involve engaging in dialogue about difference. Cognitive shifts may also be facilitated by equitable processes that foster listening and participation, and the resulting experiences may deepen interpersonal relations among individuals from different social worlds. We highlight below what makes each practice analytically distinct, without discounting the important connections among them. 4.1. Prompting cognitive shifts A cognitive shift is “a change in how an organizational audience views or understands an important element of the organization's work” (Foldy et al., 2008, p. 6). A cognitive shift is similar to a change in frame or mental model (Snow et al., 1986; Goffman, 1974; Schon & Rein, 1994; Senge, 1990). Prompting cognitive shifts to create a sense of shared interests is crucial to the process of building bridges and alliances because organizations must frame their issue in such a way that it resonates with the needs of other individuals, constituencies or organizations (Snow et al., 1986, 2004). 4.1.1. From environmental degradation to human rights The Gwich'in is an indigenous population living in the far north of the North American continent, on land that straddles the US/ Canadian border. Its Steering Committee has been actively opposed to further oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for many years. This issue has traditionally been framed as a problem of environmental degradation as well as a threat to animals. But the Gwich'in call attention to threats to the way of life of the human population that also inhabits this environment, and which is highly dependent on the natural environment. ANWR development can then be seen as a human rights issue, as well as an environmental one. As one tribal member noted, “We have always been here. We are here to stay and that is human rights. Nobody has a right to say we don't have that right.” The Gwich'in Steering Committee members prompt this shift by doing what they can to tell their story to the rest of the world. They recount the destruction that has occurred thus far. They reference the decimation of Native Americans in the lower 48 states and invite comparisons to the struggles of indigenous populations in Central and South America. This re-framing enabled the Gwich'in Steering Committee to gain the attention of the human rights community and their support of the battle to save ANWR. A full-page advertisement in The New York Times opposed to opening up ANWR placed by 17 organizations including the Gwich'in Steering Committee explicitly names the human rights issue as one reason to protect the refuge, along with environmental issues (New York Times, 2005). This ad demonstrates the Steering Committee's success in building bridges to very different constituencies who shared their larger goal. 4.1.2. From anothers' problem to our problem The mission of the Black AIDS Institute is to expand awareness and activism related to HIV and AIDS in the African American community. Rather than reach out directly to individuals, its strategy is to work with already existing black organizations to help them include HIV/AIDS as one of their foci. While many African American organizations are already actively engaged, others have not seen AIDS as a legitimate black issue because its most common victims have either been men who had sex with men or IV drug users. Said one constituent, “We think, ‘oh, well, yes, of course it's an issue for the [black] community, but they're [people with HIV/ AIDS] not our part of the community. You know, we're straight and upper middle class and we're fine. It's the poor people, the drug users and the black gay people who have to worry about it.’” The Black AIDS Institute encourages these organizations to re-think their concept of African Americans with HIV/AIDS—and recognize them as black Americans with an illness, rather than as gay men or drug users who happen to be black. They do this by meeting the organizations where they are: they explore the mission of the organization and its current activities and then help it integrate AIDS into existing work. In this way, organizations come to see that their mission already encompasses this new population. The Institute also explicitly works with black journalists and media outlets to cover stories about the AIDS crisis in black communities. In these ways, the Institute creates a sense in the black community that all its members share responsibility for each other.

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Both the Institute and the Gwich'in Steering Committee prompt cognitive shifts as a way to enable a sense of common interests or shared fate among a diverse population. Prompting these shifts is one critical leadership practice that provides a foundation for bridging differences, but it's not sufficient on its own.

4.2. Naming and shaping identity The important role of identity in the process of leadership has been long established in research (e.g., Shamir et al., 1993; Hogg, 2001; Lord et al., 1999). Leaders in business, education and other contexts prompt others to identify with them or their organization (Shamir et al., 1993). Our research suggests that identity can also be used as a way to bridge differences and create more powerful alliances. While many identities can be the focus of these efforts, race and gender were prevalent in our sample.

4.2.1. Celebrating identity The Oaxacan Binational Indigenous Coalition (OBIC), an organization working to better the living and working conditions of Oaxacan immigrants in the US, explicitly names the indigenous Oaxacan ethnic identity as a way to gather these immigrants under its umbrella. This works in two ways. First, by emphasizing Oaxacan identity as opposed to particular language groups, it reaches a variety of sub-groups that all reference a Oaxacan ethnicity. Second, it encourages all Oaxacans to reclaim their cultural identity, rather than diminish it through assimilation. This builds a bridge to immigrants who may have moved away, literally or figuratively, from their ethnic community. The organization sponsors a variety of cultural activities, such as festivals and sports contests, which lures back those who may have felt stigmatized by their Oaxacan identity. As one activist noted, Some of us don't want to say that we are from Oaxaca. We rather say that we were born someplace else. I reached the point when I thought I even forgot my language. But when I saw this flyer [from the Coalition]—people who were proud of their origin—I decided to call him [the head of the Coalition] because I also heard that they were looking for someone interested in working with the community. Ultimately, this woman became a staff-person for OBIC, while others become connected through volunteering and participating in activities. In addition, OBIC names women in a different way, thus shaping gender identity as well as ethnic identity. As a traditional, indigenous community, Oaxacans have had long-established gender roles, with women operating much more in the private sphere of the home than the public sphere. “We are a very conservative culture…We the men believe that women were born to stay at home, to have children…,” said OBIC's coordinator. However, this is changing. The organization is bringing women into active participation: “The idea was to get women involved in the meetings, to let them know about their labor rights...Nowadays you can find more women at meetings than men at meetings.” It created programs on health and domestic violence issues, primarily for women. By naming women as potential authority figures, the organization is bringing new people into the organization and strengthening its activist base. OBIC's efforts to shape both ethnic and gender identity dramatically extends its ability to reach out to potential supporters and gather the collective will to carry out its mission. By naming its Oaxacan base, it encourages potential recruits to identify with their Oaxacan heritage, thus connecting them to the organization. By redefining gender roles, it doubles the number of potential activists and participants.

4.2.2. Interrogating identity While OBIC makes ethnic and gender identity salient, it does not interrogate these identities; that is, it doesn't analyze them to see what role they play in their members' lives or in the larger society. Rather, it takes these identities for granted, while celebrating them. The Center for Young Women's Development (CYWD) takes a different tack by intentionally exploring the role of race and gender in the lives of the young women of color that it serves. CYWD promotes economic self-sufficiency, community safety, and advocacy for girls and young women within the criminal justice system. Staffed by young women who have personal experience with the system, CYWD develops leaders to advocate for changing the laws and regulations that affect them. Drawing from the felt consequences of the girls' race, class and gender identity, the organization encourages participants to connect their experience with that of other poor women of color. By doing so, it hopes to demonstrate to them that racism, sexism, and class divisions have an important role in their lives, and a profound and often devastating impact within their own families. As these girls name themselves as girls of color who must overcome significant structural barriers, they see beyond the barriers of family, ethnicity or neighborhood and understand that their problems are not random, but products of larger social forces that affect their lives. This enables them to see their commonalities and understand their shared fate: they will rise or fall together. The organization uses this process of interrogating identity to break down divisions and create solutions that acknowledge the common experience and interdependence of their peers. Both OBIC and CYWD believe identity is fundamental to their work, but they go beyond simply seeing race and gender as ascribed categories. Rather, they actively name and shape those identities in order to create a connective tissue that advances their work.

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4.3. Engaging dialogue about difference Both prompting cognitive shifts and naming identity are practices that bring people together into a common space and help them see the parallels in their lives. At the same time, however, there must also be dialogue around difference. Surfacing conflicting needs, interests, goals and activities is, paradoxically, essential to the long-term goal of a common vision and a shared agenda (Drath, 2001; Fletcher, 2004; Yankelovich, 1999; Isaacs, 1999; Schein, 1993; Banathy, 2002). Recognizing dissimilarity among individuals can then allow them to more fully engage in a joint project. The organizations in our sample approach these dialogues differently, but they all find ways to break down inhibitions, allow people to express their beliefs and feelings, discuss their differences and, ultimately, draw closer. 4.3.1. Deep, recurrent deliberations The Fifth Avenue Committee is a Brooklyn-based organizing and community development group, which works on affordable housing, employment and other issues. The organization is committed to serving all segments of its community, which is racially, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. This requires a commitment to deliberative processes for thinking about significant issues. The organization often creates year-long “conversations” to deeply discuss new directions for the organization, or issues that could potentially divide it. As the organization's director noted, “You just can't get hegemonic…you know, people have very different perspectives and …you are going to try hard to take them seriously.” One thorny proposal was for the community to become a Displacement-Free Zone—one in which long-time tenants would not be at risk of eviction due to gentrification. This created a direct clash between the newer, often higher-income members of the neighborhood and the long-standing, often poorer members. It made some members and supporters “feel guilty,” in the director's words, since they were directly implicated as local landlords. This meant that there was a lot of talking to do within the organization: “So the displacement free zone…got run through a pretty extensive process…You know, one or two members of the board had a lot of questions. Probably because they were anxious themselves…so it got subjected to a lot of organizational scrutiny before it got through.” Ultimately, these dialogues allow those in conflict to rise above their individual interests to find their shared interest: “It's not an organization where you feel like people have ulterior motives or are trying to advance their own agenda or making power plays.” The dialogue allows the creation of a common agenda by helping members give voice to their disparate needs and interests. 4.3.2. Ensuring different voices in the circle Cornerstone, a multi-ethnic, ensemble-based theater company, produces original and classic plays through collaborations between professional and community actors. Its mission is to “build bridges between and within diverse communities.” The company engages in “race cognizant” theater (Frankenberg, 1993). Even when staging a classic play, casting conversations include explicit discussions of issues of race and ethnicity. Cornerstone staff and community actors find themselves addressing issues like representation and tokenism when working together on a project. One ensemble member recalled, “Whenever we talk about…black [perspectives], [that] we need a black person here… it is like, [the ensemble turns to someone who appears to be black and asks,] ‘What are you?’” Once the person's racial identity has been confirmed, the ensemble then asks that person to contribute his or her perspective. An ensemble member who identified himself as a person of color justified the strategy: “We have to look at ourselves as a company and…say, look, we are missing this element…In order for the discourse to happen, that voice needs to be within the circle that makes the decisions.” Noting his own ambivalence about the way this is done, he added: “Now I know very clearly that I am a token.…[but] I have shaped this company as much as this company has shaped me…that is ownership that I can take…By naming it, there is an ugliness to it, but also there is this incredible beauty.” Cornerstone members understand that no individual can ultimately represent all the members of his or her racial or ethnic group. However they also know that what makes their productions transformative can only occur by creating spaces that make race discussable. Cornerstone's efforts make explicit what is different and let the contrast among different perspectives sink in. 4.3.3. Confronting diverse ideas The four members of the leadership team of the Sacramento Valley Organizing Committee recognize the value of a good fight. Their organization brings together diverse communities to create a better quality-of-life in a multi-county area of Northern California. Before the organization was founded, leadership team members engaged in extensive, frank, and sometimes painful meetings to determine that they would move ahead as a team. Although the team of four is largely unified, the connection often includes confrontation and honest feedback. One member stated: “It was a battle. It was not love at first sight. As a matter of fact, I tossed them out of my office a couple of times…We still battle, even to this day, after, you know, over eight years we still battle. But we have the mutual respect for each other and we're not hurtful to each other.” For FAC, Cornerstone and SVOC, emphasizing similarities at the expense of differences simply doesn't work. Creating convergence requires identifying divergence. 4.4. Creating equitable governance mechanisms Without counter-balancing forces that enhance unity, ensuring that diverse perspectives inform decision-making can create division and confusion. Equitable governance mechanisms can be a unifying force because they maximize the likelihood of full

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ownership of the outcomes. The organizations in our sample use both structures and processes to ensure that equal participation becomes the natural way of engagement, even a programmed routine (March & Simon, 1958). 4.4.1. Fierce commitment to democratic governance The Burlington Community Land Trust promotes affordable housing and community development in Burlington, Vermont. Unlike many community development organizations, it is fiercely committed to being democratically run and accountable to the various communities it serves. This commitment is manifested in its by-laws that require equal representation of the groups that make up its base, each of which could represent different interests. The board has 12 seats, with four seats reserved for residents of BCLT properties, four seats for what are called “general members” (people who have joined BCLT who do not live on their properties), and four seats for so-called “public members” who represent the public interest, including elected officials and representatives of other nonprofits. Said one member, “The structure [of the board] was brilliant…We had an active board and the strength of the three different sectors was critical to the future in garnering resources.” 4.4.2. Representative structures plus inclusive processes Our sample included two coalitions of immigrant organizations, CAAELII in Chicago and the New York Immigration Coalition in New York City. Given their great ethnic diversity, both organizations have set up representative decision-making mechanisms that span from their boards to their member organizations' constituents. For both organizations, the board, which includes representatives of the member groups, is the highest decision-making body. While all of the member groups may not be represented, there is an explicit effort to ensure that different types of organizations—small and large, those delivering services and those engaged in organizing, influential and less powerful—are represented. The organizations create the rules and by-laws that maximize and equalize participation. At the next level down, working groups and committees served as linking pins between the board and the individual members of the member organizations. NYIC's director describes this role as follows: “Lots of the nitty-gritty decisions get made at those working groups, but our board members are in all of those working groups, and they participate in all of our active campaign areas.” Directing the coalition's operations and overseeing member interaction is a core group of paid staff lead by the executive director. This group plays a key role in maintaining inclusive processes by ensuring that the rules or by-laws are implemented in practice. But a formal representative structure is not enough. Once the structure is set, additional work is done to ensure a sense of openness, inclusiveness and fairness. When school vouchers emerged as a possible target for NYIC's education reform work, this contentious issue triggered strong ideological differences within the membership. The coalition created a decision-making process that ensured that multiple perspectives were considered. Different board members presented positions in favor and against vouchers, and one which advocated taking no position. The coalition decided to take no position, “because several of our groups would have walked. It would have really been a ‘make or break’ issue for them.” Even those who disagreed with the outcome of the discussion were ready to accept it, given the wellexplored logic guiding the choice, and the inclusive process that led to the decision. A process that took ideological diversity seriously legitimized the outcome and unified the group. This concern about inclusion is also reflected in CAAELII's activities. For any project to go forward, each partner agency must sign on and delineate its specific contribution. For example, before CAAELII developed a series of episodes for a cable TV show, decisions about rotating hosts and guests were made. Each partner agency was ensured an opportunity to make its unique contribution. Creating inclusive, open and equitable processes and structures to maintain a diversity of voices and the deep participation of it members is a deliberate leadership practice in most social change organizations. 4.5. Weaving multiple worlds together through interpersonal relationships Cultivating and nurturing one-on-one, interpersonal relationships represents an important leadership practice to ensure collaborative work among diverse individuals and organizations. The leader–follower dyad has long been a focus of leadership study (Shamir et al., 1993; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995), but these dyads could also match a long-time volunteer with a new member, or the pairing of a member of one organization with a member of an allied group. These relationships help to weave together the diverse, often fragmented and complex set of expectations, needs and goals of individuals and organizations, enabling them to engage in collective action. In some ways this is counter-intuitive: as organizations get larger and more successful, one might imagine that emphasizing dyadic ties between individuals is too labor intensive. Yet some organizations in our sample argue that their attention to this level is critical to their success. 4.5.1. One-on-one connections Several organizations in our sample do community organizing within the Industrial Areas Foundation tradition, begun by Saul Alinsky. This tradition emphasizes the importance of one-on-one meetings between a potential recruit and a committed member as a way to find out the recruit's concerns, gauge her level of interest, and, perhaps most importantly, personally invite her to participate in the organization. One of these groups is the Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength, or MOSES, a community organization in Detroit which works with religious congregations across the region to address transportation, public safety and other issues. It uses one-

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on-ones to build bridges across geographic and racial divides. As one member noted, “You know, we just had the politics of division. We had suburban congregations and urban congregations coming together and really sitting down one-on-one and exploring our own emotions and feelings about race, this history in this region. You know, really, because there's these walls built up over years. We've got to break them down by just talking to one another.” But the importance of one-on-ones extends beyond deliberately addressing known divisions. These individual meetings are the mechanism through which people feel personally invited to participate, as is suggested here by the organization's director: “So much of being successful leaders is inviting other people into a conversation or into a particular project or program. It's such a basic thing. The one-on-ones are the foundation of our organizations. Because that's when the invitation should occur.” These one-onone meetings are the basic tool with which the organization weaves together different worlds. 4.5.2. Personalizing attention In the immigrant coalitions CAAELII and NYIC, the staff plays a facilitating role that includes managing member interaction. Through personalized relationships with individuals from each member organization, staff performs the invisible, back stage work that maintains the capacity for collective action at the inter-organizational level. “Managing the internal environment,” as NYIC's board president calls this practice, is distinct from the external work that the member organizations engage in to influence the targets of their actions. Another NYIC staffer noted, “We play that coordinating role, supportive role, technical assistance role.” Coalition members appreciated having someone overseeing the small details of coordinated activities. But more importantly, through the personalized work done to set these activities up, they received the clear message that they were not only welcome, but crucial: “It isn't that you were just invited, but I think [the executive director] really nurtured that, ‘well, if you're not here, there is going to be something missing” said one CAAELII coalition member. NYIC members mentioned their executive director's attention to individual relationships, despite working with more than a hundred member organizations. She worked with each organization individually, small or large, to develop a tailored plan for their involvement in the coalition: “Maybe they want to be part of the healthcare collaborative…or do the participation campaign, you know, whatever.” Personalized attention pays off, as suggested by this director of a small immigrant group: “She sent us this letter you know…‘Welcome to the Coalition.’ Like this personal note and you just don't expect you know big executive directors to be doing that…So, after that, I've seen her do that with other groups.” Personal relationships also help to mediate or contain conflicts so that they don't spill over to more public spaces. A staffer of NYIC discussed the strategy of creating one-on-one spaces for disgruntled participants to allow them to “sort of open up and give their concerns” without distracting the group from its productive work: So what we've had to do was set up individual aside meetings because we also find that that [overt conflict] can be really sort of interruptive to the task force.” The goal is to ensure that task forces and working groups do not get stuck in the conflict, while allowing the space for participants to air their dissent. These one-on-ones address the disagreements that could lead to disunity in a context that values multiple perspectives. 4.6. Underlying assumptions of cross-boundary work In addition to the leadership practices described, we also found that the social change organizations in our sample operated with assumptions that applied to all practices and helped to give coherence to the bridge-building work of leadership. While we suspect that there are more, we identified two in this study. The first is the importance of minimizing power inequities and the second is recognizing the strategic value of “difference.” 4.6.1. Minimizing power inequities These groups understand that creating authentic partnerships means minimizing power inequities among the players, whether individuals or organizations. This begins with the simple recognition within the group of power imbalances based on income, race, resources, gender, positional authority and other sources of influence. This may seem straightforward, but it is common for more privileged groups to deny that privilege. These organizations firmly confront those denials. Minimizing power inequities also requires recognition that such imbalances can never be fully reversed; these organizations are realistic about what they can do, given that they operate within an American society that they perceive as deeply inequitable. But they very consciously attend to doing everything they can to even the odds. Each of the five leadership practices contributes to this process of balancing power. Prompting cognitive shifts can mean framing issues to clarify how the powerful are implicated in the problem, either by focusing on corporations as the source of a community's decline or by suggesting that those individuals with greater resources can feel a sense of shared interest with those having fewer resources. Organizations use naming and shaping identity to encourage their constituents to feel more powerful, whether that involves re-claiming a stigmatized ethnic identity, authorizing women to take more leadership in the group, or identifying racism and sexism as processes from outside the individual that inhibit growth and development, rather than one's individual failings. Engaging dialogue around difference is one way that the relatively powerless can speak to the relatively powerful. By ensuring the airing of differences, as opposed to their suppression by those whom the status quo favors, these kinds of dialogues ensure that those with less power can truly make their case. At the heart of creating equitable governance mechanisms is developing the representational structures that ensure that those with less power have a seat at the table and a part in the processes that allow them to bring their strongest voice to the discussion. And weaving multiple worlds through interpersonal relationships is the practice through which individuals with differing levels of resources and authority can create relationships that foster respect.

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4.6.2. Recognizing the strategic value of difference The second cross-cutting assumption is recognizing the strategic value of difference. For social change organizations, difference is not a problem. Instead it is viewed as an opportunity—a resource that can yield strength. “Valuing diversity” has become a routine slogan in management circles, but these social change organizations understand this concept differently. They go beyond simply celebrating diversity in an abstract way to acknowledging its critical role in their success. While they may not use this terminology, they know that wicked problems demand far-reaching partnerships. They cannot achieve their goals without allies. Further, they know that if potential partners feel unheard or disrespected, they can easily walk away from the table. In fact, taking a seat at the table may have meant resisting internal or external pressures to go their own way. Therefore, social change organizations have to achieve genuine inclusion to achieve their goals. Yet without a drive towards unity, including diverse allies invites chaos. One key leadership task is to find ways to draw unity from diversity (Saz-Caranza, 2007). The practice of engaging dialogue about difference is all about this goal. Yet the strategic value of difference is also evident in the other leadership practices. Prompting cognitive shifts requires awareness that the original difference in perspective is legitimate and that the re-framing must be generous enough to encompass multiple points of view. The leadership practice of naming and shaping social identity employs a recognition of the value of difference in two ways. First, the salience of a shared fate is established by fostering a mutual appreciation of the uniqueness of each person's experience—whether a young woman who has broken the law, or an immigrant who does not speak English. Second, when such uniqueness is linked to positive dimensions of larger group identities—perhaps the young woman is a resilient person of color and the immigrant is a Oaxacan with profound cultural roots—new bonds between individualized actors are reinforced through a shared identity that is different from other identities. This group uniqueness becomes a source of solidarity and strength. Similarly, creating equitable governance mechanisms is precisely about finding ways to ensure that difference does not become disunity, by finding the processes and structures that give everyone a fair share despite the differences among them. Finally, personalized attention and interpersonal relationships that help to weave multiple worlds are ways to nurture differentiated connections, as one-on-one meetings create a web of dyadic relationships that combine into a larger structure of mutuality and connection. 5. Discussion Elements of these leadership practices have been highlighted in the relational leadership literature, as well as in other fields— particularly the negotiation and conflict resolution literature and the collaborative public management literature. However, we viewed these practices in combination as a way of understanding the fundamental capacity to bridge differences. Further, we identified two additional underlying assumptions. Considered as a whole, we offer a comprehensive and integrated framework of leadership practices that ensure connectedness. In the leadership field, for example, research influenced by the “cognitive revolution” (Lord & Emrich, 2000) documents how leaders attempt to shape the beliefs and values of their followers (Bass, 1985; Berson et al., 2001; Shamir et al., 1993) in ways similar to those documented in the first practice, promoting cognitive shifts. But our research suggests that this leadership work is not done just within the “leader–follower” relationship as suggested by entity or relationship-based research. Instead, it encompasses a broad set of actors that even transcends organizational boundaries. Similarly, leadership scholars like Shamir et al. (1993), Hogg (2001), and Lord et al. (1999) document how leaders connect with and mobilize their constituencies by shaping their sense of identity, thus encouraging followers to identify with the leader, the organization, and with other followers. Our research extends these insights by suggesting that this identity work can also be enacted to bridge differences and create the conditions for fostering more powerful alliances. Leadership scholars also proffer that dialogue becomes a useful tool for making meaning in communities defined by diverse worldviews, experiences, and backgrounds (Drath, 2001; Fletcher, 2004; Yankelovich, 1999; Isaacs, 1999; Banathy, 2002). Our findings do emphasize the efforts to generate this common understanding. But more importantly, we surface the leadership work necessary to ensure that the newly acquired commonality is constructed on the basis of respect—rather than disregard—for the actual differences that continue to exist and enliven the organization's work. Our findings also resonate with insights from literatures concerned with collaborative problem-solving. For example, scholars in the conflict resolution and negotiation literature identify re-framing conflicts as mutual problems to be solved together as an effective mediation practice (e.g. Moore, 2003; O'Leary & Bingham, 2007). In the collaborative public management literature, Lambright and Pizzarella (2008) describe a process of framing or “packaging” projects in ways to maximize high-level political support and thus ensure sustainability. And in the policy network literature, framing is a must “to articulate and reinforce the purposes, rules, values and norms of the network” (Page, 2008, p. 141; McGuire, 2002). These notions of framing are similar but not identical to the practice we document, where the emphasis is in the work to create “shifts”—often transformational—in ways of thinking, rather than exclusively to articulate common ground to foster collaborative problem-solving. The findings about identity work resonate with the negotiation literature's observation that identity-based trust represents an antecedent of collaboration (Lewicki, Barry & Saunders, 2005, cited in Bingham, O'Leary & Carlson, 2008, p. 14). This literature also finds that the deliberate use of dialogue, in contrast to discussion, produces win–win situations where shared meanings yield insights that would not have emerged individually (Senge, 1990; cited in Innes & Booher, 1999, p. 13). Scholars in this literature also underscore, as do we, that dialogue creates not only shared understandings, but also respect for difference (O'Leary & Bingham, 2007). In this way it appears as if the strategic skills required for interest-based negotiation and network management mirror the work done by leaders of social change organizations. Indeed, the two final leadership practices that help to ensure connectedness— creating equitable governance mechanisms and weaving multiple worlds together through interpersonal relationships—have also

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been highlighted as effective practices for collaborative problem-solving. For example, O'Leary and Bingham (2007) stress the need to design governance structures as a means to reduce conflict in networks. They also underscore the importance of cultivating long-term relationships as an appropriate way to attain collaboration in a network context. Similarly, Bardach (1998) suggests that process values such as fairness, representativeness, inclusiveness, accessibility, openness and integrity must exist to ensure interagency collaborative capacity. Likewise, the policy network literature identifies the creation of governance structures as a key precondition for the work of “synthesizing,” by which scholars mean fostering productive interactions and exchanges among participants of the network (McGuire, 2002; Page, 2008). We find that these practices hold not just in the context of inter-organizational work, but they also happen intra-organizationally to ensure connectedness among diverse members. Further, bridging is not just a network management technique or conflict resolution strategy, it is a relational demand for organizing in contexts where collective achievement is less likely, given high levels of interdependence and the need to consider multiple meanings and perspectives. Overall, then, our work resonates with research concerned with collaborative problem-solving around public issues, though we do extend it in a number of ways. This convergence suggests that there is promise in bringing a leadership lens to the collaborative governance research agenda, as well as in illuminating the agenda of relational leadership with the findings from collaborative public management scholars, as they have suggested recently (Bingham, O'Leary & Carlson, 2008). Furthermore, our research focuses on the civil society side of the governance equation, in contrast to the emphasis that previous work has placed on the government side of public collaborative arrangements (Agranoff & McGuire, 2003; Milward & Provan, 2006; O'Leary & Bingham, 2007; Ansell & Gash, 2008). This suggests that many of the insights from work in the public sector may bear fruit for the nonprofit sector.

6. Conclusions In this article we have explored leadership practices that participants in social change organizations use to cultivate connections among disparate and often divided constituencies. Our work offers three contributions to this Special Issue on Integrative Leadership. First, we bring the voices of members in the particular context of social change organizations, a context largely unrepresented in the academic leadership9 or collaborative governance literature. Social change organizations (SCOs) have much to offer in illuminating the leadership that emerges to address intractable, messy problems. Chetkovich and Kunreuther (2006) argue that SCOs represent a key component of today's socio-political environment in the US and an important force for change. Not only that, SCOs are usually small, materially poor organizations operating in a dauntingly difficult environment. These organizations know that alliances are critical to their success. Therefore, they are excellent sites to spur thinking about the leadership that enables the connectedness required to build alliances. Further, the leadership dynamics of collaboration in the context of civil society organizations pursuing social change (and thus engaging government) can also illuminate collaborative governance arrangements. Second, our research applied a relational and constructionist lens to the empirical study of leadership. While this lens has been elaborated theoretically, little empirical work has drawn on this approach, perhaps because it is so difficult to operationalize. We address this by drawing on practice theory to introduce the construct of “leadership practices,” which helps us operationalize the often vague and immaterial processes of collective leadership. Practice theory offers an excellent way to operationalize the social construction of leadership since rather than focusing on traits, styles or behaviors of leaders and followers as if they were separate entities, it provides a way to break down the joint work they engage in to accomplish their mission. Further, this approach is also helpful in attending to recent calls from leadership scholars to shift attention from the “who” and “where” to the “how” and “what” of leadership (Grint, 2005). This shift offers an opportunity to stop paying lip service to context (Porter & McLaughlin, 2006), fully incorporating it in organizational leadership research, not as a variable nor as background, but as a constitutive dimension of the relational dynamics that call forth leadership (Ospina & Hittleman, 2009). Third, we identify five specific leadership practices that make up a critical type of leadership work we call “bridging.” Bridging is the leadership work that connects different perspectives without merging them into a single one. The five practices help members of a community connect difference so as to facilitate collaboration, but in ways that value those differences and maintain them for the sake of the broader vision. The practices help bridge differences without necessarily reducing them. Furthermore, the leadership practices we describe here are related to, but differ from, other essential work performed to accomplish the organization's mission. Social change leaders must mobilize work associated with the organization's critical task—the core operations required to pursue social change. In the case of the studied organizations, these operations include the codified technologies of nonprofit management; strategic planning, managing human resources, budgeting, board development, and so on— and technologies of social change, service delivery, community building, organizing and advocacy. But we contend that their implementation would not be successful without engaging in the leadership work that we have called here “bridging.” This work helps to make those technologies meaningful and sets the stage for the connections and alliances that are essential to advance the organization's goal of social change.

9

A significant exception is a 1994 special issue of The Leadership Quarterly on social change leadership.

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Despite the identified contributions, of course this article also has limitations, each of which suggests an area for future work. First, our sample, while an important and understudied population, reflects a fairly narrow range of organizations. All of them are social change organizations and, therefore, different even from other nonprofits like social service organizations, universities and hospitals, as well as from public agencies or business firms. Further, they are not a representative sample of SCOs; due to the nature of the leadership recognition award guidelines, these groups tend to be smaller, social justice organizations, rather than large advocacy groups (like the Sierra Club) or international NGOs (like Amnesty International) or conservative groups (like the National Rifle Association). Also, one criterion for the award was that the selected organizations “brought different groups together” which made this population perfect for examining bridging practices, but again, makes the groups nonrepresentative. Future work could include a more representative sample of social change organizations, as well as a more varied sample of types of organizations overall, to see whether they also engage in these kinds of practices or in altogether different ones. A second limitation is that we could not connect these practices with outcomes. Given that these groups can be considered exemplary organizations, having made it through the lengthy and rigorous selection process, we can make a broad claim that their practices are likely to be ones that other organizations might want to emulate, but that is quite different from establishing some kind of causality between practice and outcome. Future work should attempt to establish whether these bridging practices do result in stronger connections and whether those stronger connections result in better outcomes. Finally, future work could investigate how these practices relate to other kinds of leadership practices and to the ongoing organizational activities, such as organizing, advocacy or social service work. Isolating bridging practices helped us identify and illustrate the phenomenon, but now they need to be re-integrated into the day-to-day reality of these organizations.

Appendix A. Organizations in sample (1), their primary issue and location

Organization

Primary Issue

Location

AIDS Housing of Washington* Black AIDS Institute* (Formerly: African American AIDS Policy and Training Institute) Burlington Community Land Trust (BCLT) CASA of Maryland Center for Young Women's Development Coalition of African, Asian, European, and Latino Immigrants of Illinois Colorado Coalition for the Homeless Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission Community Voices Heard Cornerstone Theater* EVS Communications Families Against Mandatory Minimums Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami Fifth Avenue Committee, Inc. Gwich'in Steering Committee Hazard Perry County Community Ministries Junebug Productions Justice for Janitors Justice Now Laotian Organizing Project Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength (MOSES) Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest New Road Community Development Group New York Immigration Coalition* Northwest Federation of Community Organizations Oaxaca Binational Indigenous Coalition (FIOB) Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources (PODER) Project H.O.M.E. ReGenesis Regional AIDS Interfaith Network Sacramento Valley Organizing Community Silver Valley Peoples Action Coalition Southeast Asia Resource Action Center Teamsters for a Democratic Union Tonatierra Community Development Corporation Triangle Research Options for Substance Abusers Wabanaki Youth Program of the American Friends Service Committee

Housing/AIDS AIDS Housing Workers' rights Human development Immigrants' rights Housing Environment Workers' rights Community building Education Human rights Immigration Community development Human rights and environment Community development Arts/civil rights Workers' rights Human rights Environment Community development Workers' rights Community development and housing Immigrants' rights Human rights Workers' rights and human rights Environment Community development Housing Human development HIV/AIDS Community development Environment Civil rights/immigration Civil rights Workers' rights and human rights Human development Human development

Seattle, WA Los Angeles, CA Burlington, VT Takoma Park, MD San Francisco, CA Chicago, IL Denver, CO Portland, OR New York, NY Los Angeles, CA Washington, DC Washington, DC Miami, FL Brooklyn, NY Arctic Village, AK Hazard, KY New Orleans, LA Los Angeles, CA Oakland, CA Richmond, CA Detroit, MI Lincoln, NE Exmore, VA New York, NY Seattle, WA Fresno, CA Huntington, WV Austin, TX Philadelphia, PA Spartanburg, SC Charlotte, NC Sacramento, CA Kellogg, ID Washington, DC Detroit, MI Phoenix, AZ Durham, NC Perry, ME

*A significant portion of the work of these organizations is national in scope. (1) Two studied organizations declined to be part of any publications, yielding a total of 38. For more information on the LCW organizations, please visit http:// leadershipforchange.org.

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Appendix B. Leadership practices identified in each organization studied (1)

Organization

Promoting Naming and Engaging dialogue Creating equitable Weaving multiple worlds through interpersonal Cognitive shifts shaping identity about difference governance relationships mechanisms

AIDS Housing of Washington* Black AIDS Institute* (Formerly: African American AIDS Policy and Training Institute) Burlington Community Land Trust (BCLT) CASA of Maryland Center for Young Women's Development Coalition of African, Asian, European, and Latino Immigrants of Illinois (CAAELII) Colorado Coalition for the Homeless Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission Community Voices Heard Cornerstone Theater* EVS Communications Families Against Mandatory Minimums Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami Fifth Avenue Committee, Inc. Gwich'in Steering Committee Hazard Perry County Community Ministries Junebug Productions Justice for Janitors Justice Now Laotian Organizing Project Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength (MOSES) Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest New Road Community Development Group New York Immigration Coalition* (NYIC) Northwest Federation of Community Organizations Oaxaca Binational Indigenous Coalition (FIOB) Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources (PODER) Project H.O.M.E. ReGenesis Regional AIDS Interfaith Network Sacramento Valley Organizing Community Silver Valley Peoples Action Coalition Southeast Asia Resource Action Center Teamsters for a Democratic Union Tonatierra Community Development Corporation Triangle Research Options for Substance Abusers Wabanaki Youth Program of the American Friends Service Committee

x x

x

x

x x

x x x

x

x x

x

x

x

x x x

x

x x

x x

x

x x

x x x x x x x x x

x x

x x

x x x x x x

x x x x x

x x x x x x

x x

x

x

x

x

x x

x x x x x

x x x x x x x

x x

x

x

x x x

x

x x

x

x

x x x x x x x x

(1) Reference to ideas associated with the practice were mentioned at least once in an interview.

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