Understanding the DAC Framework

Ever wondered what makes a great leader? It's more than just charisma or barking orders. Today, we're diving into the fascinating world of leadership ontology. That fancy term just means we're breaking down the core concepts and relationships that make leadership tick.

Traditionally, leadership has been seen as a three-legged stool: leaders, followers, and a shared goal. But there's more to the story! We'll be exploring the DAC framework, which focuses on three key elements for successful leadership: direction, alignment, and commitment. Let's see how these elements work together to create a winning team!

Direction - Alignment - Commitment

First, we look at leadership as a tripod that includes leader or leaders, followers, and a common goal they want to achieve.  In its simplest form, leadership is the social interaction of a leader and his/her followers collaborating towards shared goals.  The basic view of leadership places limitations on leadership theory and practice.

The DAC is the essential elements for leadership to take place and sees leadership as shared and distributed.  The tripod on the other hand is more focused on interaction between leader and follower.  It relies heavily on what happens within the tripod and the influence taking place between leader and follower. 

Rather than focusing on this interaction & influence, the DAC framework focuses on being more pragmatic or outcome oriented.  Context and leadership situation is also not considered with the tripod, whereas DAC looks at the outcome of beliefs from this context. 

One of the biggest differences between the tripod and DAC framework is that it does not mention leader or followers.  Direction, alignment, and commitment happens when people share work and have ongoing interactions that create culture and beliefs.  DAC involves shared leadership and identifies the team as a key source of influence. The outcome of leadership in the tripod is the attainment of shared goals while the outcome of leadership in the DAC framework is DAC.

"Direction, alignment, and commitment happens when people share work and have ongoing interactions that create culture and beliefs."

 One of the assumptions that the DAC framework makes is that individuals hold beliefs about how to produce direction, alignment, and commitment.  This is a key concept of the framework because beliefs are upheld by other beliefs.  Again, DAC looks at shared leadership as another key concept but also looks at culture, belief, and practices.  Influence therefore is not just happening from leader to follower but instead takes place in a web throughout the collective group.  I put together figure 1.2 to demonstrate how I see the framework.

 How we interact as leaders and followers is largely determined by our underlining beliefs and desires.  The DAC framework explains why when teams lack managers, or the boss is out, work still gets done and the team still works towards a collective goal.  I think if we are solely looking at the interactions we have between leaders and followers we miss the underlying reasons

 Every organization has its own culture, every team has its own sub-culture, and every individual brings with them their own views and beliefs.  If we neglect these elements when looking at leadership, we miss the foundation in which leadership is allowed to happen.  Before I hadn’t truly considered beliefs to be part of the leader-follower process. When I think of leadership, I think mainly of one influence another (in a positive way) and sets a clear direction for that follower to Leadership is a process that happens because of our social interactions and the values and belief system we bring to those interactions. 

Leadership is a process that happens because of our social interactions and the values and belief system we bring to those interactions. 

  I’ve never resorted to the idea that we should be doing something because someone, a leader, said so. My personality is more collaborative, and my belief is that we can accomplish more together.  In this way I do subscribe to the idea of the tripod ontology but do think there is a middle ground between the tripod and the DAC framework.  We should be considering social interactions between leader and follower but also taking into consideration culture, beliefs, and shared practices.

 The assumption that leaders and followers exist before their interaction I do think is true.  DAC does not assume this, instead this framework looks at the beliefs and assumptions people bring into a group and how those beliefs produce DAC.  I think you need to look at both assumptions to create a complete leadership framework. 

Since we all have existing beliefs and assumptions that means when we become leaders or are looked on as leaders the way we lead is affected by these beliefs. Therefore, when we look at leadership development, we have to consider the fact that we are challenging those beliefs.  Not only that but leadership development involves instilling new beliefs.  When tasked with creating a leadership development program you have to take this into consideration.

References

Bryman, A., Collinson, D., Grint, K., Jackson, B. & Uhl-Bien, M. (2017). The SAGE handbook

of leadership. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Drath, W. H., McCauley, C. D., Palus, C. J., Van Velsor, E., O’Connor, P. M. G., & McGuire, J.

B. (2008). Direction, alignment, commitment: Toward a more integrative ontology of leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 19(6), 635–653. https://doi-org.ezproxy.bellevue.edu/10.1016/j.leaqua.2008.09.003. http://ezproxy.bellevue.edu/login?auth=bb&url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=35203690&site=eds-live