Realizing the potential for leadership in social work

Ongoing racism, structural inequity, dehumanizing institutional bureaucracies, unresponsive service delivery systems, and gaps in services for emerging needs are just some of the pervasive challenges in need of social work leadership. The multidisciplinary nature of social work practice also requires value-based leadership processes on multiple ecological levels to address the challenges inherent within social delivery systems. Social work encourages all social workers to lead these change efforts, but research on front-line social work leadership is lacking. Constructionist conceptualizations of leadership as social influence processes provide a unit of analysis to examine front-line leadership. A secondary analysis of qualitative data examining social work practice that promotes well-being and social justice revealed leadership processes in multiple social work practice settings. Front-line social workers demonstrate three overarching leadership processes in their practice: challenging injustice and changing mindsets, conduit for change, and organizing resources and relationships. Conceptualizing leadership as social influence processes identifies and acknowledges the leadership of front-line social workers, expanding the profession’s capacity to collectively articulate and initiate change with a range of social problems and systemic challenges in organizations and communities