Relational Leadership: Theory, Practice and Development 2017043032, 9781138659100, 9781138659117, 9781315620435

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RELATIONAL LEADERSHIP

The traditional idea of leadership as being about the solo, heroic leader has now run its course. A new way of thinking about leadership is now needed to address major challenges such as achieving greater social responsibility, enhancing leadership capacity and recognising the importance of context as affecting how leadership occurs. Relational leadership offers a new perspective of leadership that addresses these challenges. At its core, relational leadership recognises leadership as centred in the relationships that form between both formal and informal leaders and those that follow them, far more so than the personality or behaviours of individual leaders. This book introduces readers to the most up-​to-​date research in this area and the differing theoretical perspectives that can help us better understand leadership as a relational phenomenon. Important characteristics of effective leadership relationships such as trust, respect and mutuality are discussed, focusing on how they develop and how they bring about leadership effects. Specific forms of relational leadership such as shared leadership, responsible leadership, global team leadership and complexity leadership are addressed in subsequent chapters. The book is the first to examine recent ideas about how these new forms of relational leadership are put into practice as well as techniques, tools and strategies available to organisations to help do so. The inclusion of three detailed case studies is specifically designed to help readers understand many of the key concepts covered in the book, with key learning points emphasised. The book offers an excellent summary of the stateof-the-art topics in this new and exciting field of relational leadership. Nicholas Clarke is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at EADA Business School, Spain. He teaches and researches in the fields of leadership, learning and development.

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RELATIONAL LEADERSHIP Theory, Practice and Development

Nicholas Clarke

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First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Nicholas Clarke The right of Nicholas Clarke to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Clarke, Nicholas, 1966– author. Title: Relational leadership : theory, practice and development / Nicholas Clarke. Description: 1 Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2017043032 | ISBN 9781138659100 | ISBN 9781138659117 | ISBN 9781315620435 (eISBN) Subjects: LCSH: Leadership. | Interpersonal relations. Classification: LCC HD57.7 .C5415 2018 | DDC 658.4/092–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043032 ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​65910-​0 hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​65911-​7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​315-​62043-​5 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Out of House Publishing

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For Sue, Ron and Alexandra, from whom I learned the importance of relationships.

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CONTENTS

List of figures and tables

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1 Introduction to relational leadership: the challenges of capacity, context and responsibility

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2 Relational leadership from an entity perspective: the relationship as leader–member exchange

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3 Relational leadership from a socio-​constructionist perspective

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4 Respect, trust and mutuality: the sine qua non of relational leadership

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5 Emotional intelligence and relational leadership

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6 Shared leadership

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7 Responsible leadership

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8 Global team leadership

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9 Complexity leadership

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10 Case studies

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References Index

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FIGURES AND TABLES

Figures 1.1 The contextual nature of leadership development (based on Clarke & Higgs, 2016) 2.1 The antecedents and consequences of leader–member exchange (based on Dulebohn, Bommer, Liden, Brouer, & Ferris, 2012) 3.1 The social construction of leadership 3.2 The discursive competence of middle managers (based on Rouleau & Balogun, 2011) 4.1 Suggested antecedents of  three types of respect and their relationship with work outcomes (based on Clarke, 2012) 4.2 The antecedents of  trust in interpersonal relationships (based on Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995) 5.1 Transformational leader behaviour as a mediator between leader emotional intelligence and follower outcomes 5.2 Differences between leader and follower emotional intelligence affects on follower only and dyadic measures of LMX 5.3 How emotional intelligence may develop on the job 6.1 Individual, team and organisational level antecedents of shared leadership 6.2 The big 5 in teamwork facilitate shared leadership through their effects on team learning 7.1 The roles model of responsible leadership (based on Maak & Pless, 2006) 7.2 A sensemaking perspective on a firm’s approach to CSR (based on Basu & Palazzo, 2008)

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7.3 Factors affecting responsible leader behaviour (based on Stahl & Sully de Luque, 2014) 8.1 Global team leadership processes (based on Barner-​Rasmussen, Ehrnrooth, Koveshinikov, & Makela, 2014) 8.2 Developing global team leadership through boundary spanning (based on Ernst & Chobrot-​Mason, 2011) 9.1 Pattern emergence in complex adaptive systems 9.2 Developing complexity leadership (based on Clarke, 2012) 10.1 Recognising and making sense of ethical dilemmas under uncertainty

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Tables 1.1 Contrasts between traditional and relational perspectives of leadership 3.1 A framework for sensemaking episodes (based on Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015) 8.1 Illustrative global leader competences (based on Bird, Mendenhall, Stevens, & Oddou, 2010) 9.1 The key features of a complex adaptive system 10.1 Changes in inter-​connectivity between organisations following transorganisation development intervention

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1 INTRODUCTION TO RELATIONAL LEADERSHIP The challenges of capacity, context and responsibility

Globalisation and significant advances in technology have combined to place limits on the mechanistic organisation, and the associated notions of rationality that it entailed. Now complexity, dynamism and an increasing recognition of the irrationality of organisational life, have coalesced to place severe strains on traditional notions of leadership that dominated much of our thinking from the early twentieth century. The shift to knowledge economies in many post-​ industrial societies, means that no one employee will be equipped with the full range of skills, capabilities and knowledge to successfully deal with the complex problems now facing organisations. Continuous change and innovation are now seen as pivotal to the success of not only organisations but economies, in this dynamic social, technological and global changing landscape. As organisations are increasingly required to work in partnership with each other and part of complex networks, whether they be supply chains, strategic alliances or other collaborative arrangements, this has placed new entreaties on leadership. It requires new thinking to consider not just what leadership looks like in teams and organisations, but also at the inter-​organisational level too. All this has added far greater levels of complexity to our understanding of leadership. Relational leadership is now considered by many as a far more effective way to organise and implement leadership to respond to the challenges facing twenty-​first-​century organisations. The landscape of relational leadership is expanding. At its core lies the idea that leaders and followers exist in a reciprocal relationship, and it is the relationship itself that constitutes what we refer to as leadership.Traditional theories that have shaped our understanding of leadership all share a common idea. That is, leadership is essentially about what leaders do. In particular, how they act, or should act in order to influence their followers to achieve particular goals. Consequently, there is a

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huge body of research that has examined the characteristics of leaders, the types of behaviours or styles they adopt, and how these affect followers. Relational leadership takes an altogether different approach. First, it challenges the very notion that leadership should be seen as a property of single individuals –​generally, those we tend to view as leaders due to their holding formal leader positions. Some of the major contrasting factors between traditional and relational perspectives of leadership are shown in Table 1.1. A chief characteristic of relational leadership is that the focus is by and large, on how leadership emerges as a dynamic process. Rather than thinking about leadership as primarily to do with the characteristics or behaviours specific leaders show, it is better considered as a process; a consequence of the interactions between organisational actors, that is influenced by the context in which these interactions take place. This has a number of consequences for understanding what leadership is. The first, is that leadership is a social process that occurs between people. To focus merely on the characteristics of leaders or what they do is therefore fundamentally flawed or reductionist, since it says little about the role of followers in how leadership is both created and enacted. Second, since leadership is a social process, then fundamentally leadership must if anything be about the nature of relationships between leaders and those that follow or who are influenced by them. Third, since relationships between people are by their nature dynamic, evolving and influenced by the context in which they occur, then one can assume that the nature of leadership (and its effectiveness) is likely to be more akin to a dynamic process, which may or may not take place (or emerge) depending upon these local, ‘in situ’ factors. This refers to the specific context surrounding the interpersonal

TAB LE 1.1   Contrasts between traditional and relational perspectives

of leadership Aspect

Traditional Perspective of Leadership

Relational Perspective On Leadership

Source of Leadership Locus of Leadership Focus of Perspective Leadership Occurs through Influence Role of Followers Organisational Environment Organisational Structure Leadership Effects Leadership Goals Leadership Perspective

Hierarchy and Position Formal and Planned Individual Behaviour/​Personality

Knowledge Self-​Organising and Emergent Social and Collective Relationships

Top Down Neglected Stable

Bottom Up and Mutual Central Complex and Dynamic

Bureaucratic and Mechanistic Universalist Rational and Planned Entity

Organic and Networked Contextual Ambiguous and Processual Entity and Social Constructionist

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Introduction to relational leadership  3

space that exists when they are together. Followers thus take on a far more active role in the leadership process than has traditionally been the case. A major aspect of relational leadership, then, is that it recognises that leadership emerges partially because followers interpret themselves as having a leadership relationship with a leader. From this perspective, how followers perceive leadership or their social constructions of leadership, have a direct input and influence on the leadership relationship. At its heart then, relational leadership shifts the emphasis away from understanding leadership as just about individual actors, towards viewing leadership as a much broader social phenomenon. In short, it is the relationship between actors that constitutes what we refer to as leadership.

Why do we need a new way of thinking about leadership? There are many ways of thinking about leadership, and therefore many alternative theories that each seek to explain what the phenomenon of leadership actually is. Early ideas have included trait theory, which sees leadership as essentially arising from the characteristics or personality an effective leader should possess; leadership as a behavioural category, which has viewed effective leadership as consisting of a combination of task-​related and person-​centred behaviours; and style theories, which have perceived effective leadership as a matter of alternative leadership styles (such as authoritative or democratic). Latterly, more emotionally centred leadership theories, such as transformational leadership, have occupied significant interest by both academics and practitioners alike. What all these theories share is a perception of leadership as a hierarchical top-​down activity, located in a particular individual, mostly occupying a formal managerial role. They also have virtually ignored the role of followers as being part of the leadership equation. Followers have instead, tended to be treated as passive recipients of leader influence. These traditional ways of thinking about leadership are termed ‘leader-​ centric’. This notion of leadership as a top-​down influence process is very much suited to bureaucratic organisational structures, which by their nature require layers of hierarchy in order to control how work is performed. With the demise of bureaucracy and shift towards flatter organisational structures in the 1980s, these leader-​centric ideas of leadership were already beginning to show they were less effective, as companies restructured to organise work more efficiently. Fast forward two decades and the advent of globalisation heralding greater competition, advances in technology connecting business, the shift towards knowledge-​based economies, and changing demands and expectations of those who work in organisations are among many of the reasons commonly cited as to why a new way of thinking about leadership is now needed. Many now share the view that ‘leadership’ is in crisis, unless significant changes are adopted by organisations. This crisis can be summarised in terms of three considerable challenges that a new model of leadership now needs to address. These are the challenges of: (1) leadership capacity; (2) leadership context; and (3) leadership responsibility.

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(1)   The challenge of leadership capacity One of the central ideas in relational leadership –​that leadership is a fluid capacity which emerges in response to the particular challenges that arise –​was highlighted above as a means to capitalise on collective knowledge and skills in the organisation. Leadership is seen as too important for dealing with the complex challenges facing organisations, to see this as a set of tasks that only managers or those in formal leader positions can be expected to deal with successfully. This is put forward as a major advantage of relational leadership. But the importance of this is not just based on arguments relating to the limits of any one individual’s understanding or cognitive capacities for navigating a way through complex business environments. Neither is it based on egalitarian notions that challenge authority or power structures in organisations, traced to Marxist ideas of capital and class. There is instead a more prosaic reality, namely that major demographic changes within Western economies in particular, will see most organisations facing a significant shortage of skilled employees to fill positions, including those at managerial level typically undertaking leadership roles. In the United States, for example, an estimated 77 million baby boomers will leave the labour market and head for retirement this decade. This will create a major recruitment crisis for business with its impact also on management and leadership positions (IMD, 2008; Su, 2007). In the United Kingdom, a recent survey of businesses suggests nine out of ten organisations believe that insufficient management and leadership skills is negatively impacting on their business (Bloomberg, 2016). Whilst the Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2015 report (Deloitte, 2015), similarly highlighted that a shortage of leadership skills was identified by 86 per cent of business leaders they surveyed. This has been a key factor in what has become referred to among HR practitioners as the ‘war on talent’, with a concomitant step change in HR practices that seek to recruit and retain the best qualified from a shrinking global pool. Today, succession planning and talent management now dominate most companies’ lists of key HR priorities (McDonald, 2008). But surveys such as these have been a consistent feature for decades now. Ten years ago, the 1997 US Fortune 500 survey (Black, Morrison, & Gregerson, 1999) similarly bemoaned that 85 per cent of organisations lacked the necessary leadership talent. Whilst over two decades ago, the report A Challenge to Complacency (Coopers & Lybrand, 1985) for the UK government identified similar concerns. Similar reports of this nature can be found from Africa to Asia to Australia, and across the globe (Deloitte, 2015; Goater & Moore, 2016; Roux, 2011). Most continue to argue that the solution to this capacity problem is far greater investment in training and developing the right leadership skills by organisations to ensure a steady flow of leadership talent. This argument suggests the problem is merely one of skill mismatch, particularly among graduates or within first line management levels. So, for example, it is commonplace to hear organisations say they are struggling to find individuals who are creative,

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inspirational and emotionally intelligent. But the speed of change in technology and advances in science, now suggest it is unlikely that organisations will be in a position to plan what future leadership skills they need, beyond a short time horizon. They are therefore always likely to be in a constant state of ‘catch up’, finding themselves having to constantly reconfigure what skill sets are required. The problem of a lack of leadership talent is essentially framed as a lack of talent to fill formal leader roles. Relational leadership recognises that there is a huge reservoir of untapped leadership talent within organisations that is not about the roles and functions of those in managerial positions. It enables an organisation to draw upon skills and strengths from across the organisation, in the pursuit of leadership activities where knowledge is distributed.

(2)   The challenge of context The second major challenge for leadership is the increasing importance now attached to context. Despite the pre-​eminence often afforded to leadership as accounting for organisational success, it remains the case that there are relatively few studies that have offered empirical support for a relationship between leadership and organisational performance (Agle, Nagarajan, Sonnenfeld, & Srinivasan, 2006; Bycio, Hackett, & Allen, 1995; De Hoogh et al., 2004). Few have stopped to ask why this is so. Instead, the way most organisations have tended to think about leadership is heavily influenced by a ‘best practice’ mindset. By this it is meant that good leadership can reasonably be recognised or assessed, and more importantly that what might be thought of as good leadership is by and large, likely to be effective across most circumstances or situations. This is because most of us see leadership as responsible for causing change, i.e. shaping circumstances and context. Indeed shaping change is often highlighted as what differentiates leadership from management. This remains heavily entrenched in our unconscious, as collective ideas about leadership that have been moulded through the iconic notion of the heroic leader.The person who saves a country from crisis or turns around the misfortunes of a business. This is because typical representations of leadership paint it as captured in the qualities and characteristics held by an individual. The idea that leadership, and particularly effective leadership, might be significantly influenced by context does not fit well with this notion of what leadership is thought to be about. But increasingly, research is showing that context has a significant influence on whether particular types or forms of leadership have effects. Consequently, a number of writers have emphasised the importance of placing context at the heart of what might be termed effective leadership (Osborn, Hunt, & Jauch, 2002; Porter & McLaughlin, 2006; Shamir & Howell, 1999). The importance of context to leadership is not new, however. It has roots as far back as the 1960s, when Fiedler proposed his contingency theory of leadership (Fiedler, 1967). In this early contribution, Fiedler posited that the optimum leadership style enacted by a leader depended on the favourability of the situation.

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This was determined by the quality of relations between a leader and followers, the extent to which the task is clear and unambiguous, and the inherent power in a leader’s position. For Fiedler, where the task is unambiguous and both quality of relations and power position are high, then a task-​oriented leadership style is appropriate. However, where the task is ambiguous and both relationship quality and power position are low, then a considerate leadership style is necessary. However, the idea that leadership might be more or less effective depending upon particular situational contingencies was quickly superceded in the 1980s, with the rising popularity of visionary ideas of effective leadership. These placed far greater emphasis on leaders being inspirational and charismatic, as a means to motivate followers to a higher purpose to achieve organisational goals. More recently, the importance of context has resurfaced again within the leadership literature, this time going much further than that initially proposed by Fiedler. For example, Osborn et al. (2002), argue that leadership is ‘embedded in time, in a place and in the collective minds of the observers’ (p805). This suggests effective leadership is not only culturally dependent, but also subject to organisational needs and constraints, as well as changing conditions. Supporting this perspective, have been a number of empirical studies that challenge the universalistic notion of leadership effectiveness. Shim and Steers (2012), undertook a study of Hyundai motor group and Toyota motor corporation, both competitors in the global automotive industry. The authors found that leadership practices were distinctly different, but each suited to the particular organisational and cultural context. They found that Toyota competed by seeking to control and mimimise the impact of a turbulent business environment, through a deliberate planned strategy supported by formal control systems. This suited the stability and predictability of the organisation’s culture. Hyundai by contrast adopted a more emergent strategy. This was better suited to an organisational culture characterised by flexibility, speed and responding to uncertainty. Importantly, the leadership style in each case differed. In the former, the authors characterised ‘steady-​state’ leadership strategies. Here the key leadership role is to develop planning and operating systems that attempt to control unexpected events. In the latter, an ‘entrepreneurial’ leadership strategy emphasised developing a culture to respond to continuous change. The leadership role here is to develop an overarching vision, but enable people and systems to be responsive to the unexpected. There are many other examples of how contextual considerations appear to be significant. Differences have been found in the effectiveness of particular leadership styles in the private and public sectors. This is suggested as a result of differences in the bureaucratisation and politicisation of work in these environments (Fernandez & Rainey, 2006). Elsewhere, directive forms of leadership have been found to be more effective when the organisation is in financial crisis. Whereas transactional leadership styles have been found to occur more frequently where organisations are subject to greater external regulation and accountability (Parry & Proctor-​Thomson, 2003). There is a growing recognition then, that both organisational culture and structure will affect the prevalence and effectiveness of

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particular leadership styles and behaviours (Stordeur, Vandenberghe, & D’hoore, 2000). More recently, Currie & Lockett (2011) argued that the implementation of distributed leadership in health and social care organisations may not be a straightforward matter. Their analysis suggests that policy pressures, particularly around performance management combined with professional power relations, are likely to lead to a fragmented form of distributed leadership. Fragmented in the sense that distributed leadership is more likely to be found within specific professional groups, while remaining more difficult to be enacted across professional groups. Thus, the ways in which power is held and used in organisations is identified as a key factor influencing how and if distributed leadership is effective (Gosling, Bolden, & Petrov, 2009; Woods, 2004). Relational leadership also incorporates the notion of context from an alternative perspective. Writers adopting a social constructionist position do not see context as a static, environmental influence which affects notions of what might be thought of as effective leadership. Context in this latter case is criticised as simply being relegated to that of a moderator (e.g, a variable that depending on whether high or low influences leadership effects). Context is instead seen as fluid, dynamic and evolving. Moreover, it is through the interactions between social actors that the context is continually reproduced. From this perspective, context can only be known as it occurs in the temporal space as social actors come together. Furthermore, it is through their social interactions that new meanings of what is happening around them are generated (Fairhurst, 2008; Grint, 2005). Grint (2005), uses the example of leaders’ decision-​making to illustrate that leaders could view a particular problem in at least three ways. The first, described as a tame problem, is the type of problem leaders have faced before and can be easily resolved through previous experience. The second, referred to as a wicked problem, has far more uncertainty, complexity and is one which has not been faced by the leader previously. The third, he refers to as a critical problem, requiring immediate action and an urgent solution. In each instance, the characteristics and experience of the leader alongside the characteristics and experiences of followers, significantly influence how sense is made of the problem and how they negotiate a solution. Leadership thus evolves in each specific context, and is dependent upon how those involved make sense of the situation. This is influenced by the organisation’s culture and history and how it expects things to be dealt with; but also by the way those involved see things, their perspectives on how things should be done and their expectations of how people should behave. One of the more significant contributions to help us understand this has been from implicit leadership theory. This argues that individuals possess their own mental representations or schema of what they believe denotes leadership (Lord, Foti, & de Vader, 1984; Lord & Maher, 1993). These prototypes become activated in leader–follower interactions, and shape the expectations individuals bring to their understanding of who is an effective leader or what is effective leadership behaviour. Although shaped by much broader social and cultural norms

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and values, and historical experiences of leadership, the organisation’s culture can also influence shared conceptualisations or mental representations of what is effective leadership through socialisation processes. Through these processes collective implicit leadership theories can develop (Hall & Lord, 1995; Ritter & Lord, 2007). Organisations thus facing crisis, major uncertainty or ambiguity, are said to offer an opportunity to examine the collective schemas or ideas as to what type of leadership is needed and challenge underlying assumptions about what is effective (Balogun & Johnson, 2004; Probert & Turnbull James, 2011). In this sense, the context of leadership is itself constructed through the actors involved and is a dynamic process. This question of context also becomes important when considering leadership development. Similar to the literature on leadership, the failure to address contextual issues in leadership development has also resulted in a number of criticisms (Hollenbeck, McCall, & Silzer, 2006; Probert & Turnbull James, 2011). Most leadership development remains extensively based on an individualistic model. This fails to differentiate between leadership as opposed to leader development. Bass (1990), for example, stated that increasing supervisors’ human relationship knowledge and skills was a basic goal of leadership training. Conger (1992), also suggested that leadership development should aim to enhance personal growth, develop conceptual understanding, provide feedback on current competences and offer opportunities for skill building. Much leadership development therefore is still overwhelmingly dominated by a focus on the individual leader. This is exemplified by the role of competencies as the basis for much of the activities associated with leadership development, despite there being no shortage of criticisms of the competence-​based approach (Hollenbeck et al., 2006). Not least, that competences suggest that leadership behaviours deemed effective can be standardised, universalised and prescribed irrespective of the context in which leadership is enacted. However, more recently a study of ten leadership academies from different business sectors in the UK (including healthcare, police, cultural industries, telecommunications, risk management) responsible for providing leadership development, suggested that more nuanced forms of leadership development were being pursued. This was in response to the particular strategic contexts affecting the organisations in these business sectors (Clarke & Higgs, 2016). The study found that the goals of leadership training and development differed between these leadership academies. For example, particular business sectors (e.g. police service, telecommunications) that were faced with considerable change and attempting to shift their organisational cultures, adopted transformational leadership as their dominant leadership philosophy. By contrast, public sector organisations in local government and healthcare, were adopting more relational (distributed and/​or complexity) leadership approaches to underpin their leadership development. This was in response to having to work across organisational boundaries in attempts to achieve more widespread community-​level change, in either health

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LTD GOALS

Individual Team Organisation Community

STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY

FIGURE 1.1  The

contextual nature of leadership development (based on Clarke &

Higgs, 2016)

or social improvement. The strategic business context thus affected decisions regarding the specific goals of leadership training and development, as well as the particular leadership philosophy that underpinned the subsequent activities that were delivered. These in turn influenced the level (i.e. individual, organisational, sectoral or community) at which leadership development was expected to impact (see Figure 1.1).  This would suggest that some organisations at least, are beginning to move towards more relational ideas of leadership in response to their specific business goals and context.

(3)   The challenge of responsibility The final major challenge relates to responsibility.There is a widespread consensus that there exists a crisis of confidence and trust in business (Kochan, 2002; Walker, 2005). This has been fuelled by corporate scandals, ongoing concerns of corruption and unethical business practices, as well as broader social and environmental concerns as a result of globalisation and climate change.The US Centre for Public Leadership survey of public confidence in leadership in 2012 for example, found that 69 per cent of Americans believed that the country had a leadership crisis, with Congress receiving the least amount of confidence compared to all sectors (including Wall Street).Trust in business is suggested to continue to be at low levels in Europe and the USA, with considerable disparities emerging between those better educated and those considered to be bearing the negative consequences of globalisation (Edelman, 2016).These factors have combined to make us look again at the models of leadership found in business, starting with a focus on what caused the global financial crisis. Some have traced its roots to the deregulation of financial markets in the USA and UK in the 1980s. This increased competition and opened up global markets,

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alongside the light financial regulatory bodies that were introduced in their wake. A significant issue that emerged was the reduction in the level of non-​interest bearing reserves permitted to be held by banks. This led to banks extending loans and borrowing beyond bank liquidity, coupled with the trading of debts between financial institutions as a means to share risk. These actions themselves could be thought of as ethically suspect. Yet this led to an explosion in credit that, once defaults on debts mounted, became unsustainable and exposed the serious undercapitalisation of banks across the globe. This started in the USA with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the chief result of which was a number of financial institutions going into administration. While others required huge bailouts from taxpayers in order to stem a complete meltdown in the financial markets (Kates, 2011). The ‘credit crunch’, and the global financial crisis that followed, has had a considerable impact on ordinary people’s lives since. The scale of the bailouts required has been estimated at around £1.2 trillion in the United Kingdom (Curtis, 2011) and US$9.7 trillion in the United States (Lee, 2009). This underscores the gravity of the consequences that followed. Within this maelstrom, the neglect of bankers to properly assess risk, driven instead by their own narrow self-​interest, has emerged as perhaps one of the most palpable examples of irresponsible leadership. Fraud too, is a major concern.The fraud committed by top managers and executives can have serious consequences not just for companies and their employees, but for wider society and citizens. There exist countless examples of major companies where fraudulent actions have contributed to low levels of trust in business leadership. Companies such as Enron, Lehman Brothers and Fannie Mae in the United States, have been cited as examples where corporate, unfettered greed led to disastrous consequences for investors and employees, and serious concerns being raised about corporate governance. A number of analyses have sought to explain this deviant behaviour.These have ranged from a focus on individual personalities, values and ambitions, to understanding how industrial and organisational-​level pressures contribute to the conditions where fraud may be more or less likely to happen or condoned (Zahra, Priem, & Rasheed, 2005). For example, companies in industries operating in more competitive or dynamic business environments, often require increased specialisation of key staff with considerable autonomy.This offers greater opportunity both to commit and conceal fraud. At the organisational level, HR practices tied to the company’s short-​term performance horizons can influence managers attempting to maximise gain through manipulating financial performance indicators. Much of the literature, however, has focused on the role of senior leadership, particularly the CEO of the organisation as the chief influence on establishing the ethical culture of an organisation. The consequence of this has been a focus not on the morality of an unfettered form of capitalism, but on the ethical principles and values guiding leader behaviour (Lewis, Kay, Kelso, & Larson, 2010). Virtue ethics is often applied to judge the moral behaviour of leaders. The essence of which is that ‘good’ people make ‘good’ moral choices (Johnson, 2001).

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The focus on leader virtues is rooted in the notion that senior managers act as role models for other employees in the organisation. In so doing they shape the ethical climate through their behaviour and communications (Simms & Brinkmann, 2002). However, a number of writers have pointed out the flaws and dangers of placing the responsibility for organisations to act ethically in the hands of senior managers and CEOs. For some, there are serious philosophical questions raised regarding the nature of ethics if it is reduced to something imposed by senior executives on others, irrespective of whether it is well-​intentioned. This does nothing more than reify the notion of the leader as a hero, best placed to safeguard the morality of the organisation and by extension those within it.Yet, countless examples exist where leaders have failed abjectly in doing so (Roberts, 2001). For Wray-​ Bliss (2013) this is not merely a question of whether leaders are necessarily good or bad, but addresses more fundamental questions regarding the suppliant roles followers must adopt when leaders are characterised as the guardians of moral virtue. He argues that this privileges the idea that ‘ethics has been understood as that which is undertaken by autonomous subjects, based not on their personal, sentimental or intimate relationships with others, but on moral reasoning and rationally arrived at principle’ (p91). Following this line of thinking, many suggest that the traditional leadership model that sees the heroic leader as able to control and predict the future and charged with moral character, is now a flawed representation of leadership. Moreover, that it is precisely this model of leadership that may have contributed to the global financial crisis (Knights & McCabe, 2015). Indeed, fraudulent behaviour is neither the only nor for many the most significant ethical problem. Following the deregulation of commodity funds, concerns continue to be raised regarding the speculation on food staples (coffee, sugar, wheat, maize and other cereals) that has resulted in pushing up the price of basic foods. Many argue that this speculation has a devastating effect on fuelling hunger in developing countries (Inman, 2011). The exploitation of child labour by business is also a major and continuing concern. In 2000, Adidas was accused in the European Parliament of failing to protect children from being exploited as child labour, working in garment manufacturers in Indonesia for up to 15 hours a day. In 2014, a number of major clothing retailers such as Nike and GAP were involved in allegations that employees in their supply chain were working in sweatshop conditions in Bangladesh. More recently, in 2016, the human rights group Amnesty suggested children were working in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It accused a number of electronics companies including Apple, Samsung and Sony, of neglecting to check whether child labour was being used as part of their supply chain in the manufacture of lithium batteries. This is taking place in the context where the gap in remuneration between those at the top of the organisation and average earnings shows no signs of abating. According to Flanaghan (2003), the hourly wage of the average CEO in the United States was 42 times higher compared to that of the average worker in 1980, but had increased to 531 times higher in 2000.

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Relational leadership is important because it shifts our attention away from considering the chief influence on ethical behaviour in organisations as being merely about the role of ‘ethical’ leaders. Instead to thinking about ethical behaviour arising out of the nature of relationships that exist between leaders and followers. Furthermore, it requires us to think beyond individual agency, to consider the organisational structures and processes within which leadership is embedded, from which ethical behaviour arises. Responsible leadership is a form of relational leadership that seeks to address many of the limitations of the ‘heroic leader’ model to address the ethical issues facing organisations today. With increasing numbers of companies signing up to the ten principles of the United Nations Global Compact –​addressing the role of business in respecting human rights, employment protection, anti-​corruption and responsibilities for the environment (Rasche & Kell, 2010) –​a more relational form of leadership is considered to be a far more effective leadership model. It specifically seeks to respond to the crisis of legitimacy in business and calls for a new social contract between business and society. It attempts to rebuild trust (DiPiazza & Eccles, 2002). It extends beyond just addressing fraudulent and irresponsible financial conduct, but seeks to address social responsibility concerns more broadly. In summary then, relational leadership is an umbrella term that refers to a collection of leadership theories and perspectives. Together they share a set of core common assumptions about the nature of leadership. These are that (1) many individuals may be required to exercise leadership irrespective of whether they occupy formal leader roles or not; (2) that leadership should be seen more as a potential capacity in organisations, rather than simply the sum of recognised ‘leaders’; and (3) that leadership, first and foremost, takes place or is enacted through relationships and networks of relationships. When leadership is viewed in this way, as occurring through networks of relationships, then this also has far greater affinity with our increasing understanding of how learning and knowledge is generated in organisations. This notion of leadership challenges the way many of us have typically thought what leadership means. But this challenge is by no means greater than the challenges of capacity, context and crisis previously described.These challenges now require leadership to evolve in order to respond. Relational leadership and the range of theories which are included within it, are an attempt to do just that.

About this book Although relational leadership can be thought of as a relatively more recent perspective on leadership, many of the ideas it puts forward can be traced to a number of authors writing about leadership some time ago. These share a common view, that leadership is a process rather than a set of behaviours. As early as 1924 Follett considered leadership as deriving from the interactions between individuals in organisations, and that these were constantly being created and changing over time. Later, Hollander and Julian (1969) argued that leadership

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Introduction to relational leadership  13

was an interactive and dynamic process and the property of a group rather than an individual. This has given rise to one of the dominant perspectives in relational leadership, which places relational dynamics at its centre. It is through these dynamics that leadership emerges and produces its effects. Put more simply, the effects of leadership are due to the nature and character of the relationship that exists between leaders and followers. This is sometimes referred to as an entity perspective, in that the relationship can be viewed as arising from the cognitions, emotions and perceptions that independent individuals develop about a particular relationship. Later, however, Hosking (1988) introduced an alternative perspective on relational leadership. In her view, relational leadership arises when leadership is constructed and negotiated through the interactions between people (leaders and their followers). In order to understand these alternative perspectives, it is useful to understand some key points (and assumptions) about how individuals who write from either perspective tend to see the world.To begin with, there exist fairly profound philosophical differences among scholars who study relational leadership. These rehearse fairly well-​established contested notions of how knowledge should be understood and therefore researched within the social sciences. These centre primarily on questions of ontology (what is the nature of being, becoming or reality?) and epistemology (what is the nature of knowledge or how do we know what we know?). Conducting any form of research involves particular assumptions being made about the world around us, and how best to understand it. From this then flow differing ideas about how research should be conducted, or the methodologies that should be used in order to understand a particular phenomena. Kuhn (1962) referred to these alternative philosophical perspectives as scientific paradigms. Positivism is recognised as the most dominant paradigm, drawing as it does from the pure sciences in considering how to conduct research.This assumes that there exists an objective reality that can (to best approximations) be measured and the truth arrived at with objectivity. Constructionism, by contrast, argues that multiple and alternative truths exist in the social world and that reality is at best an intersubjective phenomenon. This argues that reality only exists in the meanings human beings give to objects and experiences, such that an objective truth is not possible. Instead, it is these meanings that then construct our understanding of what is real. This reality then becomes reified, or treated as if it were real to begin with, through language, discourse and within cultural artefacts and symbols. These alternative perspectives are important because they are brought to bear by writers in how they understand the concept of relationality. Researchers that study relational leadership from a positivist perspective, view relationships and relations as that which come about due to the characteristics and previous experiences of people in a particular relationship. As well as how they behave toward one another in forming and maintaining a unique relationship. So the characteristics and behaviours of leaders and followers can be thought of as predicting the quality or nature of relationship they form. The quality (or characteristics) of the

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relationship is then thought of as bringing about a range of particular outcomes. This is perhaps best exemplified, for example, in the considerable vein of research in the area of leadership theory referred to as leader–member exchange (or LMX). The constructionist perspective of relationality, by contrast, sees relationality as the social space that exists between leaders and followers, where they create meaning of what they are experiencing together in that relationship. It is not the nature or quality of the relationship per se that is important, but the meaning that individuals give to their experiences in that relationship. In this sense, the relationship is socially constructed by both parties through their inter-​subjective experiences and interactions (Fairhurst & Grant, 2010; Hosking, 2011). This includes recognition of who is a leader and who is a follower, and what that means for how individuals understand their relationship and then behave. Leadership and its effects, therefore, arise through the co-​production of meaning that is rooted in this relational social space. The focus then is on understanding the processes by which this meaning is created between these actors. This requires us to examine the particular social context in which it is embedded, that influences how meaning is co-​created. Writers from this perspective, therefore, place significant emphasis on understanding the nature of the social context framing these relationships. This inevitably leads to far greater attention paid to fundamental issues of power, gender, culture and wider socio-​economic factors that frame the context in which individuals give meaning to their relationships. Similarly, light is shed on how these relationships are understood through the lens of their own identities, which are themselves social constructions and derived from interactions in these relationships (Collinson, 2005). This also includes writers who adopt a more critical management stance, who are interested in how power relations affect organisational processes and practices, particularly leadership. Both of these perspectives (entity and socio-​constructionist) have their own inherent strengths and limitations, and adopt differing methodological approaches in attempting to further our understanding of what is relational leadership. The entity perspective, as illustrated through the writing on leader–member exchange, adopts a positivistic approach and has primarily (although not exclusively) sought to identify the antecedents of high-​ quality relationships between leaders and followers and the resulting effects this has on various outcomes. This has often involved measuring characteristics of leaders and followers (such as their personalities, individual characteristics, similarities, etc.) and how these then affect the quality of that relationship. This is captured in the extent to which a relationship can be characterised (and measured) as possessing aspects we would expect to find in a high-​quality relationship such as trust, respect and loyalty. Research then seeks to identify whether causal relationships (primarily correlations) can be found between particular antecedents, quality of the relationship and a variety of outcomes that might be expected from leadership.This includes its effects on follower job performance, job satisfaction, turnover and employees’ commitment to the organisation.

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Introduction to relational leadership  15

Much of the work from this perspective has therefore tended to adopt a micro approach, with theories driving research located at the individual level. Socio-​constructionist perspectives and research on relational leadership, by contrast, place far greater emphasis on how the context in which relationships are embedded influences how meaning is co-​constructed. As a result, research from this perspective generally takes a macro perspective since relationships are embedded in organisations, organisations are embedded in industries, and industries in societies, with a plethora of other levels interacting with each other. Cultural norms and practices are therefore given primacy, in seeking to understand factors influencing the relational space. Rather than seeking to explain causal relationships as found in positivistic research, constructionist perspectives attempt to identify explanatory mechanisms that show how wider contextual factors influence how notions of leadership are constructed and enacted (Ospina & Sorensen, 2006). This is a significant strength of the constructionist perspective. The differing arguments between the legitimacy of either positivist and constructionist ontologies has dominated much of the social science literature for decades (Guba, 1990). However, many authors (Bradbury & Lichtenstein, 2000; Uhl-​Bien, 2006) argue the need to gain some degree of integration across these perspectives. Uhl-​Bien (2006) posited the term relational leadership theory, which although not an overarching theory was a framework for understanding the differing perspectives of relationality that pervade the field. Although many researchers tend to write about relational leadership from one or other of these perspectives, many authors now argue that both are necessary to generate a more complex understanding of how relational leadership develops and produces its effects. In merging both these perspectives, relational leadership can be thought of as ‘a social influence process through which emergent coordination (i.e. evolving social order) and change (i.e. new values, attitudes, approaches, behaviours, ideologies, etc.) are constructed and produced’ (Uhl-​Bien, 2006, p668). The key contribution of relational leadership theory is that it recognises that leadership is socially constructed and emergent. But it also places emphasis on the relational dynamics or the characteristics of the relationships between individuals, as influencing how leadership emerges and produces its effects. This focus on relational dynamics requires integrating differing theoretical perspectives alongside a social constructionist position, so as to understand better how leadership emerges in context. The rest of the chapters of this book now attempt to offer the reader a more comprehensive understanding of this new and emerging theory of leadership. Chapters 2 and 3 provide in-​depth analysis of research and writing on relational leadership where the focus is on the relationship between leaders and followers. Chapter 2 explains the entity perspective of relational leadership, focusing in particular on leader–member exchange theory. This recognises that the quality of relationships between leaders and followers arises as a result of successive social

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exchanges. Chapter 3 introduces readers to socio-​constructionist perspectives on the leader–follower relationship. This suggests that leadership is co-​constructed ‘in-​situ’ between leaders and followers as a process of enactment. Chapter 3 also discusses sensemaking. This is the dynamic process by which people give meaning to events and what they are experiencing and is central to understanding how leadership emerges in context. Chapters 4 and 5 examine what are referred to as the ‘tools’ of relational leadership. Chapter 4 places a focus on respect and trust. These are seen as two essential components of relationships which form the foundation for leadership. Chapter 5 recognises that individual characteristics affect the nature of relationships that form between individuals and explains the value of emotional intelligence. Chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 bring together four specific relational leadership theories that each addresses a very specific context. All these theories extend beyond a focus on the leader–follower relationship, and instead look at relational leadership as a more dynamic, fluid and even systemic concept. Chapter 6 explores the notion of shared leadership in teams. This suggests that more than one person can perform leadership roles within a team, besides that of a formal team leader. Chapter 7 discusses responsible leadership. A form of leadership that requires extensive engagement with stakeholders beyond the organisation, in order to address civic, social responsibility and ethical concerns. Chapter 8 shows how a relational perspective can be brought to better understand and implement leadership in global teams. Chapter 9 addresses the significant challenge of complexity and why complexity leadership might be the answer. Both ambiguity and dynamism in the business environment combined with greater interconnectivity, suggest a more systemic form of relational leadership is necessary. Ideas contained here move us furthest away from what we have typically thought of as leadership. Finally, Chapter 10 attempts to show how some of the key ideas contained in the book have been implemented in practice through examining key learning points in three case studies. Case study 1 looks at how social capital was improved among a network of organisations seeking to improve the mental health of their community. Case study 2 looks at how a global payments company implemented an appreciative inquiry intervention in order to capitalise on the distributed intelligence in the organisation to enhance its performance. Finally, Case study 3 shows how a manager participating in a large-​scale transformational project engaged in sensemaking in an attempt to resolve an ethical dilemma.

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2 RELATIONAL LEADERSHIP FROM AN ENTITY PERSPECTIVE The relationship as leader–member exchange

Introduction Uhl-​Bien (2006) differentiated between the entity and socio-​constructionist perspectives of relational leadership but integrated both perspectives under the broad umbrella of relational leadership theory. The term entity is used merely to illustrate the assumptions underpinning how researchers from this perspective have viewed both relationships, and by extension the notion of what is relational. It simply means that a positivistic or objective reality theoretical position is adopted. This views a relationship as ‘real’, as an interconnection between individuals or individual entities. Individuals are assumed to know their own minds and are independent from other individuals. Consequently, we can find out about relationships between people by discovering what they think about each other in different ways, how they behave towards one another, as well as their own motivations and expectations. We can also look to see how their previous experiences and personalities affect their perceptions and attributions. Fletcher (2012) defines relational leadership from an entity perspective in the following way: [E]‌ntity perspectives on leadership are positivist in that they treat leadership as a set of skills, attributes, and practices that, when enacted through individual agency, will produce an entity that can be labelled ‘leadership’…An entity perspective on relational leadership focuses on a particular set of leadership skills and competencies that are relational and interactional in nature and are thought of as key to implementing a particular type of leadership with particular organizational outcomes. (p84)

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This chapter provides an overview of the most researched area of relational leadership from an entity perspective, namely that which has focused on leader–member exchange. The term member in this instance is synonymous with follower. Leader–member exchange (LMX) theory captures the quality of the interpersonal relationship that exists between a leader and a follower, based upon the notion that successive social exchanges in the leadership relationship determine a range of work-​related outcomes (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005; Erdogan & Liden, 2002; Molm, Collett, & Schaefer, 2007). The theory is one of the most significant for our understanding of leadership in that it places followers, and importantly their perceptions of their leader, central to understanding the consequences or effects of leadership. This is in sharp contrast to previous leadership theories, which tended to assume the effects of leadership were determined primarily by the characteristics (such as personality) or behaviours that leaders displayed. The theory holds that it is how followers perceive these characteristics and behaviours that is key to determining leadership effects, and these occur through the quality of relationship that develops between leaders and followers. An overview is provided as to how high-​quality relationships are thought to come about between leaders and followers. Next, findings from research are highlighted which has identified a number of factors (or antecedents) that appear to influence this. This then leads to a discussion on interventions that have been found to improve the quality of leader–member exchange to inform practice in this area.

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Leader–member exchange (LMX) This theory posits that high-​quality leader–member relationships reflect the presence of high levels of mutual trust, respect and obligation between both parties involved in the relationship. Such high degrees of mutuality in these areas result in a situation where leaders provide support well beyond basic contract assistance. Followers then respond with behaviours that exceed those normally expected through typical employment contract requests (Uhl-​Bien, Graen, & Scandura, 2000; Wilson, Sin, & Conlon, 2010). For example, research has demonstrated that followers in high LMX relationships are more likely to respond positively to difficult challenges put to them by leaders. The theory also recognises that leaders do not form the same quality of relationships with all followers. This contrasts with previous notions of leadership that tended to assume leader characteristics and/​or behaviours resulted in effective leadership consequences across all followers irrespective of the context. Two explanations have been proposed to explain how high-​quality relationships between a leader and their follower might develop (Graen & Uhl-​Bien, 1995). The first of these is based upon role theory (Graen, 1976). This suggests that through leaders making task requests of followers, and followers then showing aptitude in performing these tasks, each party in the relationship gains clearer expectations of each other’s roles in the relationship. A higher quality

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An entity perspective  19

of relationship then develops as a result of this greater understanding of one another. In particular, the levels of competence that each member of the relationship possesses. This then brings about a deeper sense of partnership (Graen & Scandura, 1987). Recognition of each other’s competence is then associated with generating greater levels of trust and respect between leader and follower, both of which are important aspects of high-​quality LMX (Graen, Novak, & Sommerkamp, 1982). This process is essentially one of socialisation. It is posited to occur in all relationships between leaders and their followers, progressing through three stages. The first stage, called role taking, occurs when the individuals first meet. This is when the leader will allocate tasks and roles to their followers. Leaders will then assess their followers’ competence and reliability, depending upon how well they perform these tasks and roles. Next, comes the role-​making stage. Leaders will begin to allocate followers into either their in-​g roup or out-​g roup. The in-​g roup comprises those followers the leader judges as most competent and trustworthy. These followers will be given more resources, attention and support by the leader, more interesting tasks to perform and greater autonomy to get things done. It is through offering personal support and understanding, and empathy through successive role episodes, that the leader’s role as authentic and considerate becomes established. Those in the out-​g roup, however, are judged to be less effective and reliable in performing tasks. Consequently, leaders will allocate tasks to them that are less challenging or deemed less important by the leader to achieving their goals. These more mundane tasks and roles are often accompanied by less attention from the leader, who is less concerned with their personal or career development. In the final stage, these in-​and out-​g roup roles can become well established, a process known as routinisation. For those in the out-​g roup, they may feel less loyal to their manager or distrust them, perceiving favouritism. This is supported by studies that have found LMX to be associated with follower perceptions of organisational politics, with those in low-​quality LMX relationships tending to view those being treated more advantageously as a result of political factors. The other key theory underpinning leader–member exchange is social exchange theory (Blau, 1964). This suggests that a high-​ quality relationship between a leader and follower develops, based upon a series of exchanges (or trades) between them. Leaders will offer greater assistance and benefits to followers in the in-​group. These are highly variable but can include more considerate behaviour and attention to their needs, greater opportunities for advancement through allocating more stretching tasks, more positive performance appraisals and increased work flexibility. In return, followers will perform to a higher standard and with greater productivity. The idea that the relationship between leaders and followers is based upon social exchange and reciprocity, rather than merely an economic work-​based transaction, recognises that relationships develop that

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are imbued with far greater emotional attachment. This results in social currencies such as loyalty and trust. This suggests that high-​quality relationships develop through norms of reciprocity, and that these grow stronger through successive exchanges between leader and follower. Followers offer higher levels of job performance, greater commitment and a willingness to undertake tasks beyond job role requirements. Leaders in turn reciprocate, through offering greater empowerment, opportunities for development and advancement, social support and other work-​based rewards and resources. Although these two theoretical mechanisms have tended to dominate the literature in explaining LMX effects, a number of authors have suggested that more work needs to be undertaken to gain a better understanding of whether other processes might be responsible also (Hogg, 2001; Offstein, Madhavan, & Gnyawali, 2006). Supporting this, a few studies have demonstrated that the positive effects of LMX on job performance are partially mediated through influencing subordinate self-​efficacy (Murphy & Ensher, 1999; Walumbwa et al., 2011). Based on social learning theory, self-​efficacy is defined as an individual’s ‘beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce a given level of attainment’ (Bandura, 1986, p624). It plays an important role through influencing individuals’ choice, effort and persistence relating to task performance (Bandura & Locke, 2003). Importantly, it has been found to positively predict performance across a range of studies conducted in differing organisational settings (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Bandura (1986) described four major mechanisms through which an individual’s self-​efficacy develops: (1) enactive mastery refers to the process by which self-​efficacy perceptions are enhanced through successive and effective prior experiences of performing a particular task; (2) vicarious experience recognises that self-​efficacy beliefs can develop through observing and modelling others’ behaviour, especially where perceived similarity exists between the model and the observer; (3) verbal persuasion involving convincing, persuasive and evaluative feedback communication can enhance self-​efficacy beliefs; and finally (4) self-​efficacy has been found to increase through physiological and affective arousal. Schyns (2004) argued that supervisors within high-​quality LMX relationships enable subordinates to engage in enactive attainment, through providing them with more varied and stretching job tasks, as well as being more likely to model necessary skills that contribute towards increasing a subordinate’s vicarious experience. Although limited, empirical findings have found some support for the notion that LMX increases self-​efficacy beliefs (Murphy and Ensher, 1999; Walumbwa et al., 2011).

LMX antecedents Leaving aside theoretical explanations as to how leader–member exchange operates, there has been considerable empirical work examining the antecedents and effects of LMX over the past 40 years or so, since the theory was initially posited

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in the literature (Graen, 1976). A recent analysis of 247 studies that have been published researching the theory, identified 21 antecedents of LMX (e.g. leader and follower characteristics, leader behaviours, and variables connected to the leader–follower relationship) that were associated with 16 consequences of the leader–follower relationship (e.g. follower job satisfaction, job performance, organisational commitment) (Dulebohn et al., 2012). Examples of some of these antecedents and consequences can be found in Figure 2.1. In the early stages, the quality of the leader–follower relationship generally is based upon the characteristics of leaders and followers, particularly personality. This is borne out of the similarity-​attraction paradigm, which recognises that individuals are drawn to people like themselves, as well as like people similar to themselves. So, similarity and liking are both aspects of the interpersonal relationship that predict relationship quality between leaders and followers. Personality factors can play a part in other ways too. Some research has looked at the Big 5 personality dimensions (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness and extraversion) of leaders and followers, and investigated whether these aspects of personality predict the quality of their relationship (LMX). Conscientiousness is associated with job performance, and also found to be associated with higher-quality LMX relationships as well.This is likely because leaders

LEADER CHARACTERISTICS

Extraversion Agreeableness Transformational Leadership Behaviour Contingent Reward Behaviour

CONSEQUENCES

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP

Perceived Similarity Affect/Liking Influence Tactics

LEADER– MEMBER EXCHANGE

Job Performance Job Satisfaction Affective Commitment Turnover Intention Actual Turnover Empowerment Procedural Justice Organisational Citizenship Behaviour

FOLLOWER CHARACTERISTICS

Conscientiousness Agreeableness Openness Locus of Control Competence

FIGURE 2.1 The

antecedents and consequences of leader–member exchange (based on Dulebohn, Bommer, Liden, Brouer, & Ferris, 2012)

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appraise the competence of the followers in performing tasks they allocate to them. When followers demonstrate they are competent and reliable, leaders are more likely to value their contribution as well as grant them greater autonomy to perform their tasks. Leaders and followers both benefit from this, and begin to place greater emphasis on the importance of their relationship. This offers the opportunity for trust, a further factor found to influence LMX to develop (Van Dam, Oreg, & Schyns, 2008). Other personality traits are also significant. Individuals who are more extroverted tend to welcome and look for greater social interactions, including within the leader–follower relationship. Individuals scoring higher on the agreeableness dimension of personality, tend to demonstrate more helping and cooperative behaviours. Again, this should contribute towards building a stronger leader-​follower relationship. Locus of control is a further personality factor shown to influence LMX. People differ in the extent to which they believe they exert control over the outcomes they seek. Those with a greater external locus of control tend to see what happens to them more a result of external or environmental forces beyond their control.Those with a greater internal locus of control, believe instead that they can shape what happens to them or their outcomes through their own actions far more. These so-​called ‘internals’ tend to seek out opportunities and are far more proactive compared to ‘externals’. This is very much associated with showing initiative, so followers with higher internal locus of control are likely to be viewed more favourably by leaders. This is supported by research that has shown follower locus of control to influence higher-quality relationships with leaders (Barbuto, Weltmer, & Pennisi, 2010). The behaviours of a leader also are found to contribute to the quality of LMX, although surprisingly few specific behaviours have been the focus of research.The two leader behaviours most studied have been contingent reward behaviour and transformational leader behaviour. The latter refers to leaders motivating followers through inspiring a vision to follow, as well as being supportive. Contingent reward behaviour includes leaders providing feedback on follower performance and rewarding good performance.The findings from the analysis of LMX research presented by Dulebohn et al. (2012), showed that these leader behaviours were the most significant in contributing to the quality of LMX. This means leader behaviours appear to influence LMX far more than follower behaviours. This has been explained due to the power differential that exists between leaders and followers. Given that leaders have more access to resources and in how work and tasks are allocated, and in determining with whom they wish to form high-​quality relationships, it is to be expected that their behaviours are likely to have a greater significance. Nevertheless, studies have also shown that beyond demonstrating competence and reliability, a range of other follower behaviours can also affect the quality of LMX to some extent. One of the more recent areas of study has focused on how the ways in which followers attempt to influence their leaders (called upward

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influence tactics) can affect the quality of the leader–follower relationship. LMX assumes that it is the perceptions (and attributions) leaders and followers make of each other’s behaviours, that is the basis for the quality of the relationship that subsequently develops. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that how leaders view the influence tactics used by their followers should be significant. Among these influence tactics are ingratiation, where the follower attempts to influence the leader to think favourably of them; assertiveness, where the follower uses demands or threats to influence the leader; and rationality, where the follower uses logical arguments to persuade the leader (Higgins, Judge, & Ferris, 2003). Research has found both follower rationality and ingratiation influence behaviours positively affect LMX, whilst assertiveness has been shown to have negative effects (Alshenaifi & Clarke, 2015). Moving away from the antecedents (or predictors) of LMX towards the right-​hand side of Figure 2.1, a number of studies have found high-​quality relationships (LMX) to be positively associated with a range of important work outcomes. These include, amongst others, follower job performance, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and organisational citizenship behaviour, as well as lesser intention to quit the organisation (Erdogan & Bauer, 2014). These findings demonstrate that the quality of the relationship between leaders and their followers has a direct bearing on how well followers then perform their jobs in their workplace, as well as being responsible for influencing positive follower attitudes. Enhanced job satisfaction, for example, means that followers have a more positive outlook on their work and well-​being, whilst increased organisational commitment means that followers are more likely to be committed to the goals of the organisation and work independently towards achieving them. LMX has also been found to predict the psychological empowerment of followers. Leaders that provide higher levels of support, greater autonomy and more opportunities for job enrichment and challenge, positively influence their followers’ sense of competence and mastery associated with psychological empowerment. These are important work-​related attitudes that are especially relevant in today’s workplace. Although there are many ways in which both job performance and work attitudes can be influenced in the workplace, leadership, particularly at the level of manager and employee, is widely recognised as having a major role to play. This being the case, one of the most significant findings from Dulebohn et al.’s (2012) analysis of LMX studies is particularly worthy of mention, since it emphasises why relational leadership is so important in thinking about a new approach to leadership.The authors found that the relationship quality between leaders and followers (LMX) mediated most of the variance between the antecedents and work outcomes they examined. If we put this in more straightforward terms, it is not leader characteristics or behaviours per se that directly affect these outcomes, but instead it is the nature of the relationship between leaders and followers (LMX) that is primarily responsible for leadership effects. Leader behaviours or characteristics

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are important, but only in as far as they are able to contribute to a high-​quality relationship between a leader and follower. Of course, at this stage a serious question now emerges: that is, despite our understanding that it is the quality of the relationship between leaders and followers that is important, what difference does that make if the process itself is about leaders only forming high-​quality leadership relationships with those they judge to qualify for the in-​g roup? If nothing else, does this not pose ethical problems as well as, in aggregate, managers seeming to write off a significant part of their workforce? This would obviously be of little use in addressing many of the concerns highlighted in the introduction, regarding the challenges now facing leadership in today’s organisations. Consequently, LMX theory has moved beyond this early theorising regarding leaders judging followers as members of either an in-​group or out-​g roup. Instead, there is now far more emphasis on using LMX theory to understand how leaders might form better-quality relationships and work in partnership with all followers. This has been described in the literature as leadership making (Graen & Uhl-​Bien, 1995). The idea here is that leaders should offer the opportunity to form a high-​quality relationship with all their followers. With this in mind, we now turn to examine what we know about how relational leadership might be developed, based on leader–member exchange.

Developing relational leadership: insights from leader–member exchange One of the strengths of leader–member exchange is that it tells us something about how and why relational bonds develop between leaders and followers. A fundamental part of that is based on the notion of social exchange between leaders and followers and how this promotes reciprocity. However, there has been limited discussion in the literature on how to develop or train managers to develop high-​quality relationships with their followers based on these principles. An exception is one study by Graen, Novak, and Sommerkamp (1982). In this study, participants were assigned to one of four treatment groups. Supervisors placed in group 1 received training on job design involving six two-​hour sessions over six weeks. This incorporated key principles from Hackman and Oldman’s (1976) job characteristics model, which provides guidance on how to design more fulfilling jobs for employees. For example, through offering employees more autonomy in scheduling work tasks and through enriching the jobs performed through greater task variety and responsibility. During the training sessions, three specific changes to employees’ jobs were then implemented based upon these job design principles. Supervisors placed in group 2 received ‘LMX training’. This was undertaken in a seminar setting, and included managers role playing manager–employee situations that they would later try in practice, active listening skills, and planning how to exchange mutual expectations and resources within supervision. Following training, managers engaged in one-​to-​one conversations

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(approximately 30 minutes) with their supervisees. The structure of these conversations was planned and practised in advance on the training, and included (1) discussing the employee’s concerns and expectations about their job, their supervisor’s concerns and expectations about their job, and their working relationship; (2) the supervisor using active listening skills and not imposing their own frame of reference on the employee’s concerns; and (3) the supervisor discussing some of their own concerns about their job, the employee’s job and their working relationship. The aim of the intervention was to increase the mutual understanding between supervisors and their supervisees of issues affecting them both, and to enhance supervisor support to address these issues. Supervisors placed in group 3 received the combined LMX training and job design treatment, whilst those placed in group 4 were allocated to a comparison group. A variety of measures (including productivity, LMX and job attitudes) were collected prior to the treatment commencing, and then again 26 weeks later. The authors found only the LMX training condition resulted in improvements in productivity (although supervisory ratings of performance were insignificant across all treatment conditions). In addition, supervisory and employee ratings of LMX increased for the LMX training group only. This study would therefore suggest that the quality of relationships between leaders and followers can be improved through the use of a training programme designed around LMX principles, although the empirical evidence at present is sparse. Research that has shown that both leader and follower emotional intelligence as well as transformational leader (TL) behaviours are positively associated with leader–member exchange. It has, however, been suggested that training and development initiatives in these areas might be helpful in developing high-​quality relationships between leaders and followers. Emotional intelligence is discussed later in Chapter 5, so the focus here will be on developing transformational leadership behaviours. Transformational leadership behaviours have been defined as those that ‘elevate the interests of their employees, when they generate awareness and acceptance of the purposes and mission of the group, and when they stir their employees to look beyond their own self-​interest for the good of the group’ (Bass, 1990, p21). Bass (1990) identified transformational leadership as comprising four specific components: charisma (subsequently re-​labelled as idealised influence); individualised consideration; intellectual stimulation; and inspirational motivation. These are often referred to as the four Is.These transformational leader behaviours are posited to inspire followers to perform beyond expectations by being intellectually stimulated and motivated. Followers are thought to become emotionally connected to the leader through an inspiring vision of the future, that transcends their own self-​interest towards a more collective good. Although studies examining the effects of leadership training have suggested that this often only produces modest effects (Burke & Day, 1986; Frese, Beimel, & Schoenborn, 2003), a number of papers have appeared in the literature that suggest training managers to adopt more transformational leadership behaviours can result in positive change (Bass

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& Avolio, 1990; Barling, Weber, & Kelloway, 1996; Brown & May, 2012; Kelloway, Barling, & Helleur, 2000; Mason, Griffin, & Parker, 2014). Most of these studies adopted the approaches to developing transformational leadership as outlined by Bass (1990). He suggested that training should start by presenting ratings of a manager’s transformational leadership behaviour, as assessed by those that report to them in an individualised coaching session, and explore any differences between these and the manager’s own self ratings. These are assessed using the multifactor leadership questionnaire (Bass & Avolio, 1990). Where there are discrepancies, action plans and goals are then set to develop specific behaviours. This corresponds to a coaching style intervention with goal setting and feedback as the key elements. He also suggests that transformational leadership behaviours can be developed through the use of a traditional training programme. This involves a range of activities that start by participants identifying the behaviours of effective and ineffective leaders they have experienced, and connecting these behaviours to transformational leadership. Videos and/​or simulations are then used to depict transformational leadership styles. Finally, participants then develop action plans focused on improving specific transformational leadership behaviours. Barling et al. (1996) conducted a study using both these interventions together alongside four ‘training booster’ sessions, and demonstrated positive changes in transformational leadership among a sample of bank managers. A comparison of baseline scores collected from supervisees of their managers’ transformational leadership behaviours, with scores obtained five months after the intervention, found improvements in the intellectual stimulation dimension of TL. In a later study, Kelloway et al. (2000) compared the relative effects of training consisting of a one-​day workshop format with a coaching style intervention, and those who received both interventions among a group of forty healthcare managers. They found significant improvements in TL from all three groups and there seemed no additional benefit for those receiving both interventions. Other studies have applied a similar training methodology, although the actual duration of the training was highly variable and the findings have not all been consistent. Mason et al. (2014), for example, evaluated the effects of a one-​year transformational leadership training programme. This consisted of a two-​day training workshop where participants received 360-​degree feedback on their transformational leadership behaviours, and then engaged in experiential activities where they practised TL behaviours. This was then followed by six fortnightly coaching sessions and three follow-​up workshops, focusing again on TL behaviours. The study found significant increases in participants’ TL behaviour based on supervisor ratings of their behaviour, although self and peer ratings found no significant effects. Brown and May (2012) evaluated a training programme that comprised a two-​day workshop following a similar format of providing participants with an awareness of their own transformational leadership behaviours, setting goals for improvement and action planning. They found significant differences in TL behaviours between baseline scores and those collected almost 12 months later on all four TL dimensions.

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An entity perspective  27

There is some evidence then, that a developmental intervention that focuses on these key elements can bring about significant changes in transformational leadership behaviour. However, it remains unclear as to the optimum time required for training in order to gain positive effects, or whether some TL behaviours are more susceptible to change through training than others. In particular, the TL dimension labelled as idealised influence, corresponding to what we commonly call charisma, seems very much akin to a personality trait. Consequently, there is scepticism by some as to the extent to which this really can be changed through a training intervention such as outlined here.

Concluding remarks The entity perspective of relational leadership focuses on the characteristics and behaviours of individuals, and how these affect their perception of the leader–​ follower relationship. Leader–member exchange theory suggests high-​ quality relationships occur between leaders and followers through successive role-​taking episodes and social exchanges. High-​quality relationships are seen as those where parties perceive there to be high levels of respect, competence, trust and loyalty among other factors. A problem with much of the literature on leader–member exchange, however, is that most research has tended to see follower perceptions of the leader–follower relationship as the most important. In this sense, there is a gulf between how leader–member exchange theorises the relationship as a pattern of social exchange, and the manner in which research is actually conducted (Schriesheim, Castro, & Cogliser, 1999; Sparrowe & Liden, 1997). It should also be mentioned that most of the studies are cross-​sectional in nature, such that the actual direction of causality may not necessarily be in the direction theorised. So, for example, although some leader behaviours may result in high-​quality leader–​ follower relationships, it could be the case that high-​quality relationships cause leaders to adopt these behaviours. Nevertheless, a considerable amount of research has accumulated over the past few decades which does support the notion that it is the relationship between leaders and followers that makes a difference in terms of leadership effects. Although there has been far less research undertaken examining interventions that might be used to improve LMX relationships, it does appear that purposeful developmental interventions may be worthwhile. Finally, with the recognition that it is how leaders and followers perceive each other and their relationship that matters, this opens up a very different perspective on the nature of relational leadership; that is, it is possibly as much a social construction that exists between leaders and followers as it is a reflection of the way the relationship between leaders and followers might be viewed in any objective, measurable and meaningful way.

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3 RELATIONAL LEADERSHIP FROM A SOCIO-​CONSTRUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVE

Introduction Socio-​constructionist perspectives of leadership have become increasingly influential over recent years, and have sought to challenge the positivistic, scientific (psychological) approach that has dominated much of the research and literature to this point. It is a way of both perceiving and engaging with the world around us that focuses on relational practices and the social realities these create (Hosking & McNamee, 2006). In this sense, the social constructionist perspective of leadership is inherently relational. However, the meaning here is not the same as that which informs the entity perspective with its focus on separate, independent and autonomous individuals. It refers instead to the processes of relating; the interactive space between persons as they relate to one another through language and communication. It is about how individuals construct meaning as they relate to one another through language or, borrowing from Foucault (1972), what is more commonly termed discourse.This chapter examines the key concepts associated with the social constructionist perspective on relational leadership and then moves on to examine the notion of sensemaking and the processes associated with it. As leaders and followers relate to one another through discourse, it is through sensemaking that they generate meaning of what is happening and whether or not they perceive leadership as occurring. Understanding how we engage in sensemaking is therefore critical to understanding how leadership action then emerges. Strategies for developing competence in sensemaking are then examined.

The notion of relationality Although there is a range of alternative theoretical positions adopted by writers, there are some common themes that are central to the social constructionist

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perspective of relational leadership. Underpinning everything is the rejection of the idea of objective truth, and instead that all reality (or truth) is socially constructed through the interactions individuals have with one another, such that multiple realities exist. These multiple realities are constructed in social spaces whereby individuals negotiate and contest meaning. Social constructionists thus place a primacy on the role of language and communication or discourse, as the means by which reality is constructed or comes into being. From this perspective, leadership is a social construction that emerges as a result of actors constructing meaning from their social interactions. Criticisms of the positivistic approach have highlighted that it is inherently reductionist. That, in focusing primarily on the micro level, it inevitably fails to appreciate the rich and multi-​layered contextual factors that influence leadership. Further, that as organisations and work processes operate in far more dynamic and turbulent environments, this increasing complexity renders the search for cause and effect relationships at the micro level as far too simplistic an understanding of leadership and its effects. Constructionist perspectives on relational leadership have offered considerable insights into the nature of leadership and its effects, as distinctions are increasingly drawn on major differences in the requirements of leadership depending on the level at which it operates. The idea that leadership is co-​constructed in a relational space has also had a major impact in its focus on leadership emergence. If leadership is co-​constructed through social interaction and dialogue, then it comes into existence or is real as individuals negotiate their understanding of leadership within their relationship, i.e. it emerges from the relational space. This idea of emergence resonates well, with more recent ideas that leadership needn’t necessarily arise through the interactions between those traditionally thought of as leaders and followers in organisations. If leadership is viewed as socially constructed between people, then this opens up the possibility that leadership potentially can occur between individuals that do not occupy formal leader positions. Leadership is therefore no longer dependent on hierarchy or formal position. Instead, it is a process of mutual influence that can be found between many individuals in the pursuit of organisational goals. This widens the scope for our understanding of leadership away from individuals, to viewing it instead as a collective activity, constantly shifting depending upon the particular context and the goals that need to be pursued. It is dynamic and can change at any particular point in time. Indeed, the demands on organisations to constantly innovate and change, means that leadership needs to be performed by many individuals at differing times as they face particular situations, tasks or challenges. This idea that leadership can be undertaken collectively, has been the basis of much of the writing on shared and distributed forms of leadership. If leadership is a collective activity, then leadership is being constantly created, dissolved and re-​created to establish different social orders that enable work to be planned and done. This suggests that it is these changing patterns of organising that can be construed as leadership. Leadership is seen as the outcome of the interactions between

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individual actions, which provides the further context through which further interactions then occur. Fairhurst and Grant (2010) provide an overview of the differing perspectives that dominate the social constructionist tradition, and highlight some important differences in the way leadership has been traditionally studied from a psychological or positivistic perspective. The first difference they highlight, is the difference between the construction of social reality, and the social construction of reality, which they place on opposite ends of a spectrum. Scholars who write from the former perspective focus on the cognitive products of social interaction as constituting leadership. So leadership is co-​constructed as a result of the sensemaking and attributions that actors make as a result of social interaction. This is essentially what is thought to occur in leader–member exchange. In the latter case it is the interactions themselves, not the products of the interaction, wherein leadership is given meaning. Although seemingly nuanced, these alternative perspectives do have significant implications for understanding leadership. If leadership is a function of how actors construct their social realities, then what becomes of interest is the cognitive schemas that people form and hold that shape attributions about what leadership is, or who is or is not a leader or follower. This is also very much in tune with writers who study implicit leadership theories (the implicit mental categorisations that people make concerning who is a leader) from a positivistic perspective (Lord & Brown, 2004). An important corollary from this perspective is that leadership action arises as a result of these social interactions. By contrast, writers who study leadership as the social construction of reality view leadership as occurring in the social interaction itself. Consequently, the focus here is on the discourse that takes place between leaders and followers through which meaning is given to leadership. Leadership therefore arises in the social interaction and not out of it, and is shaped to a considerable degree by the socio-​historical and cultural factors that influence opportunities for individuals to socially interact. This takes place in the specific context of how work is organised (Hosking, 1988). Among the broad family of writers who adopt a socio-​constructionist perspective of leadership, include those that focus on discourse and how leaders and followers negotiate their roles through the process of meaning making (Hosking, 1988). Fairhurst (2008), for example, emphasises this when she says: Unconcerned with the search for essences or causal connections among variables, discourse analysts instead want to know how a text functions pragmatically, how leadership is brought off in some here-​and-​now moment of localized interaction… Discourse analysts query, what kind of leadership are we talking about? What cultural forces at play define what leadership is and how is it to be performed in a particular social setting at a given historical moment? (p517)

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Communication and its corollary language, thus lay at the heart of social constructionism. Most of the key tenets when applied to leadership are neatly summarised by Fairhurst and Connaughton (2014) as follows: that (1) leadership acts of organisation are both the means and the product of communication; (2) leadership communication is quintessentially relational, emerging between two or more actors; (3) power and contestation are always in the foreground as actors seek to negotiate and co-​construct the meaning of leadership in interpersonal spaces (Foucault, 1972); and (4) it is this shared meaning that generates leadership action. The focus is thus analysing how leadership emerges as a result of the discursive interactions between differing actors, such that leadership actually comes about through what people say to one another and how this is said. In addition, this perspective also focuses on how leadership is actually practised. These ideas are represented in Figure 3.1. Here, leadership can be seen to emerge in the

CONTEXT National Culture Organisational Culture History Socialisation INDIVIDUAL B

INDIVIDUAL A Cognitive Schemas Identity Experience Motivations Expectations

MEANING MAKING DIALOGUE STORIES NARRATIVES METAPHORS

RELATIONAL LEADERSHIP

LEADERSHIP ACTION

FIGURE 3.1  The

social construction of leadership

Cognitive Schemas Identity Experience Motivations Expectations

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interpersonal space between actors or individuals as they negotiate and co-​create meaning through dialogue. The idea that leadership is co-​created through discourse yet contested, suggests that what constitutes ‘leadership’ is reflective of dominant philosophies that tend to subjugate one group of peoples’ interests to another, and are utilised to maintain the hegemonic order. So much of what has been termed ‘the linguistic turn’, has tended to highlight different ways in which individuals (both leaders and followers) negotiate these dominant leadership archetypes. Collinson (2005), for example, argued that the outcomes of this negotiation process are not predictable, but nonetheless suggests that the nature of these meaning-​making processes or dialectics can be construed as centred on conflicts around control/​resistance, dissent/​consent and men/​women. It is how well individuals manage these sources of conflict and tensions, that in the social constructionist perspective have far greater influence on who emerges as a leader. This then becomes key to the idea that leadership is not located just in a hierarchy, but rather is a more fluid and dynamic property found in networks of relationships. Where social constructionism has perhaps made the most significant contribution to date is the work that has been undertaken in the area of how leaders and followers negotiate and construct their identity (Cunliffe, 2009). In so doing, actors in a relationship are constantly searching for and making sense of their roles witihin a specific context, theirs and others’ expectations, and how these together bring pressures to bear in understanding who they are and where they stand in the world. Many writers have offered insights on how these identities are shaped, manipulated, appropriated or indeed subjugated in the service of a more dominant organisational or commercial zeitgeist, such that engaging in leadership (or participating in leadership development) is often described as actors engaging in identity work. This requires that leaders regulate (purposefully change) their identities in response to powerful organisational demands (primarily through managerialist discourse) and as ultimately a means of control (Alvesson & Willmot, 2002; Collinson, 2003). It is through the organisation’s appropriation of leader identities that individuals come to behave and act in ways that are subordinate to the dominant interest (Ford & Harding, 2007; Gagnon, 2008). Some writers within this field, writing from what is termed a more critical management perspective, have gone as far as expressing contempt for the very notion of leadership, viewing it as a further instrument of domination by capital (Hardy & Clegg, 1996). Others have emphasised that leaders can decide to resist the dominant discourse as to how they should behave and instead can develop their own identity as a leader (Zoller & Fairhurst, 2007). The notion that organisations control individual behaviour is hardly new of course. The literature on management and organisations more generally is replete with excellent critiques of how organisations regulate behaviour from the softer mechanisms of organisational culture, right through to the more tangible means of performance management and reward systems. Indeed, the metaphor of organisations as psychic prisons is both an enduring and very real one for most of us who

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have spent time in any organisation. However, more recent analyses of identity construction from researchers in this area have begun to emphasise that individuals are also active agents in shaping their own positive leadership identities, and shed insights on the strategies individuals use to do so (Fairhurst, 2007). Arguably, these offer a far more realistic picture of identity construction than that suggested by the passive determinism found in some of the writing on leadership from a socio-​ constructionist perspective. More recently, authors have also studied the emotional impact of identity regulation within the constructionist frame. Particularly insightful here is the anxiety that is thought to be generated as individuals struggle with having to negotiate new roles and expectations within the organisation (Domagalski, 1999). There are of course some obvious limitations with socio-constructionist perspectives too. The notion that there are multiple truths, and the rejection of an objective reality among several perspectives, severely constrains the extent to which research insights can be generalised into a wider corpus of knowledge that has practical application for all organisations. This means that many researchers from the constructionist perspective focus more on developing theoretical insights, rather than testing theoretical propositions that would serve as a broader barometer against which judgements could be made. Indeed, much of the criticism of the writing on leadership from a social constructionist perspective berates its failure in many instances, to move beyond theorising to offer a more substantive application for the practice of leadership. In particular, much of the writing is dense, lofty and detached from any concern for changing the lives of those who are considered to be subject to the ‘dominant discourses’ (or ways work and leadership has been historically organised) that many authors write about. Indeed, the irony here is that so much of the writing is so inaccessible and impenetrable as to all but a privileged few, that readers can be forgiven for thinking that some writers in this area are desperately trying to replace one form of hegemony with another. These criticisms can be found even among socio-​constructionist scholars themselves. Grint and Jackson (2010), for example, comment, that our work…tends to be written in impenetrable prose that is well-​nigh inaccessible to many leadership scholars (let alone those leaders who might choose to learn from it), and that it generally fails to engage with practitioners in anything other than a token way. (p349) Whilst similarly, Fletcher (2012) comments, while constructionist perspectives do a great service to leadership theorists by calling attention to social and relational processes by which leadership narratives are constructed, they do little to identify the practical implications of these processes or help practitioners strategize ways to influence them. (p95)

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Yet, there are many scholars in the field of leadership, including those from the entity perspective, who would agree that how individuals socially construct notions of leadership are important. Despite coming from a differing theoretical perspective, leader–member exchange (an entity perspective) does share some similarity with a constructionist perspective of relational leadership in that it, too, sees the identities of those participating in the leader–follower relationship as of importance. Constructionist perspectives see role identities as central to how individuals socially interact, change, blend and ultimately engage in an ongoing process of meaning making. Within leader–member exchange theory, it is the ongoing interactions between leaders and followers by which new role identities within the leadership relationship evolve, as a consequence of successive social exchanges arising from leader role expectations. As role expectations change between leader and followers and their relationship matures, role expectations become routinised and therefore form a more stable part of leader and follower identities (Graen, 1976). This is based on the notion that the process of leader–member exchange is underpinned by leaders rationally processing information. However, sensemaking has also been suggested to play a significant part in this process, through leaders developing narratives of their experiences with followers which then inform who they then decide to form high-​quality relationships with (Fairhurst & Uhl-​Bien, 2012). Sensemaking then, is seen as a key process from both relational leadership perspectives.

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The importance of sensemaking Sensemaking refers to the complex, socio-​psychological processes through which organisational actors interpret organisational phenomena and thus socially construct or enact their ‘realities’. The notion of sensemaking was originally proposed by Weick (1979), and has since had a significant impact on the study of organisations and how people in them make sense of who they are and what they do. It has also been a major influence in socio-​constructionist analyses of leadership (Colville, Brown, & Pye, 2012; Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). The major contribution of Weick’s work was the recognition that ‘organising’ can be perceived of as a process whereby individuals interact together to undertake some form of action, the outcomes from which then become constituted as the environment. Individuals make sense of their environment retrospectively, by then selecting and connecting various experiences from their environment in the form of ‘causal maps’, i.e. what actions bring about what types of outcomes, and how tasks might best be performed on the basis of their causal maps. Over time and through ongoing interactions with people and consensus, the behaviours associated with these causal maps begin to become accepted as the way things should be done. In this way, individuals are seen to create their ‘reality’ and then retrospectively make sense of it. Although Weick’s (1979) early work primarily focused on how these causal maps were formed and reflected a more cognitive view, more latterly sensemaking

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has been informed by a more social constructionist stance. This emphasises the importance of language as the key means through which meaning is given to actions, the environment and ‘causal maps’, and then negotiated with others in a process of recursive interactions (Weick, 2012). Organising is therefore an emergent process, at the heart of which can be found the communal sensemaking by the actors involved, and whereby reality comes into being and is given meaning through social interaction. Identity plays a significant role in the process, as an individual’s sense of who they are (and how others see them) influences what aspects of their environments they attend to, and which cues they find salient and extract from it. Context is also significant. There are a myriad of situational factors that potentially influence not only which cues may be more salient in a particular environment, but also how sense is made of these through social interactions and the nature of discourse through which a narrative is constructed to make sense of the situation (Cornelissen, 2012). Organisational culture, institutional norms and politics are particularly relevant (Balogun & Johnson, 2005; Weber & Glynn, 2006). An essential element of Weick’s organisational sensemaking theory is the concept of enactment (Weick, 1979). Enactment is contained in a model of enactment-​ selection-​retention in which organisational actors produce the realities that, in turn, define the organisation’s environment and constitute its collective memory. That is to say, sensemaking is a process of organisational structuration whereby selected aspects of the enacted environment are paramount in the creation of new organising routines. The mutually constituted character of knowledge, action and social reality is central to the concept of enactment. This portrays an emergent and ongoing weaving together of presuppositions, expectations, and action, through its focus on the temporality and context-​dependency of extracted cues and their capacity to stimulate and guide action. Organisational narratives (stories told to explain the way things have been, are, or should be) also play a central role in sensemaking. Narratives deal with the politics of meaning, i.e how meanings are selected, legitimised, encoded and institutionalised at the organisational level. Consequently they have a major influence on the context in which sensemaking is taking place. Pye (2005), for example, showed how a CEO from a large, global retail manufacturer attempted to implement change through a top-​down vision which met with limited success. Through a period of ongoing reflection he began to increasingly involve 30 senior managers in the organisation in developing a shared vision, a process that required developing a collective understanding of the challenges facing the organisation and a plan to navigate a response. Developing the vision became a process of negotiation, characterised by a more ‘emergent approach of seeing what happens’ rather than following a planned and anticipated set of actions. The case illustrated the significance of enactment in the sensemaking process, in that individuals only made sense retrospectively of what was happening in the ongoing interactions they had with one another.

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The idea of enactment also helps us to think about how the interplay between power and knowledge revolves around struggles over meaning. These are neither wholly determined by pre-​existing rules, norms and interpretative resources, nor are they purely the outcome of locally situated engagements between interacting agents. Disruptions also set in motion detailed strategies and counter-strategies where attempts are made to privilege certain meanings over others, through their association with alternatively constituted forms of power. Weick (1995) argues that to, talk about interpretation without discussing a politics of interpretation is to ignore context. (p53) Sensemaking is also closely linked with social identity construction. Again, Weick (1995) suggests, what the…situation means is defined by who I become while dealing with it or what and who I represent. I derive cues as to what the situation means from the self that feels most appropriate to deal with it. (p24) This means that the processes of figuring out what is going on and what should be done is based on who the sensemaker is and his or her background. It should be emphasised that the same persons may have and adopt multiple and even contradictory social identities, thus providing different frames for interpreting the issues. Individuals’ multiple roles in an organisation create different kinds of social identities, thus providing different frames for interpretation. Having said this, most studies have tended to focus on sensemaking as a means of identity construction (e.g. Kjaergaard, Morsing, & Ravasi, 2011; Korica & Molloy, 2010) with far less attention paid to how identity affects the sensemaking process (Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1994; Patriotta & Spedale, 2009).There has also been relatively limited exploration of how the nature of the interaction between actors actually influences the sensemaking process (Di Paolo, Rohde, & De Jaegher, 2010).

The sensemaking process For Weick (1995), sensemaking is triggered by cognitive dissonance and represents a mode of controlled cognitive processing. Sensemaking is initiated when ‘shocks interrupt an ongoing flow’, thus setting the enactment-​selection-​retention model in action. The shocks of disruptions, in established routines, provide an opportunity for organisational actors to reconsider what sensemaking practices should be selected and retained for subsequent organisational action. In this process, adaptations to a newly enacted environment become crystallised as legitimate, plausible organisational routines. More recently, however, sensemaking is increasingly

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seen as occurring in response to individuals’ continuous experience of all events and situations in organisations (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015), although it becomes particularly active during periods of ambiguity or organisational disruption that challenge the consensus on ways of doing or being. These disruptions challenge individuals’ causal maps and this then prompts them to try to make sense of what is going on (Luscher & Lewis, 2008). Although there have been a number of reviews of sensemaking studies (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014; Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010; Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015), the most recent has provided greater clarity on the sensemaking process itself. Sandberg and Tsoukas (2015) categorised the research on sensemaking into four key areas and from this were able to develop an overall framework for understanding the sensemaking process and factors associated with it. They labelled these as: (1) events that trigger sensemaking; (2) processes of sensemaking; (3) outcomes of sensemaking; and (4) factors influencing sensemaking (see Table 3.1). They draw attention to three key processes that comprise sensemaking. Creation refers to the process by which particular information (or cues) is extracted from our experience of the ambiguous situation, which prompts the next process of interpretation, whereby a narrative is generated that attempts to make sense of the situation. An individual then acts on this interpretation, motivated by the need to restore some sense of the situation or resolve the ambiguity, which is referred to as enactment. As a result of the sensemaking process, either actors reach a plausible explanation that will restore the disruption and reduce its ambiguity, or instead the outcome is non-​sense which may result in further sensemaking. Emotions are recognised as playing a significant role in motivating individuals to engage in sensemaking. They act as a means to restore the cognitive disorder or dissonance that is set in train by disruptive events. Particularly important appear to be anxiety and frustration which have been highlighted in a number of studies (Dougherty & Drumheller, 2006; Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010). This knowledge of sensemaking processes has been useful in attempting to understand how leadership emerges between leaders and followers, as well as how the relationship develops between them. For example, sensemaking has revealed insights to understand how trust is developed in leader–follower relationships. Kelley

TAB LE 3.1   A framework for sensemaking episodes (based on Sandberg & Tsoukas,

2015) Trigger Events

Sensemaking Processes

Sensemaking Outcomes

Influence Factors

Major Planned and Unplanned Events Minor Planned and Unplanned Events

Creation Interpretation Enactment

Restored Sense Restored Action Non-​Sense No Restored Action

Contexts Identity Discourse Cognitive Maps Emotions

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and Bisel (2014) interviewed 40 leaders in the United States to gain a greater understanding of how leaders decide who to trust or who not to trust as a result of role negotiation episodes. One of the most illuminating findings from this research was how leaders made sense of who to trust through developing an overall narrative or storyline that they categorised as the follower being predictably good, unpredictable and predictably bad. They were able to distinguish these narratives as emerging as a result of differences in the formal communication patterns that occurred between leaders and followers, which indicated either levels of trust or doubt. Specific communication practices included critical listening, explicit questioning, verification of task-​related abilities, frequent or periodic evaluation, micro-​managing and the level of delegation. The extent to which leaders performed these communication behaviours were representative of the degree of trust the leader had in the follower. Higher levels of trust that developed over time were characterised by communication behaviours that enabled more follower self-​management and less task direction.

Developing relational leadership: insights from a socio-​constructionist perspective Despite some of the criticisms of socio-​constructionist writing on relational leadership, there is beginning to emerge a number of writers who focus far more on praxis (Barge & Craig, 2009), something that Fairhurst and Grant (2010) have called ‘applied social constructionism’. This draws on some of the earlier roots of social constructionism in the area of action science (Argyris & Schön, 1996).This application of a relational ontology raises different questions for leadership development. It asks how the processes of leadership and leadership development emerge in organisations, how realities of leadership are interpreted within the network of relations, and how decisions and actions are embedded in collective sensemaking and attribution processes. Relational researchers are not speaking of interpersonal or intrapersonal processes between already-known actors, but instead of the ‘relating of written and spoken language as well as the relating of nonverbal actions, events and things’. One of the more recent developments, for example, has been in specifically pairing reflexivity with moral accountability (Fairhurst & Connaughton, 2014) as means to improve the ethical behaviour of leaders. In this vein, a constructionist perspective places emphasis on leadership development as being a process of identity formation and its goal is to ‘emancipate’ individuals from the dominant organisational ideologies that constrain their own beliefs and behaviours, how those ideologies influence who they are, how they behave, and importantly who they could be. Carroll and Levy (2010) discuss how these ideas were brought to bear in a leadership development programme designed by the New Zealand Leadership Institute, where action learning and critical reflection within both group and virtual modes of delivery were utilised to engage leaders in developing affirmative identities of themselves as leaders. They highlight how dominant notions of what being a leader is, alongside expected

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characteristics (control, power, hero) are surfaced in discussions, as well as how participants in the development programme were encouraged to identify their own identity of what a leader is or should be. They comment that: Both leadership development theory and practice need attention to not just the identity regulation dimensions of such a complex space but also the creation and sustaining of multiple discursive fields where identities inevitably compete, struggle, contradict, lure, seduce, repel, dominate, and surprise… We understand leadership development as a sequence of ongoing, unfolding opportunities to work with discourses in these different ways. (p225) Similar calls for the greater application of social constructionist ideas have also been driven by those in critical management education (Perriton & Reynolds, 2004), who not unlike Freire (2014) much earlier, see education as a journey of emancipation. The application of discourse and the way in which dominant ways of seeing and being as communicated through language, both constrain, sanction or condone action, and stifle growth and innovation, is no longer confined to the periphery of those wishing to implement positive change in organisations. Not unlike leadership, there has been much criticism of traditional theorising of change management in organisations over recent years, much of which emerged in response to consistent reports that most change programmes fail. Organisation development, a particular approach and set of tools to implementing change in organisations, has come under fire as being similarly far too reductionist and failing to see the broader systemic forces that influence change outcomes. It is also essentially a deficit model, it starts with the premise that organisational outcomes are failing, and locates the problem in processes and people. As a result, new ideas of organisational change have emphasised the power of individual change that can be found through alternative approaches to liberating motivation and ambition, through techniques such as appreciative inquiry (Marshak & Grant, 2008). These start with the premise that individuals can generate new meanings to situations, reframe problems and challenges, and draw upon positive and affirmative identity constructions in order to make significant change through dialogue. There are a number of empirical studies that suggest such approaches can produce positive outcomes in organisations (Clarke, Higgs, & Meyer, 2010). This draws attention to the positive effects that can be found through dialogue, understanding how we generate meaning, and how we critically reflect on our experiences and events. Most importantly of all, how we can reframe our view of situations in order to reach more personally satisfying outcomes (reflexivity). This is also now being applied within the context of leadership development interventions (Fairhurst, 2011). This emphasis on meaning making and reflexivity places the sensemaking abilities of leaders or potential leaders, and how they might be developed, centre stage in leadership development.

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One of the limitations of the sensemaking literature has been its focus on its social and interpretive nature, whilst the relational context through which meaning making is constructed is often ignored. This becomes central if increasingly sensemaking is perceived as more than just cognition and interpretation, but where enactment mediated through language occupies far more centre stage (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015). This places a focus on the discursive activities of leaders in interactions with others, whereby sensemaking (and sensegiving) are constituted (and reconstituted) (Taylor & Robichaud, 2004). In the context of leadership, other writers have emphasised the competencies or abilities that might underpin sensemaking and sensegiving in organisational contexts. Maitlis and Lawrence (2007), for example, have suggested that sensegiving is a key leadership activity that involves leaders being able to construct and tell a story that is situationally specific to achieve leadership effects. The meaning-​making process is not well understood, although there have been a number of insights from the literature. In an analysis of leaders in social movement organisations, Foldy, Goldman, and Ospina (2008), described sensegiving as a process that results in changing individuals’ frames (interpretive schemes), sometimes referred to as mental models causing ‘cognitive shifts’. They highlight the importance of legitimating a new understanding of a problem/​issue through delegitimising existing institutional logic. More recently, Rouleau and Balogun (2011) elaborated further, by identifying two discursive activities they labelled as ‘performing the conversation’ and ‘setting the scene’, that were critical to the accomplishment of middle managers’ sensemaking in the context of strategic change (see Figure 3.2). The former captured the multiple, formal and informal conversations that managers engaged in to get others involved in their agenda. Setting the scene, by contrast, refers to what leaders do to set up the context and timing for these conversations. These activities draw upon ‘contextually relevant verbal, symbolic, and sociocultural systems’. Whilst how these managers used language was important, how they made use of social and cultural (situated) knowledge to inform who, when and how conversations should take place was of equal importance. Based upon their analysis of middle managers’ narratives, they suggested that this discursive competence centred on them being able to do the following: (1) Anticipate and improvise around language and social cues that connect with others’ interests. (2) Identify, assemble and mobilize relevant alliances through formats and forums that enable them to connect with the interests of these. (3) Invoke their deep knowledge of organizational rules and sociocultural codes subscribed to by others. (4) Symbolically position themselves in such a way that they are cognizant of the differential power, status and situation of others.

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A socio-constructionist perspective SYMBOLIC AND VERBAL REPRESENTATIONS

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PERFORMING THE CONVERSATION

Context specific language and metaphors Means of demonstrating legitimacy, integrity and respect

Knowing what to say to each stakeholder group Staging the conversations Relating to others

DRAWING ON CONTEXT

SOCIO-CULTURAL SYSTEMS Awareness of identities, interests and context rules History of people in the conversation Display appropriate relational attitudes

SETTING THE SCENE Bring the right people together Setting up conversations Building up networks

The discursive competence of middle managers (based on Rouleau & Balogun, 2011)

FIGURE 3.2

They call this middle managers’ discursive competence, which they describe as a skill or craft. In this they join a number of other writers who see sensemaking and sensegiving as an aspect of skilled practice (Mangham & Pye, 1991). This skilled practice they describe as, individuals engaging in intertwined cycles of interpretation and action, where interpretation shapes action and vice versa in a reciprocal relationship through time, which is also intertwined with, and influenced by, the simultaneous cycles of interpretation and action of others. (Rouleau & Balogun, 2011, p955) They highlight that sensemaking involves influence and that discursive abilities are key to this influence process (Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010). Other authors have also sought to identify a range of behaviours or individual characteristics they believe are associated with effective sensemaking. Ancona (2011), for example, suggested that leaders needed emotional intelligence, selfawareness and the capability to manage cognitive complexity. He suggested leaders’ sensemaking required eight key behaviours: (1) seeking out many types and sources of data, (2) deferring to expertise wherever it is, (3)  sensitivity to the daily operations of the organisation, (4) paying attention to errors and failures, (5) learning from small experiments (6)  not overlaying existing frameworks to analyse novel situations,

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(7) using images and metaphors to capture the new situation and (8) being aware of how their own and others’ behaviours create their environment. A sense of the self is necessary to avoid forcing one’s own framework in seeking to make sense of a situation.  A self-​aware leader can co-​create meaning to help bring a new sense of understanding on how to move forward. The ability to engage in critical reflection has also been identified as a key competence for sensemaking. Reflection enables individuals to critique their taken-​for-​g ranted assumptions in order to become more receptive to alternative perspectives of organising (Kayes, 2002; Raelin, 2001). The oft-​quoted sentence from Weick (1995) neatly captures the essence of why critical reflection is central to sensemaking where he says, ‘How can I know what I think, until I see what I say?’ It illustrates that it is through communicating our thoughts to others (and to ourselves) that we assign meaning to events and situations. It is widely recognised that organisations rarely provide sufficient space for leaders and managers to engage in critical reflection, are often not familiar with the cognitive meta-​skills involved, and can find the process threatening or destabilising (Brookfield, 1987; Raelin, 2002). Raelin (2002) highlights important differences between self-​reflection, which refers to an individual’s ability to stand back and reflect on what is happening around them, and reflexivity, which is a more rigorous cognitive process that explores contradictions, dilemmas and possibilities that are inherent in the multiplicity of subjective accounts of reality (Cunliffe, 2002). Consequently, active interventions for enhancing skills to engage in critical reflexivity have been recommended (Ollila, 2000; Raelin, 2005). Gray (2007) provided an account of a number of reflective tools and processes that could be used to encourage leaders and followers to develop their skills of critical inquiry. He emphasises that: Whereas reflective tools and processes constitute resources for individual self-​reflection, critically reflective tools allow for the critiquing of collectively constructed norms and values in which experience and reflection are embedded. (Gray, 2007, p513) These include processes such as stories and conversations as well as specific tools (such as repertory grid technique), that can be employed to facilitate critical reflexivity. Storytelling (Gold, Holman, & Thorpe, 2002) is a process through which leaders can describe complex events, situations and problems that are immersed in personal values and meaning. When these are shared they can generate new insights, understandings and collective meaning from which new perspectives can be gained. Reflexive conversations bring leaders together to share their experiences and critically explore the assumptions at the heart of their thinking through a process of collective inquiry. Specific tools can help with these reflexive

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activities. The use of critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954), for example, can facilitate this activity through offering a structured way for leaders to record specific events or experiences in the course of their work, that are connected in some way to broader organisational systems, processes and values. Kelly’s (1955) repertory grid technique is another tool that can be used. This involves an individual initially identifying specific situations they have experienced (called elements) and then describing characteristics of these elements along a spectrum (e.g. from empowering to disempowering). These characteristics are labelled as constructs. Each element is then rated on a scale attached to each of the constructs the individual believes important. It is the selection of constructs deemed relevant to the individual and the ratings given (alongside explanations why) that become the basis for more meaningful discussion, analysis and interpretation in activities such as reflexive conversations. Concept mapping is another useful tool that could also be used in a facilitated discussion. This again explores the individual’s mental or cognitive maps by asking them to draw a number of ‘concepts’ associated with a specific experience that are then linked together through a number of explanatory phrases that indicate how these concepts are linked. The focus becomes critically on understanding how and why concepts are related, which reveal the assumptions and ways in which an individual may perceive the world around them (Kinchin & Hay, 2000).

Concluding comments The social constructionist perspective of leadership occupies a central (although not privileged!) position within the broad domain of relational leadership theory. Its focus on the relational processes and meanings that individuals create as they relate is a powerful tool for understanding how leadership is understood and emerges in action. It challenges the very notion that leadership can be thought of as function or set of behaviours. Instead, leadership is a relational sensemaking process. Enabling individuals to gain greater insights into how they construct meaning of the realities around them, of who they and others are, and how they co-​create patterns of leadership in these interrelationships, can have a profound impact. In particular, through becoming more aware of their own cognitive maps or schema, the social interactions that take place, and the role of language through which meaning making occurs. Although only just beginning to be applied in leadership development, studies are beginning to show that ideas from this perspective of relational leadership can be applied to produce significant change.

4

4 RESPECT, TRUST AND MUTUALITY The sine qua non of relational leadership

Introduction In both entity and socio-​constructionist perspectives of relational leadership, as well as within the theoretical discussions of various forms of relational leadership (e.g. shared, responsible, complexity), respect, trust and notions of mutuality are highlighted as integral facilitating conditions. In relation to leader–member exchange, for example, Graen and Uhl-​Bien (1995) moved beyond seeing relationships between leaders and followers as merely arising through ongoing role-​making episodes to specifically characterise the nature of the relationship as one of mutuality, trust and respect. Such is the importance of these three concepts that they are referred to here as the sine qua non of relational leadership. In much of the writing on relational leadership, however, these three factors are rarely discussed in-​depth. Indeed, arguably their meaning and our understanding of these critical factors is either mostly assumed or taken for granted. This chapter provides a more comprehensive review of these concepts, as well as more recent research that has revealed new insights into how they develop within relationships. The chapter begins by focusing on the concept of respect and its role particularly in leader–member exchange, and highlights research that has shown different ways in which respect has been perceived and measured in the literature.Trust is then discussed in the next substantive section, highlighting again here differing forms of trust that are recognised in the literature. That differing forms of both respect and trust are thought to occur is important, particularly when considering that these may have differing antecedents or predict alternative outcomes. Issues relating to questions of mutuality are discussed throughout, as they relate to both respect and trust. The chapter concludes with a review of some key activities and organisational interventions that are considered to have a positive effect on developing both trust and respect in relationships.

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Respect in relational leadership The significance respect plays in relational leadership can be traced to early work in the social psychology literature, examining the effects of group membership on member behaviours and attitudes. Individual perceptions that they are part of a group, provide important social information-​processing cues regarding the characteristics of those in (in-​g roup) and not in a particular reference group (out-​g roup). Individuals are prone to make comparisons such that the positive characteristics of the in-​group are often exaggerated, whilst key differences between the in-​g roup and out-​group can lead to stereotyping and the negative characteristics of an out-​ group being attenuated (Brown, 2000a). This has been the basis of social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). This highlights how group membership can facilitate a range of pro-​social behaviours on behalf of the group as a result of collective identification by a group’s members. Much of the early research in this area looked at how the process of collective identification occurred within a group, and highlighted the importance of self-​ interpretation as a chief explanatory factor leading to collective identification.The question being, how does one feel they are a valid member of a specific group? It is here that research has identified behaviours by group members that convey respect to be a key mechanism that activates an individual’s collective identification. Initially respect communicated by an authority figure in the group, such as the group leader, was seen as providing the most important source of acceptance as a valued group member. However, further research has also highlighted fellow in-​ group members as similarly significant (Branscombe, Spears, Ellemers, & Doojse, 2002; Smith, Tyler, Huo, Ortiz, & Lind, 1998). Respect it would seem, then, is a primary means through which an individual is evaluated by group members and through which an individual consolidates their self-​perception of their group membership. In this body of literature, however, there has been some variation in the way in which respect has been conceptualised and measured. For example, respect has often been perceived as a matter of perceived status (Tyler & Smith, 1999). This captures the notion that respect denotes an individual’s standing or perceived value to the group. This builds on the idea that individuals possess a need for status. Although typically thought of as arising from a perceived position relative to others, it is also associated with an individual’s belief that they possess qualities or competences that are seen as valuable by a group. Respect has also been conceptualised as fair and dignified treatment (Simon & Sturmer, 2003), as well as perceived liking by group members (Branscombe et al., 2002). Perceived liking captures the notion that individuals possess a need for social inclusion in groups (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). These alternative conceptualisations of the nature of respect have led to more in-​depth theorising regarding the nature of respect, suggesting that particular forms are activated in different ways; furthermore, that these alternative different

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forms of respect might predict particular outcomes, each to varying extents. Working on these assumptions, Huo and Binning (2008) posited a dual pathway model of respect that suggested perceived status and perceived liking as two distinct mechanisms through which respect is perceived by an individual, and which had somewhat differing effects. Perceived status, which reflects the group’s evaluation of an individual as worthy due to their capabilities, is considered to convey the importance a group places on the individual in achieving group goals. Consequently, this has a stronger association with an individual’s behaviour that improves the social functioning of the group than perceived liking. In addition to group-​serving behaviour, both perceived status and perceived liking have also been found to confer individual benefits, specifically an individual’s self-​esteem. The rationales as to how these forms of respect produce their effects in each case differ, however. Whereas perceived status affects self-​esteem through fostering feelings of control arising from the value placed on one’s standing in a group (Tyler & Smith, 1999), perceived liking influences self-​esteem independently as an indicator of self-​acceptance. This leads to positive self-​evaluations, associated with feelings of well-​being. In an empirical study to test this dual pathway model of respect, both perceived status and perceived liking predicted individual well-​ being (self-​esteem and general mental health), although perceived liking did so more strongly. By contrast, perceived liking lost its predictive power of social engagement (group identification and group-​oriented behaviours) when perceived status was added as a further predictor variable (Huo, Binning, & Molina, 2009). These two types of respect were therefore demonstrated not only to be distinct from one another, but also to vary in how they predict individual well-​ being on the one hand and group-​serving behaviours on the other. Elsewhere, the idea that there are differing forms of respect has been well established in the ethics literature for some time (Atwell, 1981; Cranor, 1975). Three types of respect in particular have been highlighted. The first of these, appraisal respect, occurs as a result of judgements (appraisals) made about the qualities and characteristics an individual possesses as being worthy or valuable. It is most closely associated with the common belief that respect needs to be earned, or someone needs to demonstrate their worthiness. Next, identification respect refers to a particular form of respect that occurs when there is a close alignment of the values shared between individuals in a relationship. Finally, recognition respect arises from moral reasoning that suggests an individual is deserving of fair and equitable treatment on the basis of their common humanity. It conveys the notion of respect for persons as a human right or ethical norm. Within the leadership literature more broadly, despite a number of theories referring to respect, these tend not to specify which form of respect that is relevant. For example, transformational leadership theory posits that leaders are able to influence followers through fostering a close alignment between values. This would suggest that identification respect is the form of respect being alluded to. Within leader–member exchange theory, respect is referred to in terms of the capabilities of the individual. This would appear to

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Respect, trust and mutuality  47 ANTECEDENTS ADMIRATION

CONCERN AND ATTENTIVE

MODERATORS (Leader Prototypicality, Gender, Span of Control)

APPRAISAL RESPECT

COMPETENCE IDENTIFICATION RESPECT SHARED VALUES

OUTCOMES Job Satisfaction Job Performance Organisational Citizenship Behaviour

RECOGNITION RESPECT INTEGRITY

FAIRNESS

FIGURE 4.1   Suggested

antecedents of  three types of respect and their relationship with work outcomes (based on Clarke, 2011)

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more closely correspond to the appraisal form of respect.Whilst the servant theory of leadership emphasises ethical, fair and trustworthy behaviour, which is more akin to the recognition form of respect. This resulted in Clarke (2011) putting forward a conceptual model of respect in leadership that theorised the antecedents of these three forms of respect in the relationship between leaders and followers (see Figure 4.1). The antecedents included recognition of follower potential and leader competence, suggested to predict appraisal respect. Leader fairness and moral character are posited to predict recognition respect, whilst shared values between the leader and follower were theorised to predict identification respect in the model. Given that appraisal and recognition forms of respect appear to denote similar characteristics to the status and liking forms of respect studied in the social psychology literature, both these forms of respect are suggested in the model to predict outcomes such as job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour. A number of variables are also posited to affect the strength of these relationships. These are called moderators. For example, leader prototypicality (the extent to which the leader is perceived to be acting in accordance with followers’ ideas of leadership) may influence the extent to which some leader behaviours have potency in affecting followers’ perceptions that they are respected.There may also be gender differences. For example, female leaders have been found to report feeling less respected than male leaders (Wolfram, Mohr, & Schyns, 2006). The span of relationship (the

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number of followers supervised by a leader) might also mean leaders have less time to devote to individual followers, so that opportunities for perceiving respect become more limited. Although the model takes our understanding of respect in leadership forward, by attempting to integrate differing forms of respect more explicitly, a limitation of the model is that it tends to treat respect as an individual level construct and does not explicate sufficiently the relational nature of these forms of respect. Nevertheless, the model has prompted a new vein of research that has started to examine the effects of different types of respect at the relational level between leaders and followers. This has emphasised the notion of mutuality. Clarke and Mahadi (2017a) developed a new measure of mutual recognition respect, and examined whether this differed from mutual appraisal respect in predicting follower job performance and follower well-​being. They argued that the positive effects of mutual recognition respect in the leadership relationship can be explained in the first instance by drawing upon relational identity theory (Shapiro, 2010). Whereas social identity theory suggests that individuals derive part of their identity at least based upon criteria that distinguishes them as a member of their in-​g roup, relational identity theory posits that individuals more specifically have a desire for both affiliation and autonomy derived from membership of a relationship. Affiliation refers to a need to be emotionally connected to others, whilst autonomy indicates they simultaneously also have a need for some degree of independence. In this sense, the theory bears some resemblance to Deci and Ryan’s (1995) self-​determination theory, which argues that individuals are motivated by the need for competence, autonomy and relatedness.The key difference, however, is that whereas the latter is a motivational theory, relational identity theory places identification with a relationship as the key driving force that influences an individual’s attitudes and behaviours. Recognition respect, with its focus on behaviours that convey the integrity of a partner and appreciation rooted in one’s humanity, fulfils needs for both affiliation and autonomy contributing to a positive relational identity specific to a particular relationship (Lopes & Calapez, 2012). These authors went further in suggesting that it was not only the particular form of respect, namely recognition respect, that was important, but also the concept of mutuality.They suggested that high levels of mutuality (agreement between leaders and followers) of recognition respect conferred additional benefits in the leader–follower relationship. This differs from asymmetric perceptions of respect, where one member of the relationship may feel respected whilst the other does not. They argued that high levels of recognition respect that was mutual would be a stronger predictor of outcome variables than where respect levels were mismatched or asymmetric. In one study they found that mutual recognition respect was distinguishable from mutual appraisal respect and predicted follower job performance after controlling for both liking and appraisal respect. Furthermore, mutual recognition respect predicted follower well-​being after controlling for

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both liking and mutual appraisal respect. Importantly, mutual appraisal respect was not found to be significantly associated with follower well-​being. The study thus highlights that these two forms of respect can each contribute independent effects to some important work-​related outcomes, also that each may predict some outcomes but not others. Further research by the same authors demonstrated that both leader and follower emotional intelligence predicted mutual recognition respect between leaders and followers. Mutual recognition respect was also found to predict follower job satisfaction and organisational commitment (Clarke & Mahadi, 2017b). By contrast, mismatched (or asymmetric) recognition respect did not predict job satisfaction. Nor was leader or follower emotional intelligence found to be significantly associated with mismatched recognition respect. The results from this second study suggest that high levels of mutual recognition respect are an important aspect of the leader–follower relationship that captures a significant and positive characteristic of relationship quality at the relational or dyadic level. Despite many theories often specifying that it is the relationship between two parties (rather than the separate individuals) as the level at which the theory works or is operationalised, all too often empirical studies fail to align their data analysis with the underpinning theory. Indeed, in relation to leader–member exchange theory, Seers and Chopin (2012) have suggested that ‘Mutuality… stands as an assertion rather than something established by research evidence’ (p50). Leader–​member exchange theory clearly states that it is the relationship between leader and follower that matters, and from which leadership effects come about.Yet, studies nearly always only attempt to assess the relationship from either the leader’s, or far more commonly, the follower’s perspective. But this approach arguably fails to accurately capture the state of the relationship. For this, both leader and follower perceptions together must be considered. Otherwise, assessing the quality of the relationship is merely one-​sided. If the focus of interest is the relationship, then both parties’ appraisals need to be included in order to understand the relationship in its entirety. Where there is a high level of agreement on relational quality between partners in a relationship, then high mutuality can be said to exist. Elsewhere in the psychology literature, specifically in the areas of child and adolescent development and close interpersonal relationships (Murray & Holmes, 2009; Sallquist, DiDonato, Hanish, Martin, & Fabes, 2012), the concept of mutuality as a distinct property of a relationship has been identified as conferring independent benefits to partners in terms of psychological growth and well-​ being. Mutuality implies the bi-​ directional travel of feelings and thoughts, such that both partners are open and able to influence each other far more. High levels of mutuality capture a connectedness in a relationship where each partner’s interests and security are thought to be central. This fosters greater self-​disclosure and coping, which are associated with psychological

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growth and self-​validation. Mutuality thus strengthens close social ties (Coyne & Bolger, 1990; Genero, Miller, Surrey, & Baldwin, 1992). Consequently, studies have found mutuality to be associated with commitment and trust in relationships (Murray & Holmes, 2009). There have also been a number of studies that have found high mutuality in relationships to be associated with improved health outcomes. For example, mutuality has predicted improved well-​being for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (Kasle, Wilhelm, & Zautra, 2008), enhanced caregiving behaviour (Schumacher et al., 2008), as well as lower rates of depression (Tantillo & Sanfter, 2003). Together then, it is both high degrees of mutuality combined with recognition respect within leader–follower relationships that recent research would suggest is associated with follower job performance, organisational commitment, job satisfaction as well as follower well-​being. Mutual recognition respect would seem a key characteristic of relational leadership that can bring about both positive workplace as well as personal outcomes. However, to date there is limited research focusing on how mutual recognition respect emerges in leader–follower relationships. Clarke (2011) posited a number of leader and follower behaviours that potentially may bring about different forms of respect, but much of this remains theoretical.We do know that leader and follower emotional intelligence have been found to be positively associated with mutual recognition respect, which would correspond with the view that demonstrating caring and attentive behaviours in the relationship has some role to play. However, emotional intelligence may be important for other reasons. Self-​ awareness is a key aspect of emotional intelligence. It includes ‘reflecting on one’s unique values, identity, emotions, goals, knowledge, talents and/​or capabilities’ so as to reach a deep insight into the self (Gardner, Avolio, Luthans, May, & Walumbwa, 2005, p349). High levels of self-​awareness may enable individuals to recognise that they are far more similar to others and appreciate a common humanity. It may also enable them to appreciate better others’ perspectives and thereby understand their point of view. For example, attribution theory (Heider, 1958) explains a general human tendency to explain human behaviour as either the result of internal dispositions (such as personality, intelligence or motivation) or external factors (due to family, peers, society or institutions). The theory helps to explain how people attribute success or failure both for their own as well as other people’s behaviour. In broad terms, we tend to assume that other people’s behaviour is more often than not the result of their own internal dispositions, whilst exaggerating the contribution of external forces or factors in explaining our own behaviour (Furnham, 1997). Furthermore, individuals then generalise their attributions to either similar people and/​or situations. Perception biases further emerge when we assume individuals with similar characteristics will behave in identical ways, i.e. stereotyping (Snyder, 1984). These perceptual biases and potential for distortions, if left unchecked, are likely to negatively affect opportunities for mutual recognition respect. Self-​awareness, as suggested by high levels of emotional intelligence, may

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therefore be important in checking these distortions and biases as well as facilitating enhanced identification with a partner in a relationship.

Trust in relational leadership Interpersonal trust captures an individual’s willingness to be vulnerable to another party on the assumption that the other party’s action will be beneficial (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). It has been defined as a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another. (Rousseau, 1990, p395) A number of studies have demonstrated a wide range of outcomes or consequences as a result of trusting interpersonal relationships, including employee job satisfaction, organisational citizenship behaviour as well as job performance (Colquitt, Scott, & LePine, 2007; Dirks & Ferrin, 2002). All attitudes are comprised of affective and cognitive dimensions and this is the same for trust. The affective dimension captures the emotional attachment the trustor has towards the trustee and their relationship, as well as feelings about the potential outcomes or benefits. Beliefs about the trustee’s disposition and motivations, based upon the trustor’s prior experience and future expectations, are a feature of the cognitive dimension. Mayer et al. (1995) posited an integrative model of interpersonal trust that identifies the perceived characteristics of the trustee (ability, benevolence and integrity) and the disposition of the trustor (propensity to trust), as antecedents of trust. Ability refers to the skills and competence of the trustee, benevolence refers to the trustee’s belief that the trustee will safeguard and act in the best interests of the trustor, whilst integrity refers to the trustor’s perception that the trustee will act ethically and with fairness (see Figure 4.2). A considerable body of literature has accumulated to date confirming the validity of ability, benevolence and integrity as dimensions predicting trust in interpersonal relationships (Colquitt et al., 2007). Although, there is limited evidence at present as to the relative importance of these dimensions between leaders and followers. Followers, for example, have been found to emphasise benevolence and integrity more than ability as determining trust in their leaders (Knoll & Harjinder, 2011; Lapidot, Kark, & Shamir, 2007). Whilst, ability has been found to figure more highly in determining leaders’ trust in followers (Wells & Kipnis, 2001). This is consistent with previous research that has found that leaders and followers attend to different behavioural cues in shaping their perceptions of trustworthiness. Whilst followers attend more to the allocation of resources and rewards, leaders tend to focus far more on how followers respond to delegation. Also, followers’ trust in their leaders was based more on perceptions of their ability and integrity.

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ABILITY

TRUST

BENEVOLENCE

INTEGRITY TRUSTOR’S PROPENSITY TO TRUST

FIGURE 4.2  The

antecedents of  trust in interpersonal relationships (based on Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995)

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The notion of bounded rationality (Simon, 1955) would suggest that individuals tend to focus on few salient cues in their environment in reaching decisions based upon their previous experience. Bijlsma and van de Bunt (2003), in their study of trust among health service personnel, argued that followers tend to focus on a few behavioural cues based upon leader behaviours rather than form judgements in the round. This is particularly the case early in the leader–follower relationship. They argue that most discussions of trust antecedents fail to include the notion of relevance; that is, the particular behaviours of leaders important in fostering trust must take account of those behaviours different followers perceive as more relevant to them. It is these behaviours that are expected to be more salient in influencing their perceptions of trust. Given that the notion of trust is defined as the willingness to be vulnerable, thereby involving risk, these authors further suggest that behaviours perceived as associated with a greater degree of risk for the follower are likely to be those more salient in recall, and therefore shape follower perceptions of trust. Based on interview data and survey data, they found support for six leader behaviours they labelled as support, guidance, monitoring, cooperation, openness and appreciation. These six behaviours were relevant to followers and reflected follower expectations of what they needed from their leaders in order to perform their tasks effectively. The inclusion of monitoring was surprising, since typically trust is argued to be a key component

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for effective relationships since it reduces transaction costs, i.e. it means far less monitoring or control is necessary (Creed & Miles, 1996). However, monitoring in this instance seems to be the opposite of leaders acting aloof or neglectful and seemingly unconcerned with the follower’s performance, what they were doing or offering them any feedback.These leader behaviours are therefore more strongly associated with facilitating trust with followers. The findings that followers and leaders attend to alternative contextual cues in considering whether to trust the other party, are particularly significant in that they support arguments that it is the mutuality of trust in the relationship that is important.The problem with viewing trust as a psychological state is that researchers have tended to see trust more as the property of an individual, rather than a property of a relationship. Consequently, the overwhelming amount of research on trust has generally been concerned with the trust one side of a relationship has for the other (Krasikova & LeBreton, 2012). This is significant, as a number of studies have found only modest correlations between the levels of trust in a relationship obtained from both parties (Brower, Lester, Korsgaard, & Dineen, 2009).Yet, certainly if trust is thought to be an important quality associated with leader–follower relationships, then the bi-​directional nature of trust needs to be the chief focus. As early as 1958, Deutsch suggested that consensual levels of trust in a relationship occur when ‘each perceives that the other person is aware of his intent and his trust’ (Deutsch, 1958, p267). More recently, research in the area of trust in interpersonal relationships has shifted its focus towards understanding better the nature of trust at the dyadic (relationship) rather than individual level (Dass & Kumar, 2011; De Jong & Dirks, 2012). Dyadic trust, is defined as ‘an emergent property of the dyad representing the pattern of trust between two parties’ (Korsgaard, Brower, & Lester, 2015). Given that previous research in leader–member exchange theory has often found dissimiliarities in the perception of relationship quality between leaders and followers, it is perhaps unsurprising that a number of studies have also found asymmetric perceptions of trust in dyadic interpersonal relationships (Brower et al., 2009), although increasing convergence does tend to occur over time (Ferrin, Bligh, & Kohles, 2008). In perceiving trust at the dyadic (relational) rather than individual level, the configuration of trust between leaders and followers could be thought of as being either mutual, asymmetric or reciprocal. This reflects more recent developments in the literature that suggests, trust in workplace relationships is bidirectional in that both parties are required to both trust and be trusted in order to engage in mutually beneficial exchanges. (Korsgaard et al., 2015, p47) When thinking of trust at the dyadic level, it is the influence of both cognitive and affective dimensions of trust from both trustor and trustee, and how they interact

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in a specific context, that needs to be considered. This is of increasing importance, since the predictive power of trust may be significantly diminished if there is limited concordance or mutuality (Brower et al., 2009). Consequently, a number of studies have begun to look at the implications of dyadic levels of trust or the implications of differing levels of trust between both parties (Brower et al., 2009; Dass & Kumar, 2011; De Jong & Dirks, 2012). According to Tomlinson, Dineen, and Lewicki (2009), mutual trust can be thought of as the extent to which both leader and follower share a perception about the degree of trust that exists between them. This allows for either mutual perceptions of the relationship as being characterised as either high or low trust, and as such is a consensual construct.  Asymmetric trust, by contrast, recognises that a high level of dispersion in trust perceptions might occur in a relationship. Here, research has found that major power imbalances between parties in a relationship can result in highly dispersed perceptions of trust (Graebner, 2009), such that one party may perceive high levels of trust, whilst the other party low levels of trust. Finally, whilst both mutual trust and asymmetric trust can legitimately be thought of as independent constructs, reciprocal trust by contrast simply refers to the process by which one party’s trust in the other is influenced by their trust and trusting behaviour (Serva, Fuller, & Mayer, 2005). So whereas the preceding types of trust can be thought of as dyadic in all respects, trust here remains an individual-​level construct, but recognises the bidirectional nature through which one member of a relationship’s trust might influence the other and vice versa. An important contribution of reciprocal trust is the notion that trust levels will converge over time as individuals reciprocate and adjust their trusting behaviours and perceptions in response to those shown by the other party (Ferrin et al., 2008). Despite the recent shifts in research towards recognising the importance of mutality, our understanding of mutuality has tended to be very much informed by the notion that it represents a shared perception of the relationship. Consequently, mutuality has mostly been assessed through examining the extent to which perceptions of the relationship on some specific dimension are considered to converge. How mutuality actually develops though is less well understood, and there have been few theoretical explanations beyond social exchange theory to assist us in our thinking in this area. A notable exception has been recent work by Fletcher (2012). She draws upon a theory of in-​g rowth connection (Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, & Surrey, 1991), a theory of human growth and development which has posited a set of principles that specify how growth through mutuality can occur in relationships. Fletcher suggests that the particular characteristics of relational experiences give rise to mutuality for both partners; specifically, as relational experiences that are energised or contain zest and that facilitate empowered action. These result in partners feeling an increased sense of worth and desire for more connection. For Fletcher, these relational episodes are associated with both partners gaining new knowledge and understanding. To achieve these outcomes Fletcher (1999) suggests that individuals in a relationship require ‘fluid expertise’ where ‘power

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and/​or expertise shifts from one party to the other, not only over time but in the course of one interaction’ (p64). Central to this process is the need for both partners to possess the motivation to achieve these outcomes, referred to as a ‘relational stance’, the importance of which is emphasised since the norms of most ways of organising work have privileged individual action and independence.This suggests that a relational stance may not be so easy to achieve in practice and that gendered notions of work and society tend to relegate the significance of interpersonal interaction as being ‘feminine’. Fletcher suggests that fluid expertise places a primacy on two key skills: the skill to empower others and to share knowledge (or perspectives), and the skill to step away from the expert role and be influenced by the other partner. An important dimension of this theory, which nods towards a constructionist perspective, is the emphasis placed on attempting to understand the broader context on how social identities (race, class and gender) impact on how or if these skills are developed, or whether individuals are motivated to use them.

Developing trust and respect This leads us now to consider how trust and respect might be developed in interpersonal relationships. A limitation with much of the research in the area of trust is that many studies tend to measure trust at a single point in time. This does not give us a great deal of insight into how trust forms between parties, nor how it changes or evolves over time. Researchers have adopted different perspectives on the developmental process involved. Some have taken the view that trust starts at a zero baseline, where parties face a decision of whether to decide to trust or not to trust. At the initial encounter, individuals tend to adopt the view that the other party can be trusted and then search for information during the encounter that either confirms or disconfirms this initial belief. Assuming the other party did not act in a way that acts in the interests of the trustor, and the trustor considers there is some degree of shared values, then the trustor will be disposed to further trust as encounters continue. Should the converse occur, the trustor would perceive that their initial trust was misplaced (Jones & George, 1998). A number of factors then come into play, as to the level and extent to which trust may develop subsequently. These include the characteristics of both the trustor and trustee, such as reputation, sincerity and disposition to trust, and the nature of any past cooperation, as well as the type of relationship, such as friendship or business. Also important is the nature of the communication process, such as the extent of openness between parties (Lewicki, Tomlinson, & Gillespie, 2006). Other researchers have elaborated on this work by seeking to identify whether different forms of trust associated with particular relationship types (e.g. business, friendship, familial), differ in the ways in which trust develops between parties. Shapiro, Sheppard, and Cheraskin (1992) highlighted three different forms of trust they labelled as deterrence-​ based trust, knowledge-​based trust

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and identification-​based trust. Deterrence-​based trust originates from a belief of whether someone will keep their word due to the negative consequences that could follow. Knowledge-​based trust is derived from an individual gaining a sufficient understanding of someone to be confident in predicting their future behaviour. This is likely to occur through ongoing interactions the individuals experience with one another, and so the basis of trust begins to move from deterrence to a knowledge basis. Continuing interactions can then lead to a more in-​depth identification-​based trust, so that there emerges a close internalisation of each other’s interests by both parties. Each of these three forms of trust can co-​ exist, but there is a view that each of the types of trust develop sequentially and lead to a greater amount of trust that exists within a particular relationship. Most of the research agrees that time remains a key factor in considering how trust develops in relationships, suggesting there is a growth trajectory associated with it. This may be particularly poignant for developing mutual trust. Based on social exchange theory, this would suggest that where exchanges are mutually cooperative and supportive, then high levels of trust should mutually develop. Where the exchanges are perceived as unfair or inequitable, then more asymmetric levels of trust are more likely, potentially leading to more unsatisfying relationships or even a breakdown in relationships. The wider context in which relationships exist can also affect the development of trust. For example, research has found human resource management practices in organisations can affect not only the extent to which an employee may ‘trust’ the organisation, but also trust between leaders and followers (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002). Employees often reciprocate trust towards the organisation after it has shown itself to demonstrate care and fairness in its dealing with them (Korsgaard, Brodt, & Whitener, 2002). Particularly important appears to be the extent to which an individual believes the organisation cares for their well-​being and offers support for them to perform their role, often referred to as perceived organisational support (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchinson, & Sowa, 1986). Chen, Aryee, and Lee (2005) suggest that the favorable treatment that employees receive from the organization constitutes an opportunity for the organization not only to initiate a social exchange relationship with its employees, but also to demonstrate its trustworthiness in the eyes of employees. (p465) Similar to leader–member exchange theory, perceived organisational support has the notion of social exchange as its underpinning and argues that employees will respond with commitment and trust towards the organisation in return or exchange for fair and caring treatment (Rhoades, Eisenberger, & Armeli, 2001). In addition to perceived organisational support, Dirks and Ferrin (2002) also identified a number of other antecedents that predicted follower trust in their

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leaders. These include interactional justice, procedural justice, meeting follower expectations, and participative decision-​making. They also highlighted a number of studies that showed that leaders who adopted a transformational leadership style predicted follower trust. The shared context in which trust develops, including the wider social, cultural and institutional characteristics of the environment in which the relationship is embedded, also offers some explanation as to why some degree of mutuality might develop within organisations (Mishra & Mishra, 1994). For example, an organisation that has certain rules and regulations that prescribe how individuals should treat one another can reduce the uncertainty parties might feel about their interests being exploited. Where the broader organisational context suggests, then, that individuals should behave in a trustworthy way, higher levels of mutual trust may become more likely. Social identity theory would suggest that individuals who share similar social identities (such as being part of the same team, or a particular organisation), may be more likely to ascribe more positive characteristics to the member of the same group. This may offer a more supportive context for mutual trust (Kramer, 1999). In the same vein, parties that share similar demographic and cultural backgrounds are also factors likely to positively influence the emergence of mutual trust (Glaesner, Laibson, Scheinkman, & Soutter, 2000). Other studies have also found that increasing levels of cooperation, frequency of interaction, length of relationship, and history of conflict can affect mutual trust (Currall & Judge, 1995; McAllister, 1995). In relation to respect, the antecedents suggested earlier offer some initial ideas for considering the specific actions that individuals might undertake to support its development. It is interesting to note that some of these behaviours are similar to those that have been found to develop trust. For example, ability competence in trust is similar to the notion of competence in task achievement, suggested to bring about appraisal respect. Demonstrating integrity also appears to affect both trust and respect. Clarke and Mahadi’s (2017a) study, which sought to develop a measure of mutual recognition respect, undertook focus groups with leaders and followers that identified behaviours and beliefs that were considered to be associated with mutual recognition respect. Following various testing procedures, they were able to develop an eight-​ item measure of mutual recognition respect.These items were listed as follows: ( 1) We demonstrate sensitivity to each others’ personal or moral beliefs. (2) We value each other simply because as people we deserve it. (3) We accept each other’s right to have differing opinions even if we do not agree with them. (4) We respect each others’ differences. (5) We treat each other with fairness in this relationship. (6) Our working relationship has integrity and dignity. (7) We treat each other with consideration. (8) Individuals have a basic right to be respected.

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These items tap into a number of ideas such as communicating an understanding of individual differences and understanding diversity; acting with integrity and fairness; and demonstrating attentiveness and consideration to others.This suggests that there may be some organisational interventions that might have a positive effect on facilitating higher levels of mutual recognition respect in the workplace. For example, diversity training has been found to be effective in bringing about increased awareness of, and more positive attitudes towards differing social groups, especially where goal setting and mentors are used alongside a training intervention (Madera, King, & Hebl, 2013). Although, it should be noted that research has found that this training is likely to be less effective in the absence of a supportive organisational culture (Sanchez & Medkik, 2004). There is also good reason to believe that mutual recognition respect is likely to be affected by the empathy of both partners in the relationship. This is because empathy should influence the extent to which individuals are able to recognise and appreciate the differing perspectives held by others. Indeed, empathy has been shown to predict both helping behaviour as well as positive attitudes towards stigmatised groups (Batson, Chang, Orr, & Rowland, 2002).This being the case, empathy training should be expected to have a significant effect to improve mutual recognition respect. Helpfully, there are a number of studies that suggest empathy training can be very effective (Teding van Berkhout & Malouff, 2016).

Conclusions Respect and trust are highlighted here as critical dimensions associated with the quality of relationships that are important for leadership to emerge, and for leadership to produce positive effects. A discussion of these two concepts shows that these are more complex constructs than is generally acknowledged in much of the literature on leadership. The multidimensional nature of both trust and respect has significant implications when we consider how these might develop in a relationship. Empirical research has shown that the perceived trustworthiness of an individual is based on assessments of their ability, benevolence and integrity, in addition to the disposition of the individual to trust. However, in early stages of a relationship where knowledge of ability is less well developed, trust often emerges as a result of social categorisation processes. As knowledge of a positive role performance increases, the cognitive dimension of trust is also thought to be enhanced. By contrast, interaction frequency that leads to greater rapport is thought to be more relevant for developing affective trust. Differing types of respect also occur in interpersonal relationships. These include appraisal respect, recognition respect and identification respect. Recent research suggests that appraisal and recognition respect can predict different outcomes. Recognition respect more specifically was found to be a stronger predictor of an individual’s self-​esteem than appraisal respect. One of the criticisms of much of the existing research on trust and respect in interpersonal relationships is that it fails to address the issue of mutuality. Studies nearly

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always only attempt to assess the relationship from either one or another party’s perspective. If the focus of interest is the relationship then both parties need to be considered as part of our understanding the relationship in its entirety. Failing to understand levels of trust or respect from both partners in a dyadic relationship limits their predictive power in relation to outcomes. This is important, since both trust and respect in a relationship can be asymmetrical and perceptions of both of these may not converge.

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5 EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND RELATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Introduction The focus on relationships as the entity from which leadership is produced has turned attention to the specific types of leadership skills or abilities needed to be effective in a relational space. This has coincided with the greater recognition of leadership as an inherently emotional process. This necessitates that leaders (and followers) possess more highly developed social and emotional abilities, in order both to build and maintain relationships. The notion that leadership emerges from the relational dynamics that exist in context, directs our attention to individual capabilities that might affect the capacity to develop strong, inter-​personal relationships. Whilst typically much of the literature has considered this primarily as important just for the leader, relational leadership sees this as important for both leaders and followers in a leadership relationship. Consequently, there is a significant argument that emotional intelligence (EI) is of particular value affecting the quality of relationships. This is in keeping with the entity notion of relational leadership. However, there are a number of arguments that emotional intelligence may also be important when relational leadership is viewed from a socio-​constructionist perspective. Specifically, in that it may be of value in assisting individuals with sensemaking. This chapter starts by introducing the concept of emotional intelligence and the alternative models of emotional intelligence that are found in the literature. Research findings that have found significant relationships between emotional intelligence and leader–​member exchange as (relational leadership) are then examined. Finally, options for developing emotional intelligence are considered, which suggest that workplace learning interventions may be a more effective approach than traditional training programmes in this area.

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The concept of emotional intelligence Emotional intelligence has been the subject of considerable research over the past three decades since the concept was initially introduced by Salovey and Mayer (1990). These authors are credited with putting forward what many consider to be the most ‘rigorous’ of emotional intelligence models available. They describe emotional intelligence as a subset of social intelligence comprising four, interrelated, cognitive abilities that are responsible for processing emotional information. They define it as follows, the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/​or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth. (Mayer & Salovey, 1997, p10) Advances in the development of a measure to capture these four ability domains has led to an increasing number of studies that have found ability EI to be associated with a wide range of work-​related outcomes. These have included decision-​making and negotiation (Day & Carroll, 2004; Mueller & Curhan, 2006); leadership (Leban & Zulauf, 2004; Kerr, Gavin, Heaton, & Boyle, 2006), as well as a range of other outcomes that potentially are relevant for workplace functioning, such as forming effective social relations (Lopes, Salovey, & Straus, 2003; Brackett, Rivers, Shiffman, Lerber, & Salovey, 2006) and psychological well-​being (Brackett & Mayer, 2003; Brackett et al., 2006). Alongside this work, however, has occurred a flood of popularised accounts as well as alternative perspectives of emotional intelligence, that have each posited a wide variety of differing models claiming to represent the construct (Goleman, 1995; Goleman, Boyzatis, & McKee, 2002). Consequently, a lively debate has ensued with many challenging whether the concept of emotional intelligence has any theoretical validity. Much of this has centred on disputes, particularly with respect to those models of emotional intelligence that tend to encompass either a broad constellation of personality traits or self-​reported competences, or indeed a combination of both. This has led to criticisms that some of these models have included aspects of individual difference that, some argue, lay outside the domain of what might be thought of as emotional intelligence, such that the unique nature of the construct is compromised (Davies, Stankov, & Roberts, 1998).This includes, for example, dispositions such as stress tolerance (Bar-​On, 1997), adaptability (Goleman et al., 2002) and motivation (Dulewicz & Higgs, 2004). One of the problems this has posed has been the extent to which these latter models share considerable overlap with existing measures of personality or cognitive ability. In so doing, there are concerns as to whether some of these conceptualisations really add any predictive value or are in fact redundant constructs

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(in that they fail to really offer anything new) (Conte, 2005; Locke, 2005). Over more recent years, however, more research has been undertaken and there have been a number of generally positive findings as to the predictive validity of a number of emotional intelligence models, although with some important caveats. For example, a meta-​analysis undertaken by Joseph and Newman (2010) examined whether a range of EI models offered additional predictive power for job performance over both personality and cognitive ability. They categorised various emotional intelligence models into three groups found in the literature: performance-​based ability; self-​report ability; and self-​report mixed models.Their results showed that all three types of EI models offered predictive validity over cognitive ability in predicting job performance. Similar results were also found in relation to personality. However, when both cognitive ability and personality were included together rather than separately, only the self-​report measures of EI were found to offer incremental validity. The authors then refined their analyses to focus only on job performance where a high level of emotional labour was involved. Here they found a different set of findings. In this instance, all three models of emotional intelligence were found to demonstrate predictive validity. One of the key inferences that what was drawn from this study was that emotional intelligence can be considered a valid construct, but its relevance would seem particularly significant in those jobs or tasks with a high level of emotional content. Since then, a further meta-​analysis has again examined the effects of EI on job performance involving over twice as many studies than those contained in this previous paper. This study, by contrast, found all three EI models to have incremental validity over cognitive ability and personality in predicting job performance over a much broader set of job domains (O’Boyle, Humphrey, Pollack, Hawver, & Story, 2011). The idea though, perhaps somewhat self-​evident, that emotional intelligence is likely to be a more significant predictor of performance, behaviours or attitudes where emotions have a greater role to play, has been particularly important in considering the role of emotional intelligence in leadership. Many now highlight that leadership is, at its core, a distinctly emotional process (Bono & Illies, 2006; Humphrey, 2002). It is suggested that leaders who recognise the emotional states of followers can respond to them more effectively. Correspondingly, leaders who are able to foster positive emotional states in followers can induce moods that result in enhanced performance. This includes aspects such as decision-​making, as well as enabling them to better cope with stressful events in the workplace (McColl-​Kennedy & Anderson, 2002; Sy, Cote, & Saavedra, 2005). The emotional intelligence of leaders is, therefore, argued by many to be a key factor in leadership effectiveness (Dasborough & Ashkanasy, 2002). Consequently, many argue that emotional intelligence represents a unique set of leader capabilities that are associated with bringing about the positive effects of leadership (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2005; Prati, Douglas, Ferris,Ammeter, & Buckley, 2003; Riggio & Reichard, 2008). Research on the extent to which leaders’ emotional abilities affect their followers remains limited however (Foldes, Vinson, & Muros, 2007; Walter, Cole, &

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Humphrey, 2011). Indeed, surprisingly few studies have appeared in the literature that have shown leaders’ emotional intelligence can directly affect employee attitudes or behaviours (see Kafetsios, Nezlek, & Vassiou, 2011; Sy, Tram, & O’Hara, 2006; Wong & Law, 2002). Much of the research to date instead has focused on demonstrating whether emotional intelligence predicts transformational leadership behaviours. Barling, Slater, and Kelloway (2000), for example, found that leader emotional intelligence was significantly associated with idealised influence, inspirational motivation and individualised consideration, three key dimensions of transformational leadership behaviour. Although studies have found EI is particularly significant for transformational leaders (e.g. Leban & Zulauf, 2004; Lopez-​Zafra, Garcia-​Retamero, & Martos, 2012), criticisms continue that the relationship often assumed between EI and leadership lacks sophistication and generally fails to withstand in-​depth empirical scrutiny (Antonakis, 2003; Lindebaum & Cartwright, 2010). Some of these criticisms have recently been acknowledged by EI scholars themselves who, in response, have suggested that EI research in leadership needs to move forward to investigate how context affects the significance of emotional intelligence for leadership processes and outcomes (Jordan, Dasborough, Daus, & Ashkanasy, 2010). For example, recent research has shown that the link between EI and leadership is diminished under certain conditions due to particular role behaviours that are dominant within business sectors (Lindebaum & Cassell, 2012). Beyond leadership itself, the idea that EI abilities may be subject to boundary conditions in terms of their influence on behaviour is also growing (Farh, Seo, & Tesluk, 2012; Rode et al., 2007). It would seem increasingly likely, then, that the influence of leader EI on followers is more salient under certain circumstances. The question of context, as a key factor in considering if emotional intelligence is relevant for leadership, becomes more interesting if we view leadership as a relational phenomenon. In this instance, we are interested in the extent to which leader and/​or follower emotional intelligence can predict the quality of the leadership relationship.

Emotional intelligence –​its role in relational leadership Within the leadership literature, the quality of the interpersonal relationship between leaders and followers has been primarily assessed using leader–member exchange (LMX) theory and its associated measures (Graen & Uhl-​Bien, 1995). Here, a number of authors have suggested that emotional intelligence is likely to be important for developing LMX (Newcombe & Ashkanasy, 2002). There are a number of reasons that might potentially explain why this might be the case. These mostly draw upon social exchange theory and norms of reciprocity (Wilson et al., 2010). It has been theorised that emotional intelligence plays an important role in assisting leaders to understand the personal situations of followers, provide more appropriate feedback and better recognise those situations where additional levels of support are needed. This instils follower obligation and creates far more

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positive emotional exchanges, such that the quality of the relationship becomes associated with increasing positive affect (Barbuto & Bugenhagen, 2009; Howell & Hall-​Merenda, 1999; Dasborough & Ashkanasy, 2002). Emotional intelligence should also help followers to recognise the moods and feelings of managers, such that they are able to anticipate their needs and respond more effectively to their concerns. Beyond social exchange theory itself, research elsewhere has also found that emotional intelligence is associated with pro-social behaviour as well as more enjoyable social relationships (Law,Wong, & Song, 2004). Research examining the importance of EI for leader–follower relationships is, however, relatively modest by comparison to the volume of studies that have examined the relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership. Recent findings from the meta-​analysis by Dulebohn et al. (2012) suggested LMX mediated most of the variance between its antecedents and work outcomes (including transformational leader behaviour).We might posit then that emotional intelligence has both direct and indirect effects on LMX (i.e. that it might help leaders form high-​quality relationships directly, but also because it helps leaders to demonstrate transformational leader behaviours) (see Figure 5.1). To date, though, there have only been a handful of studies that have appeared in the literature in this area. Most of these studies examine whether the emotional intelligence of either a leader or follower (rarely both) predicts the quality of their relationship (LMX); however, these have found positive results. These include a study by Karim (2008) in Pakistan who found follower EI was significantly associated with LMX and LMX predicted follower organisational commitment. Chen, Lam, and Zhong (2012) in China also found that LMX mediated the relationship between follower EI and follower trust in the supervisor. Similarly, Jordan and Troth (2011) in Australia found LMX mediated the relationship between follower EI and both job satisfaction and job turnover. Positive findings were also obtained when leader EI was examined. Yu and Yuan (2008) in China showed that LMX mediated the relationship between leader EI and follower task performance. More recently, Clarke and Mahadi (2017b) in a Malaysian study involving 203 managers and their direct reports, also found that both leader and follower emotional intelligence positively predicted LMX, although the results varied depending upon how LMX was measured. Specifically, only leader EI was positively associated with a dyadic measure of LMX (i.e. where both leader and follower measures of LEADER EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADER BEHAVIOUR

FOLLOWER EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

FIGURE 5.1  Transformational

WORK OUTCOMES LEADER–MEMBER EXCHANGE

Job Performance Job Satisfaction Organisational Commitment

leader behaviour as a mediator between leader emotional intelligence and follower outcomes

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LEADER (L) EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

FOLLOWER (F) EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

LEADER–MEMBER EXCHANGE (Dyadic Measure: Both L & F)

LEADER–MEMBER EXCHANGE (Follower Measure only)

1 Follower Job Performance Well-Being Turnover Intention 2

FIGURE 5.2   Differences

between leader and follower emotional intelligence affects on follower only and dyadic measures of LMX

LMX were used to form a mutuality measure).This is again consistent with findings from Dulebohn et al. (2012) showing that leader behaviour was more important for developing LMX than follower behaviour (see Figure 5.2). Importantly, dyadic LMX was a stronger predictor of work outcomes than a follower-​only measure. Although the number of studies is small and more research is clearly needed, the results previously discussed do suggest that emotional intelligence seems to be an important aspect of individual difference that predicts high-​quality leadership relationships (LMX). In addition, emotional intelligence has also been found to predict trust. Certainly then from an entity perspective of relational leadership, interventions in organisations that seek to develop the emotional intelligence abilities of individuals might well have benefits in promoting the effectiveness of relational leadership. There is also good reason to consider that emotional intelligence might be of help when considering relational leadership from a socio-​constructionist perspective. This places an emphasis on the sensemaking skills of individuals in order to negotiate new meaning from situations. Clarke (2010a) suggested that emotional intelligence abilities might enable individuals to be more adept in such situations, which are characterised by dialogue and critical reflection (Ayas & Zeniuk, 2001). Raelin (2001) argues that critical reflection originates within learning dialogues, that ‘surface in the social, political and emotional data that arises from experience with one another’. Sensemaking is widely considered to be triggered by anxiety and uncertainty. Negotiating new meaning from situations therefore involves the individual initially recognising and making sense of the affect attached to the episode that prompted sensemaking. In many ways, the sensemaking process is akin to that of an action-​learning process, whereby new meaning is constructed and negotiated through interactions with others in context. Both these activities are widely recognised as being significantly imbued with both power and emotion (Vince, 2004). A number of authors argue that new understandings cannot be reached until this affect is both recognised and understood (Brown, 2000b). Sensemaking invariably is also heavily influenced by identity in a highly mutually interactive process.  Again, this is highly charged with affect. Emotional intelligence abilities would therefore appear to be significant here. The sensemaking process itself can therefore be characterised as one of emotional engagement. Clarke’s

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(2010a) qualitative study suggested emotional intelligence abilities were used by students in order to engage in critical reflection in teams. He suggested that the emotional content of situations and experiences were the triggers for problemsolving. However, it was an individual’s awareness (or recognition) of these emotions, both in themselves and others, that then prompted the critical reflection that subsequently occurred (Daudelin, 1996). This involved initially seeking to analyse why particular problems or situations had arisen. It was then followed by ongoing theorising cause-and-effect relationships to generate new meaning from what had taken place.

Developing emotional intelligence Since Goleman (1995) popularised emotional intelligence and brought the concept to a wider audience, there has been no shortage of claims that emotional intelligence can be developed, particularly through training (Cherniss & Caplan, 2001; Dulewicz & Higgs, 2004). Much of the training suggested initially lacked an empirical base from which to inform judgements regarding its effectiveness (Clarke, 2006a). However, a number of studies evaluating the effectiveness of developmental interventions have since appeared in the literature. This literature, however, can best be described as fragmented. This is because many of the developmental interventions utilise various models of emotional intelligence (and therefore measures) to assess their impact. Nevertheless, many of the studies do report some positive effects, both from using various forms of training and other developmental activities. Slaski and Cartwright (2003) presented findings indicating that a training programme delivered one day a week over four weeks resulted in gains in emotional intelligence six months later, using Bar-​On’s (1997) measure of emotional intelligence. Other training programmes that use self-​ report or observer report measures of emotional intelligence also tend to produce more favourable results (Kotsou, Nelis, Gregoire, & Mikolajczak, 2011). Nelis, Quoidbach, Mikolajczak, and Hansenne (2009) evaluated a training programme consisting of four group training sessions, of two and a half hours over four weeks, using measures of emotional identification and emotional regulation. Follow-​up measures taken six months later showed statistically significant improvements in both these domains. Clarke (2010b) reported findings from an evaluation of a two-​day training programme for project managers, using Mayer and Salovey’s (1997) ability measures of emotional intelligence, and found improvements in one of the four EI abilities, understanding emotions, six months later. Both these latter two programmes designed the training around a focus on each of the four emotional abilities contained in the ability model of EI. Both used role play and structured exercises to provide feedback to participants on their EI abilities. Lopes (2016) suggests that formal training programmes are unlikely to offer sufficient time to enable participants to practise all of the skills necessary.  This would explain why training programmes, although producing some positive effects, should not

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be expected to result in changes across the whole domain of abilities within EI. Consequently, many authors have suggested that workplace learning interventions that occur on the job and over a longer time period might instead be more effective (Clarke, 2006b; Lopes, 2016). In contrast to training programmes, workplace learning includes the range of informal opportunities for learning and development that occur in the workplace milieu. These range from learning that occurs while performing the job itself, where the nature and scope of a job directly influences learning (Van der Sluiss, Williams, & Hoeksema, 2002; Clarke, 2004), as well as learning that occurs through participating in teams, projects and special assignments (Baron et al., 1999; Blumenfield, Soloway, Marx, Krajcik, & Palincsar, 1991), action learning (Vince, 2004) as well as coaching and mentoring (Evered & Selman, 2001). Clarke and Howell (2010) argued that there were good reasons to consider that such learning methods were far more likely to result in individuals developing their emotional abilities based upon the following propositions: 1. Drawing upon the concept of communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), individuals make sense of emotional abilities and negotiate their meaning within particular work settings through participation in workplace social structures. It is through engagement with learning communities, particularly in joint problem-solving, that opportunities are provided for experiential learning relating to emotional experiences, and these occur far more frequently in the workplace. 2. Reflection and dialogue within these social structures should enable individuals to share and develop their understanding of emotions, thereby offering them an opportunity for exercising and developing specific emotional abilities, a process Clarke (2006b) referred to as ‘emotional knowledge work’. 3. Through a greater identification with workplace ‘communities’, participation in these social structures increases, thereby facilitating more opportunities for the exchange of knowledge (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Gheradi, Nicolini, & Odella, 1998) and emotional knowledge in particular. 4. Workplace learning approaches also provide far greater opportunities for tacit learning (Eraut, 2000), such that there is a greater chance for individuals to develop emotional abilities, particularly through more intuitive and unconscious learning processes as well as through more conscious processes such as modelling and observation. Clarke (2006b) offered some preliminary empirical support for these propositions, in presenting data that had been obtained from an examination of the use of emotional abilities in hospices. Using a qualitative methodology, he showed how hospice workers used emotional knowledge in order to perform their job roles and played a key part in their decision-​making. Importantly, these specialised healthcare workers indicated that these emotional abilities developed over time, consistent

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with their increased professionalisation. A number of these hospice workers were able to identify that their emotional abilities had changed and developed over time, but many were not able to satisfactorily articulate just how this had come about.Through analysing transcripts from focus groups, the data suggested that the development of these emotional abilities seemed highly dependent upon a process of dialogue with and feedback these workers received from patients, peers and their supervisors, within a range of formal and informal workplace social relationships. Performing these caring roles was suggested as generating intense emotions, which was the basis or substrate from which emotional abilities then developed. The emotional content arising from work experiences was processed, enabling emotional abilities to develop through ‘emotional knowledge work’, in the context of workplace learning. Furthermore, developing these emotional abilities was strongly influenced by tacit learning. This occurred through performing the caring role itself and interacting with colleagues. Clarke posited that it was through reflection and dialogue in the workplace, whereby the more ‘unconscious’ way of knowing underpinning emotional abilities, moved to a more conscious awareness. Aspects of the workplace environment, particularly as regards supporting the open discussion of the emotional content of work and offering a degree of psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999), were further suggested as key organisational factors that were associated with enabling emotional abilities to develop over time. Although a limitation of the study was the absence of any quantitative data suggesting changes in EI, similar studies have since appeared in the literature that correspond with these findings (Bailey, Murphy, & Porock, 2011; Taylor, Roberts, Smyth, & Tulloch, 2015). This is significant, since these studies together support a clearer set of theoretical mechanisms to explain how emotional intelligence might develop in the workplace (see Figure 5.3).

Social and Cultural Practices and Cues

Emotional Experiences Gained on the Job

Participation in Teams/Social Relationships

EMOTIONAL KNOWLEDGE WORK Individual and Group Reflection on Emotional Knowledge Tacit Learning of Emotional Abilities

Level of Engagement in Teams/Social Relationships Workplace Environment: Psychological Safety

FIGURE 5.3   How

emotional intelligence may develop on the job

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

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Additional support for the role of workplace learning in developing emotional abilities can also be found in a number of other studies reported in the literature. Using a team-​based measure of ability EI, Moriarty and Buckley (2003) showed how 80 undergraduates participating in a 12-​week experiential learning programme on effective team working, was associated with statistically significant improvements in a number of self- and peer-​assessed team ability EI dimensions compared to a comparison group. Participants were divided into teams who attended 24 hours of teaching over the 12-​week period, with most of the time spent engaging in problem-​based, self-​directed experiential learning. In addition, these teams also met independently once a week in their own time. Similarly Groves, McEnrue, and Shen (2008) have also provided more recent support for the potential influence of workplace learning. Using a measure of emotional abilities that the authors had constructed specifically for use in management development, the emotional intelligence self-​ description inventory (EISDI), these authors found that emotional intelligence abilities increased in a sample of 75 undergraduate management students participating in a 11-​week leadership development programme compared to a comparison group. The results found improvements in all four EI dimensions and the total EI score. An important feature of the intervention was that these students used the results they had received from their initial scores on the EISDI to plan goals for developing differing EI abilities. According to the authors, this was used as a basis for engaging in ongoing dialogue with and feedback from their instructor, peers, a coach, an external source of support (e.g. boss, spouse, co-​worker) and themselves, as they reflected upon the EI development process. More recently, Clarke (2010c) evaluated the effects of a one-​day EI training awareness session, followed by participation in a 14-​week team project for 80 MBA students using Mayer and Salovey’s measure of four abilities of emotional intelligence. He found positive effects on the EI abilty, using emotions to facilitate thinking; however, only for those individuals who demonstrated more intense levels of participation in their projects. He suggested that this offered further support for the notion that participation in collaborative learning is necessary in order to undertake emotional knowledge work associated with developing EI.

Concluding comments Emotional intelligence is theorised to have a positive effect on leaders and followers to form high-​quality relationships. Although there are alternative models of emotional intelligence, most agree that it represents a domain of emotional functioning that enables people to more successfully navigate social situations. Given that the concept includes aspects such as being able to recognise the emotional states of others, as well as more effectively managing our own emotions, then the benefits of these abilities to forming good interpersonal relationships are not difficult to appreciate. There are findings from a number of studies that emotional

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intelligence can predict relational leadership, when viewed from a leader–member exchange perspective. This suggests that there may be some benefits to be gained from interventions that seek to develop the emotional intelligence of individuals. In this respect, there are indications from the literature that workplace learning may be a key means through which individuals may develop emotional intelligence abilities.

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6 SHARED LEADERSHIP

Introduction Most organisations today have adopted team-​ based structures as a means to effectively organise and perform their operations (Johnson & Beyerlein, 1996). Leadership and its effects on team performance is therefore of increasing importance. It has been recognised for some time that the functions of leadership in teams are very different from other forms of leadership, and there now exists a significant body of literature devoted to this subject (e.g. Salas, Sims, & Burke, 2005; Zaccaro, Rittman, & Marks, 2001). Shared leadership is a form of relational leadership that has gained particular traction over recent years due to arguments that it offers additional advantages for team functioning and performance (Avolio, Walumbwa, & Weber, 2009). Shared leadership implies that no individual performs all of the leadership functions. Instead, there is a set of individuals who collectively perform these activities within the team. Pearce and Conger (2003) have defined it as a dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals in groups for which the objective is to lead one another to the achievement of group or organizational goals or both. (p1) It is important, first, to distinguish shared leadership from teamwork. Teamwork includes aspects such as communication, coordination, mutual support, cohesion and effort (Hoegl & Gemuenden, 2001). These are different from activities typically described as comprising leadership, such as task planning, goal setting, performance monitoring and mobilising resources. There are a number of factors

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associated with the changing nature of work in organisations that have led many authors to argue that shared leadership is now a more preferred form of leadership.The rise of the knowledge economy, characterised by increasingly skilled and well-​educated knowledge workers, is a particular factor (Pearce, 2004). These new workers are motivated by having increased autonomy in shaping how their work is performed, and have higher-​level needs to be involved in decision-​making as part of the changing psychological contract with employers. At the same time, individuals are needed with increasing expertise and the ability to coordinate work with others to address complex tasks and problems.This suggests individuals will need to take on leadership roles where their particular expertise is highly valued. It is argued, then, that team performance is enhanced by the complementarity of individuals, enabling teams to capitalise on all the strengths of team members (Gronn, 2002; O’Toole, Galbraith, & Lawler, 2002; Hiller, Day, & Vance, 2006). Although these contemporary arguments strike a salient chord given the changing work context, the concept of sharing leadership can be traced to decades earlier. Gibb (1954), for example, had previously entreated that ‘leadership is probably best conceived as a group quality, as a set of functions which must be carried out by the group’ (p884).This approach to thinking about leadership can therefore be said to have its roots in the early human relations movement (Mayo, 1933). This school of management was a reaction against scientific management as a way of organising work and managing tasks. Instead, the needs and motivations of employees at work began to assume far greater significance, as research such as the Hawthorne studies showed the importance of more involving and supportive supervisory styles and their impact on employee attitudes and performance. More participatory forms of leadership, alongside empowering staff to enable them to have greater participation in decision-​making, soon followed (Vroom & Yetton, 1973). From this developed more contemporary ideas of work organisation, particularly self-​managed and semi-​autonomous work teams (Manz & Sims, 1987). The ideas of self-​managed teams –​where individual team members are expected to undertake roles associated with setting goals, work planning and group maintenance tasks, roles typically associated with the leadership function –​continue to inform current thinking in relation to shared leadership (Pearce & Conger, 2003). This chapter begins by examining the theoretical underpinnings of shared leadership and highlights two alternative perspectives on how shared leadership is discussed in the literature. The importance of social network theory in explaining patterns of influence between team members is then emphasised, particularly the ideas of centralisation and network density as capturing the characteristics of social ties in a team. More recent developments in applying social exchange theory to explain why team members may be open to reciprocal influence is then highlighted. This is followed by an examination of the empirical evidence that exists regarding the effects of shared leadership on both team effectiveness and team performance. Finally, building on research that has identified a number of factors or antecedents associated with shared leadership, the chapter concludes by suggesting

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a number of interventions that might be used to help support shared leadership within organisations.

Shared leadership: theoretical and empirical underpinnings Much research on shared leadership has been conducted in education (Meyers & Johnson, 2008; Rice, 2006) and healthcare (Jackson, 2000), and there is growing evidence that the shared (or distributed) form of leadership is now becoming the preferred mode of leadership within these settings (Bolden, 2011; Currie & Lockett, 2011). Companies in the commercial sector are similarly adopting a shared leadership model, particularly where work is complex and in high knowledge-​ intensive business sectors. Although the terms ‘shared’ and ‘distributed’ are often used interchangeably, shared leadership tends to be seen as a more specific form of distributed leadership that applies to teams. Gronn (2002) has described two forms of distributed (shared) leadership: numerical and concerted action. The first of these is more easily conceived as the sum of leadership acts taking place within an organisational system. Shared leadership from this perspective is captured as the number of individuals taking on leadership roles or activities, and perhaps the frequency with which they do so. Identifying the extent of shared leadership in a team ostensibly, then, could be construed as an aggregate measure of individual leadership acts and behaviours. However, Gronn also outlines an alternative approach to understanding the notion of distributed leadership. This shifts the focus away from individuals and instead to seeing leadership as a property of the social system. Shared or distributed leadership is instead seen as an emergent state, or property within teams or organisations that is able to spontaneously occur in response to the system’s needs.This is referred to as concerted action and the focus is on the interactions between context and action and the dynamics surrounding them which give rise to leadership. These two alternative ways of perceiving shared leadership can be found reflected in much of the research to date (Muethel & Hoegl, 2011). Many studies have viewed shared leadership as an aggregate of the total leadership activities undertaken by team members (e.g. Boies, Lvina, & Martens, 2010; Gupta, Huang, & Yayla, 2011; Hoch, 2014; Pearce, Yoo, & Alavi, 2004). A problem highlighted with this aggregation perspective is that it averages out the contributions across all team members. As a result, it may fail to really tell us much about the extent to which shared leadership is actually taking place. So, for example, a team comprising of four team members, each rated as having undertaken two leadership activities or roles during the past month, would achieve a team shared leadership aggregate score of 8. A similar sized team, where two team members each undertook four leadership activities, whilst two undertook none at all, would similarly receive a team shared leadership aggregate score of 8. Some critics therefore suggest that simply seeing shared leadership as the sum of leadership acts occurring within a team fails to recognise any differences in relationships that exist between

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team members. Many go further in arguing that shared leadership, when viewed as a property of a team, can be thought of as far more than the sum of individual team member leadership behaviours. Alternative contributions to theory in the area have instead emphasised its characteristics as a dynamic influence phenomenon, rather than a static division of leadership role behaviours. This corresponds more to Gronn’s second perspective as to what shared leadership is. Consequently, studies in this area employ an alternative approach for determining the extent to which shared leadership is present in teams. Many of these studies rely instead on examining the strength and pattern of relationships or ties that exist within a team, drawing upon social network theory (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). This enables the reciprocal influence processes among and between team members to be assessed. This gives, for some, a far more accurate representation of shared leadership as located with a specific team dynamic (e.g. Carson,Tesluk, & Marrone, 2007; Small & Rentsch, 2010; Solansky, 2008). If we see shared leadership as the property of a team, where leadership is distributed across team members, then we have what might be termed a leadership network. Social network theory has shown that the quality and number of ties or relationships between network members reflects patterns of influence within a network (Mehra, Smith, Dixon, & Robertson, 2006; Sparrowe, Liden, Wayne, & Kraimer, 2001). This is typically referred to as network density (Brass, 1995). The more ties that exist between different members across the network, the greater the density. So tie density is a good indicator of the spread of leadership influence, either high or low. Granovetter (1973) showed that both strong and weak ties can be found in networks. He describes the strength of a tie as the ‘combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie’ (p1361). A considerable amount of research has identified the characteristics of strong ties as associated with stronger emotional connections, knowledge of one another and better communication (Levin & Cross, 2004). Hence, these factors associated with high network density are likely also to be associated with shared leadership, reflecting the characteristics of a leadership network. However, applying a social network perspective is also not without its problems. Muethel and Hoegl (2013) argue that this approach fails to recognise that team members make conscious and deliberate decisions as to whether they choose to respond to influence attempts by their colleagues. Similar to Hickman (2010), they argue instead that the mechanisms underpinning shared leadership might be better understood applying a social exchange theory perspective (Blau, 1964; Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). Social exchange theory posits that individual behaviour arises as a result of successive patterns of social exchange between individuals in relationships. Foa and Foa (1974) developed these ideas further by identifying the nature of these social exchanges in terms of what was actually being exchanged. These resources range on a spectrum, from those that are the most tangible, such as rewards, money, effort applied, and information, to more intangible resources such as respect and affection. In relationships individuals tend to

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want to exchange similar types of resources, either economic or social, like for like. It is suggested that whether team members respond positively to the influence attempts of others is contingent on the rewards they receive, or expect to receive, as a result. Only if the influence action is considered to be favourable is a reciprocal relationship likely then to develop. Recent empirical work in this area has offered some new insights into how these social exchanges develop, as well as the nature of these exchanges. Sweeney, Clarke, and Higgs (2017) reported findings from a longitudinal, qualitative study of five knowledge-​intensive teams in Ireland. They identified multiple resources exchanged over a 12-​month period between team members that were critical to the extent of shared leadership taking place. These included inspiration-​related resources such as offering vision; task-​related resources such as offering assistance and technical knowledge; position-​related resources such a network contacts; as well as relationship-​related resources, such as giving personal support. These authors also offered some insights into the role that influence tactics can play as part of the shared leadership process; in particular, highlighting a central role for rational persuasion as one of the chief influence tactics used in the exercise of shared leadership. This work is significant in that it offers some initial support for the notion of shared leadership as fundamentally rooted in the pattern of social exchanges that take place between team members. In so doing, this is arguably more consistent with the perception of shared leadership as

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an emergent team property that results from the distribution of leadership influence across multiple team members. It represents a condition of mutual influence embedded in the interactions among team members that can significantly improve team and organizational performance. (Carson et al., 2007, p1218) To summarise then, shared leadership is a collaborative and distributed phenomenon arising from patterns of influence found in social networks. The question next arises as to what evidence exists that this specific form of relational leadership does indeed offer significant benefits. In this respect, there is increasing research evidence showing that shared leadership in teams is associated with both a team’s effectiveness and its performance. There are a number of studies with student samples that have found perceptions of shared leadership were associated with beliefs of team effectiveness (Sivasubramaniam, Murry, Avolio, & Jung, 2002; Taggar, Hackett, & Saha, 1999). Pearce and Sims (2002) also found that team members’ perceptions of team leadership behaviour across the team was a better predictor than formal leadership of customer, manager and team ratings of team effectiveness. Studies assessing relationships between shared leadership and performance have also shown positive results. Hauschildt and Kirchman (2001), for example, found multiple individuals taking on a leadership role within project teams in the plant construction and engineering industry, was associated with

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performance gains of between 30–​50 per cent. Whilst Howell and Boies (2004) examined product champions in R&D projects and found that shared leadership was associated with greater performance. More recently, two meta-​analytic studies that have looked at the effects of all studies published to date, examining shared leadership and its effects on team performance and effectiveness, confirmed the overall positive benefits for teams when this form of leadership is present (Nicolaides et al., 2014; Wang, Waldman, & Zhang, 2014). However, it should be emphasised that all studies to date have utilised cross-​sectional research designs, so we cannot conclude definitely that shared leadership actually causes improved team performance, only that there is a significant relationship. Yet these findings alone are perhaps insufficient in themselves to justify teams moving towards a more shared approach to how leadership is undertaken. That is, unless significant gains can also be demonstrated over that provided by more traditional forms of leadership, i.e. such as that provided by a formal team leader, sometimes referred to as vertical leadership. This is where some of the most compelling evidence for shared leadership can be found. Ensley, Hmieleski, and Pearce (2006), in two studies involving new venture management teams, examined the impact of transformational, transactional, empowering and directive dimensions of shared and vertical leadership on new venture team performance (revenue growth and employee growth). Importantly, they found that whilst both vertical and shared leadership predicted new venture team performance, the latter accounted for additional variation in performance over and above vertical leadership. These findings are consistent with a number of other studies, suggesting that shared leadership is associated with greater team performance and effectiveness compared with vertical leadership (Pearce & Sims, 2002; Solansky, 2008; Waldersee & Eagleson, 2002). In accounting for these findings, many authors argue that shared leadership is able to have a far greater impact on many of a team’s internal work processes associated with knowledge sharing and team learning, that are considered critical to achieving higher levels of performance (Hoch, 2014; Huang, 2013). A number of studies have also found that one of the mechanisms by which shared leadership might result in greater team effectiveness is through its effects on the levels of trust in teams, as well as team potency (Bergman, Rentsch, Small, Davenport, & Bergman, 2012; Shamir & Lapidot, 2003). There are some caveats however. A recent study by Fausing, Jeppesen, and Jonsson (2013), found that shared leadership was not advantageous to teams characterised as having low autonomy. Based on a study in a manufacturing plant in Denmark, these authors found that shared leadership was negatively associated with performance in manufacturing teams. This does suggest that there may be a range of important moderators or boundary conditions that may place constraints on the effectiveness of shared leadership in particular team contexts. A study by Hoch, Pearce, and Welzel (2010) looked at the internal team context and examined the team process of coordination in 26 German consulting project teams. Coordination refers to ‘team-​situated interactions aimed at managing individual

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team member expertise […] via patterned interactions and practices in particular situations’ (Faraj & Sproull, 2000, p1555). Team coordination is important, since it facilitates access to the knowledge and resources that each member brings to the team. They found that shared leadership was associated with team performance only when team coordination was low. They concluded that shared leadership could compensate for low team coordination. However, these findings also suggest that the positive effects of shared leadership may not be realised where teams already possess very effective internal team processes to begin with.There is clearly much more we need to know to determine whether shared leadership is effective in all types of teams. Overall, however, the research to date tends to support a positive assessment of the benefits of shared leadership in varying contexts.

Factors or antecedents supporting shared leadership Given shared leadership is characterised as a relational phenomenon involving mutual and reciprocal influence, it is not surprising that a number of the factors identified as supporting shared leadership are those directly related to the quality of interpersonal processes or dynamics found in teams. Ensley et al. (2006), for example, found that shared leadership promoted team performance because of its effects on team cohesion and a collective vision. A number of factors (or antecedents) can be identified. These factors are distilled from the empirical literature to date, and are grouped here in six categories: (1) the role of formal (vertical) leaders; (2) knowledge sharing and team learning; (3) team member attitudes; (4) team dynamics, team potency and trust; (5) team member voice; and (6) organisational culture (see Figure 6.1).

(1)   The role of formal (vertical) team leaders Formal leaders in teams seem to play a pivotal role in supporting shared leadership.This recognises that although emergent, shared leadership is influenced by the actions and behaviours of formal team leaders (Friedrich, Vessey, Schulke, Ruark, & Mumford, 2009). A number of studies investigating the effects of both formal (vertical) and shared leadership in teams have generated some interesting insights here. A study by Pearce and Conger (2003) examined both these forms of leadership in 71 US change management teams and looked at leadership styles. They examined the leadership styles exhibited by both formal leaders and team members in these teams, and which of these was associated with team effectiveness. When transformational or empowering leadership styles were exhibited (either formally or shared), then these were positively associated with team effectiveness. By contrast, directive and aversive styles (either formally or shared) had a negative effect. They concluded that where formal leaders engage less in these negative styles, then shared leadership was more likely to be facilitated. Although not looking at teams, similar findings regarding the importance of leadership style

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TEAM • Team Dynamics • Knowledge Sharing and Team Learning • Trust and Team Potency

INDIVIDUAL • Formal leader behaviours (e.g. Coaching, Empowering) • Team Member Attitudes (e.g. Collectivism) • Team Member Voice

ORGANISATION Supportive Organisational Culture

FIGURE 6.1   Individual, team and organisational level antecedents of shared leadership

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exhibited by formal leaders was also found by Fernandez (2010). The significance of formal leaders lies in their ability to establish team norms that emphasise participation by all team members.The formal leader can provide teams with a shared sense of common purpose and clear goals. The focus on empowering team members to undertake leadership roles, also emphasises the formal team leader’s coaching behaviour to enable individuals to develop skills in setting priorities, when problem-solving around a particular task or activity. They also should perform a monitoring role, through assessing the team’s climate and helping to resolve conflict should the need arise. It may be that some of these formal leader activities potentially could be performed by others outside the team. Carson et al. (2007), for example, reported that shared leadership was facilitated by external coaches (faculty advisors in this case), engaging in empowering and supportive behaviours towards the team.When a number of conditions in the internal team environment alongside the external coaching role were present, shared leadership was more likely to emerge in the consulting teams they studied.

(2)   Knowledge sharing and team learning There is a general view among authors that in order for shared leadership to develop in teams, time is needed in order for individuals to gain an understanding

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of each others’ skills and resources (Perry, Pearce, & Sims, 1999). Through increasing interactions and negotiations, team members are able to develop an in-​depth knowledge of their strengths, such that they become more amenable to mutual influence. This being the case, learning has been highlighted as key to developing shared leadership (Day, Gronn, & Salas, 2004; Komives, Lucas, & McMahon, 2007). A key area here has been a focus on factors associated with knowledge sharing and learning in teams. Research from other domains has shown that shared mental models among team members promotes team coordination as well as team learning (Mathieu, Heffner, Goodwin, Salas, & CannonBowers, 2000). Where team members have similar mental models, this has been found to be associated with both shared leadership and team adaptability (Burke, Fiore, & Salas, 2003). Apart from shared mental models, another characteristic of teams associated with the team’s knowledge and how easily it can be used is the team’s transactive memory (Austin, 2000; Moreland & Myaskovsky, 2000). Researchers have argued that, in order for a team to be effective, team members need to develop an understanding of each other in terms of their strengths and weaknesses and levels of expertise. Transactive memory has been defined as the combination of the knowledge held by each team member, plus the awareness of what information other members in the team hold (Wegner, 1995). The literature makes a further distinction between transactive memory (TM), being the memory that is held at the individual level, and transactive memory systems (TMS), which describe how members actively use this TM to cooperatively, encode, store and retrieve information (Lewis & Hendon, 2011). Transactive memory systems therefore enable a team to allocate information between members and, through knowing which individual member has expertise about a particular issue, facilitate the access of that information during task performance. All of which contributes towards team learning. Importantly, research has found that teams with a more highly developed transactive memory were more likely to exhibit shared leadership than those relying mainly on a formal leader (Solansky, 2008).

(3)   Team member attitudes Shared leadership also arises from a set of underlying dynamics that shift mindsets from an individualistic, vertical, heroic mode, to one that is collective and relational. Cox, Pearce, and Perry (2003) elaborate on this by saying that it requires team members’ acceptance of: (1) constructive lateral influence; (2) responsibility to respond appropriately to constructive peer leadership; and (3) the need to develop skills as leaders and followers. A number of authors therefore argue that for shared leadership to develop in teams, members must be willing to work interdependently and undertake leadership roles (Pearce & Sims, 2002; Perry et al., 1999). This is not as easy as one might first think. O’Toole et al. (2002), for example, comment that ‘for most people, shared leadership

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is counterintuitive: leadership is obviously and manifestly an individual trait and activity’ (p66). The attitude of team members is therefore an important factor associated with shared leadership. One specific attitude that has been examined in research is collectivistic orientation. This captures an individual’s preference for interdependent behaviour, group cohesion and enjoying working with others (Driskell, Salas, & Hughes, 2010). Small and Rentsch (2010) found that collectivistic orientation predicted both shared leadership and trust at early stages of the team’s life. It is thought that collectivistic orientation might enhance trust early on in the team’s life, through promoting increasing social interactions and exchanges. Burke et al. (2003) similarly found that collective self-​efficacy, collective orientation and an open team climate, predicted shared leadership alongside shared mental models.

(4)   Team dynamics, team potency and trust Trust denotes the willingness of individuals to be vulnerable to others. Since shared leadership reflects a willingness to be influenced by others in the team, it is reasonable to assume that this involves allowing yourself to be somewhat vulnerable to the actions of other team members. This is a definition of trust (Mayer et al., 1995). Team potency refers to team members’ collective beliefs in their capacity to accomplish tasks successfully (Guzzo, Yost, Campbell, & Shea, 1993). Both these factors have been identified as associated with shared leadership in some studies. Boies et al. (2010), for example, investigated shared leadership in 49 undergraduate self-​managed work teams working on a business strategy simulation. They examined the extent to which two types of leadership style, transformational and passive avoidant, were shared in teams and their relationships with both trust and team potency. They found that shared transformational leadership was positively associated with both trust and team potency, whereas negative relationships were found for shared passive avoidant leadership. Small and Rentsch (2010) also examined trust as a relational quality of a team, and whether it was an antecedent or predicted shared leadership, in 60 US undergraduate teams working on a business simulation. They found that intra-​team trust developed during early team interactions positively predicted shared leadership later in the team’s life. The implication being that early positive social interactions in the team are important for developing trust, and that trust is an antecedent of shared leadership. Consequently, they found that shared leadership was much lower at the early stages of a team’s development, but increased over time. This also corresponds with many authors’ views, that team members need to develop a good understanding of each others’ skills, knowledge and abilities in order for shared leadership to develop (Avolio, Jung, Murry, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996). Importantly, relationships between team emergent states such as trust and team processes such as cohesion, are also thought to have reciprocal relationships with shared leadership.

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(5)   Team member voice Carson et al. (2007) reasoned that shared leadership would be more likely to emerge if members of the team were willing to both influence and accept influence from one another. This should depend on the extent to which each team member had input into the team’s decisions regarding its purpose and actions. They referred to this as voice. In a study of 59 MBA student teams, they found that shared leadership was indeed positively associated with an internal team environment where team members had a shared purpose, provided higher levels of social support and voice. Each of these dimensions are considered mutually reinforcing in that voice enables a shared purpose to be established, whilst social support signals that each individual’s contribution is valued. When individuals feel supported by team members they are then more likely to be committed to the team’s purpose. Shared leadership, they conclude, is facilitated by an internal team environment that consists of three mutually reinforcing and complementary dimensions: shared purpose, social support, and voice. Shared purpose exists when team members have similar understandings of their team’s objectives and are focused on collective goals; social support refers to the provision of emotional and psychological strength to other team members, and is considered important for group cohesiveness; and voice is defined as the extent to which a team’s members have input into how the team achieves its purpose. A more recent study by Daspit, Tillman, Boud, and Mckee (2013) has similarly highlighted these factors as important.

(6)   Organisational culture Whilst the majority of factors found to be associated with facilitating shared leadership are those internal to the team, organisational culture is an external team context factor that has also been identified as significant. Erkutlu (2012) investigated the role of organisational culture in influencing the relationship between shared leadership and team proactivity in 105 teams in the Turkish banking sector. Team proactivity refers to the extent to which team members believe their team could fix things it didn’t like and are constantly looking for better ways to do things. He showed that the relationship between shared leadership and team proactivity was stronger in a supportive culture, whilst innovative and bureaucratic cultures weakened this relationship. This is consistent with findings from across the organisational literature, that has found different types of organisational culture can influence the strength of leadership effects as well as other human resource practices (Chen, 2004). These findings support the notion that where individuals feel their input and involvement is welcomed, then they are more likely to undertake informal leadership roles. By contrast, organisations typified by greater hierarchy as found in bureaucratic cultures, or increased risk taking as found in innovative cultures, appear to diminish individuals’ desire to do so.

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Developing shared leadership Much of the research on shared leadership to date has been directed at showing relationships between shared leadership and outcomes, such as team performance and team effectiveness. Empirical studies evaluating the effectiveness of organisational interventions to develop shared leadership have yet to appear in the literature. However, that is not to say that organisations are not actively involved in implementing initiatives to support shared leadership. This is reflected in the number of case studies that can be found in the literature. These capture from a qualitative perspective what organisations did and perceptions of the effects. Black and Westwood (2004), for example, reported the findings of a study that examined the impact of a team leadership development programme that was designed to support shared leadership in a cancer care centre in Canada. The programme focused on developing four key areas considered to support shared leadership: trust, cohesiveness, communication, and conflict resolution. The programme adopted a team-​building style, and sought to improve team cohesiveness by team members, highlighting how to improve communication flows and relate to one another more effectively. This intervention also included providing skills training in how to manage conflict. A few developmental models have also appeared in the literature. Friedrich, Vessey, Schuelke, Ruark, and Mumford (2009) identified a number of collective leadership constructs, through which they were able to map the critical processes through which shared leadership is thought to emerge. Here the key processes identified were the formal leader’s skills, leader/​team exchange (such as delegation and empowerment); team performance parameters (such as collaborative problem-​solving and conflict management); communication patterns and characteristics; team affective climate; and the characteristics of the team and leader networks. Rawlings (2000), by contrast, argues that shared leadership arises through highly interactive dialogue. This author posited a model for developing shared leadership built around collaboration. He identifies three core conditions in order for this collaboration to occur: (1) shared purpose and vision; (2)  teamwork, including the team dynamics that foster collaboration; and (3) empowerment, which captures the team’s capacity to achieve its shared purpose. One of the most widely used models of team effectiveness and performance is the I-​P-​O (Input, Process, Output) framework.This draws attention to the importance of team processes as affecting team outcomes (Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001). Leadership (typically seen as leader knowledge and skills) has generally been portrayed as an input into team processes. However, Day et al. (2004) posited shared leadership as an outcome of team processes in their model for developing shared leadership capacity in teams. These authors defined team leadership capacity as ‘an emergent state or construct that develops over the life of the team; is typically dynamic in nature; and varies as a function of team inputs, processes and

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outcomes’ (p861). It encompasses the cognitive, motivational and affective states of sharedness and connectedness from which shared leadership can emerge. For these authors, team leadership capacity is a mirror on the social capital present in the team. The major contribution of the model is that it posits team learning as a mediator between teamwork processes and team leadership capacity. Given that leadership is at its essence about creating change which necessarily involves learning, then arguably leadership at either individual or team levels involves learning. Team learning therefore represents the team’s capacity for dealing with challenges and facilitates its adaptation. These are all key activities that we associated with leadership. Building on these previous models and the literature that has identified factors associated with facilitating shared leadership, we can begin to identify a number of activities and interventions that are likely to facilitate shared leadership. These are suggested as follows:

(1)   Changing team member attitudes The attitude of team members towards shared leadership has consistently been identified as a precondition for shared leadership in a number of studies. This suggests the need for extensive preparatory work in changing people’s mindsets towards what is thought to be effective leadership (Steinert, Goebel, & Reiger, 2006). Slantcheva-​Durst (2014) reported findings from a case study showing how shared leadership was arrived at as the preferred leadership model over seven months in a US community college. Based on qualitative data, she identified a number of processes that were key to this development. These were a shared commitment to the organisation’s core values, coordinated teamwork and team-​building processes, empowerment of team members, and a commitment to learning.

(2)   Developing team member skills Training team members in leadership skills is to enable them to influence and motivate others towards achieving goals. This should assist in providing team members with enhanced self-​efficacy to undertake leadership roles. Activities such as team-​building and other forms of team training are also likely to have some positive effects in supporting shared leadership in a number of ways. For example, Pritchard and Ashleigh (2007) report that team training that consisted of developing participants’ skills in problem-​solving, managing interpersonal relationships, role allocation and goal setting, had a positive effect on developing a team’s transactive memory. They suggest that such training enables team members to learn about each other in a safe environment. This enables individuals to demonstrate their knowledge and skills so that other team members can begin to recognise each other’s skills and strengths.

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(3)   Developing trust Shared leadership is a negotiated construct, emerging through the interactions between people. It follows, then, that conditions which facilitate favourable and reciprocal interactions and foster creative dialogue are central to thinking about how to develop this form of relational leadership. This firmly places a focus on creating relationships characterised by trust and empowerment, whereby rewarding, mutual interactions are more likely to occur. There is some evidence that team-​building interventions can help to build trust in teams (Walter, 2000). It is unclear as to why this happens, although it may be that as team members take risks working together in structured tasks that are facilitated, they begin to reciprocate vulnerability such that trust is enhanced.

(4)   Developing team learning Given that knowledge exchange and team learning have been identified as mediators between shared leadership and team performance, a number of authors have suggested that interventions which support both these mechanisms should facilitate conditions for supporting shared leadership (Hoch, 2014; Huang, 2013). Team learning is more than simply the aggregate learning undertaken by individual team members. Instead, it captures the extent to which there is a change in the team’s collective understanding of the knowledge and skills present in the team. It also encompasses the extent to which learning has been undertaken and shared, specifically in relation to the team’s internal processes and its performance. From an information-​processing perspective of learning, individuals process the information they receive, rather than simply responding to the information stimulus (Miller, 2011). They firstly have mechanisms for attending to information, then they bring this into the working memory where it is analysed, before it is subsequently stored in the long-​term memory which can then be drawn upon for future use. This conceptualisation of learning can be applied not just to individuals but also to groups (Hinsz, Tindale, & Vollrath, 1997) as well as organisations (Huber, 1991). From this perspective, team learning not only requires individuals to learn, but they must share this learning with the team so that there is a collective understanding. One of the major ways in which this transition from individual learning to team-​level understanding occurs, is through team learning behaviour. This describes the extent to which team members collectively reflect on their actions and performance, so as to collectively learn and change from the experience. Research has found that team-​level learning is dependent upon certain team beliefs; specifically, a belief that there is psychological safety in the team and a belief of team efficacy. Psychological safety refers to a collective belief in the team that interpersonal risk taking is valued. On a practical level, it means that individuals will not be shouted down or feel diminished through speaking up or making a point. Team efficacy is the collective belief in the team’s capacity

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to manage tasks and deal with problems based on its collective knowledge, skills and experience. Salas et al.’s (2005) review of the literature on teamwork suggested that the key team processes associated with teamwork could be distilled down to five pivotal processes. They referred to these as the Big 5 in teamwork. These were labelled as: (1) Mutual performance monitoring: this describes when team members keep track on their fellow team members’ work as well as their own, just in case any mistakes are made or problems occur, so that these can be quickly remedied. (2) Back-​up behaviour: following performance monitoring, team members support any members of the team where problems have occurred so as to ensure their goals are achieved.This may mean taking on some of the team members’ workload temporarily in order to ensure things get done, and ensuring the team’s collective goals are not compromised. (3) Adaptability: although both the two previous processes contribute to the team’s adaptability, the extent to which the team is monitoring its environment and responding to any changes by amending plans and direction are also key to the team’s adaptability. (4) Leadership: team leaders (either formal or informal) play a key role in modelling the behaviours necessary for effective team functioning, and in ensuring that there are shared mental models (common understandings that frame action) within the team. (5) Team orientation: the extent to which team members are disposed towards working collectively rather than independently indicates a team orientation. A team orientation is thought to promote greater alignment between individual and team goals, as well as commitment to the team task. It reflects an increased identification with the team and therefore indicates a collective rather than independent social identity (Ellemers, de Gilder, & Haslam, 2004). Day et al. (2004) theorised that these teamwork processes enable team learning to occur and therefore support shared leadership (see Figure 6.2). Both mutual performance monitoring and back-​up behaviour reflect team member actions that serve as the basis for reflection and further action by the team. So they provide the experience from which learning is then able to take place. However, beyond Mutual Performance Monitoring

Team Orientation

The Big 5 in Teamwork

Team Leadership

FIGURE 6.2  The

on team learning

Team Back-Up Behaviour TEAM LEARNING

SHARED LEADERSHIP

Adaptability

big 5 in teamwork facilitate shared leadership through their effects

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that, they are also seen to play an important role in contributing to the team developing the team attitudes of psychological safety and team efficacy, both associated with team learning. Team leaders are also important. Research on team learning (Edmondson, Bohmer, & Pisano, 2001) suggests that team leaders could help to develop team beliefs of psychological safety and team efficacy through indicating that feedback on team processes and performance is welcome. As well as through providing formal mechanisms through team meetings, away days and communications for reflecting on the team’s performance, and what needs to change. Team leaders can also help to bring about an increased collective identity within the team (Lord & Brown, 2004), again important for shared leadership. By positing team work processes as contributing to team learning, opens up the possibility for a number of interventions in the area of team training and team building to improve teamwork. The authors specifically refer to eight interventions that have been found to have some empirical support for their effectiveness: (1) Cross training (i.e. training that exposes team members to each other’s tasks through activities that develop knowledge of colleagues’ responsibilities, direct observation of what they do or opportunities to undertake similar tasks themselves) (Volpe, Cannon-​Bowers, Salas, & Spector, 1996); (2) Metacognitive training (i.e. training that focuses on team members gaining insights into the ways in which they learn and how these can be improved) (Lin, 2001); (3) Team coordination training (i.e. training that focuses on how to improve decision-​making, coordination and communication in teams) (Salas, Burke, Bowers, & Wilson, 2001); (4) Self-​guided correction training (i.e. training designed to improved mutual performance monitoring, through examining team member roles and responsibilities and how differing work undertaken is coordinated) (Smith-​Jentsch, Salas, & Baker, 1996); (5) Assertiveness training (i.e. training that improves communication skills so that more effective feedback can be given to team members) (Smith-​Jentsch et al., 1996); (6) Stress exposure training (i.e. training designed to enable team members to become familiar with the stress environment and develop strategies for effectively dealing with it) (Driskell & Johnson, 1998); (7) Scenario-​based team training (i.e. training that enables team members to practise skills in areas directly mirroring their real-​life tasks and receive feedback on their performance) (Oser, Cannon-​Bowers, Salas, & Dwyer, 1999); and (8) Team building (a wide range of team-​development interventions that focus on improving interpersonal relations, goal setting and role clarification) (Salas, Rozell, Mullen, & Driskell, 1999).

(5)   Developing a supportive organisational culture Whilst culture change efforts can affect the physical and behavioural manifestations of organisational culture, changes to higher level dimensions of organisational culture, particularly values, is less straightforward (Kelemen & Papasolomou, 2007; Ogbonna & Harris, 2002). As a result, studies often report varying degrees of success in describing organisations attempting to purposefully manage their

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cultures (Herguner & Reeves, 2000; Waterhouse & Lewis, 2004). Nevertheless, system-​wide interventions that attempt to influence the culture of an organisation towards one characterised as being more supportive and empowering, may have some positive effects on fostering shared leadership. Recent research suggests that the type of intervention used to change an organisation’s culture can play a large part in determining its effectiveness. Clarke, Higgs, and Meyer (2010) presented detailed case studies of six very different organisations in the UK to capture how culture transformation is leveraged through HR tools, methods and techniques, and how these are associated with contingencies within the internal and external organisational environment. From this work, they were able to highlight a number of practical recommendations for organisations implementing culture change. They can be categorised under the following headings: (1) Contextualising the change intervention; (2) Involving people in change; (3) Understanding culture change levers; (4) Considering employee responses to change; and (5) Undertaking adaptive leadership. Perhaps one of the interesting findings from this work was how both the depth and breadth of participation by employees in culture change initiatives had a major effect on perceptions of whether culture change programmes were thought to have positive effects by those involved. A programme for facilitating shared leadership within an organisation could therefore incorporate interventions in all five of these key areas.

Concluding comments Shared leadership views the concept of leadership as not needing to be fixed within a team. It emerges according to the requirements and complexity of the task facing the team, and is therefore a fluid and dynamic concept. In this sense, shared leadership suggests leadership emerges in the relations between team members and represents a systemic property of the team itself, rather than any associated individual. A number of studies have found shared leadership to account for greater (or additional) team performance or team effectiveness than formal or vertical leadership. But despite some promising research findings regarding its impact, our understanding and knowledge of how shared leadership can be supported in teams is very much at an early stage. Some of the work in this area has focused on the important role of the formal team leader in helping to develop a team climate that supports shared leadership, particularly in attempting to change team member attitudes. More recently, the importance of team learning has received increasing attention as a critical team process associated with shared leadership. There exists a more established literature on team learning, which offers an opportunity now to investigate the effects of more varied interventions to support shared leadership. This will be important to help organisations turn some of the theoretical ideas contained in shared leadership into more concrete practical proposals for leadership. However, there is much we do not know still. In particular, whether some organisations or business contexts might be far more suitable to enact shared

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leadership than others. The increasing range of factors identified that affect the strength of the relationships between shared leadership and team outcomes suggest a number of moderators are also involved. There is also an ongoing debate regarding the actual definition (or parameters) of shared leadership to satisfactorily inform theory and research (Pearce, Conger, & Locke, 2008). There is no doubt, however, given the importance now attached to teams in today’s organisations, that shared leadership will be one of the dominant themes influencing leadership research for the foreseeable future.

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7 RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP

There have been calls for a new form of leadership in conducting business due to globalisation, and the need to transcend the neo-​economic instrumentalism that many argue gave rise to the collapse of financial markets in 2008 (Maak & Pless, 2006; Scherer & Palazzo, 2008). A poll conducted in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain and the United States in 2009 found that 76 per cent of Americans and between 65–​81 per cent of European adults, considered the behaviour of their business leaders was unethical or irresponsible (Harris Interactive, 2009). This new form of leadership requires new responsibilities that reflect a step change in the social contract between business and society. Where social responsibility and ethical behaviours are increasingly central to the exercise of leadership (Carroll & Shabana, 2010). Against this backdrop, the concept of responsible leadership has emerged that brings together notions of leadership, ethics and corporate social responsibility to underpin a new model of leadership better suited to the changing nature of global business (Doh & Stumpf, 2005; Waldman & Siegel, 2008). Although the field is only just emerging, most writers agree that responsible leadership requires a focus on leadership ethics, and a more comprehensive engagement with the full range of stakeholders affected by business to develop more socially responsible leadership behaviours (Waldman, 2011). This new form of leadership attempts to bridge leadership practice at the individual level, with the organisational level of corporate responsibility (Voegtlin, Patzer, & Scherer, 2012). As yet, though, a set of outcomes expected from responsible leadership has not been clearly articulated beyond the idea that responsible leaders should attempt to influence economic, environmental as well as outcomes of social value, that together comprise the triple bottom line (Savitz & Weber,

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2006). Sometimes articulated that responsible leaders should ‘do no harm’ or ‘do good’ (Waldman & Galvin, 2008). This chapter introduces the concept of responsible leadership and starts by discussing some of the alternative conceptualisations that have appeared in the literature to date. Whilst much of the literature has tended to focus on leader behaviours and characteristics, there has been a distinct shift recently towards a more relational stance. Although responsible leadership has been defined as a relational activity, much of the writing has tended to adopt a leader-​centric perspective. Next, more relational ideas are discussed, particularly in relation to theorising a collective leadership approach involving multi-​agency stakeholders, as well as how sensemaking can help us better understand an organisation’s approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Finally, a number of ideas for developing responsible leadership that have been put forward in the literature are discussed, in particular highlighting a role for social change projects. The importance attached to authenticity by some writers on responsible leadership also suggests a number of activities that develop an individual’s self-​awareness might also be helpful in this area.

Responsible leadership: theoretical contributions Responsible leadership is distinct from the theory of ethical leadership. The theory of ethical leadership focuses on the leader–follower relationship within organisations, and does not consider the wider social responsibility concerns of leadership for the environment (Eisenbeiss, 2012). Ethical leadership theory discusses the concept of normative ethical behaviour, although does not explain what this is, nor what ethical norms should be adhered to. It is also not clear from this literature what the appropriate outcomes of ethical leadership actually are. Most studies have tended to focus on employee citizenship behaviour or follower unethical behaviour, but fail to consider the impact of leaders’ ethical behaviour or ethical decisions beyond the confines of the organisation itself. In this respect, they omit to say anything about what, if any, responsibilities leadership has for promoting socially responsible behaviour and change in society. The basis of ethical leadership draws upon social learning theory to suggest that ethical leaders act as role models through which followers then seek to emulate ethical leader behaviour. However, there is not a distinct theory explaining ethical leadership in its own right, and social learning theory is unable to explain what is or is not considered to be ethical behaviour. In this sense, ethical leadership is very much focused on the leader rather than the leader–follower relationship, or broader patterns of relationships both within and between organisations. The theory also fails to sufficiently acknowledge the significance of context in influencing ethical behaviour. This includes the wider organisational and institutional environments that affect acceptable norms of behaviour, the pattern of relationships that exist between people, as well as the specific situation or

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problem in which ethical behaviour is taking place. Responsible leadership seeks to address these limitations. Maak and Pless (2006) defined responsible leadership as ‘a social-​relational and ethical phenomenon, which occurs in social processes of interaction’ (p99). These authors were the first to argue that a socially responsible and ethical form of leadership emerges in context, and through interactions between individuals both inside and outside the organisation. Responsible leadership is therefore relational. Based on the extant literature we can identify some key aspects of responsible leadership. Rather than just focus on leader–follower interaction, responsible leadership emphasises a far wider focus on leader-​stakeholder interaction. It can be summarised as follows. It involves: 1. A high degree of diverse stakeholder inclusion (including employees) (Donaldson & Preston, 1995; Maak & Pless, 2006; Schneider, 2002). 2. The exercise of leadership which combines societal, environmental as well as economic responsibilities (Doh & Stumpf, 2005; Waldman & Galvin, 2008; Waldman, 2011). 3. Decisions that are informed by ethical considerations (De Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2008; Doh & Stumpf, 2005; Waldman & Siegel, 2008). Beyond these broad principles, however, a unified or comprehensive theory of responsible leadership has yet to emerge in the literature. Instead, it remains far more an umbrella term encapsulating a number of alternative perspectives and ideas as to how leadership might be enacted in more socially responsible ways. Many of these recognise that most of the major social, financial and environmental problems and challenges facing business cut across organisational and national boundaries, and that business today takes place in a highly interconnected world. Consequently, a number of prominent writers have positioned responsible leadership as a form of leadership that occurs at an inter-​organisational level of analysis. In so doing, the emphasis is placed on the interactions between organisations and their stakeholders as the means through which leadership may become more responsible. Some of the most common approaches in the literature have sought to connect leadership more clearly to stakeholder theory (Doh & Stumpf, 2005; Maak & Pless, 2006; Waldman & Galvin, 2008). Maak and Pless (2006) emphasised involving stakeholders in addressing an organisation’s CSR concerns as central to responsible leadership, and posited a model focused on the roles responsible leaders should adopt in order to practise responsible leadership. These roles are represented in the form of a web (Figure 7.1). Here, four core values-​based roles are placed at the centre of the web from which other sub-​roles then emanate. The four core roles are labelled in terms of metaphors as a visionary –​where the leader engages with stakeholders in developing a future vision that can lead to sustainable business and achieving a common good; steward –​where the leader acts as guardian of ethical values and as a moral

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Stakeholders

Visionary: Storyteller

Servant: Coach Responsible Leader Characteristics

Citizen: Change Agent

FIGURE 7.1  The

Steward: Architect

roles model of responsible leadership (based on Maak & Pless, 2006)

compass for determining future actions and negotiating conflicting stakeholder interests and demands; servant –​where the leader treats all stakeholders with respect and care and acts with ‘relational intelligence’ to bring people together with a goal of common purpose; and finally citizen –​emphasises the leader acting in a way that integrates both civic as well as business duties. Radiating out from these four values-​based roles is a further set of four roles that appear to capture implementation behaviours associated with fulfilling the four values-​based roles. These are identified as coach, architect, change agent and storyteller/​meaning enabler. The responsible leader acts as a coach to enable all followers’ (stakeholders) views to be respected and recognised to facilitate learning. As part of this they develop the relational skills of stakeholders so that they are able to fully participate. The responsible leader acts as an architect, building an inclusive culture and a ‘moral infrastructure’ through aligning organisational policies and procedures with moral values such as fairness, integrity, trustworthiness and respect. In so doing, they provide an institutional environment that supports ongoing dialogue between stakeholders to achieve joint moral purpose. The responsible leader as change agent refers to their role in mobilising stakeholders to secure responsible change through facilitating sensemaking and minimising anxiety, whilst building

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commitment to change. The responsible leader as storyteller and meaning maker emphasises the leader’s role and behaviours in creating a collective system of shared meaning through dialogue and sensemaking. This enables all stakeholders to come to a common understanding of their social responsibility concerns, and how best to act on these together. Towards the outer ring of the web, these roles are connected to the range of stakeholders with whom the organisation should engage. These include suppliers, fellow citizens, board members, employees and family, among others. Maak and Pless place the leader’s character and personal qualities at the centre of their role-​based model. Here, moral character and possessing ‘relational intelligence’ are highlighted as the most significant. Moral character is described in terms of the leader possessing desirable virtues and principles, among which they emphasise ‘respect, care, honesty, accountability, humility, trust and active citizenship’. They refer to the leader possessing a combination of emotional intelligence and ethical intelligence (moral awareness, moral reflection and moral imagination) as characterising ‘relational intelligence’. In their discussion of responsible leadership, these authors argue that leadership takes place in interaction with a variety of stakeholders. Later, Stahl, Pless, and Maak (2013) suggested that leaders differ in their ‘responsibility orientation’, varying in the breadth to which they include differing stakeholders and the extent to which they feel accountable towards them. They argued that variations in a leader’s responsibility orientation were associated with an organisation’s approach to CSR. They suggest that those offering a more innovative approach to creating social value in their approach to CSR, demonstrated a greater breadth of stakeholder inclusion and greater accountability towards them. Yet this approach does suffer a number of limitations. That is, despite much discussion of a relational perspective, the model seemingly equates responsible leadership as an individual-​level construct, with its focus on a particular leader’s roles and behaviours. This mirrors much of the writing on responsible leadership, where attempting to map the competences of responsible leaders is often a typical approach (Cameron, 2011; Freeman & Auster, 2011; Maak & Pless, 2006; Macaux, 2012). Furthermore, considerable emphasis has been placed on CEO characteristics in explaining responsible leadership (Wang, Huang, Gao, Ansett, & Xu, 2015). Waldman and Balven (2014), for example, suggest that: Despite the broad domain of RL (Responsible Leadership), processes associated with individuals exerting leadership influence are at its core. This makes it impossible to frame RL without considering individuals in terms of their behaviours and decisions. (p224) This primary focus on the characteristics of leaders in defining responsible leadership can be explained by a number of factors.The first, is that many of the unethical and corruptive practices that have been exposed time and time again have been

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explained as down to the behaviour of particular individuals, often at the upper echelons of the organisation. The corollary, then, is that responsible (or irresponsible leadership) can be traced to a lack of morality in the character of individuals. Others also argue that senior leaders in organisations have a significant influence on the organisation’s ethical culture (Ardichvili & Jondle, 2009).There are problems though with this narrow focus. First, the list of competences is growing with no clear consensus on what are the most salient for predicting responsible leadership behaviour in the workplace. In this respect, this echoes much of the criticisms found regarding the use of competences more broadly as a means to capture leadership. Other problems with this literature include the reliance on many existing leadership theories to map the domain of responsible leadership. Chief amongst these have been transformational, servant, ethical and authentic leadership theories. Groves and LaRocca (2011), for example, examined transformational leadership behaviour as predicting follower CSR beliefs and organisational citizenship behaviour as responsible leadership outcomes. In so doing, the boundaries between responsible leadership and these other leadership theories become blurred and their distinctiveness less well understood. This leads to a lack of conceptual clarity as to what responsible leadership actually is.There is a strong argument to be made that the concept of responsible leadership is likely to become redundant if it is unable to offer any additional explanatory power over existing leadership theories to explain responsible leadership behaviour. Finally, and perhaps more importantly, there is notably a lack of focus on the actual relationship between stakeholders as the locus through which the effects of responsible leadership come about. At best, perhaps, these leader roles and behaviours might be seen as one set of antecedents or variables that might potentially bring about a set of conditions characterising the network of stakeholders. It is, however, through these sets of stakeholder relationships which responsible leadership might be thought to emerge, and then produce positive outcomes linked to sustainable business. Consequently, there has been increasing recognition that responsible leadership needs to be examined at different levels of analysis. It is not simply a matter for CEOs in companies (i.e. formal leaders), but can be seen as a property of teams, organisations and of course an organisation within a broader network of stakeholders (Christensen, Mackey, & Whetten, 2014; Morgeson, Aguinis, Waldman, & Siegel, 2013). In so doing, this would provide a clearer delineation from other leadership theories that have sought to address ethical issues (e.g. ethical leadership and authentic leadership). In this vein, Doh and Quigley (2014) have argued that responsible leadership is a multi-​level construct that requires thinking about leadership at individual, team, organisational and societal levels. They suggest that each of these levels is integrated and interacts with the other, and that together they constitute the broad domain of what responsible leadership actually is. They go on to highlight particular roles or functions that are undertaken at each of these levels. Together they suggest that this offers a unifying view on how responsible

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leadership is enacted. At the individual level, responsible leaders are suggested to motivate followers (or stakeholders) to adopt more responsible orientations to business. At the team level, leaders encourage diverse perspectives towards stakeholders. At the organisational level, responsible leaders foster ties with stakeholders and help to build an inclusive culture. Finally, at the societal level, responsible leaders are better able to anticipate and respond to societal and economic problems. Responsible leaders are suggested to influence the organisational dynamics through which these aims are achieved through two distinct processes. The authors label these as a psychological pathway and a knowledge-​based pathway. The effects of responsible leadership at each of the three levels are posited as mediated through trust, ownership and commitment (the psychological pathway). Creativity and knowledge sharing mediate the effects of responsible leadership at each of the three levels through the knowledge-​based pathway. The model represents the beginnings of work in the area of responsible leadership that is starting to move beyond responsible leadership as primarily an individual-​level phenomena, although the model does have limitations. Chief of these is that each of the levels are treated independently from one another, and it is not clear from the model how the effects of responsible leadership are connected to higher levels.The model places relationships with stakeholders as central to the responsible leadership construct, although it is not at all clear how ethical decision-​making, generally agreed as a core component of responsible leadership, fits into this model. Similarly, whilst knowledge sharing, creativity, commitment and trust have all been examined at differing levels of analysis (e.g. the level of trust one individual has for another, trust in a relationship, team level trust, etc.), the theoretical explanation as to how these factors are thought to influence the particular responsible leadership outcomes identified at each of these levels is not well specified. Other authors have argued for a more collective perspective on responsible leadership. Voegtlin (2015), for example, has suggested that responsible leadership needs to shift its emphasis away from individual leaders towards the collective effort of stakeholders to engage in problem-​solving and ‘share’ responsibility for addressing societal challenges. This involves all parties together assuming leadership roles. Voetglin (2015) goes further by suggesting that responsible leadership can be seen as occurring and emanating within the communication processes that exist between stakeholders. Here, leadership is seen as arising from the patterns of communication between people. In so doing, the author is shifting the focus far more towards understanding responsible leadership as taking place within the discursive practices and dialogue between stakeholders (Fairhurst & Connaughton, 2014). Responsible leadership thus becomes a ‘shared process of meaning-​management among actors’ (Voegtlin (2015), p11). Based upon data obtained from interviews with NGOs and company managers,Voegtlin summarises this perspective of responsible leadership as one of social connection, characterised by the following four principles: (1) the leader is not

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the only agent of social responsibility; (2) the leader should critically evaluate the prevailing norms and values influencing ethical behaviour and decision-making; (3) leadership is forward looking; and (4) leadership is shared and is a process of collective problem-solving. Viewed from this perspective, the primary abilities required from responsible leaders are highlighted as perspective taking, moral courage, and accommodating conflicting goals. Responsible leaders also require cognitive, relational and behavioural capacities to deal with role demands within a network of stakeholder relationships. Similar to Maak and Pless (2006), emotional intelligence and cultural sensitivity are highlighted as assisting responsible leaders to communicate and negotiate with diverse stakeholders. Also needed is the ability to deal with social and economic logic simultaneously, and to recognise and comprehend conflicting interests, referred to as cognitive complexity. Behavioural capacities emphasise the importance for responsible leaders to adopt multiple roles as they bring stakeholders together to engage in problem-solving within the network. One of the key implications of this model is that it addresses a further key criticism of much of the writing on responsible leadership to date. Considerable discussion has taken place regarding what constitutes the responsible element of responsible leadership. Alternative positions have been advanced as to the extent to which leaders should be responsible primarily to shareholders, or wider stakeholders connected to the business goals of the organisation, or more broadly in a coalition for public good (Doh & Quigley, 2014). Consequently, the questions of responsibility to whom and for what remains a contested area in this literature (Waldman, 2011). Arguably, within this relational perspective of responsible leadership, this confusion no longer exists since it is the collective that together agrees what problems need to be addressed, and together jointly work on a solution. Consequently, the moral legitimacy for responsible leadership is attained, since it is based on the views of the collective. A further development in this literature that brings a more relational perspective, has been studies that have examined sensemaking to explain both a leader’s orientations towards CSR as well as ethical decision-​making. Sensemaking processes have been suggested as providing the lens through which organisations perceive their relationships with internal and external stakeholders. Furthermore, they provide the frames of reference through which information is filtered and decisions related to CSR choices are made (Brickson, 2007). Le Menestrel and de Bettignies (2002), for example, summarised the range of responses from oil companies to the challenges of climate change, and highlighted alternative ways in which these companies perceived and reconfigured the problem. Sensemaking can thus help us to understand why some organisations react differently to similar ethical situations. More recently, Basu and Palazzo (2008) have put forward a process model of organisational sensemaking. This highlights how managers think and act with respect to their stakeholders, and how they view and form their relationships with them. They argue that this explains how managers will respond

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to CSR concerns. They suggest that an organisation’s approach to responsibility could therefore be thought of as, the process by which managers within an organization think about and discuss relationships with stakeholders as well as their roles in relation to the common good, along with their behavioral disposition with respect to the fulfilment and achievement of these roles and relationships. (p124) Their model presented in Figure 7.2 views organisational sensemaking as essentially denoting the character of an organisation. In their model, they suggest this comprises three distinct processes: (1) cognitive, which captures managers’ perceptions of relationships with stakeholders and their perceptions of what makes good business; (2) linguistic, which captures how managers talk about and discuss with others, both inside and outside the organisation, their rationales for engaging in particular behaviours; and (3) conative, which captures the organisation’s behavioural positions towards stakeholders, and the extent to which its behaviours are consistent with both the preceding cognitive and linguistic frames. Each of the three sensemaking processes can be characterised along differing dimensions. The cognitive process is analysed along two dimensions: its identity orientation and its legitimacy approach. Building on the work of Brickson (2007), an identity orientation consists of shared perceptions of what the organisation is, and consists of the values and norms in the organisation that shape how they

What Firms Think

What Firms Say

Identity Orientation (i.e. Individualistic, Relational or Collectivist)

Justification (i.e. Legal, Scientific, Economic, Ethical)

Posture (i.e. Defensive, Open)

Transparency (i.e. Balanced or Biased)

Consistency (i.e. Strategically Consistent or Inconsistent) Commitment (i.e. Instrumental or Normative)

Legitimacy (i.e. Pragmatic, Cognitive and Moral)

How Firms Behave

Firm’s Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility

7.2   A sensemaking perspective on a firm’s approach to CSR (based on Basu & Palazzo, 2008) FIGURE

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think about their relationships with stakeholders. This could be thought of as occurring along a dimension which ranges from being independent to interdependent. Along this dimension, an organisation’s identity orientation could be thought of as: (1) individualistic, whereby the organisation emphasises freedom to act on self-​interest, independent of others’ concerns; (2) relational, where organisations see themselves as partners with key stakeholders relevant to their business and recognise their concerns as part of the organisation’s wider interests; and (3) collectivistic, where an organisation sees themselves as part of a much broader network of organisations and stakeholders that share a common goal or purpose to unite around a common social cause. The nature of an organisation’s identity orientation will thus influence the nature of the relationships it forms with stakeholders, and the subsequent CSR activities and behaviours it will then likely adopt. A legitimacy orientation further differentiates its cognitive processes. The need for organisations to gain acceptance (or legitimacy) for what they do results in organisations adopting differing arguments as to the basis of their legitimacy. These could be defined as either pragmatic, cognitive or moral (Suchman, 1995). Organisations that adopt a pragmatic approach tend to rely on arguments as to the utility of what the organisation is doing, particularly in terms of the benefits it provides to stakeholders. A cognitive approach, by contrast, relies on arguments that what the organisation does is consistent with much broader societal expectations and changes. Finally, organisations can adopt a moral approach where they seek to create new forms of acceptable conduct that should define how they relate with stakeholders. Linguistic sensemaking processes can similarly be characterised along two dimensions, which these authors characterise as justification and transparency. How organisations justify what they do in the language they use offers insights into how they perceive themselves in relation to others, particularly their stakeholders. The language of justification serves to further the perceptions an organisation holds about how it views the world and its responsibilities. The language of justification can be varied and can include: (1) legal arguments drawing upon officially sanctioned codes of behaviour and rights; (2) scientific arguments drawing upon the views of expert opinion; (3) economic arguments that emphasise the contribution the organisation makes to society; and (4) ethical arguments drawing upon higher moral interests and concerns. The language used by managers can also differ between organisations, in terms of its degree of transparency. This refers to the extent to which it presents biased, or more balanced, discussions of perceptions and perspectives in relation to its behaviour. Conative sensemaking processes are centred on behaviour. These include the dimension of posture which reveals routinised modes of responding to stakeholders. This could be thought of as a typical way to respond to criticisms or expectations from particular organisations, groups or people. For example, managers might be defensive where they tend to see their views and actions as always right. It could be uncertain or tentative, due to inexperience, lack of expertise or the

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ambiguity of the situation and its potential outcomes. Alternatively, an open posture suggests a willingness to listen and learn from others’ viewpoints and positions. A further dimension, consistency, describes the coherence between the stated goals of the organisation or formally stated position in an area as contained in policies and public statements, compared to the actual behaviours of the organisation as experienced by those inside and outside the organisation. Commitment is posited as an additional conative process dimension. This dimension distinguishes whether the motivation underpinning an organisation’s behaviour in relation to CSR could be described as either instrumental or normative. Instrumental commitment suggests CSR actions and behaviours are driven by primarily external incentives. Normative commitment, by contrast, suggests behaviours are motivated by wider, moral imperatives or standards. Arguably, this way of analysing an organisation’s approach to CSR has much to offer a relational perspective of responsible leadership. Finally, some mention should be made of how the ethical decision-​making aspects of responsible leadership have tended to be treated in the literature. For the most part, this has tended to adopt an ‘Aristoleaen’ approach to thinking about ethics and ethical behaviours, i.e. in approaching this as essentially a matter of individual character. With responsible leadership being defined as being good or doing good, the concept of virtuousness as capturing a universal standard of rightness has been highlighted as defining responsible leader behaviours associated with ethical decision-​making (Cameron, 2011).This includes behaviours such as, caring, compassionate support, forgiveness, inspiration, giving meaning, showing respect, integrity, and gratitude (Cameron, Mora, Leutscher, & Calarco, 2011). More latterly, ideas in this area have developed further to think more about the influences on ethical behaviours or decision-​making in processual terms. Stahl and Sully de Luque (2014), for example, distinguish between two types of responsible leader behaviour, termed avoid harm and do good. This differentiates between leader behaviours concerned with avoiding harmful actions to others, as opposed to a more proactive stance towards enhancing societal well-​being. Much of the research examining ethical leadership and ethical decision-​making has tended to fall within the former category, with the aim of avoiding harmful behaviour. In their model of responsible leader behaviour (see Figure 7.3), they draw upon what is essentially a theory of reasoned action (Ajzen, 1991) in positing a number of antecedents to leader behavioural intention, comprising both individual characteristics and both proximal and distal situational factors. Individual factors they list include personality traits, demographics, values and moral reasoning and affective states. Proximal situational factors include organisational aspects, such as ethical climate and CSR approach. Also included here are factors they list as social consensus and probability of effect. The more distal contextual factors include industry, the legal system and the role of stakeholders. Following the notion that behaviour is a function of both the individual (leader characteristics) and the specific context in which the individual is situated (proximal and distal situational factors), the extent

newgenrtpdf

01

Leader Characteristics Personality Traits, Cognition, Values, Morals, Demographics

Proximal Context Situational: Social Consensus, Proximity, Benefits, Probability

RESPONSIBLE LEADER BEHAVIOUR Behavioural Intention

Organizational: Ethical Climate, Ethical Codes, Rewards and Sanctions, CSR Concerns Distal Context Legal System, National Culture, Role of Stakeholders, Industry Competition, Global Governance, UN Global Compact

FIGURE 7.3   Factors

Doing Good Avoiding Harm

affecting responsible leader behaviour (based on Stahl & Sully de Luque, 2014)

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to which the leader’s individual characteristics will influence responsible behaviour is argued to be moderated by the strength of situational factors. This model very much draws upon research elsewhere in the area of ethical decision-​making, particularly by Rest (1986) and Jones (1991). These authors present ethical decision-​ making as a purely cognitive process that is framed through predominantly rational concerns (Park & Stole, 2005). Rest (1986) posited a simple four-​step model of ethical decision-​making and behaviour that characterises the ethical decision-​ making process as proceeding sequentially through the following stages: (1) Moral Awareness, which involves the individual recognising the issue as having moral concerns; (2) Moral Judgement, which involves the individual deciding which set of responses are morally correct; (3) Moral Intent, which involves the individual resolving to place moral concerns above others: and (4) Moral Behaviour, which involves the individual acting on the moral concerns through their moral intent. Jones (1991) subsequently built on Rest’s model to develop his model of moral intensity. This is defined as ‘the extent of issue-​related moral imperative in a situation’ (p372).The model depicts the outcome of the ethical decision-​making process as dependent upon the extent of moral intensity perceived by an individual.This is captured as comprising six dimensions: (1) Magnitude of consequences: this is perception of harm or good that may arise as a result of the decision taken to people involved; (2) Social consensus: this is the extent to which an individual believes others would act similarly in the same circumstances; (3) Probability of effect: this is the individual’s appraisal of how likely it is that the perceived outcomes of the decision will actually occur; (4) Temporal immediacy: this is the amount of time the individual believes will be between the present and the perceived outcomes; (5) Proximity: this is the extent to which the individual is close to those involved; and (6) Concentration of effect: this is the perceived strength of the consequences for all those affected by the individual’s decision. Despite the popularity of these two models in influencing much of the research to date on our understanding of the ethical decision-​making process, they have nonetheless come under increasing criticism. Chief amongst the criticisms are that such models fail to recognise that ethical decision-​making often occurs under conditions of high uncertainty and equivocality that significantly influence how ethical issues are perceived (Sonenshein, 2007). These conditions often result in individuals reaching ethical judgements through intuitive processes where emotions play a much larger role (Steenhaut & Van Kenhove, 2006;Vitell, King, & Singh, 2013).This would suggest that the major emphasis placed on moral reasoning in these highly rational, cognitive models, is unlikely to capture how people actually make ethical decisions in real-​life organisational settings. Indeed, one of the problems with much of the research offering support for these rationalist cognitive models is that most is informed by experimental studies that focus on a narrow set of variables, often using scenario tests or case studies (Thiel, Bagdasarov, Harkrider, Johnson, & Mumford, 2012). Even within this body of research only the factors social consensus and magnitude of consequences have received the most consistent support

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(O’Fallon & Butterfield, 2005). It also runs counter to much of what we know about decision-​making more widely, where concepts such as bounded rationality (Simon, 1955) have found support in research, showing that people rarely participate in the extensive reasoning when making decisions as suggested in these cognitive models (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). In organisational settings, then, the notion that managers must first recognise a problem as being a moral one, and next apply their moral philosophy to reach an ethical decision, becomes somewhat more tenuous. More recent research has suggested that ethical decision-​making is instead far more characterised as a sensemaking activity. This was found in a study examining ethical decision-​making in four projects in the UK (Clarke, Higgs, D’Amato, & Vahidi, 2017). Whether an issue was seen as having ethical implications was interpreted by managers through the lens of the organisation’s culture and business goals. Next, that any moral intensity associated with an ethical dilemma was not static but constantly varied in response to interactions managers had with people and situations.These were ‘trigger’ events that resulted in managers experiencing a degree of cognitive dissonance that was often highly emotionally charged.This then prompted managers to reinterpret the ethical dilemma in a different way, often post-​rationalising their decision or behaviour. Ethical decision-​making was therefore far from a linear sequence of steps. Instead it was a continuous, iterative process where trigger events resulted in ambiguity and a need to reinterpret the ethical dilemma.

Developing responsible leadership There has been limited attention to the topic of developing responsible leadership within organisational contexts in the literature. By contrast, given the criticisms specifically levelled at business schools in failing to address ethical and social concerns for business (and even contributing to the current crisis of trust in business), much of the literature has explored developing responsible leadership in formal management education programmes (Khurana, 2007). With most business schools now signed up to the Principles of Responsible Management Education (Adams & Petrella, 2010), much of this literature focuses on developing the knowledge, skills and attitudes thought necessary for managers to engage in more socially responsible leadership practices. Karakas, Sarigollu, and Manisaligil (2013), for example, discuss the use of what they refer to as a benevolent leadership development model. This attempts to enable leaders to encourage positive change in organisations through developing ethical decision-​making, creating a sense of depth and meaning for leaders in the work they do, enabling leaders to achieve change using ideas from positive psychology and developing leaders’ civic responsibility. Drawing upon their experience from implementing this programme, they highlight the activities they utilised in attempting to develop the skill set and strengths expected of responsible leaders. Although the evaluation of whether the programme achieved change in these four areas was based only on students’ accounts of their learning journeys, there were a number of positive accounts reported.

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Although many writers advocate a prominent role for learning and development activities to develop responsible leadership (Garavan & McGuire, 2010; Ardichvili, 2013), empirical evidence is scarce. Widely extolled as a means to develop responsible leadership is the use of service learning programmes or social change projects. These are civic projects where leaders often participate for a period of time developing new knowledge and skills associated with furthering CSR goals. Pless, Maak, and Stahl (2011) reported findings from the evaluation of one such programme seeking to improve conditions among impoverished communities in Africa. Over half of the participants demonstrated positive gains in the competencies of cultural intelligence and emotional literacy. However, 40 per cent did not demonstrate any behavioural change or skill acquisition. They suggested that the programme appeared to support more superficial-​level learning, rather than deeper transformational learning that might be associated with changing deeply held assumptions and values. More recently, Blakely and Higgs (2014) sought to examine what types of experiences arise on a service learning programme that might potentially result in a more deeper examination of values and assumptions that would facilitate a more proactive stance by leaders to socially responsible issues. They highlighted that differences in power relations between managers and senior managers in an organisation influenced which mindsets (and therefore approaches) were more dominant in terms of understanding the organisation’s role in social responsibility. They argued that this can frustrate an individual leader’s attempts to adopt a more proactive orientation to CSR. For these authors, it follows that developing responsible leaders should involve facilitating the surfacing of these opposing perspectives, and how these are manifested through the language used to characterise the debate around an organisation’s approach to CSR. They suggest that facilitating ‘storytelling’ as a development technique might be an effective mechanism to achieve this. However, there have been a number of concerns raised that although participating in these civic engagement projects often results in individuals gaining new insights about themselves and their values, the extent to which any subsequent change in behaviour occurs –​particularly back in the organisational environment –​is another matter entirely (Bartsch, 2012; Gitsham, 2012). Adopting a differing perspective, a number of writers have suggested that leaders need to demonstrate ‘authenticity’ if they are to foster relationships with stakeholders as part of responsible leadership (Miska, Hilbe, & Mayer, 2014; Waldman & Galvin, 2008). In this sense, leader authenticity seems a good candidate as a predictor of responsible leadership outcomes within a network of stakeholders, although there is no empirical evidence at present to support this. Nevertheless, given theories that posit the value of authentic leadership styles also incorporate an explicit focus on ethics, on a conceptual level this does sound appealing. Authentic leadership, as the name suggests, places a primacy on the leader being perceived as authentic or true to themselves, and being value-​led in how they behave, as an overarching framework for influencing the ethical behaviour of

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followers. As a form of leadership, it has been shown to be distinct from both ethical and transformational forms of leadership (Walumbwa et al., 2008). Authentic leadership refers to the type of leaders who are deeply aware of how they think and behave and are perceived by others as being aware of their own and others’ values/​moral perspectives, knowledge and strengths; aware of the context in which they operate; and who are confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, and of high moral character. (Avolio & Gardner, 2017, p85) At the heart of this perspective on leadership style is the idea that the leader draws upon positive psychological capacities in order to promote a positive ethical climate and greater self-​awareness (Walumbwa et al., 2008). Although there are a number of alternative conceptualisations of what comprises authentic leadership (e.g. Ilies, Morgeson, & Nahrgang, 2005; Kernis, 2003; Shamir & Eilam, 2005), it is the authentic leadership framework put forward by Avolio and Gardner (2017) that has received the most attention within the literature. This does share substantial overlap with many of these others, however. These authors identify authentic leadership as comprising five key elements. They labelled these as: (1) Internalised moral perspective –​which guides leader behaviours; (2) Self-​awareness of emotions, values, strengths and weaknesses –​this includes self-​ knowledge of their own values and beliefs as well as how others perceive them and their leadership; (3) Balanced processing of information –​so that leaders actively seek the views of others to challenge their existing ideas and perspectives; (4) Action –​behaviour which is congruent with ‘one’s true self ’; and (5) Relational transparency –​where leaders openly share information about their true thoughts and feelings, including making appropriate personal disclosures. All of these attributes are seen as critical to the overall construct of authentic leadership, although self-​awareness is often recognised as the platform from which the other attributes then spring. A few studies have appeared in the literature suggesting that authentic leadership can be developed through leadership development interventions and activities. Puente, Crous, and Venter (2007) reported the results of a one-​day training programme, using appreciative inquiry as means to facilitate self-​awareness and examination of participants’ authenticity. This was followed by a subsequent study by Baron and Parent (2015) who, through undertaking semi-​structured interviews with 24 mid-​level managers in the United States, collected qualitative data that suggested participants were able to increase their self-​awareness and perform leadership behaviours reflecting an authentic leadership style. They reported the effects of a training programme that was based around the notion of ‘trigger events’.These are argued to form the basis for leaders to reflect on the congruence between their values and behaviours and thus facilitate a more authentic form of leadership (Cooper, Scandura, & Schreisheim, 2005).Trigger events are changes in

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the leader’s circumstances that can be used for personal growth and development and often require leaders to adapt in order to manage the situation (Gardner et al., 2005; Hoffman & Lord, 2013). Although the methodology used in the study was not able to demonstrate that changes in authentic leadership had actually taken place, the study did identify the types of training practices that can contribute to the emergence of trigger events on an authentic leadership development programme. Much of this focused on the training programme placing participants in simulation or testing scenarios or activities that required them to challenge their ways of doing things. These activities pushed them outside their comfort zones. Much emphasis was placed on the need to foster a supportive learning community among the participants that facilitated a sense of risk taking and safety. There appears to be some consensus that the ethical development process comprises some central aspects that generalise across cultures. The cognitive and emotional processes associated with how individuals develop their ethical base appear to be similar. This includes gaining an understanding of behaviours that are prohibited; the ability to identify and interpret others’ thoughts and actions; acquiring values that indicate what is good or bad; using previous experience and events to interpret present situations; and a keen sense of the differing social identities of groups to which one belongs (Kagan, 2005). Developing the moral component of authentic leadership is expanded upon in an article by May, Chan, Hodges, and Avolio (2003). They draw upon ideas from the literature on ethical decision-​ ­making in positing a framework where authentic (or ethical) decision-​making and authentic (ethical) behaviour is dependent upon three attributes of the leader, all of which they argue can be developed. They label these as: (1) moral capacity, the ability of a leader to recognise an issue as being a moral dilemma; (2) moral courage, the leader’s determination to transpose moral intentions into actions despite external pressure; and (3) moral resilience, the ability of the leader to adapt in the face of challenge and risk. Based on this model they describe a range of activities that should form part of a leadership development programme designed to target these three dimensions. Moral capacity can be developed through offering leaders opportunities to discuss and reflect upon the moral responsibilities of leadership in their organisation. Through training that exposes leaders to particular moral dilemmas and how role models have handled them, they develop a heightened awareness of how to recognise moral issues. Building in role plays around moral dilemmas facing leaders helps to develop the leader’s moral efficacy and build moral courage. Specifically, they recommend building the leader’s experience of success in dealing with moral concerns (enactive mastery); allowing leaders to observe how role models have approached and resolved moral concerns (vicarious experience); providing coaching, mentoring and encouragement to appropriate moral responses (verbal persuasion); and helping to gain mastery through diminishing the emotional threat of failure through coping techniques (self-​regulating affective states). Similar to other writers, this is all derived from social learning theory, and together it builds the moral resiliency of leaders.

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Finally, several studies suggest that the leader’s self-​awareness is the key in developing themselves as authentic leaders (Shamir & Eilam, 2005; Weischer, Weibler, & Peterson, 2013). Peus, Wesche, Streicher, Braun, and Frey (2012) have also confirmed the importance of self-​knowledge and self-​consistency as antecedents of authentic leadership. Underlying these discussions are the varying concepts of self, such as self-​awareness, self-​regulation and self-​expression. Ilies et al. (2005) suggested that a number of organisational initiatives might be used to develop each of the four proposed authentic leadership components. These initiatives include multisource feedback, assessment centres, coaching and behavioural role modelling.These are all posited to have an impact on an individual’s positive self-​concept and integrity.

Concluding remarks Despite the increasing interest among scholars in attempting to map out the broad terrain of responsible leadership, as a body of literature it remains very much in a nascent form. A major limitation with much of the writing on responsible leadership has been its failure to satisfactorily theorise how responsible leadership leads to a set of expected outcomes (Doh & Quigley, 2014). Similarly, there are few answers to the question of how differing and diverse demands of stakeholders might actually be accommodated through a responsible leadership approach. A problem with much of the literature has been its focus on leader characteristics as the primary focus of responsible leadership, despite advocating a relational approach. Maak and Pless (2006) saw responsible leadership as a relational phenomenon that occurred within the network of stakeholder interactions, but focused more on the roles and behaviours of senior leaders in thinking how this occurs. More recently, however, the focus has shifted towards examining what responsible leadership looks like from a collective perspective (Voegtlin, 2015). This, alongside more recent work that has brought a sensemaking perspective to examine both ethical decision-​making and CSR in organisations, offers promising new ways forward for developing responsible leadership from a relational perspective.

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8 GLOBAL TEAM LEADERSHIP

Introduction Major breakthroughs in communication and transportation, facilitated by advances in information technology, have provided opportunities to conduct business in ways previously not possible (Friedman, 2005). The onward trend of business globalisation, brought about by the deregulation of markets, combined with the removal of trade and investment barriers, has created a global marketplace. The pace of this marketplace continues unabated, as increasingly emerging and transitional economies join those more developed in expanding their investment into foreign markets (Acosta, Kim, Melzer, Mendoza, & Thelen, 2011). Business globalisation has resulted in multiple interconnections between companies as patterns of production and consumption become increasingly complex (Pater & van Lierop, 2006). This interconnectivity demands that organisations work together across national and cultural boundaries to create solutions to more far-​ranging and ‘messy’ business problems that arise from global business models (Calton & Payne, 2003). This is compounded by greater task complexity associated with work, global competition, flatter work structures, unpredictable environments and products with short lead times. But operating globally is not without significant challenges for leadership. Multinational corporations (MNCs) are at the forefront of global business, operating across national, cultural, linguistic and geographic boundaries. These all pose significant barriers for doing business (Kostova & Roth, 2003). This is borne out by statistics, such as that almost 40 per cent of international joint ventures fail to perform effectively (Beamish & Delios, 1997). Global teams have become a key vehicle through which the problems and challenges of doing business globally have been addressed. Unsurprisingly

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then, leadership as it specifically relates to global teams has attracted considerable attention. Much of the writing on global team leadership to date is dominated by a focus on leader styles and competencies. This has tended to treat the notions of leadership and leader as synonymous concepts. Junhee and McLean (2015), for example, exemplify this approach in arguing that, ‘Identifying global leadership competency models should be an urgent priority for companies so that they can reconcile with and survive the changing global environment’ (p236). Increasingly, however, alternative conceptualisations of global team leadership have begun to emerge that attempt to bring more relational perspectives to understanding leadership in global team contexts. Bell and Kozlowski (2002), for example, have suggested that the limited opportunity for face-​to-​face interaction in global teams means that having to rely on leadership located in one individual recognised as a leader is likely to undermine global team effectiveness. They argue that shared leadership is instead likely to be more effective in global virtual teams. Davis and Bryant (2003) have used similar arguments in their call for increased self-​leadership in these specific types of teams. Muethel and Hoegel (2010) more recently went further in suggesting that shared leadership should be better than vertical leadership at enabling team coordination and cohesion, given the geographical dispersion of global teams. Both team cohesion and coordination are often cited as key characteristics for effective team working in global and other types of teams. This chapter begins by outlining some of the major limitations with much of the writing to date on global team leadership, in particular the narrow focus on global leader competencies. Next, some of the more recent perspectives on global team leadership are highlighted. These attempt to bring a more relational lens to understand the processes associated with leadership in this specific context. Much of this chapter, however, draws upon ideas from stakeholder theory to put forward a relational perspective of global team leadership centred on the key activity of boundary spanning. In so doing, it is argued that the specific characteristics of global teams suggest that attempts to improve their effectiveness are better understood drawing upon ideas from network theory. This argues that these teams are best viewed instead as a network of interconnected agents.

Global leadership: the focus on competences Global teams differ from standard teams in that they experience heterogeneity across a range of differing dimensions and operate within a globally dispersed work environment (Maloney & Zellmer-​Bruhn, 2006). Many studies have emphasised the challenges associated with work that relies on technology-​mediated communication often asynchronised, involving individuals from differing cultural origins (Jonsen, Maznevski, & Canney Davison, 2012). Consequently,

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global team leaders are thought to require skills associated with asynchronous communication, trust developing behaviours and cultural awareness, for effective leadership in global teams (Davis & Bryant, 2003; Hajro & Pudelko, 2010). Although these competencies are often found as central within many articles, accompanying these also has been a profusion of countless other sets of competencies. This has brought increasing confusion rather than coherence to the literature (Beechler & Javidan, 2007; Bird, Mendenhall, Stevens, & Oddou, 2010; Jokinen, 2005). An illustration of the types of competencies that have been suggested are shown in Table 8.1. Attempting to make sense of these myriad of competences is not without its challenges, although a number of attempts have appeared in the literature. A

TAB LE 8.1   Illustrative global leader competences (based on Bird, Mendenhall, Stevens,

& Oddou, 2010) Competency Categories

Competence

Level

Cross-​Cultural Relationship Skills

Building Relationships Motivating Others Conflict Management Negotiation Skills Cross-​Cultural Communication Skills Cultural Literacy

Person or Group Level

Values and Personality Traits

Commitment Integrity Courage Emotional Intelligence Results-​Oriented Tenacious

Cognitive Orientation

Global Mindset Cognitive Complexity Cosmopolitan Environmental Scanning Managing Ambiguity

Global Business Expertise

Global Business Know-​How Stakeholder Orientation External Orientation

Global Organising Expertise

Customer Focus Networking and Network-​Building Skills Skills in Managing Change

Visioning

Communicating Vision Entrepreneurial Catalyst for Strategic Change

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review by Mendenhall and Bird (2013), found over 100 competences listed in the literature that they categorised into six separate areas. These are summarised here as: (1) building cross-​cultural relationships; (2) personality traits and behaviours; (3) global business acumen; (4) administrative skills across cultural boundaries; (5) cognitive abilities relating to world view; and (6) ability to garner support for an organisation’s vision. One of the first problems we encounter with this competence approach, is that significant differences are found between leaders and team members as to which competences they each view as either important or significant. A similar difficulty also arises between individuals from differing cultural backgrounds (Joshi & Lazarova, 2005). There are also major variations between authors as to the competences they regard as most important. Davis and Bryant (2003), for example, emphasised working across cultural and geographical boundaries as the chief competence required. However, mentoring was identified as one of the most important competencies in a study by Kayworth and Leidner (2002). By contrast, Steers et al. (2010) identified intercultural communication as the chief competence. Yet more recently, Junhee and McLean (2015) reviewed the literature on global leader competences, and identified 49 sets of knowledge and skills from which they developed four high-​level global leader competence dimensions. They labelled these as: (1) intercultural; (2) interpersonal; (3) global business; and (4) global organisation. They then differentiated competencies under each broad domain into three levels. They categorised these as core traits, personal character and ability. These authors however acknowledged that further research is needed to investigate the relationships among these competences and ‘global leadership effectiveness’. This highlights the second major problem. In short, that empirical research supporting these competences as accounting for global team leadership effectiveness or outcomes is scarce to say the least (Jonsen et al., 2012). This is problematic, not least since there is limited knowledge as to how particular competences are actually enacted in practice. As an illustration, we can look at perhaps one of the most common of the competences that appears across this literature, that of cultural competence. The rationale for this competence is based on the recognition that there are cultural differences in leadership. This is supported by both cultural congruence theory (House,Wright, & Aditya, 1997) as well as implicit leadership theory (Lord, Foti, & de Vader, 1984).The former argues that particular leadership behaviours should be aligned with the specific cultural values found in countries. The latter suggests that individuals’ perceptions of leadership are often seen through the prism of culturally specific archetypes. Both perspectives are supported by a number of research studies. Whereas some leadership behaviours such as charisma are universally effective across cultures, participative leadership is more culturally dependent (Dorfman, Javidan, Hanges, Dasmalchian, & House, 2012). Egalitarian and empowerment leadership styles have been found to be more effective in Nordic and European cultures but less so in Asian cultures

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(Mittal & Dorfman, 2012). Cultural differences therefore explain variations in the preferences for particular leadership styles (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004; Taras, Kirkman, & Steel, 2010; Zander & Romani, 2004). Based on this work, a number of authors suggest that cultural differences in teams will mean different team members will have preferences for alternative leadership styles. Consequently, some authors argue leaders will need to adopt an individualised leadership style, depending upon team member preferences (Maznevski & Zander, 2001). Cultural competence, then, captures the idea that a leader would firstly know which particular leadership style was appropriate in a specific cultural context, and then implement the appropriate style of leadership accordingly. This leads to a third major problem. There is limited research that suggests that leaders are able to change or adopt alternative styles as easily as is suggested. Indeed Fiedler (1978), when positing his contingency theory of leadership, was emphatic that leaders didn’t change their style and the answer was to fit leaders to appropriate situations suited to a particular style. This is further supported by Chevrier (2003), who through a case study analysis of multicultural R&D product teams, identified one of three types of leadership style that leaders adopted in dealing with cultural differences. The first, labelled as laissez-​faire, is where a leader tends to ignore cultural differences but instead relies on team members to resolve culturally ambiguous situations. The second, a more pragmatic style facilitates discussion among team members. This builds personal relationships so that any cultural differences that affect team working can be resolved as they emerge through trial and error. Finally, the third leadership style involves the leader focusing on developing a common team culture. This is often based on dominant organisational values to create norms for dealing with cultural differences. There seems limited evidence then, that individuals themselves actually adopt (or are able to) different styles. Although not focused on competences per se, a focus on leader traits and behaviours can also be found in other approaches in this literature too.Youssef and Luthans (2012), for example, posited a global leadership model, drawing upon key concepts from positive psychology. They labelled this as positive global leadership. Positive global leadership is defined as the systematic and integrated manifestation of leadership traits, processes, intentional behaviors and performance outcomes that are elevating, exceptional and affirmatory of the strengths, capabilities and developmental potential of leaders, their followers and the organizations over time and across cultures. (Youssef & Luthans, 2012, p541) These authors argue that leadership with ‘positivity’, which places human flourishing as its core, is well placed to manage the challenges and demands associated with leading in a global context. They define positivity as ‘an affirmative

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bias in change, or toward an emphasis on strengths, capabilities, and possibilities rather than problems, threats and weakness’ (Cameron, 2008, p8). Similar to ideas contained in authentic leadership theory, underpinning the model is the notion that global leadership should encapsulate behaviours and processes that give rise to the four psychological resources of hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism or psychological capital (Luthans & Youssef, 2004). They argue that leadership that promotes psychological capital is able to deal with three unique challenges of working in a global context. The authors identify these as distance, differences and barriers. Distance includes geographical, social and psychological distances between leaders and followers that are exacerbated when leading a global team. In this context, opportunities for exchanges are far less frequent, and so the quality of leader–follower exchanges have been found to suffer (Napier & Ferris, 1993). These authors suggest that positive leaders will ‘find ways to turn their limited interactions with their followers into invigorating and elevating experiences’ and ‘leverage…electronic communication technology or frequent travel to increase interaction frequency’ (Youssef & Luthans, 2012, p543). However, beyond this, they fail to specify precisely how leaders are able to enhance the psychological capital of their followers in these circumstances. They go on to suggest that through enacting positive leadership leaders are better equipped to develop a global mindset and intercultural sensitivity. To support this, they argue that positivity enables a leader to be better at identifying complex and subtle cultural patterns. This arises from leaders adopting an ‘expanded self-​view’ that enables them to stand back from, appreciate and integrate multiple cultural perspectives. In support of this claim, the authors cite research that has found psychological capital to mediate the relationship between cultural intelligence and a global mindset (Clapp-​Smith, Luthans, & Avolio, 2007). Despite this, there is as yet no empirical support for the arguments these authors put forward. In this respect, the potential benefits of positive leadership in a global team context remain for the most part conceptual. In summary, the competence approach is at best reductionist in seeking to construe leadership in terms of a normative set of leadership behaviours (and individual characteristics) that can be captured in a one-​size-​fits-​all framework of competences. The ever-​expanding number of competences, continually added to by authors, arguably reflects how global leadership has been looked at within differing cultural, social and economic contexts. These variable contexts affect what global leaders do in differing circumstances, such that perceiving global leadership in this way is increasingly of limited value. Instead, there is considerable evidence both from studies of convergence and divergence in the adoption of HRM practices internationally (Tregaskis & Brewster, 2006), and in how corporate values and HR practices are either adopted or modified to suit local arrangements in multinational corporations (Shimoni, 2008), to suggest that a normative global leadership style or set of competences is neither realistic nor indeed likely to be effective in practice.

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Global team leadership through a more relational lens Given the problems highlighted with the competence approach, there is a need to develop new theoretical models that build on cross-​cultural insights, but that incorporate more diverse perspectives on the nature of leadership (Chen, Leung, & Chen, 2009). Following this line of thinking, some authors have advocated perceiving global leadership as a process of hybridisation, where local indigenous leadership practices are amalgamated or altered with local interpretations of foreign ones (Davila & Elvira, 2012). Adopting a socio-​constructionist perspective, this would suggest a more relational approach in thinking about global leadership where what is deemed to be effective leadership is negotiated in each particular cultural context by leaders and followers. This can be seen clearly in a paper by Zander and Butler (2010). They posited a contingency model of global leadership that characterises four leadership modes: single, paired, rotated and shared. Here the authors recognise that the notion of leader cultural competence and the capacity for a single leader of a global team to adopt alternative leadership styles is unrealistic. Instead, they suggest leadership in these teams should be seen as a more fluid concept. Different individuals should undertake leadership roles depending upon the cultural context. Where global teams have a more homogenous cultural makeup, then a single leader mode would be effective. However, the more heterogeneous the team composition culturally, the greater the need for leadership roles to be dispersed across the team or shared. However, shared leadership may not be a panacea to the challenges posed.This is due to cultural differences between team members that mean significant differences exist in the implicit ideas of leadership held (Muethel & Hoegel, 2010). One of the key factors found to be associated with the emergence of shared leadership is the willingness of team members to be open to influence others as well as be influenced by them. Societies have been found to differ along the two cultural value dimensions of power distance and uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede, 1980). Individuals in high power distance cultures are less comfortable with taking on roles thought to be within the responsibility of formal leaders. Similarly, leaders in societies characterised as having high uncertainty avoidance rely on far more formal procedures and are likely to be less open to influence by others within a team. In both these instances, then, the cultural values of a particular society may suggest shared leadership might be difficult to achieve. Mendenhall and Bird (2013) have also argued that global leadership needs to move away from its narrow focus on global leader competences, and instead recognise global leadership as about managing complexity and spanning boundaries. The authors clearly distinguish between global leadership and global leaders, arguing that the literature has generally conflated the two concepts. They take the literature forward by introducing followers into our understanding of what global leadership is about. Their definition emphasises complexity as the context in which global leadership occurs. It also draws attention to team-​based structures

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(cross-​country project teams, joint product development teams with customers) as key structures in which global leadership processes are embedded. They also emphasise global leadership as occurring within a network of stakeholders, with boundary spanning as a key leadership process that facilitates information flows (or knowledge sharing). This approach takes us further towards viewing global team leadership as relational, embedded within differing team-​based structures and subject to the varying nuanced conditions affecting these teams at any one time. In so doing, these authors and increasingly others (EABIS, 2011) suggest global team leadership can be understood as essentially about managing an extensive network of stakeholders, that come together within a wide range of differing team configurations. Viewed from this perspective, our understanding of global team leadership can be enriched by stakeholder management theory (Freeman, 1984; Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, Parmar, & De Colle, 2010). When connected to leadership, this highlights the role of leadership in managing the relationships between the multiplicity of constituencies each with their own interests, but who are defined according to the mutual dependencies they have with one another to achieve specific goals (Davila & Elvira, 2012). Davila, Rodriguez-​Lluesma, and Elvira (2013) similarly highlight stakeholder management as a chief element of a more humanistic form of global leadership. They suggest that this encompasses the complexity of social relationships in which leaders develop, combined with a strong moral awareness that is characterised within a strong citizenship agenda. For these writers, stakeholder management is not simply governed by economic concerns, but by more virtuous ideals based upon common human dignity. The idea that a key requirement defining contemporary leadership is that of building relationships with stakeholders across multiple boundaries, has become a central feature of relational leadership (Fletcher & Kaufer, 2003; Uhl-​Bien, 2006). This has directed scholars’ attention to the role of leadership as one essentially of boundary spanning, and that this requires new ways of thinking about leadership. Research has found that boundary-​spanning capabilities enhance interorganisational collaborations, particularly in cross-​cultural contexts (Hong, 2010; Luo, 2006) and is associated with trust and improved performance (Van Meerkerk & Edelenbos, 2014). Nevertheless, within stakeholder management theory more generally our understanding of how relationships with and between stakeholders develop remains fairly limited. To date, there has been limited theoretical analysis applied to understand the nature of these relationships, or how or why some relationships are more effective than others. However, that these relationships are determined as much by psychological as by economic concerns is increasingly recognised in the literature (Brown, Dacin, Pratt, & Whetten, 2006). Many writers argue that the success of multinational enterprises depends on their capacity to share knowledge across business units geographically and temporally. This requires them to develop social networks based upon a common identity and shared values (Gooderham, 2007; Kogut & Zander, 2003; Noorderhaven & Harzing, 2009). For

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many authors, this should define what global leadership is about. From this perspective, the key task of global leadership is to build, develop and extend structural and relational social capital both within and across the global network of business units. Social capital is defined as the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through and derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998, p243) Central to the notion of social capital is that it can be differentiated according to the density and quality of ties within a specific group.This is referred to as bonding social capital, which contrasts to that between groups or business units, which is referred to as bridging social capital (Burt, 1992). The logic underlying the significance of social capital as the basis upon which knowledge sharing occurs is fairly simple. This is that the greater the density (or number of relationships that exist between actors) and the better the quality of ties (degree of trust, shared mindsets and discourses), then the more opportunities and willingness exists for individuals to share knowledge. Individuals that perform boundary-​spanning functions are the chief actors in facilitating this knowledge exchange and building social capital between global team members. Boundary spanners are defined as

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individuals who are perceived by other members of both their own in-​ group and/​or relevant out-​g roups to engage in and facilitate significant interactions between the two groups. (Barner-​Rasmussen et al., 2014, p887) These key individuals have been identified as performing key functions in multinational corporations summarised as exchanging, linking, facilitating and intervening (see Figure 8.1). Exchanging refers to the practice of information and knowledge exchange across MNC boundaries. Linking refers to bridging boundaries by bringing people together. Facilitating involves organising activities for cross-​border interaction. Intervening refers to managing cultural differences through conflict management and building intergroup trust. These ideas are supported by research that has shown that boundary spanners both increase knowledge sharing and foster inter-​unit collaboration (Devinney, 2013; Felin, Foss, Heimericks, & Madsen 2012). Considerable work has already been undertaken in the area of ‘integrative’ leadership. Although not focused on leadership within a global context this has contributed significantly to our understanding of leadership that occurs across organisational boundaries; in particular, the nature of leadership that seeks to bring stakeholders together to achieve a common goal. Much of this work has emphasised the importance of stakeholders perceiving a sense of shared values (Bryson,

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LINKING Bringing People Together Develop and Build Network

EXCHANGING

INTERVENING

Sharing and Transferring Knowledge

Building Trust Shaping Identity Promoting Cognitive Shifts

Monitoring External Environment

GLOBAL TEAM LEADERSHIP

Managing Conflict Understanding Cultural Differences

FACILITATING Organising Boundary Experiences Obtaining Resources Managing External Demands

8.1   Global team leadership processes (based on Barner-​ Rasmussen, Ehrnrooth, Koveshinikov, & Makela, 2014) FIGURE

Crosby, & Stone, 2006; Clarke, 2006c). As well as the importance of boundary spanners being proactive in convening bridging activities, this work has also highlighted the need to create structural arrangements to build relationships with stakeholders. It also emphasises a key role for brokering arrangements, undertaken either by organisations or individuals (Bryson et al., 2006). These can help to create ‘boundary experiences’. These are activities that enable differing perspectives to be brought together to forge mutual understanding and catalyse integration (Morse, 2010). Key to all these activities are boundary spanners, individuals who seek out, develop and build relationships with representatives from stakeholder groups. Drawing upon this work, we can think of global team leadership in similar terms. In essence, global leadership is about relationship building between boundary spanners and stakeholders. This is a distinctive form of leadership that is primarily relational in nature. This work on boundary spanning in integrative leadership at organisational interfaces can therefore inform our understanding of global team leadership. Ospina and Foldy (2010), for example, studied social change organisations and

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their leaders in the United States. They highlighted five leadership practices that were core to effective boundary spanning. These five practices were those that bridge divides between stakeholders. They labelled these as: (1) prompting cognitive shifts; (2) naming and shaping identity; (3) engaging in dialogue about difference; (4) creating equitable governance mechanisms; and (5) weaving multiple worlds together through interpersonal relationships. All five of these leadership practices can be thought of as relevant for addressing the cultural and geographical challenges found in global teams. Promoting cognitive shifts refers to leadership that creates a sense of shared interest and change in the mental models held by stakeholders. This is important in global teams where diverse sets of interests need to be reconciled in the pursuit of the global team’s mission. Similarly, the question of identity is central to any theorising about global team leadership. A person’s self-​concept is made up of both their own unique personality traits alongside their social identity, which is derived from their social group affiliations. Self-​categorisation theory suggests individuals will adopt the traits and behaviours of the group to which they socially identify. This is based upon the norms and values that a group holds. It is also driven by motivational factors such as the need to belong and reduce uncertainty in managing interpersonal relations (Hogg & Abrams, 1993). Recent research has suggested that when boundary spanners are able to identify with other stakeholders they can enhance their effectiveness. Supporting this, Korschun (2015) has drawn upon social identity theory to posit a number of propositions as to why some relationships between boundary spanners and stakeholders may be more effective than others. Social identity theory has received considerable empirical support. It demonstrates how individual perceptions of being part of a specific group affects their behaviour.The theory posits that individuals will join groups with similarities to themselves, and define themselves in terms of characteristics that describe themselves in comparison with others (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). In so doing, they form a mental picture of their in-​group and make salient characteristics of others that fall within their categorisations of an out-​group. The characteristics and traits or identity of their in-​group then become increasingly incorporated into the individual’s own identity or self-​concept (the way they see themselves in relation to others). It is not therefore just an attitude, but a fundamental psychological state associated with how we define who we are in relation to others. Typically, boundary spanners will identify with the organisation in which they are based, referred to as organisational identification. It has been found to confer positive benefits such as increased organisational citizenship behaviour, organisational commitment and even increased job performance on behalf of individuals (Ellemers et al., 2004; Hogg & Terry, 2000). In relation to building relationships with stakeholders, Korschun (2015) argues that their effectiveness is far more dependent on the balance a boundary spanner draws in defining themselves in relation to their organisation, on the one hand, and the external stakeholder on the other.They suggest that too high an organisational identification can lead to a boundary spanner

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perceiving the stakeholder as ‘the other’. That they perceive them as separate from the values of their in-​group. Consequently they will devote less attention to building close relationships, even to the point where an adversarial position is adopted. By contrast, the more the boundary spanner perceives their stakeholder as similar to their organisation or to their reference in-​group, then the more cooperative their behaviour will become.The challenge then is to break down barriers of dissimilarity and maximise perceptions of similarity. Findings from research that shows the immediate work group (such as a global team) can become a stronger influence than the organisation as the chief focus for an individual’s identification (Ashforth & Mael, 1989) would certainly seem to support this. This comes with an important caveat, however. Research has shown high levels of identification of boundary spanners with their work group to be associated with better intergroup relations. However, this relationship was found to be stronger at high and not low levels of organisational identification (Richter, West,Van Dick, & Dawson, 2006). What this suggests is that high levels of global team identification should not come at the expense of high levels of organisational identification. High levels of identification are needed in both instances. This is argued to support the notion of a dual identity hypothesis. This suggests that cooperative interrelations require both organisational and workgroup identities to be supported simultaneously (Gaertner et al., 1999; Hogg & Terry, 2000). If we assume that a cultural identity is just as important (if not perhaps more so) to an individual as their organisational identity, then a similar reasoning should apply. That developing a global team identity should not be at the expense of minimising team members’ cultural identities. Cultural differences need to be recognised and celebrated at the same time. The objective then is not to increase the salience of one identity as opposed to another, but instead to allow the expression and support of these multiple identities (Hogg & Terry, 2000). This is very much in accordance with the integrative leadership practices of engaging in dialogue about differences and weaving multiple worlds together suggested by Ospina and Foldy (2010). Furthermore, celebrating diverse identities and engaging in dialogue about them helps to build trusting and respectful relationships between stakeholders. This is central to developing more culturally hybridised sets of leadership practices that are context dependent. Under such conditions, where cultural differences are valued and accommodated by all stakeholders, both these practices should facilitate boundary spanners in developing a global team identity, whilst supporting the expression of other stakeholder identities (especially cultural identities).

Developing global leadership Given that much of our understanding of global team leadership has been dominated by a focus on competences, it may come as no surprise that much writing on global team leadership development has tended to discuss the approaches

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typically employed in developing leader competences. A good example of this is the leadership development model discussed by McCauley, Van Velsor, and Ruderman (2010).They put forward a leadership development model that identified Assessment, Challenge and Support as three key dimensions that offer a framework for developing leaders. The first step, assessment, involves leaders identifying their strengths and weaknesses, so as to plan to meet their needs for development. Next, they engage in challenging developmental experiences with support from peers and superiors to assist them in this development. Three-​hundred-​and-​sixtydegree feedback is typically used here as part of the assessment process. Clarke (2017) has argued that this approach to leadership development is underpinned by Western assumptions and values and therefore contains an ethnocentric bias. Drawing upon Hofstede’s (1980) dimension of power distance, he cites research that suggests employees in cultures with high power distance are less likely to offer critical feedback to their managers, whilst managers in these cultural contexts also tend to request far less feedback from their employees (Adsit, London, Crom, & Jones, 1997; Millman, Taylor, & Czaplewski, 2002). By contrast, employees in low power distance cultures often have greater expectations to be consulted and their views sought (Sagiv & Schwartz, 2000).Those from collectivist cultures where maintaining harmonious relationships is a key motivation, may also be less inclined to provide critical feedback to their leaders (Ting-​Toomey, 1999). These cultural values thus suggest the typical assessment process that informs subsequent leader development is likely to be less effective and even possibly inappropriate. The general approach adopted by companies in practice, has been to develop sets of global competences and a range of developmental activities to address them (Browne, 2006). Much of this developmental activity is based on developing intercultural sensitivity through exposure to differing cultural contexts. Yet research on their effectiveness has tended to be anecdotal, whilst the results from the limited studies with more rigorous research designs has often been inconclusive (McDonnell, Lamare, Gunnigle, & Lavelle, 2010; Suutari, 2002). Although, it is the case that participating in international assignments has met with the most success in developing global leaders (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012). However, this tends to be rarely used by most companies, and we have a limited understanding of what makes this approach effective (Mendenhall, 2006). There has also been mixed results from studies that have evaluated the effectiveness of global leadership development activities (Suutari, 2002). Much of the evidence that does exist has predominantly focused on enhancing cultural awareness through: (1) formal education and training initiatives (Gregersen, Morrison, & Black, 1998); (2) in-​country training (Mendenhall et al., 2004); and (3) participating in international assignments (Dickman & Doherty, 2010). Caligiuri and Tarique (2012), for example, found that cross-​cultural experiences predicted three cross-​cultural competencies, which they labelled as tolerance of ambiguity, cultural flexibility and reduced ethnocentrism. Underpinning all these initiatives is the notion that providing opportunities for interactions between individuals from differing cultures

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is key to developing cultural competence. The notion of cultural competence (Earley & Ang, 2003; Earley, Murnieks, & Mosakowski, 2007) is closely related to the construct of a ‘global mindset’, that has been a major theme of research in global leaders (Javidan, Dorfman, De Luque, & House, 2006). This is defined as a highly complex cognitive structure characterised by an openness to and articulation of multiple cultural and strategic realities on both global and local levels, and the cognitive ability to mediate and integrate across this multiplicity. (Levy, Beechler,Taylor, & Boyacigiller, 2007, p27) Theories such as Allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis as well as Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory, have been drawn upon to explain the individual learning mechanisms through which these activities might be effective. Of these activities, however, only participating in international assignments appears to have received the most empirical support, although again the findings here are equivocal (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012; Evans, Pucik, & Barsoux, 2002). Espedal, Gooderham, and Stensaker (2013), for example, examined the design and outcomes of two Global Leader Development programmes in Scandinavia. Whereas both programmes were found to have some impact on global leader skills, only one of them was found to impact on social capital, another sought outcome. Whilst developing cultural competence characterises most of the literature on global team leadership development, a boundary-​spanning perspective on global team leadership suggests an alternative approach. Daft (1989) identified information exchanging, relationship building and creating shared meaning and trust, as key activities of a boundary spanner. The role of boundary spanners in creating trust through developing relationships with stakeholders also forms a key focus in much of the writing on integrative leadership (Morse, 2010). In a study of 417 public sector leaders, Silva and McGuire (2010), for example, found that leader behaviours in networks were far more people-​oriented than task-​oriented, the former considered to be necessary for building relationships. More recently, the concept of boundary-​spanning leadership has been introduced that seeks to apply more broadly to a range of different contexts (Ernst & Chobrot-​Mason, 2011). This work is distinguishable in that it is located in the work of Drath et al.’s (2008) Direction, Alignment & Commitment Model. This shifts our thinking of leadership from being about just leaders and followers, to any collective social activity that involves the production of direction, alignment and commitment. Direction, refers to the group’s goals and mission. Alignment, refers to the coordination of action within a group. Whilst commitment, refers to the willingness of group members to place the collective interest above their own individual interest. With this as a basis, Ernst and Chobrot-​Mason (2011) suggest that boundary-​spanning leadership can be thought to span boundaries in three different ways.They label these as: (1) Managing boundaries; (2) Forging

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common ground; and (3) Discovering new frontiers. Managing boundaries involves building respect and a sense of safety at the intersection of boundaries. This is achieved through clarifying roles and the purpose of working together. Forging common ground is said to build trust through creating a shared vision and shared ownership, so that individuals are motivated towards a larger purpose. Finally, discovering new frontiers captures the boundary-​spanning strategy to support innovation, where differences are acknowledged but individuals are aligned towards a common purpose and identity. The authors elaborate six leadership practices that are thought to achieve these three boundary-​spanning activities. These are (1) creating safety; (2) fostering respect; (3) building trust; (4) developing community; (5) emphasising interdependence; and (6) enabling reinvention. When these leadership practices occur, a nexus effect occurs. This is when team members move from feeling separate (the great divide) to create a sense of community through a shared identity, characterised by trust and respect (see Figure 8.2). A strength of this approach is that it does not equate boundary-​spanning leadership as necessarily undertaken by formal leaders. Instead, it can include any

THE NEXUS EFFECT DISCOVERING NEW FRONTIERS Transforming: Enable Reinvention Weaving: Advancing Interdependencies

FORGE COMMON GROUND Mobilising: Developing Commitment Connecting: Building Trust

MANAGE BOUNDARIES Reflecting: Fostering Respect Buffering: Creating Safety, Defining Boundaries, Facilitating Knowledge Exchange

FIGURE 8.2   Developing

global team leadership through boundary spanning (based on Ernst & Chobrot-​Mason, 2011)

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members of a global team who are able to bring culturally diverse members of the team together. This suggests that boundary spanners may be both nominated, as well as emergent. Levina and Vaast (2008) take this position in arguing that boundary spanning should not be thought of as simply a particular set of skills or role. They draw attention to the organisational or broader context in which it is situated as affecting the effectiveness of boundary spanning. We have limited knowledge of the conditions under which boundary-​spanning behaviours are more effective, or when individuals are more likely to take on boundary-​spanning roles. However, executive support in terms of offering help, guidance and resources to global teams has been found to predict boundary-​spanning activity, alongside what has been called facilitative management. The latter includes purposively involving other organisations in decision-​making, as well as organising structures to facilitate cooperation and knowledge exchange (Van Meerkerk & Edelenbos, 2017). It refers to activities that create opportunities for interaction and dialogue. It includes organising formal and informal meetings, team building and workshops, as well as organising how information technology can be used to facilitate information exchange and build relationships. This recent research echoes findings from wider research on integrative leadership, where creating structures and opportunities for knowledge exchange are seen as important contextual factors, alongside the roles and skills of boundary spanners. Elsewhere, Soderberg (2015) has also highlighted the role of information technology platforms as ‘boundary objects’ that act to facilitate knowledge exchange at boundary interfaces. Both relationship building and knowledge exchange are, therefore, inextricably linked. Luo (2001), for example, found that poor knowledge exchange was associated with weak interpersonal relationships in culturally heterogeneous teams. Within global teams, boundary spanners enhance information flows and play a key role in translating information at the boundary interface to create shared meaning (Ebers & Maurer, 2014). They play a key role in sensegiving, helping members of the global team to understand differing cultural perspectives and reach a collective, shared understanding of the problem or challenge they face.This places a significant emphasis on sensemaking abilities as core to global team leadership. Knowledge exchange is at the core of understanding global team leadership. In so doing, it draws attention not just to the behaviours of individual actors in the global team, but also to the wider ‘network’ conditions that facilitate how knowledge is created, transferred and interpreted within global team configurations (Javernick-​Will & Levitt, 2010). This accords with those who argue that broader conditions provide the ‘structure’, that either facilitates or constrains individual actions and behaviours (Martin, Resick, Keating, & Dickson, 2009). When global team leadership is perceived as boundary spanning, it overcomes one of the significant limitations of the literature on global team leadership to date. That is, it has generally failed to satisfactorily address the question of at what level, either individual or team, is global team leadership supposed to be

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operating. Instead, it purposefully requires us to think of global team leadership as a multilevel phenomenon. Boundary spanning at the individual level is associated with increasing coordination and cooperation between global team members. Whilst it also recognises that boundary spanning needs to operate at the team level in order for the team to be effective. In a recent review of the extant literature on team boundary spanning, Marrone (2010) highlighted three broad behavioural categories that referred to both individual team member and team-​level behaviours. These were categorised as representation, coordination of task performance and general information search. Representation includes those team behaviours that secure the team’s resources and sell the team’s decisions to stakeholders. Coordination involves jointly setting goals and coordinating workflow among team members and across interdependent entities. Finally, information search involves behaviours associated with obtaining information from the environment affecting the execution of the team’s task and securing additional expertise to achieve goals. Within this framework, individual team member boundary spanning is associated with or underpins team-​level boundary spanning. Previous research has found a number of variables to moderate the relationship between team boundary spanning and team performance. For example, both task uncertainty and resource scarcity have been found to influence the effects of boundary spanning. In a study of software development teams, boundary-​spanning behaviour increased team performance when resource scarcity was low. However, it had a negative effect when resource scarcity was high (Faraj & Yan, 2009). Similarly, perhaps unsurprisingly, team boundary-​spanning behaviour was shown to have greater effects on team performance the greater the interdependence with other stakeholders for performing the team’s goals (Choi, 2002; Marks, DeChurch, Mathieu, Panzer, & Alonso, 2005). This would suggest that for global team leadership, where interdependencies between stakeholders is particularly high, boundary spanning is likely to be key to the effectiveness of the team. It also highlights the importance of ensuring global teams have sufficient resources from senior management to achieve their tasks and goals. Finally, the team’s temporal environment has also been found to influence the type and extent of boundary spanning that teams undertake. Ancona and Caldwell (1990), for example, showed that the type of boundary-​spanning activities undertaken by a team varied according to temporal cycles of the team. In their study of product development teams, they found ambassadorial-​type boundary-​spanning behaviours were more prominent during the early and late stages of product development, and least during the middle phase. More recently, the team’s deadlines to achieve tasks have been found to influence decisions on how to allocate resources and time to particular activities, and how decisions are made (Mohammed, Hamilton, & Lim, 2009). Gersick’s (1988) punctuated equilibrium model of team development also suggests that teams experience significant upheaval generally midpoint during the team’s life. This often involves rethinking what needs to be done and how it should be undertaken. This period

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requires the team to search for new information and can result in new patterns of thinking. Together, this suggests that the pattern of activities associated with global team leadership, in terms of the nature and characteristics of boundary spanning, is likely to be different at various stages of the global team’s development. Similarly, differences are likely to be found as team members together produce team processes. Marks et al. (2001) describe team processes as ‘members’ interdependent acts that convert inputs to outcomes through cognitive, verbal, and behavioural activities directed toward organizing taskwork to achieve collective goals’ (p357). These authors suggest that teams engage in goal-​directed activity in differing phases that occur in cycles. In the action phase, teams perform activities associated with achieving their goals. It includes performance monitoring, coordinating the team’s actions, communication and high levels of interfacing at the team’s boundaries. In the transition phase, they engage in goal planning and evaluation activities. It includes setting goals, establishing norms and discovering the knowledge possessed by team members. In both phases the team also has to attend to its interpersonal needs. This includes motivating team members, managing conflict and providing a positive affective team climate. Again this suggests the nature of boundary-​spanning activities may look very different depending upon which phase the global team is operating.

Concluding comments There remains much confusion as to what global leadership actually constitutes, resulting in a number of contrasting definitions. Much of this has been written from Western ideas of what effective leaders do, reflecting the relative strength of developed economies in terms of investment across the globe. Much of the literature continues to be dominated by a focus on global team leader competences, with its associated limitations. In particular, although many writers argue that cultural competence is a necessary requisite for global leadership, there are few studies that neither examine how this is enacted in practice, nor its importance for global team effectiveness. The most significant problem by far, however, is that much of the writing has generally failed to specify the level of analysis that global leadership is expected to be operating. When thinking about global team leadership from a relational perspective, leadership is seen as an emergent and dynamic activity that is a team property. More recently, there is an increasing emphasis on leadership in this context being essentially one of boundary spanning (where emergent leaders identify with different cultural groups and achieve synergies between them) and bridge-​making (facilitating intra-​team communication and resolving cultural conflict) roles. These roles are fluid within a team and draw attention to the importance of developing social capital to support knowledge sharing and transfer within global teams. This represents a significant shift away from much of the focus to date on preferred leadership styles in differing cultural contexts. Arguably much of that work has

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failed to advance theorising on global team leadership. There is now an increasing emphasis on stakeholder management in more recent perspectives of global team leadership. These developments offer an opportunity to drive a more theoretically informed research and practice agenda. This suggests our understanding of global team leadership is likely to be significantly advanced in the foreseeable future.

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9 COMPLEXITY LEADERSHIP

Introduction One of the greatest challenges facing organisations today is managing the increasing complexity of doing business (Barkema, Baum, & Mannix, 2002). Environments characterised by major social, technological and economical transformations have resulted in greater interconnectivity between organisations. At the same time, business processes are now subject to far more dynamic and unstable conditions that place severe constraints on their predictability. Interactions between the human, structural and technical systems of organisations, influenced by constant changes in the external environment, establish complex sets of internal dynamics. As a result, simple linear cause–effect models that have previously been used to predict the outcomes of plans and actions often break down. In these conditions, the notion that managers and/​or leaders can control the future is questioned. The concept of complexity refers to the increased interdependencies, inter-​ connectedness and uncertainties that now characterise organisational environments. These conditions have resulted in greater organisational instability (Goldstein, Hazy, & Lichtenstein, 2010). It is within this context that the concept of complexity leadership is becoming increasingly of interest. Uhl-​Bien, Marion, and McKelvey (2007) argue that this encapsulates the seismic shift that has taken place in understanding the changing role of leadership in the twenty-​first century. Whereas the role of leadership in the industrial era was essentially about optimising the production and flow of products suited to manufacturing, its role in the knowledge era is instead about enabling learning and adaptation. One of the greatest challenges for organisations of contemporary times is how to generate and share knowledge with maximum optimisation at lowest cost, whilst also competitively seeking to protect their knowledge assets.

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This chapter introduces a form of relational leadership that draws upon ideas from complexity science as one of the more recent developments in relational leadership theory. It begins by explaining some of the key assumptions that underpin the nature of social systems, that are characterised as complex adaptive systems (CAS). Complex adaptive systems are key to understanding how change and innovation might occur in organisations, through self-​organisation and emergence. Complexity leadership aims to capitalise on the naturally occurring propensity of CAS to move towards greater effectiveness through enhancing order in the system. A model of complexity leadership development is then presented. This aims to enhance the internal dynamics within an organisation to generate the necessary conditions for self-​emergent organisation. These are identified as: (1) network conditions; (2) shared leadership; (3) organisational learning; and (4) leader behaviours. It is suggested that interventions in these four key areas will enhance organisational capacity for innovation.

The assumptions underpinning complexity leadership Complexity leadership is best described as a system-​level theory of leadership. It adopts principles from complexity science in seeking to explain how leadership might influence behaviour within organisational and multi-​organisational systems. When applied at this level, leadership moves furthest away from the traditional notion of leadership, as essentially about formal leaders motivating followers to achieve goals. The notion of leadership is instead conceptualised as attempts to organise the social system in such a way as to maximise the chances that beneficial and adaptive outcomes will emerge naturally, as a result of creating positive conditions. These adaptive outcomes include learning, innovation and adaptation. One of the defining aspects of complexity leadership is that it is an emergent and dynamic feature of organisational systems. This interactive dynamic can increase and enhance opportunities for spontaneous cooperative behaviour between individuals and structures (collectively referred to as agents). This forms the basis for generating new ways of acting and behaving. What is leadership in this sense is perhaps best understood as not just individual behaviours (although these are still seen as important), but organisational structures and processes are included as well. It is through complex sets of interactions between individual actions, structures and processes that enabling dynamics emerge and result in adaptive behaviours for the collective system. Complexity leadership is therefore relational. The emphasis is not just on interactions (or relations) between individuals, but understanding how the context in which these interactions are embedded shapes and influences how adaptive behaviour arises. Leadership is therefore seen as a property of the social system itself, and not particular individuals or people. To understand what complexity leadership entails, it is first necessary to understand a number of key principles from complexity science. Although there are a number of complexity

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ADAPTATION

PATTERN EMERGENCE

FEEDBACK LOOP

FEEDBACK LOOP

Individual

AGENTS AGGREGATION

FIGURE 9.1   Pattern

emergence in complex adaptive systems

theories that have been developed within different areas of science, there are some chief principles that are common to most, if not all of these. Complexity science posits a number of assumptions about the way social systems work. That is, they share similarities with many natural systems. This enables a number of analogies to be drawn between organisations and organisms. Perhaps the most important of these is the notion of self-​organisation (see Figure 9.1).This assumes that a social system has the capacity to enhance itself or adapt to its environment, without having to be managed or directed by an external intelligence. If you have wondered why fish swim together in schools or birds flock together in a certain way, then you have been thinking about some of the principles of a complex adaptive system (CAS). There is no bird or fish that is leading. Instead, each bird or fish (agent) behaves according to a set of simple rules. In the case of a school of fish, a simple rule could be: always steer towards the average heading and avoid crowding by positioning yourself a specific distance from each of your neighbours that surround you. Each individual fish then acts and reacts to every other fish besides them.

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A CAS is therefore comprised of semi-​autonomous agents that interact with one another, and possess the capacity to learn from their experience (Dooley, Corman, McPhee, & Kuhn, 2003). In organisations, these semi-​autonomous agents can be individuals or groups, whose behaviour is influenced by particular cognitive structures or schemas. However, these agents are also interconnected with each other, and this also influences their behaviour. As agents enter and leave the system, interact and change their behaviour, the CAS itself is able to adapt and evolve. Key to understanding this behaviour, is the recognition that novel and intelligent patterns begin to emerge (referred to as order) due to a natural generative tendency inherent within the system. Complex adaptive systems, despite being dynamic and failing to correspond to cause and effect linearity, do nevertheless possess simple order-​generating rules (Stacey, 1996). These systems can therefore move through states of great instability, but at some critical point are able to spontaneously self-​organise, resulting in a different set of productive or beneficial behaviour patterns. Complexity science also draws on ideas from chaos theory. This suggests that systems can occupy any place on a spectrum between equilibrium and chaos. Systems that exist in equilibrium do not possess the internal dynamics to respond effectively to their environment, and so fail to adapt or survive. Chaos is also not desirable as the system will break down. Instead, the most optimum position is to exist at the edge of chaos since this gives rise to the most creativity. Dooley et al. (2003) suggest that complex adaptive systems are characterised in such a way; that order is emergent and cannot be predetermined. The key features of a complex adaptive system are shown in Table 9.1. The future of the system cannot therefore be controlled or predicted. Change occurs and is random. Nevertheless, there exist simple rules that can bring order to the system. There is limited understanding of how this transformative change occurs. However, it is suggested that as agents interact they begin to form larger entities referred to as aggregates. Aggregates occur when agents form bonding relationships, and then proceed to engage in cooperative behaviour (Kauffman, 1993). As a result of this cooperative behaviour, the problem-​solving and innovative capacities of the system are increased. There comes a time when the increased interactions and cooperative behaviour reach a tipping point. This is when wide-​ scale innovative change occurs, resulting in greater organisational effectiveness. A further characteristic required of CAS that influences this process is called tension. This occurs because individual agents operating in their local environments are unable to solve a problem independently, as they rarely have access to all the information required. This motivates them to engage with other agents in the system, to develop local solutions to the problem. As their initial solutions to the problem are found to be limited, these aggregates then join with other aggregates in ensembles to eventually produce more effective solutions and behavioural responses. Uhl-​Bien et al. (2007) suggest that in order for this to occur, leadership

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130  Complexity leadership TAB LE 9.1  The key features of a complex adaptive system

Feature

Description

Complex Adaptive System

Consists of a large number of interacting local agents and has the capacity to learn from experience and adapt to the environment. The essential quality to self-​organise so that order is emergent rather than planned or predetermined. There is no hierarchy of command and control.

Emergence

Coherent behaviour arises through heterogeneous actions at a local level. Decisions evolve over time. There exist simple rules that govern how the system functions and change is a bottom-​up process.

Total System Change

You cannot predict total system change from local interactions. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Emergence frustrates cause and effect. Small changes in initial conditions can have major effects.

Agents

The basic units within a complex adaptive system that develop schema representing rules that shape how they interpret and then act on the environment. Agents are therefore driven by simple action-​condition rules that govern how they interact with other agents on a local basis.

Aggregation

Agents interact in non-​linear and dynamic patterns which eventually gives rise to complexity. Agent change occurs in response to feedback from their actions. The way in which agents connect and interact is key to the system’s adaptation.

can enable the processes involved.This is achieved through facilitating interdependency and interaction and providing some interactive tension to help motivate the interactions between agents and aggregates.

Practical application of complexity leadership and its limitations Two of the most significant ideas from complexity science that have been applied to help us better understand how organisations evolve are referred to as rule-​ based and connectionist approaches (Cilliers, 1998). The rules-​based approach suggests that self-​organisation emerges through the repeated use of simple rules. In an organisational context, this can include the formal rules, norms and codes of behaviour, as well as the informal values and aspects of the organisational culture. The connectionist approach, by contrast, recognises that learning and adaptation takes place through the interactions that occur between agents. Changing the strength and patterns of these connections therefore influences the capacity of the organisation to adapt and innovate. Through positive and negative feedback

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mechanisms, changes that occur in behaviours can be either amplified or dissipated throughout the organisational system. Such that small-​scale changes can result in much larger organisational transformation. Within the management field, there have been a number of examples given that suggest self-​organisation can indeed be found. The card payments company Visa, is often cited as an example of an organisation that has evolved and adapted without any overall direction. Yet it has grown to become a successful multinational organisation. Tetenbaum (1998), for example, notes that: You don’t know where it is located, how it’s operated, or who owns it.That’s because VISA is decentralised, non-​hierarchical, evolving and self-​regulating…it is a chaordic system conceived as an organisation solely on the basis of purpose and principle. Its structure evolved from them. (p26) There are a number of organisational change case studies that have sought to show the existence of self-​organisation, occurring through order-​generating rules in practice. Lewin, Parker, and Regine (1998) for example, highlight a number of examples where business organisations have sought to apply complexity principles. A key feature from this work was the recognition that it was the nature of relationships that existed between individuals (or agents), and how these subsequently changed, that was the basis for much of the wider, systemic changes that subsequently occurred. These relationships were governed by simple sets of relationship-​oriented rules. These included showing respect, valuing time, listening to employees, acknowledging worker effort and facilitating opportunities for employees. MacIntosh and MacLean (2001) showed how the emergence of new rules characterised as ‘better, faster, cheaper’, alongside a new structure which permitted greater freedom for self-​organisation, overcame the failure of a manufacturing company to innovate.

The role of formal leadership Given the rejection of linearity within complex adaptive systems, complexity leadership shifts its focus away from seeking to control outcomes. Instead, its focus is on how leadership behaviours might facilitate organisational effectiveness. Typically, the idea that leaders can by virtue of what they do predict the outcomes of their actions, fails to recognise that the interactions between agents in a social system gives rise to differing forms of behaviour. Consequently, the role of leadership is to influence the network of relationships between agents, such that new and innovative forms of behaviour can occur. In so doing, it is not the leader’s role to provide answers or direct followers. Instead, it is to facilitate constructive interactions, such that followers are free to generate novel responses and behaviours within the system itself. These interactions are the

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basic units that lie at the heart of the organisational system to generate order –​ or move towards a more effective state. This process is referred to as autocatalysis. However, there are a wide range of factors or conditions that can catalyse or speed up this process. Complexity leadership in its simplest explanation is therefore, what can be done to develop or bring about these factors or conditions. Achieving organisational effectiveness is critically recognised as a bottom-​up process that occurs through agents. It does not occur as a direct result of the actions of leaders themselves. It follows then, that one of the chief activities of complexity leadership is developing connectedness between agents within the organisation. The aim is to capitalise on the random dynamics that occur when agents come together and create learning. Marion and Uhl-​Bien (2001) refer to this as catalysing bottom-​up network construction. Some of the work from integrative leadership that has focused on building and supporting networks across organisational boundaries is also helpful here, as its central focus has been on how to develop relationship capital (Crosby & Bryson, 2010; Morse, 2010). Here, there has been a distinction drawn between structural and process catalysts. Structural catalysts denote the actual pattern of connections that exist between individuals or agents within the system. Process catalysts are the formal and informal structures that facilitate connection between individuals and groups in an organisation. At the simplest level they include workshops, meetings, seminars and committees. More sophisticated structures include the IT mechanisms that organisations have in place to facilitate the transfer of information and build repositories of knowledge. Although both structural and process catalysts are important, key to building relationship capital is developing the building blocks of social capital, particularly trust and respect (Huxham & Vangen, 2005). In this regard, boundary spanning becomes a key activity within the organisation. It is this that enables formal leaders to bridge agents and build relationships. This then, is a form of leadership that ‘has the ability to create conditions under which relational outcomes such as coordinated action, collective achievement and shared accountability can be achieved’ (Fletcher, 2008, p2).

Developing complexity leadership Complexity leadership positions leadership as a property of a dynamic social system, rather than as residing in an individual or even a set of individuals. It therefore fits within the broader conceptualisation of leadership as inherently relational in nature. It is distinctive, however, in framing leadership processes as connected to an organisation’s or system’s capacity for dealing with change and adaptation. In this sense, it attempts to enable an organisation to respond more effectively to dynamic business environments by bringing about internal organisational conditions that better address uncertainty (Lichtenstein & Plowman, 2009).The goal of complexity leadership is to maximise the interactions between agents in order to capitalise on the distributed intelligence that exists within the system. It therefore focuses on

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the network of interactions, the relational dynamics, and constraints and tensions that exist within a particular system. Compared to the studies that have appeared in the literature examining leader development interventions, there are relatively few studies that discuss incorporating a complexity leadership development approach. A few case studies, most notably in the healthcare or public sector collaboration context can be found however (Attwood, Pedler, Pritchard, & Wilkinson, 2003; Bovaird, 2008; Ovretveit, 2005; Umble et al., 2005). These share a common approach in linking leadership to the broader dynamic system in which it is embedded, and as a catalyst associated with building networks to generate innovative behaviour. Recent accounts also suggest that the space agency NASA has developed new leadership competences for its technicians, drawing upon a complexity leadership perspective (Morris and Williams, 2012). These include competences in political expertise, systems thinking and systemic thinking. Clarke (2012) posited a model of complexity leadership development, the goals of which was to create self-​sustaining learning networks and enhance social capital within an organisation. As such, a chief focus is influencing the context including structures and organisational culture, in which relationships between agents are embedded. As well as leader roles that maximise opportunities for distributed intelligence to be harnessed for problem-solving. Although individual skills are important, these are only part of a broader system-​wide set of conditions that require attention.The model therefore adopts a social network perspective in considering how complexity leadership might be facilitated within and between organisations. The pattern, structure and other characteristics of interpersonal relationships can be thought of as a web of connections (or ties) between people which is called a social network (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). Social network theory offers a means by which we can assess how the nature and strength of relationships between people, as well as particular patterns of relationships within a broader domain, can have a direct effect on whether individuals emerge as leaders and the leadership effects of such relationship patterns (Carter, DeChurch, Braun, & Contractor, 2015). Analysing a particular social network, therefore, can tell us a great deal about the context in which individuals are situated and through which leadership occurs (Denis, Langley, & Sergi, 2012). It can also tell us why some leaders are more effective than others due to the pattern of influence they may have. This arises from the strength and density (range) of relationships or ties that they have with other actors in the network (Balkundi & Kilduff, 2006). Analysing the characteristics of a social network directs attention away from the characteristics, expertise or behaviours of a leader, and instead to considering how the particular pattern of relationships in which an individual is situated offers an explanatory framework as to why leadership may be more or less effective. Put more simply, we can see that some individuals may emerge and undertake leadership roles and activities because they have greater influence in a specific network. This arises

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134  Complexity leadership NETWORK CONDITIONS

S Y S T E M

Relational Ties Social Exchange Communication Patterns AUTOCATALYSIS Aggregation Boundary Experiences

SHARED LEADERSHIP

ADAPTATION

ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING Knowledge Sharing and Interpretation Mechanisms TENSION I N D I V I D U A L

LEADER BEHAVIOURS Develop Network Support Shared Meaning Making Foster Tension Build Social Capital

FIGURE 9.2   Developing

Conflict Management Empowerment

complexity leadership (based on Clarke, 2012)

due to them having both a greater number, as well as better quality of connections with other individuals (or followers) in a specific network structure.This can happen because their span of influence is far wider, enabling them to obtain and share knowledge and ideas more effectively (Bendersky & Shah, 2013; Small & Rentsch, 2010). Through shifting the focus to the network structure rather than on the capabilities of any particular individual, leadership becomes less a matter of human capital (i.e. knowledge, skills and competences) but more one of social capital (Coleman, 1988). Clarke’s (2012) model (see Figure  9.2) posits four key areas that should be the targets of development interventions in the organisation, so as to optimise its capacity for autocatalysis  –​the process by which innovation and adaptation can occur bottom up.Three of these conditions are identified as system-​level interventions. The fourth condition is labelled as an individual-​level intervention. These are identified as: (1) Network conditions; (2) Shared leadership; (3) Organisational learning; and (4) Leader behaviours.

1.   Network conditions Complexity science suggests that the initial conditions of an organisational system have a significant influence on the extent to which agents interact, and the quality and range of connections that exist. Although order emerges naturally in CAS, it does so through many random interactions over a period of time. A key intervention is therefore to increase both the frequency and level of interactions within the system. This requires an examination of the formal and

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informal structural connections that exist between individuals and groups, as well as communication patterns and processes for knowledge sharing. These are catalysts for increasing the rate of interactions and number of interconnections between agents. There are a number of explanations put forward as to why social proximity and network structure are associated with innovation in organisations (Kimberly & Evanisko, 1981; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). These include that the structure of social relations affects the rate or ease with which knowledge is transferred, as well as the values that support innovation (Rye & Kimberly, 2007). Research has shown that the higher the quality (e.g. strong as opposed to weak) as well as the density of ties or connections between individuals in organisations, the more diverse means for problem-solving and translating information occurs. Density refers to the mean number of ties or relationships for each group member within a network (Sparrowe et al., 2001). This enables the transfer of knowledge and information far more easily (Burt, 2004). The extent of connections between agents has also been found to be associated with adopting change and innovation (Battilana and Casciaro, 2012). Complexity science suggests that it is through the creation of ensembles where individuals and/​or work groups come together with a shared interest to problem-solve, that new patterns of behaviour can emerge. The focus on the quality and density of connections to facilitate interaction, is therefore a critical element of complexity leadership development if synergies from the interactions between information and expertise are to be achieved (Ensley et al., 2006). Practical interventions include providing more structural mechanisms for individuals to meet and collaborate, such as work groups, projects and assignments. However, there is a much larger role here for human resource management practices in supporting knowledge exchange and transfer in the organisation, particularly in developing a culture that supports risk taking and empowerment.Without individuals feeling they are empowered to take responsibility for decision-making, then merely increasing connections and opportunities for knowledge exchange will be ineffective.The organisation’s culture is a powerful mechanism that encodes rules within the system. An organisational culture that promotes trust and respect also influences the ease with which knowledge and information are transferred, and whether individuals (agents) are willing to share their ideas on how to solve problems. The use of information technology to support the exchange of information between agents, and to facilitate them in identifying shared interests, is also key. Tension is a further network condition that alongside those that facilitate interaction, is important in influencing problem-solving and creativity. Tension is the name given to the driving motivational force arising from the recognition by agents that there are problems within the system (Uhl-​Bien et al., 2007). Individuals will often have differing interpretations of what the problem is, as well as how to address it. This gives rise to a creative tension that is a force for action and information exchange. However, tension also has the potential to give rise to conflict that can have a negative impact if not managed effectively. At the system

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level, the organisation should promote policies that value differences and diversity, and a culture of openness to discuss and air alternative perspectives. Interventions that aim to develop an organisational culture that supports these network conditions might be of value here (Clarke, Higgs, & Meyer, 2010). Organisation development interventions that promote greater connectivity between individuals and work groups such as search conferences can also be utilised (Clarke, 2005). A very specific organisation development called appreciative inquiry, based on facilitating dialogue between individuals in an organisation for problem-solving, is a further developmental intervention that would assist in promoting these network conditions.

2.   Shared leadership Key to understanding the contribution complexity leadership can make to improving organisational effectiveness and facilitating adaptation, is the recognition that adaptation originates bottom up. This places a very different emphasis on the role of individuals in the organisation as being responsible for problemsolving, than has traditionally been the case.The task of formal leaders is to help to coordinate the responsive behaviours of individuals, not to direct them. However, leadership of a more distributed nature is needed in order for individuals to ‘lead’ problem-solving tasks where needed. This would seem to suggest that the concept of shared leadership may be congruent with the notions of how to address complexity highlighted earlier. Shared leadership, by its nature, is concerned with creating the conditions by which individuals can lead on problem-solving (Gronn, 2002). Given that intelligence is distributed throughout the social system, a shared leadership approach might be best placed to facilitate the use of this knowledge. Gronn (2002) has suggested that alternative patterns of shared leadership can occur in an organisation. They are identical in that they each arise through a process referred to as ‘conjoint agency’. This occurs when individuals decide to synchronise their actions to achieve greater synergy to address problems and challenges. However, shared leadership can emerge as a result of differing patterns of relationships between individuals. These occur either through individuals spontaneously deciding to collaborate, or as intuitive patterns due to the nature of working relationships, and finally, through formal structures such as working parties or projects. Each of these patterns are significant in providing ‘boundary experiences’.These are opportunities and loci for examining differing perspectives and establishing some sense of shared meaning (Feldman, Khademian, Ingram, & Schneider, 2006). In addition to knowledge sharing and problem-solving, both density (e.g. Carson et al., 2007) and centralisation (e.g. Mehra et al., 2006; Small and Rentsch, 2010) have both been suggested as also indicative of shared leadership occurring. Given the emphasis placed on bottom-​up emergence in complexity leadership, this would seem to fit well with the idea that individuals need to be both open to influence and to influence others.

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3.   Organisational learning The concept of organisational learning is included in the model. This is based on the growing body of research showing relationships between organisational learning and innovation (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; McKee, 1992). The literature on organisational learning incorporates a focus on knowledge co-​creation, an activity similarly emphasised in complexity leadership development (Wang & Ahmed, 2003). Organisational learning assumes that learning by individuals can be shared and transferred within the organisation, so that it is then encoded at the organisational level, or systemically. Senge (1990) offered some groundbreaking initial ideas on what might constitute this organisational-​level learning. However, critics of the concept have pointed out that the theoretical processes by which individual level learning is captured so that it becomes a property associated with the organisation have been less well developed (Huysman, 2004; Ortenblad, 2002). A complexity approach suggests that new knowledge is co-​created as a result of individuals interacting and who are empowered to problem-​solve. Knowledge creation (learning) is therefore perceived as an inherently social process of generating new meaning (Chiva, Grandio, & Alegre, 2010; Hannah & Lester, 2009). Learning is therefore experiential and becomes encoded at the organisational level through its storage in organisational memory. These include rules, polices, procedures, norms and both tacit as well as explicit routines (Walsh & Ungson, 1991). Crossan, Lane, & White (1999) have suggested that the process by which this occurs initially involves individuals (or agents) intuiting and interpreting information. But then groups (or ensembles) are able to interpret and then integrate the information as a knowledge co-​creation activity. The literature on organisational learning has also used an information-​ processing model of learning as a platform to understand the learning processes involved at a systemic level. One of the most influential approaches perceives learning as occurring through four distinct stages.These are labelled as knowledge acquisition and generation, information distribution, information interpretation, and information storage and retrieval (Huber, 1991). However, strategic as well as interpretative perspectives of organisational learning have enriched our understanding of the processes involved beyond this information-​processing model. A number of studies, for example, have identified those specific processes thought to be associated with strategic learning. These include: (1) the importance of an organisational memory to process, store and retrieve information (Huber, 1991); (2) the specific information-​transfer processes involved, including how interpretative processes and subsequent learning interact (Ambrosini & Bowman, 2005; Thomas, Watts Sussman, & Henderson, 2001); (3) the changing nature of learning strategies, expertise and skill development to support developing strategies (Perez-​ Lopez, Montes-​Peon, & Vazquez-​Ordas, 2006); (4) changes in the procedural and dynamic routines or heuristics that lead to innovation (Cross and Israelit, 2000; Fiol and Lyles, 1985; Huber, 1991); and (5) the organisational context that fosters

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the type of management actions and behaviours that support the generation of learning and knowledge (Ambrosini and Bowman, 2005; Harrison, 2000). This emphasises the information-​ transfer processes that result in changes to the firm’s core operating assumptions. Thomas et al. (2001) argue that this depends on the firm possessing institutionally based sensemaking mechanisms in place, alongside excellent knowledge-​validation mechanisms. The authors also emphasise the importance of organisational mechanisms for generating, storing and transporting rich de-​embedded knowledge across different levels of the organisation. Both sensemaking, and the importance of mechanisms for generating and transporting rich data, are also emphasised by Kuwada (1998) as key characteristics associated with strategic learning. Kuwada (1998) suggested that major innovation and strategic change require changes in the norms, routines and basic assumptions within organisations, or changes in what he refers to as corporate-​level knowledge through a process called strategic knowledge distillation. Kuwada suggests that this occurs through ensuring a certain amount of organisational slack or unused resources is available for promoting risk taking, alongside autonomy for determining goals and freedom to depart from the scope of current strategy. This notion of slack suggests opportunities for accessing rich learning experiences. It is this which is a key aspect of the strategic knowledge distillation process. Social learning processes based on action and cognition are then identified as the key mechanisms through which tacit knowledge is learnt, that then serves as material for new basic assumptions at the corporate level. Organisational learning is then stored in organisational memory, enacted through organisational rules, tacit routines and procedures (Walsh & Ungson, 1991). In order to access this information, individuals engage in sensemaking as a means to extract the information and co-​create new meaning and understandings through dialogue with others. These are argued to be key elements that influence the ‘absorptive capacity’ of organisations (Fiol, 1996; Zahra & George, 2002), defined as the extent to which new knowledge is identified, distributed and translated. Much of this work draws upon the literature on networks and social relations (Granovetter, 1973) in suggesting that factors such as the movement of information, combined with the transfer of normative demands, values and practices, result in knowledge co-​creation and diffusion, both of which are integral to innovation (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Burt, 2000, 2004).

4.   Leader behaviours The role of the manager here requires a major shift in thinking about what a formal leader does. Uhl-​Bien, Marion, and McKelvey (2007) distinguish between two forms of leadership important for complexity leadership. They term these adaptive leadership and enabling leadership. Adaptive leadership is defined as emergent change behaviours under conditions of interaction, interdependence, asymmetrical information, complex network dynamics and tension.

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Adaptive leadership manifests in CAS and interactions among agents rather than in individuals, and is recognizable when it has significance and impact. (p309) Adaptive leadership therefore occurs ‘in situ’ and is a dynamic phenomenon that occurs in a relational context, i.e. between those agents or individuals who interact to problem-solve. However, this does not preclude the need for formal leader tasks and roles to support this process, what is referred to as enabling leadership. This requires managers to let go of what might be fairly well entrenched ideas about what formal leaders are expected to do.The notion that leaders should be controlling events and successfully plan the future is not only alluring, but is pervasive in most of our thinking or ‘cognitive schemas’ about how organisations work. Much of this is rooted in Fayol’s classical ideas of management, as being about planning, organising, predicting, controlling and leading (Wren, Bedeian, & Breeze, 2002). Whilst these classical ideas may have been suited to the bureaucratic organisational form, with its strict division of labour and emphasis on scalar control and unity of command, they are no longer fit for purpose today. The shift to a knowledge economy and more organic and horizontal organisational structures have already exposed major problems with this mindset. From a complexity perspective, the need to adopt new managerial behaviours is even more imperative, yet is perhaps its greatest challenge. Managers instead need to undertake enabling leadership. Their most significant task is to focus on fostering the conditions for spontaneous adaptive leadership to emerge within the organisation. Seven key knowledge and skills areas are identified here as part of enabling leadership.

(1)   Supporting autocatalysis The task here is to organise the workplace so that there are far greater opportunities for agents to connect, interact and problem-solve. The manager needs to identify formal and informal mechanisms for knowledge sharing and maximising connectivity, both face-​to-​face and virtually. This will require resources both to maintain as well as to structure networks. These networks should be monitored to determine their progress and development. A proactive role needs to be undertaken in linking up individuals and work groups with common interests and motivations, and ensuring there is sufficient scope for these ‘aggregates’ to work together on projects and problems that lay both within and outside their formal job role. Managers also need to focus on job design. They need to consider how employees’ jobs are designed so as to maximise autonomy in decision-making.The emphasis is on ensuring greater delegation and empowerment, whilst broadening the scope and challenges of the tasks undertaken. Tension is expected, and is a driver of problem-solving. However, individuals may need assistance in managing this. The manager therefore needs to act as coach, assisting individuals to develop their competence in problem-solving and resolving conflict so that individuals can reach shared understandings and accommodations.

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(2)   Supporting shared leadership Strategies for developing shared leadership have been discussed earlier in Chapter 6. These highlighted the tasks and roles the formal leader or manager should undertake in order to support the conditions by which shared leadership is more likely to occur. Key tasks identified in the literature include establishing shared team norms that support participation and a common purpose. Managers also need to build social capital and enhance social exchange between individuals.This places a significant emphasis on the relational skills and behaviours of managers.

(3)   Developing the system’s network The manager needs to possess skills in how to develop and maintain networks effectively (Gnyawali & Madhavan, 2001). This involves setting expectations for collaboration between individuals and establishing a set of simple rules that indicate the organisation’s support for networking and joint problem-solving (Taggar & Ellis, 2007). This may require diagnosing the organisation’s culture and implementing strategies to enhance connectivity both within the organisation and inter-​organisationally. The outcome should be to increase both the number and depth of connections between individuals (Regine & Lewin, 2000).

(4)   Supporting shared meaning making One of the most important tasks for the manager is to monitor the network for productive outcomes. There is significant potential for network relations to deteriorate due to tension, inadequate resourcing or ‘aggregates’ becoming disillusioned, due to feeling they are unable to address or solve particular problems. Keeping the system on track is therefore imperative. Systemic thinking is a critical skill that managers can bring to ‘aggregates’ to help them see the wider picture and identify additional resources, information and contacts they might need to solve problems. Managers can also perform the role of ‘sensegivers’, where they help individuals to co-​construct meaning from situations and navigate a way forward under conditions of uncertainty (Foldy et al., 2008). Assisting ‘aggregates’ develop a shared vision to understand the broader context in which they operate and a future desired state is also important.

(5)   Identifying barriers to information flows Managers should identify barriers and constraints to the entry, exchange and transfer of information within the network. This is required since research has found that both the distribution and transfer of information within a network, alongside understanding where expertise is located, are factors associated with individuals undertaking shared leadership (Friedrich et al., 2009). Other research

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has also found that individuals with greater network centrality are also more likely to emerge as leaders (Mehra et al., 2006). OD diagnostic models can be used to map communication patterns, levels of engagement, as well as the extent to which staff feel empowered to work on particular projects outside their own job sphere. This would suggest that job redesign interventions can be drawn upon to examine developing jobs with broader scope within the organisation, and to facilitate greater knowledge exchange between individuals.

(6)   Fostering the positive value of tension Managers need to develop a work unit climate that celebrates and values differing opinions and perspectives, as well as help to surface any underlying conflicts that might be impeding adaptive tension within the system (Uhl-​Bien et al., 2007). HRD activities such as team building that promote the positive airing of differences and opposing perspectives, as well as support the positive resolution of conflict, are key to enabling self-​organisation and problem-solving among the network’s agents.Training programmes on assertiveness and managing conflict can help individuals to put forward opposing perspectives and establish a more collaborative organisational climate.

(7)   Building social capital Much of the writing on the importance of relational skills for leaders (or indeed the significance of emotional intelligence) has tended to place this within the context of assisting leaders to perform a more transformational leadership style. Transformational leadership is a style of leadership or set of leader behaviours that connect a leader emotionally with followers. It includes aspects such as inspirational motivation and idealised influence (or charisma). Relational skills are therefore framed with the purpose of motivating or influencing followers. Within complexity leadership, however, relational skills of formal leaders or managers assume significance for a different reason. Here, their importance lies in enabling managers to develop social capital within networks (Agranoff, 2004). Social capital is positively associated with the transfer of knowledge within social systems (Levin & Cross, 2004). It is about managers using their relational skills to develop and build social ties between agents. It is often described as occurring in two forms, labelled as cognitive social capital and relational social capital. The cognitive form recognises that the potential resources available in a network are dependent, to some extent, on the degree of shared meaning and common representation systems (thinking patterns) present. Managers should therefore engage in sensegiving to assist ‘aggregates’ to develop shared cognitive schemas and common understandings (Tsai, 2000). This is considered to be a critical element in developing cognitive social capital (Morse, 2010).

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Relational capital, by contrast, highlights that access to resources is also dependent on the levels of trust and reciprocal obligation that characterise relationships within the network (Bolino, Turnley, & Bloodgood, 2002). Relational social capital develops as a consequence of individuals fulfilling mutual obligations to each other. This is also important in the development of trust. Strategies and interventions that develop trust should therefore be utilised by managers as part of their approach for developing relational social capital in the network. A further distinction can be made between the social capital available within a particular social group (referred to as bonding social capital), and that available between specific groups (referred to as bridging social capital). Both these different types of social capital are clearly important, as they determine the extent of resources available to a particular group. One of the key resources we are concerned with from a complexity perspective is information or knowledge. Both these forms of social capital can be assessed by the extent and quality of social ties that connect individuals within a group and between groups themselves. Specifically within organisations, Brown and Van Buren (2009) have suggested that training and development activities can help to foster social capital. They argue that participating in training programmes helps to build relationships and instil reciprocity norms through repeated interactions and sharing knowledge. Organisation development interventions can also be utilised to enhance social capital within the organisation by offering opportunities to increase connectivity. These include techniques such as search conferences, facilitated interagency or work unit sessions, as well as training programmes for developing relational skills. These interventions can help to bring about a more systemic approach to problem-solving.

Proximal and distal outcomes of complexity leadership development Complexity leadership development is posited in the model to support both autocatalysis and tension within the CAS. These are proximal outcomes. Development interventions directed at both individual and systemic levels are designed to support the emergence of self-​organisation, and provide enhanced opportunities for the creation of ensembles. These are the basis for bringing about adaption within the social system. They do this through enhancing autocatalysis and supporting the beneficial effects of tension. This supposes that although individuals will have differing perceptions of a problem and alternative ideas for addressing it, creating a shared and common understanding with mutual interests can act as a powerful motivator. Next, the model suggests that these two proximal or intermediary outcomes can then lead to enhanced adaption, identified in the model as the distal outcomes (Lichtenstein, 2000; Lichtenstein & Plowman, 2009).

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Concluding comments Complexity leadership sees the work environment as far too unstable and ambiguous to be able to be modelled by simple, linear, cause and effect relationships (Prigogine, 1997). A further assumption is that the multiple interactions and interconnections between its constituent elements, in dynamic interplay with its complex business environment, give rise to unpredictable behaviours and results.These outcomes can neither be planned nor foreseen. Having said that, complex adaptive systems have an inherent feature, namely that order (or a more effective state) emerges as a consequence of many interactions between agents in the system. This occurs naturally through many cycles of random interactions. When agents interact and find themselves with shared interests working towards similar goals, these are referred to as ensembles. As increasing numbers of ensembles interact, the opportunities for self-​generating behaviours are increased as these ensembles work together on problems to find creative solutions. The problem is that this can take a very long time to achieve. Complexity leadership posits that leadership emerges through the patterns of interactions and connectivity within an organisation. It is through these interactive dynamics that tension within the CAS can be harnessed towards enhanced organisational adaptation. Complexity leadership thus seeks to facilitate these interactions by developing the conditions whereby novel behaviour and innovation becomes more likely. CAS themselves are often thought of as akin to neural networks; they can problem-solve and are best thought of as extensive sets of interconnected nodes or agents. When organisations are viewed as complex adaptive systems and leadership as a property of that social system, then leadership is viewed as the entirety of structures, processes and practices ‘that make things happen’ (Huxham & Vangen, 2005), with the relational nature of leadership perceived as a ‘dyadic, shared, relational, strategic, global, and a complex social dynamic’ (Avolio et al., 2009, p423).With the advance of this relational perspective on leadership, interest has increasingly been directed towards applying social network concepts to gain new insights into how leadership emerges within relational configurations. Managers therefore require skills in how to develop social capital within a network. There are, of course, limitations with the application of complexity science principles to thinking about organisations. A number of critics point out that there is limited empirical evidence and that even when applied to the natural world, much of the explanation has been drawn from computer simulations. Some doubt whether such virtual simulations can be taken as accurate models of the human-​social world (Cilliers, 2002). There are also others that suggest the notion of self-​organisation is so far removed from the top-​down, command-​and-​control style of management that has dominated management thinking and behaviour, that to adopt a complexity approach to leadership would not be achievable (Brodbeck, 2002). For some, the application of complexity principles are at best

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a metaphorical device for understanding how to facilitate change with limited application in their current form (Burnes, 2005). Not least since complexity science fails to satisfactorily account for the role played by emotion and the notion of human free will, such that choices exist to break or refuse to follow simple rules. Despite these limitations, there is evidence from the literature showing how the application of complexity principles can help to gain a better understanding of organisational change and adaptation. Complexity leadership development offers a contribution on how this might be achieved.

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10 CASE STUDIES

Case study: network building among mental health organisations One of the key principles of relational leadership is that it recognises leadership as a collective activity that occurs within social systems, particularly those we call networks. Networks can refer to various combinations through which people are connected both inside and across organisations. Responsible leadership, global team leadership, and complexity leadership all place significant emphasis on the characteristics of particular types of networks as associated with leadership effectiveness in these contexts. Unsurprisingly then, building, developing and sustaining networks is highlighted as an important factor in supporting these relational forms of leadership. The knowledge and skills required to develop networks have been discussed in previous chapters. But there are also examples of specific Organisation Development (OD) type interventions that can be used to assist this process. This case looks at how one such intervention, transorganisation development, was used to enhance relationships within a network of organisations, each with responsibilities for improving mental health care in a specific locality in the United Kingdom. Cummings and Worley (1997) described transorganisation development as an intervention designed to build networks across organisations. He suggests that it is ‘concerned with helping organisations to join into partnerships with other organisations to perform tasks or to solve problems that are too complex for single organisations to resolve. It helps organisations to recognise the need for partnerships and to develop appropriate structures for implementing them’ (p151). The model itself is fairly straightforward, with the aim of improving the dynamics between stakeholder organisations to enhance relational bonds and performance. It explicitly recognises that differing histories, cultures, philosophies and ways of working between organisations create barriers to working in partnership successfully. These barriers inevitably have a negative impact on the

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commitment and motivation of those involved. The model consists of four stages that are designed to identify and resolve dilemmas arising from differing viewpoints and perspectives, and then to structure themselves in order to work jointly on a specific task. The four stages are listed as: (1) Identification; (2) Convention; (3) Organisation; and (4) Evaluation. The identification stage involves identifying who the key actors are that need to be involved in addressing a particular task or project.The convention stage then follows, where considerable effort is placed on identifying the nature of the problem and potential ways it might be addressed. Here a facilitator is needed to structure activities that facilitate problem-solving, airing disagreements and ensuring space is given to voicing alternative perspectives. At the end of the convention stage, the actors involved should have reached a consensus on how best to proceed through articulating a clear vision or strategic plan. In the organisation stage, a framework is then constructed that clearly details each actor’s accountabilities and responsibilities for the task at hand, how resources will be obtained, and decision-​making roles. The idea here is to establish a set of norms for how the group intends to work together and develop an identity as a distinct group. Finally, the evaluation stage emphasises the need for information on how well the network is performing to be fed back so that corrective actions can be taken where necessary. Where this type of intervention has been used, participants often report better problem-solving, greater mutual learning, enhanced consensus on how to address a task, and more detailed plans on the way forward.

Background to the case Mental health care requires many organisations to work in partnership to meet the multiple and often complex care needs of people with mental illness and developmental disabilities. This is facilitated on a local level by locality planning groups. These are voluntary structures where senior managers from health, social care and the voluntary sector involved in commissioning and providing mental health care come together to help plan for the mental health care needs of the local community. There had been considerable conflict between organisations involved in the network that had resulted in poor planning and problem-solving. Voluntary sector and patient representative organisations considered themselves to have limited involvement in shaping the strategic development of services. Conflicts had arisen due to differing philosophies about how to treat mental health problems, reflecting whether mental health should best be seen as a medical or social condition. This is a critical factor, since these alternative philosophies have a major impact in determining the types of services or mental health care that should be made available or prioritised. Whilst those organisations responsible for commissioning mental health services in the locality considered that voluntary sector and patient representative organisations often failed to recognise the need to ensure value for

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taxpayers’ money in the services that were provided. These areas of conflict were played out in a recent decision taken by the lead organisation responsible for commissioning mental health services in the locality to cease to fund a job skills training provider for people with mental health problems. They justified this decision on the basis that the costs were too high, whilst also questioning the effectiveness of this specialist provider in achieving improvements to service users’ lives. The decision was vehemently opposed by many organisations within the network, with many perceiving the issue to be one centred on the dominance of a medical model in commissioning mental health services. The months that followed this decision saw a major deterioration in the relationships between organisations in the network. A number chose simply to withdraw and gave up on attending locality planning group meetings and events. Whilst for others that did attend, their participation was irregular and unenthusiastic. Information was poorly exchanged and any initiatives to develop more innovative mental health care services met with a lacklustre response. Arguments over small issues became commonplace, and there was a widespread view that there was a low level of trust among members of the network.

The intervention Recognising that something needed to be done to improve the situation, one of the organisations in the network suggested that a two-​and-​a-​half-​day facilitated intervention should be undertaken to improve relationships within the network. Twenty-​seven senior managers from different organisations within the network participated in a transorganisation development intervention. The structure of the days were based around the convention and organisation stages of Cummings and Worley’s (1997) four-​stage model. During the first day participants worked together on two key themes. These were: (1) Each organisation highlighting the contributions they made to mental health care including the strengths and limitations of their approach and services, and the resources and expertise they had available, and (2) Identifying the problems of successfully working together, including philosophical differences, cultural factors and lack of knowledge and information. The facilitator clarified the points each of the organisations made and checked that there was a common understanding and consensus between each of the network members before proceeding. Some of the issues raised included: (1) the need for more accurate information on roles, responsibilities and services; (2) the need for more face-​to-​face communication; and (3) the need to recognise and address stereotypes held about each other, emphasising the need for respect in order to foster better relationships. The final part of the first day was spent identifying where the organisations had worked well together in the past and in particular what were the key factors that facilitated this. Some of the key areas highlighted here were the need

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to understand and take differing perspectives, an openness to listen to and acknowledge alternative viewpoints and approaches, and the need to have a commitment to a shared set of goals. The second day shifted to the organisation phase of the transorganisation development model. This involved participants working together to identify how the network needed to be improved through concrete actions and decisions in areas such as communication, leadership, procedures and structures. Each of the action points was agreed by all those present and responsibilities allocated between network members for achieving specific goals. The action planning continued in the third half-​day session.

Impact of the intervention on the network Participants in the intervention agreed that they had achieved a common understanding of the problems they faced in working well together, and that this had impeded their goals of providing good-​quality mental health care. The intervention had offered an opportunity for dialogue and for increasing the understanding of each organisation’s perspectives on mental health care and treatment. Most importantly of all, however, the intervention resulted in the network organising itself to develop a new structure called the consortium for commissioning mental health care services in the locality. This would give each organisation a greater say in how mental health care provision was to be commissioned, and offer an opportunity for enhanced collaboration to support innovation in service delivery. Action plans had been established for how this was to develop alongside those for improving relationships between network members. A chief outcome from the intervention was the extent to which it offered network members an opportunity to redefine their relationships with one another, and achieve a consensus on how to move forward. Supporting this, data from social network analysis suggested that the nature of relationships (or ties) between these organisations had indeed changed four months following the intervention. Measures of network centrality were obtained from all organisational representatives prior and then again afterwards. Centrality indicates the positional strength or degree of connectedness that exists between an organisation and others in the network. This was assessed by asking each organisation to give responses to three questions relating to their communication with other organisations on a rating scale from 0 (no contact) to 5 (very high levels of communication). The three questions were as follows: (1)  To what extent is there informal contact at senior level for coordinating activities between your organisation and ……. (a named organisation in the network)? (2) How well coordinated are the activities of your organisation and ……. (a named organisation in the network)? (3) How would you characterise the quality of communication between your organisation and ……. (a named organisation in the network)? The data shown in Table 10.1 indicate that a number of the organisations had significantly increased their

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Case studies  149 TAB LE 10.1   Changes in inter-​connectivity between organisations following

transorganisation development intervention Organisation

Centrality before Intervention

Centrality after Intervention

Change Following Intervention

Social Services Commissioner Health Services Commissioner Voluntary Sector (1) Voluntary Sector (2) Voluntary Sector (3) Voluntary Sector (4) Voluntary Sector (5) Social Services Dept. Housing Department Patients Representative Carers Representative

83 112 96 97 96 114 115 116 85 107 105

93 124 98 102 105 108 108 116 91 116 110

+10 +12 +2 +5 +9 –​6 –​7 0 +6 +9 +5

network centrality, indicating a more effective functioning network than was previously the case.

Key learning points 1. Transorganisation development is a structured, facilitated OD type intervention that attempts to achieve total system change through enhancing the effectiveness of a network of organisations. 2. The convention stage of the intervention requires considerable skill in supporting network participants to express their perspectives about how the network needs to change in order to function more effectively. 3. The case shows that developing interpersonal relationships between network members can help improve communication patterns. This is key to knowledge exchange and transfer within a network. A lack of trust and respect were key factors undermining its functioning. 4. The case highlights the importance of sensemaking by network members. These organisations possessed differing perspectives on how mental health care should be treated and prioritised. Understanding and appreciating each of these perspectives was an important first step before progress could be made in moving the network forward. 5. The case illustrates how different organisations took responsibility for implementing particular actions decided as they worked collaboratively in their problem-solving. Leadership was therefore not confined to any one organisation but a collective activity. 6. The impact of the intervention as suggested by changes in the network centrality scores of organisations suggests that the intervention can have some

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positive effects. However, it should be noted that this did not occur for all the organisations involved. It is also unclear how long these effects are sustained. Neither is it clear to what extent the contextual issues affecting this particular network influenced what happened. Building and developing networks will require consistent work.

Case study: supporting emergence (self-​organising change) through appreciative inquiry at Visa Europe Emergence is a key principle of relational leadership in all its forms. Socio-​constructionist perspectives highlight how leadership emerges in context through interpersonal interactions and is mediated through discourse (communication patterns) between those involved. Complexity leadership highlights emergence as key to self-​organisation within complex adaptive systems, whilst shared leadership similarly suggests that leadership will evolve and shift (emerge) within a team depending upon the task at hand. An important aspect of emergence is that it is does not occur in response to direction by either a manager or another controlling hand. Instead, it occurs ‘in situ’, affected by the contextual considerations at the time. How individuals make sense of what is going on around them, interpret the situation and then communicate this to others is how leadership first becomes constructed and then enacted. This is critical then to self-​organisation or the emergence of leadership. Developing improved opportunities for self-​organisation is therefore an integral part of developing relational leadership. Perceiving emergence as a discursive phenomenon directs our attention to a range of activities that can be supported within organisations. Appreciative inquiry refers to an approach to achieving change (or self-​organisation) that is derived through affirming the strengths and possibilities we value in ourselves, others and the world around us (Cooperider, Barrett, & Srivastva, 1995). It is thus a process of discovery and exploration. This is achieved through asking questions to determine what are the most important things that enable us (or organisations) to be the most effective and capable. Watkins and Mohr (2001) describe it as follows: A collaborative and highly participative…approach to seeking, identifying and enhancing the ‘life-​g iving forces’ that are present when a system is performing optimally in human, economic, and organizational terms…[it] focuses on the generative and life-​g iving forces in the system, the things we want to increase. (p14) This approach to thinking about self-​organisation contains many of the same assumptions about the nature of the world as the socio-​construction perspective of relational leadership. These include that there are multiple and subjective realities,

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that reality is co-​created in the moment, and that language or discourse is the primary vehicle through which reality is created. However, the appreciative aspect suggests that change should occur through identifying what is excellent or good about the past, and carry that forward in order to shape the future. At the root of appreciative inquiry is the notion that inquiry and change occur simultaneously. Through discovery, learning, dialogue and constructing shared meaning, individuals create images and maps of the future. These processes are key to both personal and organisational change. Through engaging in a range of self-​reflective and dialogical practices, individuals seek to influence the future. It is not too far from this notion that the idea of individuals taking on leadership roles in an emergent and organic way becomes more realised. Appreciative inquiry is often referred to as a dialogic OD intervention. But it takes a very different stance to that which characterises traditional organisation development in organisations. Whilst the latter case typically identifies what is not working well and uses this as the basis for change, appreciative inquiry instead looks to repeat and/​or relocate the conditions which make something good in order to shape a future state.Typically the process occurs in a series of phases. First, individuals spend time inquiring of others their stories of what they consider has given them life forces or energised them. Next, participants attempt to identify what the key themes and attributes of these stories/​ events were that imbued them with this quality. Finally, these ideas are then taken forward to consider shaping a preferred desired future state, either individually or organisationally (Bushe & Kassam, 2005). This case looks at the experience of implementing appreciative inquiry in Visa Europe. The intervention was undertaken as a means to achieve enhanced (or peak) organisational performance but the processes by which it wished to achieve this were essentially supporting self-​organised behaviour.

Background to the case Visa Europe has its headquarters in London and was formed in 2005 following the reorganisation of Visa International. It is a not-​for-​profit membership organisation processing card payments across Europe. At the time of writing it provides transaction-​processing services to over 4,000 payment-​service providers across the continent. Whilst Visa International was incorporated into a private company listed on the US stock exchange, Visa Europe continued to operate as a membership-​based organisation. However, the creation of the new organisation required major changes to take place. These included establishing new support and back-​office functions, a significant expansion of staffing from 400 to 1,500, as well as creating an entirely new inter-​bank processing facility. All this occurred whilst competition in the payment services market was becoming more fierce, but where Visa Europe wished to retain a high level of personalised service to its members. The organisation saw flexibility and creativity as key to its ongoing success among its competitors. With these business drivers,

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staff empowerment was perceived as critical to the organisation maintaining a high-​quality service and being innovative in developing and bringing new products to the market. These aims were captured in the organisation’s ambition to achieve ‘peak performance’.

The intervention A facilitator initially joined the organisation to work with the CEO and the top team on understanding how peak performance could be achieved. From this the top team realised that a shared vision and purpose was the first thing needed in the organisation. What followed in the next 12 months was engaging the whole organisation in a series of conversations to articulate what that vision might be. Once this was established, elements of an appreciative inquiry approach were then implemented. This involved inviting individuals to participate voluntarily in conversations to explore how they could better pursue their own ambitions and values, within the context of Visa Europe’s purpose and vision. The process was driven with the objective of individuals realising their potential, aspirations and personal ambitions. The intervention initially began with inviting groups of around 50 individuals to attend a one-​day workshop. Here the notion of peak performance was explained in the context of the organisation’s vision for the future. Following this, participants then formed smaller groups of around 8–​10 participants where they attended three three-​hour sessions, focusing on their own individual values and ambitions and how these could be realised at Visa Europe. During these sessions each individual explored the following questions as it related to themselves: (1) Who am I as an individual? (2) What are my aspirations? (3) How can I bring value to the purpose of Visa Europe? and (4) How can I best realise my own aspirations? Each session was facilitated by ‘an inspirational player’. These were individuals who had previously attended the process and had found it personally changing and enabled them to introduce new ways of thinking and being. One of the interesting things about the way the intervention worked was that interest in joining the sessions spread virally throughout the organisation. As more people spoke of the effect the experience had on them through their own personal stories and narratives, more staff chose to volunteer to attend. The process was thus organic, and changes emergent as the process evolved.

Impact of the intervention There were no specified targets or objectives established at the start of the intervention. Instead, the organisation continued to monitor its normal performance-​ related measures, such as staff engagement and productivity indices. Of note, employee engagement, customer satisfaction, transaction volumes and growth demonstrated an upward trend. However, what was more tangible were the stories

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of how individuals and teams had implemented new initiatives and positioned changes in the process that had the greatest impact. The personal life-​changing narratives were a springboard for introducing creative ideas that quickly began to describe the type and culture of the organisation. Individuals continued to volunteer to be part of the intervention over six years following its implementation. Of course much of this sounds very positive. But the personal reflections of those involved in the process shed light on the difficulties they personally encountered in the process. Some staff were uneasy about the lack of structure underpinning the intervention. Most staff were used to formal change-​management interventions with clearly defined goals and objectives.Their absence and the focus on individual aspirations and ambitions at first was met with significant cynicism. Although, this did decline over time as individuals’ personal stories of implementing change began to spread through the organisation. This enhanced beliefs about the authenticity of the programme. Many participants also found it difficult to see the link between the programme and any potential business outcomes or benefits. Again it took some time before individuals implementing personal change began to then take more initiatives towards solving business-​related issues and problems, which were then observed by other staff in the organisation. Assisting this to a considerable extent were the networks that were formed as a result of staff groupings participating in the process.The voluntary and non-​hierarchical nature of the process meant that individual members of staff found themselves in dialogue with individuals outside their normal working role. Participating in the process enabled them to develop trusting relationships with individuals in the organisation they had never met before. This also increased their knowledge of who to speak to when they needed help, support or resources to get something done.

Key learning points 1. The case offers an illustration of the powerful role that ‘discourse’ can play in facilitating self-​organisation (or change). It should be noted that the intervention offered opportunities for individuals to engage in conversations in small groups that were non-​hierarchical. New understandings were generated through a mutual influence process (social interactions) which formed the basis for individuals adapting new ways to be. The format offered of identifying personal aspirations and then examining in groups how these could be best achieved at Visa Europe, is a good example of how meaning was negotiated between the different interests involved. Issues of power are therefore always present. 2. The co-​construction of meaning in this discourse also highlights the role individual identities played in the process. By examining aspirations (what I would like to be), this inevitably involved asking questions such as ‘who am I now?’ and ‘how do you see me?’. The process was thus also one of co-​constructing new identities within the organisation. The socio-​historical

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3.

4.

5.

6.

organisational context should also be considered.  Although becoming separate from Visa International, Visa Europe decided to retain its membership-​based structure to retain its ‘family-​like feel’. This will have inevitably influenced how individuals interpreted how serious or ‘authentic’ the organisation was in the process. Complexity ideas of emergence emphasise that new and adaptive behaviours arise through the interaction of agents (or individuals) within the system. It should be noted that no one was required to attend the individual change part of the intervention. Participation was entirely voluntary. Yet individuals from across the span of the organisation did attend, as word spread of the changes individuals had made as a result of participating in these conversations. These stories or narratives were said to have gone viral. Without any controlling hand or manager, individuals decided to participate, from which further personal change occurred or emerged. Indeed this continued for a considerable period of time. It should be noted how these personal change stories combined to create a new set of narratives in the organisation. One individual stated afterwards that ‘it is wonderful that Visa (Europe) gives you time to think about you, and pays you while you are doing it’. This provides an example of Weick’s idea of enactment. It shows how individuals participating in the process co-​ constructed a new reality of what the organisation was which then entered the collective memory.This no doubt influenced other individuals’ sensemaking and decisions on whether to participate in the ongoing conversations that took place. The intervention offered an effective way to bring about greater inter-​connectedness within the organisation. Indeed the formation of new networks was identified as one of the significant impacts of the intervention. This then led to an increase in cooperation between individuals in the organisation. It shows how the pattern of interactions can be changed through introducing a relatively small change (setting up the conversations). However, the outcomes were not predictable. Indeed the organisation chose not to specify any predetermined expected outcomes, recognising that any changes would be spontaneous and self-​directing. The intervention could be seen as one way, however, that formal leaders attempted to bring about enhanced conditions for innovation and organisational adaptation to occur. The case illustrates that although the capacity for innovative behaviour might have been increased, it may take some time before more substantive wide-​ scale innovations or change occur. Indeed, a number of the participants found it difficult to recognise the business relevance of the process itself. This did result in some initial cynicism regarding the intervention itself. It demonstrates that challenging fairly well-​entrenched ideas about how change occurs in organisations can be quite difficult. Most managers (or leaders) learn that it is their role to effect change and then claim the credit for doing so, whilst

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employees similarly are used to the idea that change is something done to them (with varying degrees of acquiescence or resignation). Self-​organisation and emergence in human social systems may therefore depend much on how well these perceptions can be changed.

Case study: sensemaking in ethical decision-making Sensemaking refers to the process by which individuals attempt to create meaning from events occurring around them. A key element of this process is that meaning creation primarily takes place through social interactions with others.This places a primacy on the way individuals talk about what is happening with others as being essential to new meanings that are jointly created. Sensemaking can be seen in all aspects of organisational life, and no less than in how individuals create meanings of what leadership is. These meanings then serve as the basis for future action or decisions as to what to do next. This case illustrates how a senior leader (the head of customer services) engaged in sensemaking associated with ethical decisionmaking. This is deemed particularly poignant given that ethical decision-making is viewed by many to be a chief dimension of responsible leadership.

Background to the case This case study is based on a four-​year business transformation project in the insurance industry. There are a number of divisions in the company and this project was based in the life insurance division. The aim of the project was to bring the life insurance side of the business into profitability, focusing on introducing new technology platforms and involving over £30 million of investment. This would transform the key business proposition; in particular, how life insurance was sold to customers, the nature and range of products offered, with ramifications for how the business should be structured.The case specifically examines events taking place three months after the project started and continuing over the following 12 months. There are no project managers from the organisation on the project or business analysts. Instead this is a very small project team consisting of three people from the external consultancy and five team members from the business. These only comprise subject matter experts (senior leaders) from customer services, sales, IT and finance. The project team, referred to as the core design team, report to a steering group that comprises two members of the board. The director of strategy and marketing was a key sponsor of the project in the initiation phase. The sales director was the sponsor for the execution phase. After three months the project completed the start-​up phase –​or what was referred to as the ‘as is’. This involved defining what the life business currently looks like. The project was now beginning to identify where they wanted the business to be. This focused on transforming the initial strategy paper regarding the life business into operational objectives. At this time, one member of the

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project, the head of customer services, indicated that they were experiencing a value conflict or what could be described as an ethical dilemma. Having identified this as a value dilemma, the outcome of which was uncertain and caused her some degree of anxiety, the head of customer services could be seen to engage in a dynamic process of trying to make sense of the dilemma over the 12 months. How she interpreted the dilemma was influenced by how the dilemma was framed and talked about by those involved in the project and that this changed in response to particular events that occurred. In addition, we know that those brought in to work on projects tend to experience competing demands on the roles they perform no more significant than trying to manage role expectations as a project member, and role expectations arising from their everyday role in the organisation. Importantly, we found that this process of ongoing interpretation of the dilemma was also affected by which particular role or identity was more salient at particular times.

The significance of organisational culture in recognising the ethical dilemma The sensemaking process seemed to begin as a result of the anxiety felt by the head of customer services in response to perceiving the issue of withholding information from staff regarding the possible loss of their jobs as a value dilemma. It is important to say that this was not seen as a value dilemma by the project manager who had been brought in from outside the organisation specifically to lead and manage this project. The organisational culture seemed to play a large part in the head of customer services recognising the issue as an ethical dilemma in the first place. This was an organisational culture that was characterised as going to great lengths to look after its customers and staff. However, these two values appeared to collide over this dilemma. This incongruence resulted in cognitive dissonance, anxiety and initiated the sensemaking process as a means to minimise the dissonance. Perceiving the issue within the lens of the organisation’s culture was therefore one of the major cues that signalled to the head of customer services that this was an ethical dilemma or how the ethical dilemma was created. How was the ethical dilemma then interpreted? There were four major factors that influenced how the head of customer services made sense of the dilemma and enabled her to reach a plausible response to the dilemma at this time (see Figure 10.1).

Previous history of projects The first of these was the previous history of how projects were run in the organisation and a widespread perception that they often failed to deliver. Prior attempts to transform the life service division were not seen as having been successful and

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History of Projects

Organisational Culture

Recognising the Ethical Dilemma

Individual Identities

FIGURE 10.1   Recognising

Heroic Narrative

Sensemaking

Ethical Decision

Stakeholder Engagement

and making sense of ethical dilemmas under uncertainty

the failure of the previous project to turn the business around, despite the huge costs invested, meant those involved in the project spoke of huge expectations that they would deliver the changes needed. A key problem identified by the senior management team prior to undertaking this project was that the organisation was quite risk adverse.This had led to considerable delays in decision-making on projects. The previous history of projects contributed to the perception held by the head of customer services and shared by all those interviewed that the aim of the project was no less than to ‘save’ the life side of the business.

The narrative used to talk about the project The narrative or language used to talk about the project was fundamental in shaping how the dilemma was interpreted. This was framed in terms of the life side of the business delivering the best for the customer. This insurance-​selling organisation was also a mutual, which meant that there were no shareholders taking profits. The insurance company exists to benefit its members or customers. The goals of the project in relation to transforming the life side of the business was therefore discussed in terms such as ultimately serving the needs of the customer, and therefore remaining true to the values by which the organisation was originally founded. But the language used was often dramatic, with individuals indicating this was the last chance to turn the business around and that there was a sense of urgency that this needed to be done. Indeed, the project could be said to have taken on a ‘reified status’ in the way in which project team members and their sponsors described what they were doing. Individuals described the project in terms of transforming the business to make it sustainable in the long term. Business transformation was therefore seen as imperative in order for the life insurance division to survive.This discourse was exemplified further by the way in which individuals talked about how special the project was compared to previous

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projects. In this respect, individuals emphasised important differences in how the project was organised, corresponding to the ‘heroic’ nature of what the project was trying to achieve. All those interviewed described the importance of transforming the business in terms of being able to offer a far better proposition to their customers. Ensuring profitability of the life business was therefore perceived as being at its core, as meeting the needs of its customers above all else. Early on then, the project took on an exalted status which reified the significance attached to it by the organisation. This was signalled by bringing in an external consultant to lead the project, not only because of his technical expertise but also because he was unencumbered by the organisational culture, which was said to be adverse to making the hard-​headed business decisions that senior management believed were needed. Project team members also talked about how ‘special’ the project was in other ways. They highlighted the emphasis placed on how members of the project team had been purposefully chosen. They described that in addition to expertise in a functional area, selecting people deemed to have similar mindsets in how they might approach working together, as well as complete commitment to the need for business transformation. Considerable emphasis had been placed on selecting the right people as subject matter experts to work on the project and not everyone put forward for the project was chosen. Instead, individuals were selected that were seen as committed to ensuring the long-​term profitability of the life division, in addition to being seen as highly talented with future career potential in the organisation. Project behavioural norms were also established by the project manager that decisions had to be made within a very short timeframe. This highlighted that momentum was needed to keep the project moving through each stage of the project. It was also agreed by the project team that individuals had to declare their opinion or perspective on a particular issue rather than ignore it, or seek to obfuscate responsibility. There was also the need for everyone on the project to agree with the decision, thereby sharing accountability. Finally, the project team were sequestered in a building off-​site, some miles away from the main site where all employees were based. This was very unusual in terms of how projects were delivered and was said to facilitate decision-making, but the symbolism served to give the project an almost secretive air that signalled the importance of its work. All these factors were cues that emphasised the ‘imperative’ nature of the outcomes of the project to the survival of the life insurance side of the business and reinforced the ‘heroic narrative’ associated with how the project was discussed.

Identification with the project These changes to the way the project was being delivered also had a further effect in that they enhanced the identification of the head of customer services with the aims and the importance attached to the project by the organisation. The factors

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that (1) project team members had been selected based on their commitment to business transformation and sharing similar mindsets; (2) changes to the way in which project team members were held jointly accountable for all decisions; and (3) the sequestering of project team members off-​site, meant that members of the project were able to develop close working relationships very quickly. This was said to result in a high level of team cohesion as well as increasing the salience of the head of customer services role on the project as primary, whilst their normal organisational role as a manager became more secondary. This enhanced project identification meant the head of customer services at this time was surrounded by individuals who both shared and participated in this narrative.

Stakeholder engagement Finally, there was a high level of stakeholder engagement in relation to the project’s governance structure, namely its steering group. Here, securing agreement to each of the recommendations for business transformation put forward by the project at each step needed to be signed off by the steering group. Prior to each steering group meeting there was intensive lobbying by members of the project with steering group members to ensure decisions put forward by the project would be agreed at the steering group level. This high level of political activity served two key functions. First, it reinforced the idea that accountability for any decision made was shared by senior management. But more importantly, the high level of political activity and engagement prior to steering group meetings offered opportunities for project team members to test out the legitimacy of their interpretation of the situation with senior managers in the organisation. These are often considered by employees to be actively engaged in enacting the organisation’s culture, in this case the high consideration and care for employees as well as customers. In summary, (1) the history of how projects had previously been delivered; (2) the heroic narrative used to describe the importance of the project to ‘save’ the life side of the business; (3) the strong identification with their role on the project; and (4) the organisational culture with its emphasis on serving the customers as a mutual, together these factors were the prism through which the ethical dilemma was interpreted by the head of customer services. This resulted in them reducing the dissonance caused by the ethical dilemma and resolved it at this time by concluding that staff would not need to be informed about redundancies, because it was not possible to know at this stage which specific staff would be affected.

Three months later At this time, the head of customer services reported increased anxiety about the ongoing decision not to inform staff about possible redundancies. This arose as a result of a specific incident that occurred while she was leading a

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communications briefing to staff regarding the progress the project had made regarding the business transformation. This centred on some information in a powerpoint presentation that appeared to suggest outsourcing some of the life division’s work that was not supposed to be communicated. Staff noticed the information and began asking questions regarding whether jobs would be lost. At this event their identity as head of the department and the personal relationships they had with the staff they managed became more salient. They indicated they felt a sense of anxiety and guilt for keeping information about the planned redundancies from their staff. Their emotional response to the moral dilemma appears to have played a role in how the ethical dilemma was then reconstructed in order to deal with the dilemma. Here, although the importance of customers as central to dealing with the dilemma was still a key factor in how the moral dilemma was interpreted, it seemed that the head of customer services had engaged in further sensemaking in attempts to negotiate the meaning of the situation. Her contrasting identities as a project team member and as head of customer services were resulting in differing solutions to how the ethical dilemma should be resolved. Her identity as head of customer services indicated a desire to inform staff of possible implications that were being planned as a consequence of transforming the life side of the business. At the same time though, although staff redundancies were a reality, she believed that she would be in the best position to look after the interests of staff as a whole. Despite the anxiety associated with the decision not to inform staff of the likely consequences of the life business restructuring, the head of customer services seemed to rationalise this to some extent through seeing herself as best placed to secure the best outcomes for staff in her area.

What this case tells us about leaders’ ethical decision making What this case shows is how the ethical dilemma posed by the decision not to inform staff of potential redundancies was subject to ongoing sensemaking by the head of customer services. Meaning was achieved through a series of post-​ rationalisations that shifted as a result of changing cues in the environment, some of which produce significant emotional responses, what could be called trigger events. But also that these cues activate particular identities or roles from which sensemaking can then result in alternative meanings as to how the dilemma should be resolved or decision justified.

Key learning points 1. In accordance with Weick (1979), sensemaking appears to be activated by cognitive dissonance.This appears particularly active during times of ambiguity that challenge an individual’s beliefs on the ways of doing or being. This challenges their causal maps and initiates the process whereby they try to

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2.

3.

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4.

5.

make sense of what is going on.The case illustrates all three dimensions of the sensemaking process. First, creation where specific cues are extracted from the environment, then interpretation whereby a narrative is put together, until finally the individual acts (or arrives at a decision) called enactment. The case also illustrates how identity can significantly influence how sensemaking proceeds. The salience of particular identities influence which particular environmental cues are attended to and their relative importance. The senior leader’s contrasting identities as a project team member on the one hand, and as head of customer services on the other, resulted in differing solutions as to how the ethical dilemma should be resolved. Her identity as head of customer services indicated a desire to inform staff quickly that job losses were likely to affect them. However, the salience of her project identity and the narrative surrounding the project justified not informing staff. Later, the head of customer services rationalised not informing staff on the basis that they would be in the best position to look after the interests of staff as a whole. Socio-​constructionist interpretations of sensemaking emphasise the significance of the local context as influencing how individuals negotiate meaning from the cues they take from their environment. Particularly important shown here in relation to projects, would seem to be the organisation’s history (particularly in relation to how it has run projects in the past) and how it engages with its stakeholders. These, alongside the organisation’s culture, influence the salience attached to particular cues. Importantly, the case would suggest that (1) whether a situation is perceived as having an ethical dimension in the first place and/​or (2) how it then is subsequently resolved, is very much dependent on these local factors. One of the most interesting observations from the case is the role that narrative played in shaping the leader’s sensemaking (and therefore ethical decision-making). The belief that the project’s aim was to rescue a key division of the business was very influential in shaping this leader’s perception of how the value dilemma they faced was resolved. When working off-​site, sequestered in the project team and engaging with the key stakeholders, there were few challenges to this narrative. Indeed these occasions offered many opportunities where this narrative was reinforced.Yet, when the leader found themselves spending more time with the staff they directly managed, she was exposed to new interpretations of this narrative. It illustrates that engaging with alternative discourses can prompt cognitive shifts. Further, that whatever meaning is negotiated is subject to being contested as circumstances change. The case draws attention to limitations with rational models of ethical decision making that have tended to dominate most of the research and education in the area of ethical decision making.These tend to assume that leaders weigh up all the consequences of their decision first and then make a calculative

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judgement on what decision to make. Whilst this may hold true in relatively straightforward situations, ambiguity surrounding the potential consequences of decisions, such as the case here, would suggest otherwise. Instead, ethical decision-making appears to reflect a far more iterative and dynamic process. This is not too dissimilar to the sensemaking-​intuition model proposed by Sonenshien (2007).

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INDEX

Note: Page numbers in italics and bold denote figures and tables, respectively. ability, and interpersonal trust 51–52, 52 adaptive leadership 87, 139 aggregates 129, 140–141 agreeableness trait 21, 22 appraisal respect 46, 47, 48–49, 58 appreciative inquiry 16, 39, 104, 136; case study 150–155 assertiveness training 86 asymmetric respect 48 asymmetric trust 53, 54 attribution theory 50 authentic leadership 103–104; definition of 104; development of 104–105; elements 104; and self-awareness 106 autocatalysis 132, 134, 139 avoid harm behaviour 99 baby boomers 4 back-up behaviour, in teamwork 85 benevolence, and interpersonal trust 51–52, 52 benevolent leadership development model 102 best practice approach 5 Big 5, in teamwork 85, 85–86 boundary spanners 115–118, 122; definition of 115; role in creating trust 120; and stakeholders 117–118 boundary spanning 113, 114, 115–117, 120–121, 132; boundary management

121; common ground forging 121; facilitative management 122; and information technology 122; multilevel phenomenon 123; new frontiers discovering 121; and team performance 123; team processes 124; team’s temporal environment 123 bounded rationality 52, 102 capacity see leadership capacity case studies: mental health organisations 145–150; sensemaking in ethical decision making 155–162; supporting emergence through appreciative inquiry at VISA Europe 150–155 causal maps 34–35, 37 chaos theory 129 characteristics: of relational leadership 2, 2–3; of traditional leadership 2, 2–3 child labour 11 cognitive abilities 109, 110; predictive validity over 62 cognitive complexity 96 cognitive sensemaking process: identity orientation 97, 97–98; legitimacy orientation 97, 98 collective activity, leadership as 29 collective identification 45 collective memory 35 collective perspective 95–96

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competences 8; cultural competence 119–120; discursive competence of middle managers 40–41, 41; global team leadership 108–112, 109 complex adaptive systems (CAS) 127, 128, 128–129, 143; features 129, 130; pattern emergence in 128, 128; semi-autonomous agents 129 complexity leadership 126–127, 143–144; adaptive leadership 139; aggregates 129, 140–141; application 130–131; assumptions 127–130; autocatalysis 134; CAS see complex adaptive systems (CAS); connectionist approach 130; development of 132–142; dynamic aspects 127; enabling leadership 139–142; goal of 133; identifying barriers to information flows 140–141; incorporation of 133; individual-level intervention 134, 134; leader behaviours 138–139; limitations 130–131; network conditions 135–136; organisational learning 137–138; process catalysts 132; proximal and distal outcomes of 142; relational capital 142; role of formal leadership 131–132; rule-based approach 130; self-organisation 130–131; self-sustaining learning networks 133; shared leadership 136; social network theory 133–134; structural catalysts 132; system-level intervention 134, 134; tension 129, 135, 140 complexity science 127–128, 129 conative sensemaking processes 97, 97, 98–99 concept mapping 43 conscientiousness 21–22 constructionism 13, 14–15; see also socio-constructionism contact hypothesis 120 context problems see leadership context contingency theory of leadership 5–6 contingent reward behaviour 22 corporate social responsibility (CSR) 90–91, 93; and sensemaking 96–98 critical incident technique 43 critical problem 7 critical reflection 38, 65–66; and emotional intelligence 65; and sensemaking 42 cross-cultural relationships 109, 110 cross training 86

cultural competence 119–120 cultural congruence theory 110–111 cultural sensitivity: and responsible leadership 96 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2015 report 4 deterrence-based trust 55, 56 Direction, Alignment & Commitment Model 120 directive forms of leadership 6 discourse 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 39, 150, 151 discursive competence of middle managers 40–41, 41 distributed leadership see shared leadership diversity training 58 do good behaviour 99 dual identity hypothesis 118 dyadic trust 53–54 effective leadership: and context 5, 6, 7–8, 12, 83, 109 emergence, supporting through appreciative inquiry at VISA Europe (case study) 150–155; case background 151–152; intervention 152; intervention, impact of 152–153; learning points 153–155 emotional intelligence (EI) 60, 69–70; cognitive ability, predictive validity over 62; concept of 61–63; definition of 61; development of 66–69; and mutual recognition respect 49, 50; performance-based ability model 62; personality, predictive validity over 62; and responsible leadership 96; role in relational leadership 63–66; self-report ability model 62; self-report mixed model 62; and sensemaking 65–66; training programmes 66–67; and transformational leadership behaviour 63, 64, 64; and work-related outcomes 61; workplace learning interventions 67–69, 68 emotional intelligence self-description inventory (EISDI) 69 emotional knowledge work 68, 68 emotions, and sensemaking 37, 37 empathy training 58 enabling leadership 139; building social capital 141–142; developing system’s

916

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916

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network 140; fostering the positive value of tension 141; supporting autocatalysis 139; supporting shared leadership 140; supporting shared meaning making 140 enactive mastery, and self-efficacy 20 enactment, and sensemaking 35–36 entity perspectives 17–18; LMX see leader-member exchange (LMX) entrepreneurial leadership strategy 6 ethical decision-making, and responsible leadership 99–102; four-step model 101; moral intensity 101–102 ethical decision-making, sensemaking in (case study) 155–162 ethical leadership 94, 99; and responsible leadership, distinguished 90 ethics 10–12 extraversion 22 facilitative management 122 financial crisis 9–10 fluid expertise 55 followers 2–3, 7, 11; behaviours, and LMX quality 22–23; competence and reliability, assessment of 19; interpersonal trust 51 Foucault, Michel 28 fraudulent behaviour 10, 11 global team leadership 107–108, 124–125; boundary spanning 113, 114, 115–117, 120–124; cognitive abilities 109, 110; competences 108–112, 109; contact hypothesis 120; contingency model 113; cross-cultural relationships skills 109, 110; cultural competence 119–120; cultural congruence theory 110–111; development of 118–124; developmental activities 119–120; Direction, Alignment & Commitment Model 120; exchanging 115, 116; facilitating 115, 116; global business acumen 109, 110; and global leaders 113; global leadership effectiveness 110; global organising expertise 109, 110; hybridisation 113; identity 117; implicit leadership theory 110; and integrative leadership 115–116, 118; intervening 115, 116; knowledge exchange 122; laissez-faire leadership 111; leadership development model

119; linking 115, 116; multilevel phenomenon 123; organisational identification 117–118; personality traits and behaviours 109, 110; positive global leadership 111–112; power distance 119; promoting cognitive shifts 117; psychological capital 112; relational approach 112–118; self-categorisation theory 117; sensemaking 122; social capital 115, 120; social learning theory 120; stakeholder management theory 114–115; team processes 124; uncertainty avoidance 113; visioning 109, 110 global teams 107–108; face-to-face interaction 108 heroic leader model 12 high-quality relationship: role theory 18–19; social exchange theory 19–20 Hyundai 6 I-P-O (Input, Process, Output) framework 82 identification-based trust 55 identification respect 46, 48 identities/identity construction 31, 32–33; and sensemaking 35, 36 identity orientation, of organisations 97, 97–98; collectivistic 98; individualistic 98; relational 98 implicit leadership theory 7–8, 110 in-group 19, 45 in-growth connection theory 54–55 information technology 122 innovation 1, 39, 121, 127, 134, 135, 137, 138 integrative leadership 115, 116, 118, 120, 122, 132 integrity, and interpersonal trust 51–52, 52, 57 interpersonal trust see trust justification, language of 97, 98 knowledge-based trust 55 knowledge economies 1, 56 knowledge sharing 78–79 laissez-faire leadership 111 leader-centric ideas of leadership 3

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leader-member exchange (LMX) 14, 18–20; antecedents 20–24, 21; co-construction 30; and constructionism 34; and emotional intelligence 63–65; relational leadership development 24–27; respect within 46–47, 49; and work output 23 leadership capacity: challenge of 4–5; solutions to 4–5 leadership context, challenge of 5–9, 9 leadership development model 119; assessment 119; challenge 119; contextual issues in 8–9, 9; support 119 leadership responsibility, challenge of 9–12 legitimacy orientation, of organisations 98 linguistic sensemaking process 97, 97, 98; language of justification 97, 98; transparency 97, 98 linguistic turn 32 locus of control 22 meaning making 30, 31 mental health organisations (case study) 145–150; case back ground 146–147; intervention 147–148; intervention, impact of 148–149; learning points 149–150 metacognitive training 86 middle managers, discursive competence of 40–41, 41 mismatched recognition respect 49 moral awareness 101 moral behaviour 101 moral capacity 105 moral courage 105 moral intensity 101–102; concentration of effect 101; magnitude of consequences 101; probability of effect 101; proximity 101; social consensus 101; temporal immediacy 101 moral intent 101 moral judgement 101 moral resilience 105 multinational corporations (MNCs) 107 multiple realities 29 mutual appraisal respect 48–49 mutual performance monitoring 85 mutual recognition respect 48–49, 50, 57 mutuality 44, 48–50, 54, 55–58 NASA 133 network conditions, complexity science 135–136 New Zealand Leadership Institute 38

organisation development 39, 136, 142 organisational culture: impact on effective leadership 6–7; shared leadership 81 organisational disruption 36–37 organisational identification 117–118 organisational learning 137–138 organisational narratives, and sensemaking 35 organisational structure, impact on effective leadership 6–7 organisations: commitment 97, 99; consistency 97, 99; control over individual behaviour 32–33; identity orientation 97, 97–98; language of justification 97, 98; legitimacy orientation 97, 98; posture 97, 98–99; transparency 97, 98 out-group 19, 45 perceived liking, and respect 45 perceived organisational support 56 perceived status, and respect 46 perceptual biases 50 personality 21–22; and global team leadership 109, 110 physiological and affective arousal, and selfefficacy 20 positive global leadership 111–112 positivism 13–14, 29; see also entity perspectives pragmatic leadership style 111 Principles of Responsible Management Education 102 psychological capital 112 psychological safety 84, 86 public sectors, leadership development in 8–9 reciprocal trust 54 recognition respect 46, 48 reflection/reflexivity: and sensemaking 42–43 relational capital 142 relational identity theory 48 relational intelligence 93 relational stance 55 relationship quality 23 repertory grid technique 43 respect 19, 44, 58–59; appraisal respect 46, 47, 57; conceptualisations 45–46, 47–48; development 55–58; dual pathway model 46; forms of 46–47; and gender 47; identification respect 46, 48; and

918

91

918

Index

perceived liking 46; and perceived status 46; recognition respect 46, 48; in relational leadership 44, 45–51 responsibility see responsible leadership responsible leadership 89–90; affecting factors 99–101, 100; authentic leadership 103–106; avoid hard behaviour 99; behavioural capacities 96; benevolent leadership development model 102; citizenship 92; cognitive complexity 96; collective perspective 95–96; definition of 91; development of 102–106; distal contextual factors 99, 100; ‘do good’ behaviour 99; ethical decision-making 99–102, 100; and ethical leadership, distinguished 90; and leader characteristics 99, 100; leaderstakeholder interaction 91; and leaders’ characteristics 93–94; moral character 92, 93; as multi-level construct 94–95; proximal situational factors 99, 100; and relationship between stakeholders 94; roles model 91–93, 92; servant 92; service learning programmes 103; social change projects 103; stewardship 91–92; theoretical contribution 90–102; transformational leadership behaviour 94; vision 91 role-making 19 role-taking 19 role theory 18 routinisation 19 scenario-based team training 86 scientific paradigms 13 self-awareness 50–51 self-categorisation theory 117 self-determination theory 48 self-efficacy 20 self-guided correction training 86 self-managed teams 72; shared leadership 80 self-organisation 130–131; case study 150–155 self-sustaining learning networks 133 senior leadership 10–11 sensemaking: creation process 37, 37; and critical reflection 42; definition of 34; discursive competence of middle managers 40–41, 41; and emotional intelligence 65–66; enactment process 37, 37; framework for 37, 37; global team leadership 122; importance of 34–36; interpretation process 37, 37;

199

key behaviours 41–42; leaders in social movement organisations 40; literature, limitations of 40; process of sensemaking process; and responsible leadership 96–98, 97 sensemaking in ethical decision making (case study) 155–162; case background 155–156; identification with the project 158–159; intervention, impact of 159– 160; learning points 160–162; narrative or language used to talk about the project 157–158; organisational culture in ethical dilemma recognition 155–156; previous history of projects 156–157; stakeholder engagement 159 sensemaking process 36–38; cognitive process 97, 97–98; conative process 97, 97, 98–99; linguistic process 97, 97, 98 servant theory of leadership, respect within 47 service learning programmes 103 shared leadership 7, 71–73, 87–88, 108, 113; as aggregate of total leadership activities 73–74; complexity leadership 136–137; definition of 71; development of 82–87; emergence of 72; and enabling leadership 139; formal (vertical) team leaders, role of 77–78; forms of 73; knowledge sharing and team learning 78–79; and network density 74; organisational culture 81; and performance outcomes 75–77; as property of team 73, 74; social exchange theory 74–75; social network theory 74; supportive organisational culture, development of 86–87; team dynamics 80; team learning development 84–86; team member attitudes 79–80; team member attitudes, changing 83; team member skills development 83; team member voice 81; team potency 80; and teamwork, distinguished 71–72; theoretical and empirical underpinnings 72–77; trust 80; trust, development of 84; and vertical leadership, compared 76 skill mismatch 4–5 social capital 115, 120, 132, 141–142; bonding 115; bridging 115 social exchange theory 19–20; and shared leadership 74–75 social identity theory 45, 48, 57, 117 social network theory 133–134; and shared leadership 74

20

200 Index

social phenomenon, relational leadership as 1–3 social reality, construction of 30 socialisation 19 socio-constructionism 15, 28, 31; applied social constructionism 38; communication and language 31; construction of social reality 30; developing relational leadership 38–43; and emotional intelligence 65; limitations 33–34; meaning making 30, 31; and relationality 28–34; social construction of reality 30 stakeholder management theory 114–115 stakeholders: and global team leadership 115–116, 116; and responsible leadership 91–93 steady-state leadership strategies 6 storytelling 42, 103 stress exposure training 86 style theories 3 succession planning 4 supportive organisational culture: development of 86–87; recommendations for organisations implementing culture change 87 talent management 4 tame problem 7 task-oriented leadership 6 team building 86 team coordination training 86 team efficacy 84–85, 86 team leadership capacity 82–83 team learning 78–79, 83; assertiveness training 86; Big 5 85, 85–86; cross training 86; information-processing perspective 84; metacognitive training 86; psychological safety 84, 86; scenario-based team training 86; self-guided correction training 86; and shared leadership 84–86; stress exposure training 86; team building 86; team coordination training 86; team efficacy 84, 86

teamwork: adaptability 85; back-up behaviour 85; leadership 85; mutual performance monitoring 85; and shared leadership, distinguished 71–72; team orientation 85 top-down activity, leadership as 3 Toyota 6 traditional theories of leadership 1–3, 5, 11, 21 trait theory 3 transactional leadership styles 6 transactive memory 79 transactive memory systems (TMS) 79 transformational leader behaviours 22, 25–27, 64, 64, 94 transformational leadership theory 3, 57, 63, 64, 80, 141–142; respect within 46 transorganisation development 145–150 trust 19, 44, 51, 58–59; antecedents 51–52, 52, 56–57; asymmetric trust 54; consensual levels of 53; contextual cues 38, 53; development 55–58; dyadic trust 53–54; and emotional intelligence 65; forms of 55–56; integrative model of 51; leader behaviours 52–53; mutuality 54; as a psychological state 53; reciprocal trust 54; in relational leadership 44, 51–55; and shared leadership 80 United Kingdom 4; financial crisis 9–10 United Nations Global Compact 12 United States 4, 9; financial crisis 9–10 verbal persuasion, and self-efficacy 20 vertical leadership 76; and shared leadership, compared 76 vicarious experience, and self-efficacy 20 virtue ethics 10–11 Visa 131, 150–155 war on talent 4 Weick, Karl 34–35, 36 workplace learning approaches, to emotional intelligence 67–69, 68

20