SIOP Members as Citizen Leaders 

Leadership is not the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women.  It is a process ordinary people use when they are bringing forth the best from themselves and others. 
(author unknown) 

Laura L. Koppes

Over the past 3 years, I have declined invitations to be featured in TIP columns, and I have not written articles for TIP for several reasons.  However, given this is my last issue as TIP editor, I am taking the liberty to print this paper on a topic very dear to my heart.  I hope these stories will inspire you.

Like many industrial-organizational psychologists, I have taught, researched, and observed leadership in various contexts.  I am especially interested in leaders who have the capability of influencing others but may not hold formal paid leadership positions.  This type of leadership is observed frequently in volunteer activities and/or organizations, the focus of my interest.  Approximately 1 million charitable, social welfare, and social advocacy organizations exist in the United States (Bachiochi, 2001; Rogelberg & Fuller, 2004).  Furthermore, it is estimated that nearly 100 million Americans volunteer (Winerman, 2006) for various reasons, such as personal values, community concern, understanding, esteem enhancement, and personal development (Clary & Snyder, 1999; Omoto & Snyder, 2002).  In fact, a body of literature exists on why people give and related topics (see bibliography).  

While living as a Fulbright Scholar in the Czech Republic, I introduced a concept to the Czech students and faculty, which I labeled as citizen leaders.  At that time, a paucity of information was available on this idea.  This concept has received much attention recently, however. Simply enter citizen leader in a Google search! 

A citizen leader is an individual who influences others to create a better and peaceful world.  She/he positively contributes to building a sustainable environment where people can grow and live in peace with one another, with communities of shared responsibility and mutual care.  I am using the concept here as a framework for sharing stories of SIOP members who I characterize as citizen leaders.  They are citizen leaders because they give their time and expertise to improve the lives of others.

My assumptions in preparing this article are threefold.  First, I believe all individuals must be responsible citizens to create a better and peaceful world to live in, through influencing our families, neighbors, public officials, and so forth.  Two, individuals are “whole” human beings who integrate diverse aspects of their lives (i.e., work–life).  Three, as I-O psychologists, we possess many competencies of value not only for building great places to work but also great places to live.

Please join me in reading about our members who live the concept of citizen leader.  In addition to this article, be sure to read the next article about SIOP’s KARE initiative.

Peter Bachiochi, Eastern Connecticut State University

For the past 7 years, I’ve been involved with Habitat for Humanity, the international nonprofit organization that builds houses for/with families that normally wouldn’t be able to afford the usual cost of a new home. Through a combination of no-interest mortgages, volunteer effort, and sweat-equity (each family is responsible for 300–500 hours of work on their home or another Habitat home), access to affordable housing is available to many more people than ever before.

I have been involved first as the advisor for our campus chapter here at ECSU and then as a board member of the local Windham, CT, affiliate of Habitat.  The local affiliate has built four homes in the last 6 years for families that were in a variety of substandard living conditions.  The campus chapter helps with fundraising, awareness building, and construction.  Through a variety of fundraising events, we’ve been able to raise tens of thousands of dollars to support the local home building projects as well as our Collegiate Challenge Spring Break trips to several locations.  Since I’ve been the chapter advisor, we’ve traveled to rural Georgia, Miami, West Virginia, New Orleans, New Mexico, South Carolina, and this year we’ll return to Georgia.  For the week, we support the local affiliate by providing much-needed assistance building homes.  For many affiliates, the influx of college students during the spring break period provides them with the helping hands they need for their biggest push of the building year.

Our fundraising runs the gamut from the typical to the unusual.  We have sponsored a walkathon and hamburger and hotdog sales.  But Habitat is known on campus for our Shackathon (students spend 24 hours outside in cardboard boxes for shelter) and our Jail & Bail event where faculty and staff are “arrested” and put into very public jail cells until they have raised their “bail” (an amount set by the student wardens).

So I’ve slept out in boxes, been arrested (for Jail & Bail, that is), driven 15-passenger vans through the mountains of West Virginia, and more, but it’s all been worth it.  All the effort comes to fruition at the home dedications, the day the family receives the keys to their new home; it’s quite a celebration.  Friends, family, volunteers, and church members all get together to help the family celebrate their new life in their new home.  To get involved, just go to www.habitat.org to find a local affiliate or other ways to contribute.

Adam C. Bandelli, University of South Florida

About a year ago, I started volunteering for a national not-for-profit organization, StandUp For Kids (www.standupforkids.org), whose mission is to provide crisis intervention and basic survival necessities for at-risk and homeless youth through national and local outreach. My volunteering efforts began with funding raising, counseling and crisis intervention with homeless children, and community awareness. It wasn’t until the StandUp For Kids (SUFK) National Conference that I was able to put my I-O skills to work. The conference had two separate tracks: one for community outreach with homeless youth and the other for leadership development in the local programs (there are currently 40 programs across the U.S.). I had recently taken a position as a community networking director for the local Tampa program and so I attended the leadership seminars. It turns out the first seminar was on executive coaching! One company wanted to volunteer and do some coaching with SUFK. As I sat back and listened to the 50+ program leaders discuss the possibilities, it became clear to me that I could assist them as well. So, I started adding my “two cents” here or there about developing leaders and forming lasting interpersonal relationships at work (my areas of expertise). This went on for the remaining day and a half of the conference.

At the end of the conference, the organization’s CEO approached me and asked if I would be interested in being the national organizational development consultant for SUFKs! Besides being shocked, I was honored and accepted the volunteering position on the spot. Since that point in time, I have had the opportunity to help a wonderful organization develop its leaders. I also have been able to gain some valuable experience in many I-O-related areas: 360-degree assessment, leadership training and development, executive coaching, organizational data analysis, and public speaking. I would strongly recommend all graduate students to get involved with local not-for-profit organizations or community service groups. The experience can be invaluable, and you are able to use your skills to assist groups of individuals working for a good cause.

Mariangela Battista, Starwood Hotels & Resorts

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Organizational Culture and Effectiveness team led by SIOP member Mariangela Battista recently helped build a home in Yonkers, NY for Habitat for Humanity.  The team chose Habitat for Humanity as an opportunity to do some local community service together.  SIOP members Nat Shay and Christine Schrader, along with fellow Org Culture teammate Karen Grecco, spent the day installing insulation in the basement/garage area.  Org Culture teammates Jennifer Liebig and Barbara Thanner became experts at installing windows.  And SIOP members Jennifer Collins and Mariangela, along with Corinne Donovan, sanded walls throughout the three-bedroom home.

It was a great opportunity for the team to spend some time together outside the usual office routine and do some good at the same time.  Habitat for Humanity provided the right opportunity for the team to work together.  The Habitat crew was quite easy to work with, and they provided instruction on what to do and how to do it in each area of the home.  Habitat usually has a few homes in the Westchester County area in the building stage at any given time. 

Although the day was dusty, dirty, and back breaking, it was also quite memorable and a lot of fun.  Everyone was definitely sore the next day!  There was also a great feeling of personal satisfaction knowing that a family would soon make this house their home and everyone had a hand in making it happen.

The day was such a success that the plan is for the Organizational Culture team to do two such community service events every year, trying out other local community organizations. 

Joe Colihan, IBM Workforce Research

Most of my causes address poverty in one way or another (United Way, World Vision, House of Charity Minneapolis, People Serving People Minneapolis, and Habitat for Humanity).  I worry about the increasing concentration of wealth and power that leaves billions of people hungry and homeless and feel an obligation to share my middle-class luck to help ease the problem. 

As we usher in the new millennium, it has been estimated that of the world’s roughly 6 billion people, nearly 20% live on what amounts to $1 U.S. per day or less.  This is defined as extreme poverty by the World Bank.  In the United States, it is estimated that about 13% of the population lives in poverty.  In perhaps the richest, most powerful country on earth, many adults and children go to bed hungry. 

On a global and national scale, United Way, World Vision, and Habitat get my dollars.  On a local scale, I’ve been involved with House of Charity, People Serving People, and Habitat.  For example, I serve lunch and volunteer for special events at People Serving People once or twice every month.  They provide food, shelter, and family and career counseling to families with kids who would otherwise be homeless.  Not only is a welcoming temporary home provided, but skills are developed that can help these families get back on their feet.  It’s very gratifying to be involved in such a noble effort.  Chatting with these families, looking kids in the eyes, and so forth all make it more real and personal.

IBM helped set me on that path by promoting these types of community building efforts and asking for volunteers.  That’s all it took to get me to finally act instead of complaining and limiting my efforts to donations of money.  If I win the lottery, I’d like to retire into building houses for Habitat for Humanity.  That will be my next big cause.  Those that work hard at a full time job should be able to afford a place to stay.  I love their mission statement “…to make decent shelter a matter of conscience….”

Bernardo M. Ferdman, Alliant International University

I appreciate the opportunity to share a bit about one of my volunteer activities, in the spirit of highlighting the ways in which all of us have multiple identities and aspects to our lives, each of which enriches and gives texture to the others. Indeed, this is an important theme in my professional work. For example, I often do a leadership development workshop focused on “Bringing the Whole Self to Work” and I’ve written extensively about the complexity of identity. This theme of integration among one’s identities is also an important one that drives my volunteer work. 

I currently serve as co-chair of the San Diego Latino-Jewish Coalition and have been in that role since December 2005. Related to that, I also serve, since 2005, on the national Board of the Latino and Latin American Institute of the American Jewish Committee (AJC, www.ajc.org), as well as on AJC’s Engaging America Task Force (www.engagingamerica.org). AJC is the nation’s oldest human rights organization, founded in 1906. The Latino and Latin American Institute works to further American Jewish relations with the Latino community in the U.S. and with countries in Latin America. Engaging America is geared toward developing and advancing interethnic and interreligious partnerships.

The San Diego Latino-Jewish Coalition, which is primarily sponsored by AJC’s San Diego Chapter, brings together Latino and Jewish leaders in the community (including some Latino Jews, such as me) and has the mission of promoting greater communication, cooperation, understanding, respect, and friendship between the Jewish and Latino communities in San Diego, as well as pursuing a collaborative working relationship on issues of mutual concern. We sponsor regular dialogue breakfasts, speakers, and other learning-oriented events. For example, last year we held an event focused on the Jewish High Holidays and a panel on immigration, as well as regular meetings. By creating multiple opportunities for the groups to gather, get to know each other personally, and engage in dialogue, we develop mutual understanding, reduce intergroup ignorance, and facilitate alliances regarding community, national, and international issues.

For me, this work has been a natural extension of my academic and applied work focused on enhancing inclusion, diversity, Latino leadership, and intergroup relations. I get to be more fully myself, in an integrated way that honors and engages my multiple identities (Latino, Jew, professor, consultant, teacher, believer in social justice, etc.), and also contributes to my community. My contributions draw on my professional expertise, and I learn a great deal that feeds back into my work as a professor of psychology and organizational consultant.

Rick Jacobs, Penn State University, EB Jacobs

I serve on the board of directors for Penn State Hillel, The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. I am part of an 18-member board with members coming from broad backgrounds: educators and executives, attorneys and actuaries, judges and journalists, realtors and rabbis, and so many more. We bring unique perspectives regarding religion, culture, family, philosophy, and values. Many of us never experienced Hillel during our college days whereas others have fond memories of being members while achieving degrees. We are united in our desire to see Jewish life continue from generation to generation on this and other campuses.

The work of the board falls into three arenas including management, fundraising, and long-range planning. Each has several subcategories; budgeting and financial management for the ongoing organization, human resources oversight, and coordination with National Hillel all under the banner of management. In addition to our own personal financial contributions, we design and implement efforts to raise money for Penn State Hillel’s annual operations as well as more long-term projects to ensure the presence of Hillel into the future. With respect to Hillel in years to come, we spend a great deal of time and effort looking at what we can do to keep Hillel viable. In this capacity we work with national and international organizations, donors, parents, students, faculty, and staff to conceptualize Hillel in the years 2010 and beyond.

My skills as an I-O psychologist have come in handy. In 2005 we did a 360 review of our executive director. I led the data collection effort, presented findings to the board, and gave developmental feedback. At the close of 2006 our executive director announced his retirement, and in the spirit of “no good act goes unpunished,” I was asked to lead a nationwide search and design a selection system. Presently, we are well into the search process causing me to wonder what my next assignment might be.

All of us on the board contribute our time, energy, and talents with the hope that Jewish life at Penn State will continue to flourish and students will continue to feel Penn State is a place to celebrate being Jewish.

Kathleen Lundquist and John C. Scott, APT, Inc.

As a company, APT supports community organizations such as The Volunteer Center of Southwestern Fairfield County, CT (www.ucanhelp.org) and the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, CT (www.maritimeaquarium.org) through corporate sponsorships and donations of time and money. APT also supports two organizations whose existence was made known to us through our relationships with clients: the Association for the Advancement of Mental Health (www.aamh.org) and Stop Hunger (www.helpstophunger.org).

But the generosity of “APTers” does not end with company-sponsored volunteer activities. APT also supports the causes that are important to its employees. APTers selflessly give of themselves to many organizations around the country and around the world. Whether it’s providing a donation to help raise awareness of perinatal loss or dispatching books and readers to first grade classrooms as part of a literacy campaign, or allowing employees to use company time to help plan a community event, APT makes it a point to enable its employees to “make a difference” in their own communities and in the causes they care about.

The company recently polled its employees about the types of charitable organizations APTers support.  The company learned that its employees support many well-known national causes such as the AIDSWalk, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Special Olympics, UNICEF, and Habitat for Humanity. APTers also support less-known causes such as Kids in Crisis, the Wade Foundation, public schools that are in need of computers, food banks that are running short, and fundraisers for college scholarships. In a company with 52 employees, a remarkable list of over 60 charitable organizations was generated.

At its annual meeting in December 2006, the company shared these words with its employees:

[As APTers]…we want to leave the world a better place than we found it.  We are proud of the good work that APTers continue to do, and applaud your thoughtfulness and selflessness. APTers certainly have hearts of gold.”

Steven Rogelberg and Charlie Reeve, University of North Carolina Charlotte

We developed the Shelter Diagnostic System (SDS; http://sds.uncc.edu/). The SDS is an assessment process designed to help private and public animal shelters run better and promote employee health and well-being by surveying employees and using the data collected to create a diagnostic report, anchored with survey norms based on shelters across the United States.  Specific recommendations are provided to shelters along with free consulting hours so that positive actions can be taken.  Shelters only pay for direct administrative expenses (e.g., postage). 

Animal welfare organizations are typically underfunded and understaffed.  High turnover and employee stress are common and exacerbated by the fact that many employees are tasked with euthanizing society’s unwanted and neglected animals given a dramatic shortage of shelter space and Americans’ disinterest in adopting “used” animals.  We simply wanted to help and felt that pro bono I-O psychology services would be of value.  We have provided the SDS to 12 shelters throughout the United States.  We get an e-mail or phone call every few weeks to do another assessment.  Testimonials from shelter management are highly encouraging.

We both developed and oversee the system.  Graduate students in our I-O master’s program and Organizational Science doctoral program help oversee much of the day-to-day operations.  We have been doing research on workplace issues among shelter employees since 2001. This work has been funded by the Humane Society of the United States.  The SDS was our effort to put our “learnings” into action and attempt to make a positive impact on those shelters in need.

Mo Wang, Portland State University

I have been a regular volunteer in the community since my first year in graduate school.  At the beginning of my graduate program, my advisor suggested I get some hands-on experience in interacting with senior citizens because one of my research interests is social cognitive aging.  Obviously, volunteering in local senior centers would provide me this opportunity.  So, I signed up.  At that point, I never imagined that I would later accumulate more than 400 hours volunteer service for senior centers during my 4-year graduate school life and would continue this volunteering “habit” as a part of my life.

My volunteer experience in the senior centers has been more rewarding than I ever thought it would be (that was probably why I kept going there).  First of all, I really enjoy helping people, and the senior centers were in great need of help.  They were constantly understaffed.  So, my volunteering did make differences.  Second, I worked on all volunteer positions in those senior centers, including kitchen jobs, food delivery, activity coordination, designing newsletters, teaching senior citizens computer lessons, and helping with fundraising.  Learning how to do these new jobs was absolutely fun for me.  In addition, it interested me very much to see how senior-center employees interacted with senior citizens.  In a sense, they are the front-line practitioners directly dealing with the aging population.  By observing how they approached their work, I was able to do some reality checks about what I learned from reading research studies. 

I also made a lot of friends through volunteering.  It is always a pleasure to meet people who enjoy helping others as well.  Gradually, volunteering became almost like a regular social activity for me.  As the senior center is totally a different world from the university, I was able to lose my “I-O” or even “psychologist” identity when I am volunteering.  This just feels so good.  As an I-O psychologist, I do believe that a job gives people a sense of self-identity.  Nevertheless, I also believe that our sense of self-identity should not be limited by our jobs.  As such, serving as a volunteer helps me explore other significant identities in my life.

Bibliography

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     Batson, C. (1998).  Altruism and prosocial behavior.  In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. 2 (4th Ed., pp. 282–316).  Boston:  McGraw Hill.
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     Dartington, T. (1998). From altruism to action:  Primary task and the not-for-profit organization.  Human Relations, 51, 1477–1493.
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     Newman, E., & Schleicher, D. J.  (2001).  Win–win situations: I-O graduate students learn skills in community nonprofit agencies.  The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 42(3), 461–489.
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     Rogelberg, S.G. & Fuller, J.A. (2004).  Helping those who help others:  The necessity, benefits, and challenges associated with pro bono work.  Organizational Development Journal, 22, 61–68.
     Ryan, A. M.  (1999).  SIOP’s pro bono initiative.  The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 36(4), 135–138. 
     Schroeder, D. A., Penner, L. A., Dovidio, J. F., & Piliavin, J. A. (1995). The psychology of helping and altruism.  New York: McGraw Hill, Inc.
     Winerman, L. (2006, December).  Helping others, helping ourselves.  Monitor on Psychology, 38–41.