Enhancing Campus Capacity for Leadership: An Examination of Grassroots Leaders in Higher Education (review)

Wherever we are located in the hierarchy of our institutions, human nature seems to cause us to say, "Once I am at the next level. . . . " or "If only I was the. . . . " with blanks filled in by something more senior in perceived status, power and authority. One important takeaway from Adrianna Kezar's and Jaime Lester's new book, "Enhancing Campus Capacity for Leadership: An Examination of Grassroots Leaders in Higher Education" is that all of us are in positions to be leaders, and to create our own structures, networks, and support systems that will help create the changes we are most passionate about in higher education. Their book is not full of false promises or naïve statements of how authority is manifest and power distributed in colleges and universities. Rather, it provides insightful critique of status quo organizations, and theoretical and practical strategies for making differences and building capacity throughout an institution.

Building particularly on the work of Deborah Meyerson (1995, 2003, 2008), Kezar and Lester apply the concepts of everyday leaders to their study of 165 leaders at 5 different institutions. These tempered radicals or grassroots leaders take on certain issues and challenges in part because they are not encumbered by the same politics, structures, and responsibilities as their senior leaders, who are often unable or unwilling to act. Grassroots leaders are often more free to move in and out of organizational structures and do what needs to be done. They navigate institutional bureaucracies, build the necessary relationships and networks, and understand the limitations of change in individuals and organizations. They are often without portfolio, and typically, without accolade; finding 165 such leaders to interview makes the book even that much more of an interesting read. They know when and where to push on the system to create change, have patience to find the right "teachable" and "actionable" moments, and for the most part, are very skilled at analyzing their organizations, understanding the risks and costs of leading from positions of informal power. Following their extensive case study research, Kezar and Lester arrive at a similar understanding of the impact of grassroots leadership to that of Meyerson: it is tempered, incremental, evolutionary, and effective in postsecondary education.

From their extensive portrayals of their case study data, Kezar and Lester effectively meet their goal of acquainting us with grassroots leaders, leadership principles, challenges and strategies. The book is organized into three sections: part 1 lays out the framework and approach taken to the overall study; part 2 presents the findings from the data; part 3 discusses implications of and recommendations from the research; the appendix might tend to be overlooked when reading a text of this density but it contains a lot of very useful grounding in ideas and concepts from the literature applicable to additional research and practice. Some of the most valuable parts of the book are in section 2, along with the discussion on "leading up" and encouraging grassroots leadership in others found in part 3. Section 2 presents the authors' model of grassroots leadership through which they share stories from the case leaders, tactics, strategies, obstacles, challenges, and issues of power, authority, and resiliency. The latter is not often discussed in research except when writing about very senior leaders or those in community-based organizations, so is a unique contribution.

A particular strength of the text is the ongoing identification of tactics and strategies used by grassroots leaders to address systemic issues in their respective educational settings sprinkled throughout section 2. The authors present these in ways readers can readily connect and see the applicability in their own lived experiences. At the same time, these examples are even more valuable if the reader does not focus too much on the actual setting of the specific leader being highlighted in the text, as Kezar and Lester sometimes do; rather, take a step...