Leadership as a Way of Being: A Way Forward for a News Industry in Chaotic Transition

Abstract

Hesselbein developed the concept: “leadership is a matter of how to be and not how to do.” Joseph later provided instructional content based on the concept and helped operationalize it for consumption by practicing leaders. This paper leverages their work in illustrating how leadership-as-a-way-of-being (LWB) can be a teaching model for emerging millennial leaders in a dynamic news media undergoing a chaotic transition. It provides a way to rethink newsroom organizational structures that no longer accommodate the needs of this generation. We focus on the “being” element of leadership as it speaks directly to a new introspective view of leadership that values transparency and is necessary for innovation over mere efficiency.