Critical Leadership

Leader-Follower Dynamics in a Public Organization

Paul Evans, John Hassard, Paula Hyde

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138700062
• eBook ISBN: 9781136264078
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Negocios en general

Critical approaches to leadership studies have sought to challenge the normative position of leadership as residing solely within the formal leader and have gone as far as to undermine the traditionally held assumption of leadership as a "real" phenomenon.

The book offers a critical account of the nature of leadership and management in modern organizations. Specifically it examines the forces that affect the influence relationships between leaders and followers in public sector organizational settings and thus, how these relationships inform social influence processes. Although the book focuses on the case of a public sector organization in the UK, the findings are placed in the context of both leadership theory and research across the globe and the dissemination of 'new public management' worldwide.

By acknowledging the criticisms concerning the weaknesses of conventional or mainstream leadership study and through the adoption of a critical perspective, Critical Leadership provides a deep and rich interpretation of the empirical material on leadership, thus making an outstanding contribution to the current literature.

1 Introduction

The problem under investigation

During the last quarter of the twentieth century the interest in leadership gained fresh currency (Kellerman, 2008). There can be little doubt concerning the general view that leadership is an essential commodity contributing to organizational performance. The Business Source Premier online database lists 22,814 separate references for leadership between 1970 and 2000. In the first nine years of this millennium, the same database lists 46,065 references. It is estimated that industry spends an average of $50 billion annually on leadership development (Raelin, 2003). While the resulting contributions have produced insights concerning leadership, there still exist many questions that are yet to be satisfactorily answered (House and Aditya, 1997; Parry and Bryman, 2006; Yukl, 2002).

As part of the reform of public services in the UK, there have been increased calls for the implementation of more effective leadership within the public sector. The complexity of service provision can be appreciated as a series of diffcult or intractable problems, and it has been posited that leadership may be the answer in helping to resolve these “wicked problems” (Grint, 2005a). The organization under study in this book, known here as ABC (A Big Council — a large unitary authority in the north of England), formally stated its leadership challenge under an initiative called “From Good to Great” (ABC, 2008 p. 11).

A critical lens is used to examine the dynamics of the relationship between leaders and followers in their normal work context, and the impacts of these dynamics. Critical Theory approaches to social research generally advocate the emancipation of groups marginalized within society (Thomas, 1993). Critical management research aims to follow the spirit of Critical Theory research but focuses on management phenomena (Alvesson and Deetz, 2006a). The leadership literature has been dominated by a functionalist research paradigm (Collinson, 2006) and has thus been based on a limiting set of assumptions representing Western industrial culture, specifcally American in character (House and Aditya, 1997). This view of leadership suggests that followers within the relationship are primarily subject to the influence of the leader and that effective leadership is concerned with the mobilization of followers to obtain a specified goal or goals (Bass, 1998; Burns, 1978).

While the value of following is generally underplayed, some studies have acknowledged its importance (Chaleff, 2003; Collinson, 2006; Kellerman, 2008; Kelley, 1992 and 2004; Lundin and Lancaster, 1990; Potter, Rosenbach, and Pittman, 2001; Raelin, 2004; Rosenau, 2004; Seteroff, 2003). Nevertheless, the dynamic influence processes through which the leader elicits and maintains follower support, particularly within a challenging bureaucratic organizational environment, are little understood or commented upon (Avolio et al., 2004; Parry, 1998).

This study examined the dynamics of the leader—follower relationship by exploring the activities of leaders and followers in different work situations. Leaders in this study are considered to be those individuals that are responsible for supervising others in the provision of a service, or part of a service. Followers are considered to be those that are supervised by leaders. Dynamics are taken to be those forces that are active in any direction whose sum reinforces or negates one or more of the forces (Reeves, 1970).

The contexts in which the relationships were played out were chosen because of the leadership potential in each scenario, in combination with the ease of access to each scenario. The leadership potential of scenarios was filtered by the likely occurrence of (a) demonstrating leadership, or (b) involving leadership. Observation of a particular scenario informed the choice of which scenario to observe next, through a desire to follow up, question and interpret the leadership story as it unfolded.

This study presents interpretations of observations, interviews and documentation collected during a 16-month period of fieldwork within one of the UK's largest unitary authorities. Analysis of the evidence collected during the field-work is used to illuminate the leader—follower relationship. This study is concerned therefore with the dynamics of the leader—follower relationship and how these dynamics inform social influence processes referred to as leadership in practice.

Aims and objectives of the research

The research aims are briefly outlined here, accompanied by a short statement of how they were achieved.

•To explore the day-to-day work experiences of leaders and followers. The researchers made observations of leaders and followers in pursuit of their normal work routines.

•To identify and explore the main dynamics that comprise and affect the relationship between leaders and followers. The researchers conducted interviews with the principal actors observed, in order to explore their work experiences in depth and to gain understanding of the factors that shaped the practice of work and the relationships between leaders and followers.

•To interpret concepts and conversations concerning the leader—follower relationship. Follow-up interviews were set up to challenge “playfully” some of the observations and detail of the interviews. A deeper exploration of themes provided the jumping-off point for further questioning and consolidation of understanding. The main themes were applied to work practice, and the relationships between leaders and followers were explored.

•To utilize the interpretations to suggest a framework of the dynamics of the leader—follower relationship from a critical perspective. The researchers discussed and refined theoretical concepts with leaders and followers in order to produce the findings of this study.

The significance of the research

Despite the popularity and availability of leadership-related material, there remains a significant shortfall in knowledge about the concept of leadership (House and Aditya, 1997; Parry and Bryman, 2006; Yukl, 2002). Grint (2005b) states the view that it is not possible to be a leader and a reader and points towards a disparity in understanding and practice, between academics and the field of leadership studies on the one hand and leadership practitioners and organizational development managers on the other. This however does not appear to have diminished the currency of leadership in terms of its perceived value for organizational performance. This view is reinforced by populist management textbooks and hagiographic biographies of “celebrity” business leaders (Calás and Smircich, 1991), and has paved the way toward the dominant position maintained by heroic neo-charismatic leaders (Beyer, 1999). This school of leadership theorizing, referred to as a “messianic discourse”, has come to represent the normative position of leadership study (Western, 2008). Driven by the impact of New Public Management (Rhodes, 1991), leadership models have been derived and implemented within various public sector contexts (Alimo-Metcalfe and Alban-Metcalfe, 2004). The successes of such initiatives have been varied (Blackler, 2006).

The results of the study by Blackler resonate with the opinions of many of the key contributors concerning the state of leadership research and the extent to which knowledge has been gained. Much of the concern relates to two distinct issues.

The first is the issue of definition: could it be possible that, as a consequence of widespread variation of definition, leadership scholars are not studying leadership but some other related phenomenon (Rost, 1993)? In reviewing definitions of leadership found in the literature, Yukl (2002) concludes that most leadership scholars would agree that leadership comprises an influence relationship between leaders and followers. In contrast to the mainstream focus on the behaviour, traits and competencies of leaders as individuals, Critical Theory interpretations of leadership focus on exploring the relations between leaders and followers and appreciate leadership to be a socially constructed influence process (Collinson, 2006; Grint, 2005a; Parry, 1998).

Second, it has been suggested that lack of progress may be related to the research design that has traditionally dominated leadership studies.

It may even be suggested that the answer, after considering the enormous resources in terms of money, time, energy and talent spent on (neo-) positivist leadership research as a gigantic experiment testing whether (neo-) positivist methodology works or not, should be no.

(Alvesson, 1996 p. 457)

Conventional approaches are generally taken from the fields of social psychology and management studies and tend therefore to favour positivistic, hypothesistesting methods (Rost, 1993). It is claimed that there has been a subtle re-writing of existing theory to incorporate new nuances and different terminology, but that these approaches remain inherently contained in the previous literature (Western, 2008). The effectiveness of such methods has been questioned, and researchers are increasingly calling for the application of alternative qualitative methods (Alvesson, 1996; Bryman, 1996; Calás and Smircich, 1991).

Where conducted, critical approaches to leadership studies have sought to challenge the normative position of leadership as residing solely within the formal leader (Collinson, 2006; Grint, 2005b; Western, 2008), and have gone as far as to undermine the traditionally held assumption of leadership as a “real” phenomenon (Alvesson, 1996, 2001; Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003a, 2003b; Calás and Smircich, 1991; Gemmill and Oakley, 1992). This study acknowledges the criticisms concerning the weaknesses of leadership study, and through the adoption of a critical perspective contributes to the literature in a number of ways.

•By standing outside of the normative functional leadership conceptualizations, the study provides a richer and deeper interpretation of the empirical material.

•Responding to calls for the use of alternate research methodologies, this study adopts a qualitative methodological position (Alvesson, 1996; Bryman, 1996).

•The study seeks to illuminate the dynamics of the relationship between leaders and followers,

•Making interpretations from a Critical Theory standpoint relating to the illustrations given, the study provides conclusions concerning the complexity of leadership practice in an organizational context.

Organization of the book

The book is in three parts. Part I covers the literature and context relevant to the study, and outlines the methodology and design of the research. Part II presents the research data and the authors’ interpretations of it. Part III comprises discussion and conclusions.

In Part I, Chapter 2 outlines the literature on leadership studies, beginning with the literature from the school of New Leadership. Following this is a critique of the literature from an historical and methodological perspective. The chapter goes on to examine the literature that takes followers as its primary object of study; the literature that supports a critical perspective of leadership; and finally, studies of leadership conducted from a Critical Theory platform. Chapter 3 establishes the context within which the leader—follower relationship is conducted. It tracks the history of reform and the prevailing currents of research. Chapter 4 deals with methodological considerations, outlining the Critical Theory perspective and the research design.

In Part II, Chapter 5 begins by outlining the presentation and interpretation of the empirical material before setting out the first illustration. This illustration deals with a leadership development seminar held at A Big Council (ABC), the large unitary authority under study. The seminar was referred to internally as “From Good to Great”, and its subject matter was directly relevant to this study. The chapter presents an interpretation of the illustration and concludes that ambiguity is a dynamic of the leader—follower relationship. The next illustration, in Chapter 6, deals with a meeting to establish assessments of the authority's Corporate and Children's Services. This illustration was chosen because it illustrates the context within which leader—follower relations are conducted. The chapter makes interpretations related to context and concludes that the environment is a dynamic of the leader—follower relationship.

Chapter 7 concerns a management team meeting chaired by the chief executive. The corporate leadership team is the most senior officer committee in the organization. The meeting illustrates the interplay between leaders and fol-lowers; analysis of the meeting demonstrates that the process of acquisition, allocation and utilization of resources is a dynamic of the leader—follower relationship. Chapter 8 focuses on an initiative led by Human Resources concerning a management accountability matrix. This is not an illustration as such but is a composite of a number of observations. It has been presented in this way so as to illustrate the actions of leader and followers. The interpretations made conclude that leaders and followers are engaged in a symbiotic relationship and which comprises an important dynamic between the two.

In Chapter 9, a directors’ management team meeting again illustrates the interplay between leaders and followers, and highlights politics as an important dynamic of the leader—follower relationship. Chapter 10 presents meetings between elected politicians and senior managers of the ABC. The interpretations made demonstrate that both leaders and followers are engaged in what is referred to as a game. Playing the game therefore comprises the dynamic in this instance.

Part III brings together the identified dynamics from the previous six chapte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Literature, context, methodology and design
• Part II Field research: data illustrations and interpretations
• Part III Discussion and conclusions
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index