Creating Empowered Learners:

A Decade Trying to Practice What We Teach

David L. Luechauer
Butler University

A boss drives. A leader leads. A boss relies on authority. A leader relies on cooperation. A boss says I. A leader says We. A boss creates fear. A leader creates confidence. A boss knows how. A leader shows how. A boss creates resentment. A leader breeds enthusiasm. A boss fixes blame. A leader fixes mistakes. A boss makes work drudgery. A leader makes it interesting. - in Glasser (1990, p. xi The Quality School)

Leaders and Bosses

Leaders and bosses differ in the roles they assume, the climates they strive to create, and the outcomes they attempt to achieve (Zaleznik, 1977). Leaders emphasize change, empowerment, and transformation while bosses are concerned with control, stability, and uniformity (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1995; Gardner, 1995). Despite the fact that the OD literature abounds with such concepts as servant-leadership, empowerment, and appreciative inquiry, the call to produce leaders and change agents has largely gone unheard or unanswered. Why?

Gary M. Shulman
Miami University

Abstract
We suggest that OD and related faculty should assess the ways they may knowingly or unknowingly foster feelings of powerlessness in their students. To alleviate this dysfunction, we propose that faculty should apply empowerment values and practices to their teaching process. This article explores our decade long attempt to practice what we teach. It highlights some of the techniques we have used to practice empowerment in various OD and related classes.

Look in the Mirror

McKeachie (1994) and Senge, et al. (2000) suggests that too many faculty view themselves as either experts who transmit information and concepts or formal authorities who set goals and procedures. They act like the bosses described above. This orientation creates grade consciousness, dependency, and a real fear of being stupid (Glasser, 1990; McKeachie, 1994; Palmer, 1995). Do faculty teaching organizational development, organizational behavior, organizational change and related classes (OD/OB/OC from this point forward) continue to enact those roles?

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We have been asking junior, senior and masters students enrolled in OD/OB/OC that question for the past decade and garnering lists of the practices they experience that make them feel powerless, inhibit their interest in the topic, or decrease their motivation to learn (Luechauer Do faculty teaching & Shulman, 1996). organizational A variety of methods to solicit this development, information includorganizational ing anonymous written feedback behavior, devices and strucorganizational tured focus groups have been used. change and related Students have had classes (OD/OB/OC little trouble generating their refrom this point sponses regardforward) continue to less of the size, mission, or focus enact those roles? of the program in which they were enrolled. To date, nearly 600 students have participated in this not so appreciative-inquiry process. A few of the most common issues noted by the students and the extent to which they report experiencing that issue in OD/OB/OC classes are as follows: a) no participation in setting due dates, assignment parameters or class policies (98%); b) faculty rely on lecture, power-point or overheads to convey material (94%); c) the connection between text material and actual OD practice is not made clear (93%); d) the material covered in class is not related to the students life or experience (92%); e) too much reliance on multiple-choice or essay exams to determine grade (90%); f) excessive reliance on case studies and writeups (88%); g) students are not encouraged to participate or disagree with the instructor (87%); h) assignments do not allow for creativity or encourage students to apply what they have

learned (84%); and, i) student feedback about the course, the content or the actions of instructor only solicited at the end of the term (99%). OD/OB/OC faculty generally claim to eschew those practices. Yet, they are still occurring. Even though their classes cover techniques to elicit participation and appreciation many students do not see those behaviors modeled by their faculty. It does not seem untenable to suggest that such bosslike methods in the classroom generate dysfunctions in the teaching-learning process that are similar to the problems that boss-like management styles promote in industry. This observation has been supported in both the business and educational press (Hubbard, 1993; Senge, et al., 2000; Lewis, 1986). The aforementioned observations are consistent with the call for papers to this special issue of the Organization Development Journal which suggests that, the OD classroom has not changed a great deal in the way knowledge of OD is passed on to future generations of OD practitioners. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that OD instructors/programs are increasingly being challenged to translate their concepts into action and revise their course/programs to be more innovative. (ODJ, call for papers, 2002). What can be done?

Explore the Literature

Our experience suggests that the literature regarding change, leadership, and learning is deep in OD/OB/OC and much can be culled from it to lead educational reform. Many publications present pedagogical techniques such as cooperative learning, contract grading, experiential learning, action leaning, active learning, and group focused approaches. While each approach is insightful, in our opinion and experience, something is still lacking. The Empowered Manager (Block, 1987) may provide the missing piece. It served as the catalyst and foundation for our odyssey into

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classroom empowerment. An educator could infer from The Empowered Manager that faculty are classroom leaders and that students are employees. Furthermore, effectiveness in the classroom like its counter part, effective management, has as much to do with the values the teacher/manager holds as it does with techniques they employ (Block, 1987). Therefore, OD/OB/OC faculty are required to both model the values espoused in the OD literature as well as teach the OD techniques associated with those values. Thus, OD/OB/ OC faculty should practice what they teach (Luechauer & Shulman, 1996). The premise that education is value driven and that faculty should model behavior consistent with generally accepted OD values is supported in the teaching It appears as if effectiveness literature (Palmer, 1995; Lewis, empowerment makes 1986; McKeachie, 1994; people feel Schlecty, 1990). Despite significant, excited the literature many OD/OB/ OC faculty still wonder, and challenged by how can we design and their work, like their deliver courses in Organization Development work really matters, and Change that give as and like they are part much attention to OD processes as to OD of a team. content and how can we model in the OD classroom those OD values we believe in and advocate? (ODJ, call for papers, 2002). The rest of this article discusses the values, practices and insights garnered from our attempt to practice what we teach.

Meaningfulness considers the value of a task in relation to ones own beliefs and standards. Competence means that the person feels qualified and capable to perform the necessary activities to accomplish the task or goal. Impact means that the accomplishment of a task is perceived to make a difference in the scheme of things. Choice refers to the degree to which persons self-determine their task goals or methods for accomplishing them. It appears as if empowerment makes people feel significant, excited and challenged by their work, like their work really matters, and like they are part of a team. Other benefits of empowerment that are frequently noted in the management literature include: a) increased feelings of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and motivation; b) decreased feelings of entrapment and dependence; c) greater willingness to take-risks and innovate; d) leader freedom and ability to pursue other objectives; and, e) greater willingness to go the extra-mile (Block, 1987; Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Conger, 1989). If such outcomes can be obtained in industry it is reasonable to wonder if similar results can be achieved in OD/OB/ OC classes?

Educational Empowerment
Educationally, empowerment has been defined as the dynamic process of adopting the values and enacting the practices of enlightened self-interest in order to align student and faculty goals for the class (Shulman & Luechauer, 1993). Alignment should not be construed to mean forcing the student to want what the teacher wants or allowing students to impose their demands on the teacher. Rather, alignment occurs when students and faculty share the authority and responsibility to devise the processes and measures necessary to facilitate learning. The empowerment process in education should maximize the extent to which students experience the 4 components outlined by Thomas & Velthouse (1990).

What is Empowerment?
It has been suggested that empowerment is a way of doing and a way of being (Block, 1987; Conger, 1989). Thomas and Velthouse (1990) conceptualized empowerment as consisting of four dimensions: meaningfulness, competence, impact and choice.

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The Role of Values

Faculty who desire to practice empowerment should adhere to the values of enlightened self-interest and then enact practices consistent with those values (Palmer, 1995; Luechauer & Shulman, 1996; Schlecty, 1990). The values most commonly associated with educational empowerment are as follows. Egalitarianism is the first value. McClleland (1975) suggests that ... if [teachers] want to have far-reaching influence, they must make their [students] feel powerful and able to accomplish things on their own (p. 263). The second value is engagement. Faculty should believe that students learn best when they are actively involved in knowledge creation and that they should be more than passive recipients of the instructors pearls of wisdom (Kolb, 1981; McKeachie, 1994). The third value is connection. Faculty can not treat their own experience of Faculty who desire to the material under practice study as primary nor should they assume empowerment should that their students adhere to the values experience the material as they do of enlightened self(Palmer, 1995; interest and then Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, Tarule, enact practices 1986). The fourth consistent with those value is process. values Faculty should not be present simply to cover x amount of content in y amount of time (Palmer, 1995; Belenky, et al., 1986; McKeachie, 1994). They should believe that their role is to create conditions which foster the readiness, willingness, and ability of students to formulate their own knowledge. The fifth value is emotional tolerance. Faculty should believe that emotion is important in the learning process and that both teachers and students should be encouraged to express

emotion and divergent points of view (Belenky, et al., 1986; Palmer, 1995). Empowering faculty ultimately value creating a learning environment where the desire to learn is mutual for the student and the teacher and comes intrinsically not extrinsically (Palmer, 1995; Senge, et al., 2000).

Empowerment Practices
One way to foster empowerment at work is to identify and remove the factors that promote feelings of powerlessness and replace them with factors that promote ownership, self-sufficiency, and the intrinsic motivation to work rather than to receive extrinsic rewards (Conger & Kanungo, 1988). Faculty could attempt the same process by identifying the factors that promote standardization, memorization, and regurgitation and enact practices that enable students: a) to take personal responsibility for their learning; b) to engage in tasks that are personally meaningful; c) to feel a sense of ownership in the tasks they perform; d) to feel pulled by the class rather than pushed by the professor or by grades; e) to meet their deepest needs for power, significance, autonomy, and true camaraderie; and, f) to feel that their performance in class is primarily in their own hands (Glasser, 1990; McKeachie, 1994; Shulman & Luechauer, 1993). However, an [empowering] teacher is not another student; the role carries an authority based on cooperation not subordination (Belenky, et al., 1986, p. 227). Thus, an empowerment based pedagogy seeks to create conditions that encourage students to make demands on themselves and seek intellectual self-sufficiency (Glasser, 1990; McKeachie, 1994; Luechauer & Shulman, 1996).

Empowerment Techniques
The admonition to go forth and empower students is both frustrating and compelling. As the popular OD literature would suggest, noth-

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ing is more difficult in the process of empowerment than to ask people to let go of their historical, popular, and well reinforced attitudes and behaviors (Quinn, 1999). Classroom empowerment asks both faculty and students to let go of tradition. The following briefly highlights some of the techniques we have used in this process. A complete description is available in more detail elsewhere (Glasser, 1990; McKeachie, 1994; Shulman & Luechauer, 1993; Senge, et al., 2000). The first step we use is to identify and remove the factors that promote student feelings of powerlessness. In this sense, empowerAs the popular OD ment is not something one does to others as literature would much as it is something suggest, nothing is one undoes. Identifying these factors can be more difficult in the achieved via formal or inprocess of formal methods such as quality teams, questionempowerment than naires, or personal conto ask people to let go tact. The key is to ask of their historical, students such questions as, what practices impopular, and well pede your learning or reinforced attitudes what do I do that you need less of (Hubbard, and behaviors. 1993; Banta, et al., 1996; Luechauer & Shulman, 1996)? Some specific methods we use to practice empowerment are described in the following. We created an empowerment based vision statement rather than a syllabus to articulate the goal of gently and actively shaping the class to learn the content under study. It is in color and creatively formatted as a newsletter. It presents our philosophy, mission, goals, beliefs about grading, and personal biographies and idiosyncrasies. On occasion we have even gone as far as having the students actually write the syllabus as a class or in small groups. Interested readers may refer 46

to http://blue.butler.edu/~dluechau to see samples of such vision oriented syllabi. We invite student reaction to the syllabus by asking them to generate responses to a series of questions about the syllabus (e.g., How do you feel about the mission?). This assignment sets an important precedent by soliciting student reaction. The responses also help gauge student attitudes and beliefs which can aid in planning future class sessions. Students design and generate their own assignments or chose from a list of options. The projects that the students must perform in class are not always priori specified. They are responsible for deciding what they will do, how it will be graded, and what percentage of their final grade the projects will be worth. It is a good idea to create groups or project teams which meet separately outside of class to generate the course assignments. It is possible for multiple groups to create multiple assignments, which can be a record keeping nightmare, but so long as the work seems equitable such variance is allowed and encouraged. Students shape the criteria for measuring participation and other assignments. Another step in helping students to take ownership comes by having them determine what the phrase this class demands high quality participation means to them. A form is distributed which outlines our desires (e.g., attendance, keeping up with and discussing the readings in class). We work together to shape the exact criteria that will be used to measure the quality of their participation. Jointly created assessment forms have also been created to assess papers, teamwork on projects, and class presentations. Students self and peer assess participation and other assignments. Each student keeps a performance log that assesses the participation guidelines that have been established. This form asks the students to rate their contribution or the contribution of a

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peer(s) to each class session. These scores are averaged and serve as the students participation grade for the semester. The same has also been done for papers (e.g., the paper receives the average score of 3 assessments), teamwork and presentations. Generally speaking, grades are slightly higher than most classes but the quality of work has also been higher than other classes. We try to follow an involvement ratio. Empowerment is increased to the extent that students are actively engaged in the dynamics of learning the class content. Therefore, we strive to achieve a ratio 65% student talking time to 35% faculty talking time during class sessions. A number of methods are useful to achieve this ratio. Some of the more successful include using a Socratic method, giving oral rather than written exams, creating permanent class discussion groups, using role plays and other experiential learning activities, running simulations, and allowing the students to conAn option entitled duct class for a day. Students have also been strike your fancy encouraged to write and allows students to share original parables or poems that pertain create their own to the content of class. project. A final involvement stimulator came from having the students post their biographies on a web page created for the class. Rather than giving a typical end of the semester final exam, a semester long comprehensive group oriented final project is assigned. Students are given a list of possible projects such as perform a community service activity, raise money for a charity, conduct an OD intervention on an organization of their choice, design a game, simulation or web page that facilitates learning. An option entitled strike your fancy allows students to create their own project. Students have elected to tackle such projects as writing a topic related

novel or play, interviewing successful change agents, and analyzing an existing change program such as weight loss or smoking cessation in light of the material covered in class. This task is designed so the students can show that they can apply, critique, integrate, and extend the material covered in class in a creative, professional and personally meaningful way.

Some Encouraging Data

If empowerment works in industry then creating empowerment in the classroom should lead to positive outcomes for both the teacher and the student. Two hundred college juniors and seniors who reported experiencing a class, other than ours, in which they felt empowered have been interviewed. For convenience sake, empowering faculty or classes were defined as those which the students felt the 4 components identified by Thomas & Velthouse (1990) were practiced. The students have reported seeing the criteria operationalized when: a) they are given a voice in setting policies such as attendance, participation, due dates and assignment parameters; b) their perceptions of class content and processes are regularly assessed by the instructor not just solicited at the end of the term; c) they are given some choice as to which assignments they can complete and have count toward their grade; d) class projects are completed for outside or real world clients; e) they are regularly asked to spend in time class working in dyads or teams to discuss the material at hand; and, e) the faculty were current in terms of examples used, stories told, issues raised and articles assigned. The students also indicated that empowerment oriented classes rarely relied on traditional texts and that video clips (including tv/movies), readings from the popular or applied business press, and the views of multiple voices were expressed. Interestingly, the use of guest speakers or field-trips are rarely mentioned positively or negatively by the students.

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Seven positive outcome themes emerged from those interviews. The students: 1) felt like they took more responsibility for learning and applying the course topics; 2) had greater interest in the content of Students may also those classes; 3) devoted more study, thought, and complain and suggest out of class discussion that empowerment time to those classes; 4) actively encouraged based classes demand others to take that more energy than they instructor; 5) evaluated those instructors more have to offer or favorably than others require them to do faculty; 6) more willingly accepted and understood things typically the outcome of their grade associated with faculty even when it fell below roles such as monitor expectation; and, 7) felt greater identification with attendance or grade the instructor and the assignments. content of those classes than they felt with other instructors or the content of other classes. By enacting behaviors consistent with the values, conceptualization and definition of empowerment one can create courses that are more meaningful to students, develop their competencies to learn independently, allow students to have an impact on what goes on in the course, and provide opportunities for them to make choices about what they learn, how they learn, or when they demonstrate the outcomes of their learning (Luechauer & Shulman, 1996). This, however, is our experience and while the literature does not abound with studies on the efficacy of practicing empowerment in the classroom some support is noteworthy (Senge et al., 2000; Banta, et al., 1996; Hubbard, et al., 1993). Other empirical studies in and out of the college classroom support conceptualizing empowerment as a multidimensional construct with multifaceted positive outcomes (Frymier, 48

Shulman, & Houser, 1996). Moreover, Frymier, et al. (1996) found student empowerment to be positively and significantly correlated with student motivation, student self-esteem and teacher communication behaviors. Thus, it would appear as if the teaching-learning process is enhanced in classes based on an empowerment approach just as operations are enhanced when leaders practice empowerment. Support for this proposition can be found in the literature (Senge, et al., 2000, Glasser, 1990; Hubbard, 1993; Banta, et al., 1996).

Barriers & Costs

Implementing the practices described earlier can produce positive outcomes but faculty who pursue this path can expect to encounter a variety of barriers. Some of the barriers include: lack of trust, fear of failure, fear of change (for example, giving up a grade focus is hard for students at first), and a lack of collegial/institutional support. Students may also complain and suggest that empowerment based classes demand more energy than they have to offer or require them to do things typically associated with faculty roles such as monitor attendance or grade assignments. Finally, faculty must not get bogged down in the do it right syndrome. Faculty may have to build the bridge as they walk across it and there will be bumps along the way (Quinn, 1999). Generally, however, students are tolerant of faculty errors and miscues so long as they are handled openly and in the spirit of collective learning. Some literature supports this observation (Palmer, 1995; Belenky, et al., 1986; Quinn, 1999). The move to empowerment does not come without a price. Some of the more salient costs one might incur are: increased preparation time; decreased research time; loss of personal time; and student pressures on other faculty to use this method of teaching which breeds resentment and anger. The greatest cost may be time used in class. Obviously, attention to process issues will cause a loss in the

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amount of time to cover content. However, sometimes less is more (Gardner, 1995).

Conclusion
Current thinking in OD points to the effectiveness, importance, and need for valuing and practicing empowerment in both education and in business (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1995). Modern managers can no longer act as dictators, cops, task-masters, or bosses. Rather, they must act as educational facilitators who promote developmental processes such as autonomy, quality, ownership, personal growth, and the ability to initiate and cope with change (Quinn, 1999). OD/OB/OC classes often seek to provide the content that would underlie the enactment of such behaviors. Nonetheless, those who practice what they teach in OD/OB/OC classes still appear to be a minority as evidenced by the need for this special issue of ODJ. The root of this deficiency stems from the fact that many OD/OB/OC faculty preach the virtues and need for change, leadership and empowerment yet still conduct their classes in a boss-like fashion that perpetuates the status quo. The challenge before educators is to design programs and conduct classes in a manner that emulates and produces leaders instead of bosses. Hopefully, this article will challenge and inspire OD/OB/ OC faculty to practice the values and concepts they present in class and that we will graduate more leaders than bosses.

References
Banta, T.W., Lund, J.P., Black, K.E., Oblander, F.W. (Eds.) (1996). Assessment in practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Bartlett, C. & Ghoshal, S. (1995). Changing the role of top management: Beyond systems to people. Harvard Business Review, 73(3), 133-134.

Belenky, M., Clinchy, B., Goldberger, N., & Tarule, J. (1986). Womens ways of knowing: The development of self, voice, and mind. New York: Basic Books. Block, P. (1987). The empowered manager: Positive political skills at work. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass. Conger, J. (1989). Leadership: The art of empowering others . Academy of Management Executive, 3, 1-24. Conger, J., & Kanungo, R. (1988). The empowerment process: Integrating theory and practice. Academy of Management Review, 13, 471-482. Frymier, A., Shulman, G. & Houser, M. (1996). The development of the learner empowerment measure. Communication Education, 45, 181-199. Gardner, H. (1995). Leading minds: An anatomy of leadership. New York: Basic Books. Glasser, W. (1990). The quality school: Managing students without coercion. New York: Harper & Row. Hubbard, D.L. (Ed.) (1993). Continuous quality improvement: Making the transition to education. Marryville: Prescott Publishing Kolb, D. (1981). Learning styles and disciplinary differences. In A. Chickering & Associates, (Eds.), The Modern American College. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 232-55. Lewis, J. (1986). Creating excellence in our schools ... by taking more lessons from Americas best run companies. Westbury, NY: J. L. Wilkerson Publishing Co. Luechauer, D., & Shulman, G. (1996). Training transformational leaders: A call for practicing empowerment in the classroom. International Journal of Public Administration, 19(6), 827-848. McClelland, D. (1975). Power: The inner experience. New York: Irvington. McKeachie, W. (1994). Teaching tips: A guidebook for the beginning college teacher (9th ed.). Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.

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Palmer, P. (1995). The courage to teach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Quinn, R. M. (1996). Deep Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Schlecty, P. (1990). Schools for the twenty first century: Leadership imperatives for educational reform. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Senge, P. Mcabe, N. Lucas, T. Kleiner, A. Dutton, J. & Smith, B. (2000). Schools that learn: A fifth discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education. New York: Currency Doubleday. Shulman, G. & Luechauer, D. (1993). The empowering educator: A CQI approach to classroom leadership. In D. Hubbard (Ed.), Continuous Quality Improvement: Making the transition to education. Maryville, MO: Prescott Publishing, 424-453. Thomas, K., & Velthouse, B. (1990). Cognitive elements of empowerment: An interpretive model of intrinsic task motivation. Academy Of Management Review, 15, 666-681. Zaleznik, A. (1977). Managers and leaders: Are they different? Harvard Business Review, 55(3), 67-78.

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David Luechauer, Ph.D., obtained his BS

from Ohio Northern University, his MA from Miami University and his Ph.D. from The University of Cincinnati. He has held jobs as a group facilitator; a general manager of a radio station. He taught in the MBA programs at the University of Arizona, Miami University [Oh], University of Cincinnati. Currently, he teaches Leadership and related classes in the MBA program at Butler University. He has taught classes in leadership, teambuilding and change in the Miami, Cincinnati, and Indiana Executive MBA Programs and recently finished teaching in Finland at HSEBA. Contact Information: Associate Professor & Leadership Area Coordinator Butler University College Of Business Administration 4600 Sunset Avenue Indianapolis, Indiana 46208 Phone: 317-940-9215 Fax: 317-940-9455 E-mail: luechauer@butler.edu

Gary M. Shulman, Ph.D., is a professor

and interim chair of the Communication Department at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He received his doctoral and masters degrees from Purdue University with specialties in organizational and interpersonal communication. His Bachelors degree in economics was earned at Lehman College, City University of New York. The research interests of Dr. Shulman include the use of quality improvement philosophy and practices in industrial or educational organizations, leadership development, preparing for and coping with organizational change, and the values promoting organizational learning. Contact Information: Communication Department Miami University Oxford, OH 45056 Phone: 513-529-7472 Fax: 513-529-1829 E-mail: shulmagm@muohio.edu

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