Chapter 6: Implications and Applications for Those Who Aspire to Influence

In addition to their value for understanding the dynamics of change and change leadership, the concepts of resonance, activation, and cultivation can be extremely helpful in describing, explaining, predicting, and perhaps even controlling leadership dynamics and outcomes in everyday practice. There are, for example, a number of instances where the behaviors of formal and informal leaders – and the subsequent reactions of others – do not work in the way that common sense, or many of the traditional leadership theories as summarized earlier in this volume, seem to suggest they would. In this chapter, we will consider how the concepts of resonance, activation, and cultivation can help students, scholars, and practitioners think through and address these situations. We also consider the ways in which this framework can contribute to the enhancement and improvement of leadership development and education efforts for ourselves and others.