Have leadership myths brought us to the brink?

In a deliciously bitter post, Donald Clark slates leadership theories and asks whether leadership training was the cause of the global economic meltdown.

"Has the cult of ‘leadership’ contributed to megalomaniac behaviour that ultimately led to the financial crisis? All of this leadership lark is quite recent. For years we got by with management training, good old sensible stuff about being nice, clear and organised. Then, around the Millennium, the training world went all evangelical about ‘Leadership’."

Clark echoes many of the thoughts of Francis Wheen in an equally delicious chapter, Old snake-oil, new bottles, in his book How mumbo-jumbo conquered the world.



Clark continues and points out that leadership training has:

"... no solid core of theory it’s a potpourri of ideas. The cult of leadership, a relatively recent phenomenon, was grabbed with glee by the training community. A mishmash of management theory, culled from a few airport management books, they put their slides together and became leadership zealots, simply padding out the word ‘Leadership’ into a course, a miscellany of mumb-jumbo."

He has particularly harsh words for leadership gurus:

"I‘d call these false prophets, as they are basically song and dance men, all performance and no substance. It’s good old fashioned preaching with stories, parables, miracle cures, and live performance."

Though he does not draw the link specifically, this last quote illustrates something I've referred to before, the misuse of the look and feel of religion, sometimes even the substance, as a tool for manipulation and marketing. ENRON was a good example.

Donald Clark continues and questions the popular distinction between management and leadership. He points out that mission statements and hubris have replaced intellectual analysis and common sense. Peter Drucker and Jim Collins according to him had it right, good leadership is no more than good management.

I recall that some years ago the educational authorities in South Africa got on to the vision/mission/leadership bandwagon and exhorted school principals to become CEO's and inspirational leaders. Fortunately sanity prevailed, for as Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton pointed out in their book, Hard facts, dangerous half truths and total nonsense: Profiting from evidence-based management, such jobs come with much responsibility, but little authority and few resources. School principals remained just ordinary managers, hopefully still inspiring the odd child or teacher.



In another context Bob Sutton quotes the populiser of the management / leadership distinction, Warren Bennis:

"Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing."

I wonder what the victims of the subprime crisis, of ENRON and Worldcom, of Fidentia in South Africa, would say to that? Are the mining magnates of the mining companies that are raping South Africa's water resources by strip mining pristine wetlands for coal doing the "right thing"? How about the executive mayors of towns and cities that are flooding our rivers with raw sewerage. Or have they read the latest management tomes in airport bookshops, Hitler's guidelines for inspirational leadership and Manage like Mugabe?

Typing this blog

You can now have your blog typed at Typealyzer, as in Myers-Briggs. Hat tip to Dave Snowden and the Neurocritic. Just like the Myers-Briggs, it should not be taken too seriously. So, what's the verdict?

This blog (and the blogger, I quess) is of the INTP type:

"The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about."

Well, it seems that no more than 20% of this blogger's brain is active. Right side is a bit neglected. The rear is a dead loss. An excellent case study for the whole-brain half-witters.

CSIR suspends scientist

In my previous post I reported on the executive board of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) suppressing the keynote address that one of its scientists, Dr Anthony Turton, would have delivered at its biennial Science: Real and Relevant conference. The board of the CSIR has now followed up its ill-considered action with the suspension and planned disciplinary hearing of Dr Turton. Not only this, it has vindictively forced him to vacate his office, surrender his computer and terminate his internet access.

A number of prominent scientists and environmental activists has expressed their disgust about these events, including Drs Carl Albrecht (CANSA), Francois Durand (University of Johannesburg) and Ms Mariette Lieferink (Federation for a Sustainable Environment). All expressed their concern about the suppression of science and scientists.

According to IOL, Dr Turton is to be charged with insubordination and bringing the CSIR into disrepute. If anyone brought the organisation in disrepute, however, it would seem to be its executive board for bowing to whatever political and/or corporate pressures it is being subjected to and for not standing by its scientists and their scientific findings.

CSIR suppresses science

In news just in this week, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has muzzled and seems to be victimizing one of its own scientists. I quote from the newspaper article in the Cape Times, available online on IOL:

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has prevented one of its scientists from delivering the keynote address at its conference in Pretoria.

Dr Anthony Turton, of the CSIR's natural resource and environment unit, was to deliver a 19-page address on water quality, entitled A Clean South Africa, as the keynote address in the CSIR's Science Real and Relevant conference on Tuesday.

On Monday, Turton was told he could not give the address.

"I was told it had been pulled, and I was instructed not to be on the premises. I was given three different reasons by three different people," Turton said.

According to the newspaper article the CSIR alleged that the address was withdrawn because certain statements "could not be sufficiently substantiated". This is doubtful, however, as the address was subjected to a peer review process and no scientific objections were raised.

Reading between the lines, the real reason seems to be reflected in the last paragraph of the newspaper article, which is paraphased from Dr Turton's banned address:

A reason was that funding was from private contracts, not the government, exposing the CSIR to the risk of being "hijacked by private interests".

"We cannot allow this to happen, because (it would erode) science, engineering and technical capacity."

Was Turton's address suppressed at the demand of some corporate sponsors of the CSIR, such as the mining houses that are now strip mining coal from our pristine wetlands in Mpumalanga province? Did his address hit too close to the truth for the greedy mining magnates?

This cartoon (slightly altered) from the Union of Concerned Scientists seems appropriate.

The CSIR describes itself as "... one of the leading scientific and technology research, development and implementation organisations in Africa." What is to be said of its ethics and scientific integrity if it suppresses science and scientists due to pressure from corporate sponsors? Even if its assertion of unsubstantiated statements in Turton's address was true (which I doubt), it should have been left to scientists to deal with the inaccuracies. After all, it is said that science is the only field of human endeavor that is self-correcting.

Consider also the disciplinary action against environmental scientists in Kimberley for opposing greedy developers and corrupts politicians. This pattern of victimisation of scientists by administrators and politicians is unacceptable.

Mind myth 7: Learning styles and multiple intelligences

This is the seventh mind myth in my series of mind myths applicable to education. It relates to two related ideas that are popular with "progressive" educators and educational policy makers the world over. The twin ideas that major individual, meaningful differences exist in children's (and adults') learning styles and multiple intelligences, have served to hide the unfortunate reality that some individuals struggle to learn whatever the input; and that some individuals lack mental capacity. Do individuals differ in terms of learning styles and multiple intelligences and can catering to such differences improve instruction methods in schools and colleges?

Learning styles

So-called learning styles are a mixed bag of different concepts - Coffield et al. (2004) identified more that 70 different and sometimes competing learning styles. Many of these are commercially based and offer expensive proprietary tests and training, trust the hucksters not to miss an opportunity for profit.

Stahl (1999) tried to order the field somewhat by differentiating between learning preferences, cognitive styles, personality types and aptitudes. He had to concede, however, that the learning style concept had much in common with fortune telling. Though he did not label it such, what he referred to is known as the Forer effect - where ambiguous statements that are hard to disagree with are made. The validity of different learning styles and the validity and reliability with which they can be assessed are equally a mixed bag.

Let us accept that some learning styles are valid concepts and can be validly and reliably assessed. The question then arises whether knowing learners' learning styles and adapting your instructional methods to complement those styles is feasable and effective? The answer is unfortunately an unequivocal NO. It sounds good in theory, but is does not work. Hattie (1999) showed that the effect size of individualization in schooling across 180 000 studies (no, not a typing error) was only 0.14 of a standard deviation, which is trivial. There are numerous other studies that come to the same conclusion, individualised instruction based on some putative characteristic of the learner does not work. Let me put it more bluntly, the evidence shows that catering your instructional methods according to the known learning styles of the learners in front of you is ineffective and a waste of time and energy. That also applies to the most widely spread learning style based methods used in teaching, the so-called visual-auditory-kinesthetic modality or VAK approach.

Another line of research that applies to both learning styles and multiple intelligences is the largely futile search for Cronbach's aptitude by treatment interactions (ATI's). In 1956 Lee Cronbach called for a combination of experimental and correlational research designs to address complex realities in fields such as education. This line of research came to be knowns as the study of ATI's. By 1975 Cronbach conceded that the search for ATI's had been unsuccessful. This is part of a much larger debate about the philosophy of science and scientific paradigms. Suffice to say, attempts to taylor instruction (treatment) to the personal characteristics (aptitude) of learners have been largely unsuccessful. For a discussion of some of these issues see a discussion by Cunningham.

It has been suggested that the learning style movement (and multiple intelligences) may lack scientific credibility and evidence for effectiveness, but that it has served to alert teachers to the fact that a repertoire of teaching methods is needed and that issues such motivation and emotions are important for learning. I largely agree with this and my questioning of the usefulness of these concepts is not a call for the exclusive use of so-called "chalk-and-talk" teaching methods (they have their place). The point is that teaching methods should be adjusted according to the nature of the subject matter, not based on putative individual learning styles.

Multiple intelligences

Gardner's multiple intelligence theory has been and still is very influential in education worldwide. It was also made to measure for the commercial educational solutions industry, eight intelligences to improve and make money from!

Gardner's theory is sometimes used in opposition to theories of intelligence that are based on factor analysis of ability tests and that emphasize a general intelligence factor, g. This is a complex and controversial field and I cannot begin to do justice to it in a blog posting. A good review by Prof. Daniel Willingham can be found online. Willingham argued that Gardner's theory is inconsistent with current views of intelligence as a hierarchical construct. Willingham questioned whether some of Gardner's "intelligences" should not rather be described as aptitudes or talents. Why only these eight intelligences? Willingham, and in another context Arthur Jensen, asked why not also olfactory, criminal and sexual intelligences?

Intelligence as a concept is generally associated with the kind of thinking capacity that make for success as school. Gardner's labeling the aptitudes he proposed as intelligences, naturally led teachers to erroneously assume that they were fungible (one could substitute for another) and should be taught to. Willingham pointed out that Gardner himself had doubts about the functional application of his ideas in school settings.

I believe that the issue of ATI's referred to above, is also applicable to multiple intelligences. There is just very little evidence that teaching should be adjusted according to putative characteristics of learners.

Further reading on learning styles and multiple intelligences:

Cunningham, J.W. (2001). The National Reading Panel Report. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(3), 326–335.

Professor pans 'learning style' teaching method. Telegraph, July 2007.

Geake, J. (2008). Neuromythologies in Education. Educational Research, 50, 2 123 – 133.

Reschly, D.J. (2004). Commentary: Paradigm Shift, Outcomes Criteria, and Behavioral Interventions Foundations for the Future of School Psychology.School Psychology Review, Vol. 33.

Sternberg,R.J. et al. (2008). Styles of Learning and Thinking Matter in Instruction and Assessment. Perspectives on Psychological Science. Vol. 3. Just for balance, a view from the very influential Robert Sternberg supporting teaching according to learning styles.

Hattie, J. (1999). Influences of student learning: Inaugural Lecture: Professor of Education, University of Auckland

Willingham, D.T. (2004). Check the facts: Reframing the Mind.

Carte Blanche, Mind Moves and Brain Gym

Well, I suppose I should consider it a breakthrough for blogging in South Africa. Last Sunday I appeared briefly (58 seconds to be exact), as an educationist and a blogger, on a prominent South African television news programme, Carte Blanche. The programme was on Mind Moves, a controversial therapy programme. Prof. Faith Bischof of the physiotherapy department of the University of the Witwatersrand and I were the sole two token skeptics on the programme; between us we contributed less than two minutes to the eleven minute programme. The time disparity between the pro (9 minutes) and con (2 minutes) is indicative of the bias of the programme. Carte Blanche prides itself on its balanced presentation, I suppose having token skeptics helps to preserve that image.

The programme showed a four year old girl, Teagan, who suffered a serious anoxic incident shortly after birth, resulting in serious diffuse brain damage and cerebral palsy. In the programme it was claimed that various conventional therapies were tried, but only after starting Mind Moves was improvement noted. The founder of Mind Moves, Dr. Melodie de Jager, testified to its effectiveness, as did the Teagan's parents and various other Mind Moves practitioners in various other settings.

In my 58 second slot I equated Mind Moves with Brain Gym and declared it to be pseudoscientific nonsense. I subsequently received an e-mail from Dr. De Jager correcting me about it being identical to Brain Gym and I am glad to place her correction (translated from the original Afrikaans):

"I would like to bring to your attention that Mind Moves/BabyGym is not Brain Gym, but is scientifically based as can be seen on www.mindmoves.co.za."

Dr Melodie De Jager was for many years the public face and guru of Brain Gym in South Africa and I naturally associated her with Brain Gym. What I saw on her website was also very similar to Brain Gym. Based on what is on the Mind Moves website, I would dispute her claim that it is in any way more scientifically based that Brain Gym. A more detailed analysis of Mind Moves, however, will have to wait for a later post.

Since the Carte Branche programme was televised, I received about 150 related hits from South Africa (a substantial number for this humble blog), so at least some people took the trouble to check the claims made in the programme. The almost 200 comments on Carte Blanche's website, however, were invariably positive about Mind Moves, with not a single gullible soul asking for even a shred of evidence. Not even a professor "nogal" (nogal - an Afrikaans word, the closest translation being "for heaven's sake"). The following comment reflect the general tone of the comments:

"WOW! This show was incredible but why so short? PLEASE give us more info about this ladys work. PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!"

Many of the comments were from Mind Moves and Brain Gym consultants who used the opportunity to advertise their services cheaply. Many of these were former educators who trained to become consultants in these techniques. This brings about a serious concern - what training in human anatomy, neurology, neurophysiology and so forth did these people receive in order to qualify them for treating cerebral palsy? Physiotherapists receive four years training at university and are eventually registered with the Health Professions Council. What (if any) body controls Brain Gym, Mind Moves and other similar "alternative therapists" and who checks the efficacy and ethics of their treatment? Brain Gym in the past mainly consisted of physical exercises performed by their "clients", typically physically normal children with learning problems. What was shown on Carte Blanche was a child with cerebral palsy receiving physical manipulations by the therapist. One wonders what the Health Professions Council's view on this would be?

One of the visitors to this blog left a comment that alerted me to the fact that Teagan was receiving other therapies in addition to Mind Moves. This was important information. The Carte Blanche programme was a classic correlation eguals causation confusion from the onset. The fact that Teagan was receiving other therapies as well, should have caused even the most gullible observer to question whether the perceived improvement in her could ascribed to Mind Moves with any degree of certainty. I quote from the accurate transcript on the Carte Blanche website (emphasis mine):

Presenter: "Before seeing Melodie, what types of therapies did you try?"

Mother"We've done physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy... and with Melodie's therapy it's basically incorporating all of that but actually in what you really need to do to get up and to move and to play properly and to learn."

... Presenter: "But this (the sceptics' concerns) doesn't explain Teagan's extraordinary progress or the improvements other teachers and children are experiencing. After just a few months of treatment, Teagan is already able to walk unassisted; she's starting to crawl, and is relating to toys and starting to feed herself."

This was misleading, to say the least. The typical viewer would have come to the incorrect conclusion that the other therapies preceded Mind Moves and were replaced by Mind Moves, after which progress accelerated greatly.

The following comment by Dr. De Jager on the Carte Blanche website in reaction to the enthusiastic responses by viewers, indicated to me that she too became aware of the incorrect impression that was created in the programme:

"A WORD OF CAUTION Mind Moves does NOT replace any other therapy, it does however make the brain and body more receptive to other therapies when done in the beginning of a therapy session."

I'm not suggesting that there was a deliberate attempts to mislead, I accept that it was just an error that slipped in. It was a serious error, however, and Carte Blanche owes it to its viewers to correct it and also to explain the significance of the error. I'll wait to see when that happens.

What are some of the questions that could have been asked from a scientific point of view to determine the accuracy of the claims for Mind Moves?

This is an individual case and essentially an anecdote. What independent, experimental evidence which has been published in reputable peer-reviewed journals, exists to support the use of Mind Moves in similar cases?

How reliably and validly was the improvement documented and how was confirmation bias prevented? Confirmation bias refers to a tendency to notice and to look for evidence that confirms one's views, and to ignore evidence that contradicts one's views.

How do we know that Teagan's perceived progress was actually the result of the Mind Moves programme, especially in view of the fact that she was also receiving other therapies?

Some possibible anwers could be:

Her progress was due to natural neurological maturation and not to any therapy.

Her progress could have been due to any, all, or none of the therapies she is/was receiving.

Her progress was due to receiving concentrated attention, a so-called Hawthorne or participation effect, any therapy programme with the same amount of attention could have had the same effect.

Her progress could have been the result of unrelated issues such as getting a new puppy, granny coming to visit, a new school, etc. This is not meant to be facetious, such factors could combine to contribute to a participation effect.

The point is that the whole programme essentially committed the correlation implies causation or cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Because one event (improvement) follows or occurs together with another (therapy) does not, in the absence of other evidence, prove that the one caused the other. This can be demontrated by an example. Does the simultaneous decrease in the number of storks and the human birth rate in Europe over the past 60 years, imply that storks bring babies? Of course not, but that is essentially the Carte Blanche argument about Mind Moves.

By televising an inherently biased propaganda piece for Mind Moves, Carte Blanche missed a valuable opportunity to educate its viewers to be able to judge the scientific merits of all the therapies on offer for developmental disabilities. One would trust that future programmes of this nature would look in greater depth at the science and make less use of propaganda techniques such as appeal to pity and appeal to the emotions.