Leadership recent issues

Leadership as Practice: Challenging the Competency Paradigm

Carroll, B., Levy, L., Richmond, D. — 2008-11-12

Competency frameworks, models, instruments and thinking have long been ingrained and utilized in management and organizational life. Not surprisingly they have been transplanted both swiftly and seemingly easily into the leadership domain. While there certainly have been discomfort and critique from academic and practitioner sources, nothing has emerged strongly enough to date that would provide an alternative mode of framing and translating both leadership and leadership development in the different contexts that seek to make it visible. In this article, consequently, we submit leadership and its development to the `practice turn' to enable a radically different perspective from a competency orientated one. The ontology, epistemology and methodologies of practice are examined and translated to the leadership field. We argue that a focus on praxis, practitioner and practice offers both challenge and transformation to the ways that leadership is bounded and constrained by current organizational and managerial conventions.

Negotiating Gender Role Expectations: Rhetorical Leadership and Women in the US Senate

Bligh, M. C., Kohles, J. C. — 2008-11-12

The historical paucity of US women senators has provided little opportunity to study women at one of the highest and most prestigious leadership levels. Through a content analysis of 12 months of public discourse in a variety of media, we explore the rhetorical leadership of women senators as they carry out their elected roles. Results indicate that women senators use significantly less aggressive and more ambivalent speech when compared to political norms, and are less likely to use terms denoting accomplishment, praise and human interest. Overall, our results suggest that women continue to feel the effects of gender stereotypes and expectations in higher levels of political office, and these effects may have important negative implications for perceptions of their leadership and effectiveness.

What Are We Measuring? Convergence of Leadership with Interpersonal and Non-interpersonal Personality

de Vries, R. E. — 2008-11-12

Since leadership styles have been most commonly defined in terms of interpersonal influence, one would assume that they have their main projections on the interpersonal circumplex. In this study, the relations between leadership styles from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire and both interpersonal and HEXACO personality scales are investigated. As expected, charismatic leadership and leader's consideration have strong projections on the interpersonal circumplex, with main projections on the warm-agreeable octant. Transactional leadership, passive leadership, and task-oriented leadership have considerably weaker or no projections on the circumplex. Leader's consideration is most strongly related to interpersonal personality while both transactional and passive leadership are most strongly related to non-interpersonal personality. It is concluded that especially charismatic leadership and leader's consideration are captured almost fully by the HEXACO personality inventory.

Ethical Integrity in Leadership and Organizational Moral Culture

Thoms, J. C. — 2008-11-12

Ethical integrity and moral culture are defined, and ethical integrity in leadership, ethical dilemmas and failures, and organizational moral culture are examined. These views are measured against a number of case studies to determine whether there are linkages between organizational moral culture and the ethical or unethical integrity of leadership. A number of conclusions are drawn from the case studies. There appears to be a direct link between ethical leadership and organizational moral culture, although in some cases, considerable time may be needed to change the moral culture of an organization. Shareholders and the public appreciate and reward organizations with high ethical principles and moral culture whereas regulators are increasingly taking legal action against companies which flout share-holders' and the public's trust. The article questions whether codes of conduct, regular performance and audit reviews or other mechanisms to maintain ethics inhibit employees' right to moral autonomy. Finally, it is noted that inconsistencies exist in correlating private standards and behaviour as important predictors or determinants of ethical business conduct.

Inter-leadership: Why and How Should We Think of Leadership and Followership Integrally?

Kupers, W., Weibler, J. — 2008-11-12

This article raises questions about and provides meta-paradigmatic perspectives on an integral understanding of leadership. In view of the various shortcomings of conventional leadership discourse, an integral orientation considers that leadership research demands a comprehensive framework and multi-level approach suited for investigating the complex, interrelated processes involved. Correspondingly, the outlined integral framework of leadership covers the interdependent subjective, intersubjective and objective dimensions of leaders and leadership. Furthermore, developmental levels and lines — classified in a dynamic cycle — open up a processual understanding of leadership. Finally, theoretical and methodological implications are discussed and some avenues for future research and perspectives of integral leadership presented.

Book Review: Mary Jo Hatch, Monika Kostera and Andrzej K. Kozminski, The Three Faces of Leadership: Manager, Artist, Priest. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 169 pp. ISBN 978--1--40--512259--7 (hbk), 978--1--40--512260--3 (pbk)

Jepson, D. — 2008-11-12

Book Review: Graham Haydon, Values for Educational Leadership. London: SAGE, 2007. 116 pp. ISBN 978--1--41293--467--1 (hbk), 978--1--41293--468--8 (pbk)

Betts, J. — 2008-11-12

Guest Editorial: Communication and Leadership: An Open Invitation to Engage

Tourish, D., Jackson, B. — 2008-07-25

Living Leadership: A Systemic Constructionist Approach

Barge, J. K., Fairhurst, G. T. — 2008-07-25

This article offers a practical theory of leadership grounded in systemic thinking and social constructionism. A systemic constructionist approach conceptualizes leadership as a co-created, performative, attributional, and contextual process where the ideas articulated in talk or action are recognized by others as progressing tasks that are important to them. Using a systemic constructionist framework, we argue that leadership theory and research needs to give attention to three important discursive practices: (1) sensemaking, (2) positioning, and (3) play. The implications for theory, research, and practice from a systemic constructionist perspective are highlighted.

Existential Communication and Leadership

Ashman, I., Lawler, J. — 2008-07-25

The aim of this article is to introduce and explain a number of important existentialist philosophers and concepts that we believe can contribute to a critical approach to leadership theory. Emphasis is placed on understanding the nature of communication from an existentialist perspective and so Jaspers' conceptualization of existential communication is introduced along with important related concepts that may be regarded as important facets of leader communication including Being-in-the-world, the Other, intersubjectivity, dialogue and indirect communication. Particular attention is paid to Buber's ideas on communication as relationship and dialogue. Throughout, reference is made to contemporary, and what is often regarded as orthodox, thinking regarding the centrality of communication to leadership practice as a means by which to highlight the salience of an existentialist analysis.

Managing the Meaning of Leadership: Leadership as 'Communicating Intent' in Wildland Firefighting

Ziegler, J. A., DeGrosky, M. T. — 2008-07-25

Leadership studies and communication studies increasingly overlap in the emergence of the post-industrial leadership paradigm. This study calls attention to how different underlying models of communication in leadership theorizing and program implementation in organizations may cause otherwise progressive theories to be falsely rejected before realizing their emancipatory potential. We analyze a leadership initiative in wildland firefighting, inspired by the German military philosophy of Auftragstaktik, which recommends communicating `leader's intent'. We show how talk about communication in the organization and talk about the theory may diverge. Adapting the language of metadiscourse theory, we explore alternate communication models to expand the practical metadiscourse of communication to better align it with the theoretical metadiscourse of leadership it purports to actualize.

Surviving in a Man's World with a Sense of Humour: An Analysis of Women Leaders' Use of Humour at Work

Schnurr, S. — 2008-07-25

Communication not only constitutes one of the crucial aspects of leadership performance, but leadership can productively be viewed as a communication process. Humour is one of the prime means which enables leaders to achieve their various transactional as well as relational objectives. This article aims at exploring some of the ways in which women leaders make use of this particularly versatile discursive strategy in order to enhance their leadership performance while also resolving the challenges of being the `odd girls out' in a predominantly masculine work environment. Drawing on authentic discourse data collected in two New Zealand organizations, and pursuing a discourse-analytical approach, this article illustrates that women leaders skilfully employ humour to portray themselves as effective leaders while at the same time negotiating and performing their gender identities in a masculine domain. Findings also indicate the advantages of a discourse-analytical approach for an assessment of the complexities of the leadership process.

The Relative Importance of Leadership Behaviours in Virtual and Face-to-Face Communication Settings

Zimmermann, P., Wit, A., Gill, R. — 2008-07-25

How does the degree of virtualness in team members' daily work affect the perceived importance of various leadership behaviours in virtual and face-to-face communication settings? A survey of 419 technical engineers working as members of teams at Shell Global Solutions International suggests that, with a few exceptions, most task-oriented as well as relationship-oriented leadership behaviours are considered to be more important in virtual settings than in face-to-face settings. The relative importance of many leadership behaviours increases the higher the degree of virtualness in team members' daily work. Team members working at a very high level of virtualness, however, consider some task-and-relationship-oriented leadership behaviours about equally important in virtual as in face-to-face settings. The applied implications are discussed as well as theoretical questions that need to be answered in future research.

Exploring Co-leadership Talk Through Interactional Sociolinguistics

Vine, B., Holmes, J., Marra, M., Pfeifer, D., Jackson, B. — 2008-07-25

This article seeks to bring to the fore the processes by which leaders co-create leadership through collective talk within the workplace. Co-leadership has recently been recognized as an important aspect of leadership practice, especially at the top of organizations, yet it remains under-theorized and empirically under-explored. Guided by the desire to integrate concepts that have emerged from leadership psychology with discursive leadership approaches, this exploratory empirical study applies a specific form of discourse analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, to three different organizational contexts. Because interactional sociolinguistics focuses on the ways in which relationships are seen to be negotiated and maintained through talk, it is well placed to analyse leadership, a relational process involving leaders and followers that is predicated on asymmetrical power relations. The analysis demonstrates how successful co-leaders cooperate, dynamically shifting roles and integrating their leadership performance to encompass task-related and maintenance-related functions of leadership.

Erratum

2008-05-20

Full-range Classroom Leadership: Implications for the Cross-organizational and Cross-cultural Applicability of the Transformational-transactional Paradigm

Pounder, J. S. — 2008-05-20

This study examined the applicability of the full-range leadership model to an unusual organizational setting, namely a university classroom. As the study took place in Hong Kong, it also considered the relevance of full-range leadership to an Asian rather than a western context. A classroom leadership instrument was developed and tested in the business school of one of the Hong Kong universities. The Hong Kong findings lent support to the argument that the full-range leadership paradigm is applicable across organizations and cultures. Limitations and scope for further study are discussed.

A Path Analysis of Community Leadership within Viable Rural Communities in Florida

Ricketts, K.G., Ladewig, H. — 2008-05-20

The article considers the issue of leadership within rural communities, and how sense of community and social capital work with leadership to encourage change. Drawing on the research of leadership through a comparative case study undertaken in two viable Florida communities, we examine the relationships and effects among the aforementioned variables. Using path analysis, results indicated only community empowerment and building social capital through trust had a direct effect on a community's openness to change. Conclusions illustrated leadership importance at the community level. Effective community leaders assisted in developing important relationships, establishing communication and imparting community direction, thereby providing the needed link between variables. Implications suggest a unique type of community leadership training is needed as well as further research focusing on leadership, change and development.

Learning from Leading Women's Experience: Towards a Sociological Understanding

Elliott, C., Stead, V. — 2008-05-20

Conceptions of leadership draw largely on the leadership experiences of a limited population, and of those in a restricted range of organizational settings. This article begins to address some of these biases by examining the experiences of six leading women in differing sectors. In researching the `how' of leadership there emerges a web of four inter-related factors that connects these leaders to their community and that plays a foundational role in their lives: upbringing, environment, focus and networks and alliances. The ways in which leadership is experienced and constructed by women, the article therefore argues, can be made more sense of through a sociological lens, and raises questions about how tendencies in research sites lead to gendered and individualistic understandings of leadership. In illuminating the need to make the distinction between representations of leadership and our experience of leadership, the article concludes that leadership is not just about leading people, but is often pioneering and can include the leadership of ideas, communities, and the representation of issues.

Making Sense of Leadership in Norway: The View from Management Consultants

Espedal, B. — 2008-05-20

The current article addresses how management consultants come to believe that some leaders will do well in the future. The findings from a study of Norwegian management consultants show that the way these professionals arrive at their beliefs depends on their seeing, liking, and trusting. The article suggests that what management consultants come to believe is important, because their beliefs and understanding may affect how leaders define their roles and identities, how we come to trust leaders, and how we legitimize leadership. Thus, management consultants are important sensemakers in the discussion about leadership. However, their sensemaking was path dependent, and they did not critically inquire into their own beliefs, thinking, and understanding.

The Psychoanalytic Relationship between Leaders and Followers

Cluley, R. — 2008-05-20

In this article I shall argue that contemporary leadership theories and managerial techniques require the separation of individual and social psychologies. We shall establish a Freudian critique of this separation. According to Freud all psychology is primarily social. We shall see that the concept of psychological individuality, represented in Freud's concept of narcissism, is most accurately conceived as a product of the social connections within groups rather than the foundation of leadership. Consequently we shall see how the narcissism of leadership is both a useful mechanism to secure strong group relations and also a precipitating cause in the termination of groups.

Book Review: Alisa Gaunder, Political Reform in Japan: Leadership Looming Large. Milton Park: Routledge, 2007

Hoogenboezem, J. — 2008-05-20

`It's All About Me!': Gendered Narcissism and Leaders' Identity Work

Pullen, A., Rhodes, C. — 2008-02-08

This article develops and illustrates a gendered theorization of narcissism as it relates to the self-identity of leaders in organizations. While the value of existing theories of leadership and narcissism are acknowledged, it is noted that they treat narcissism in an implicitly masculine fashion. In so doing they limit narcissistic leadership identity to relatively aggressive, self-oriented, and domineering forms. To develop a more thorough and nuanced appreciation of the implications of narcissism for leaders' identity work, the article articulates a gendered perspective on narcissism that accounts for forms of leadership that are self-focused but not necessarily traditionally masculine. Four types of leadership narcissism are identified and illustrated: the bully, the star performer, the servant, and the victim. While each of these forms is narcissistic in that identity is associated with the defence of a grandiose self-image (ego ideal) through the admiration of others and the love of the self, they achieve this in markedly different, and gendered, ways. The article concludes by arguing how a gendered reading of narcissism and leadership provides a richer understanding of the narcissistic behaviours of men and women in contemporary organizations.

An Unseen Hand: The Role of Sociology Professor Ernst Borinski in Mississippi's Struggle for Racial Integration in the 1950s and 1960s

Lowe, M. — 2008-02-08

Based on archival and interview research, the current article examines the leadership roles of Tougaloo College's Sociology Professor Ernst Borinski, a German-Jewish Holocaust refugee, in Mississippi's racial integration struggles in the 1950s and 1960s. Embodying characteristics of both a bridge leader and a transformative intellectual, Professor Borinski worked behind the scenes and utilized the academy's resources and his status as an `outsider' to contribute to undermining Mississippi's racial status quo. As a bridge leader, Dr Borinski directly linked black and white groups together so that they could regularly meet, talk with one another, and develop critiques of racial segregation. As a transformative intellectual, Professor Borinski ensured that students understood their constitutional rights as American citizens and supported students and colleagues who were involved in the Mississippi civil rights movement. These two interlocking leadership roles encapsulate the contributions of Ernst Borinski to Mississippi's development from a `closed society' to a more racially integrated state.

Reluctant Leaders: An Analysis of Middle Managers' Perceptions of Leadership in Further Education in England

Gleeson, D., Knights, D. — 2008-02-08

The research that forms the basis for this article draws attention to a group of middle managers who are reluctant to become leaders because they seek more space and autonomy to stay in touch with their subject, their students, and their own pedagogic values and identities, family commitments and the balance between work and life. This reluctance is reinforced by their scepticism that leadership in Further Education (FE) is becoming less hierarchical and more participative. In a sector that has had more than its fair share of reformist intervention, there is some scepticism of the latest fad of distributed and transformative leadership as a new panacea to cure all the accumulated `ills'of Further Education in England. Although focused primarily on this one sector in an English context, the article draws some inferences where there are parallels with wider sectors of public sector reform and where the uneasy (and incomplete) transitions from `old' to `new' public management have been underpinned by invasive audit, inspection and performance cultures.

Extracting Leadership Knowledge from Formative Experiences

Janson, A. — 2008-02-08

Leadership formative experiences (LFEs) are those experiences that make a high impact on leaders resulting in learning relevant to their leadership. This intervention was designed to capture LFEs through bi-focal lenses of leadership research (explore the process by which leaders build and share knowledge) and development (raise participants' awareness of self and others to shape effective leadership interventions). Senior leaders participating on a leadership development programme recounted LFEs in peer groups to surface their learning. Most LFEs occurred in adulthood (76%) identifying `self-improvement' (40%), `coping with struggle'(33%), `personal relationship/role model' (13%) and `parental/symbolic relationship' (5%) sensemaking categories. Only 8 per cent addressed a `natural process'supporting a `born leader' view and 1 per cent involved identification with a cause. Experiences powered `from within' in pursuit of self-development were more effective in extracting lessons from LFEs than where learning occurred through coping with adversity. The research details LFE impact located in the social construction process embedded in micro-interactions of leaders with those they help develop.

Can Simon's Notion of `Bounded Rationality' Give Us New Ideas About Leadership?

Spender, J.C. — 2008-02-08