Leading organisations in our contemporary world means grappling with unpredictability, painful pressures and continual conflict, all in the context of an acceleration in the pace of change. We expect the impossible from heroic leaders and they rarely live up to expectations. With countless recommendations, self-help books and new concepts, scholars and management consultants often simplify and dream unrealistically. This book challenges the more orthodox discourse on leadership and presents a way of thinking about leadership that pays closer attention to experience.
The contributors in this book, all senior managers or facilitators of leadership development, resist easy solutions, new typologies or unrealistic prescriptions. Writing about their experiences in Denmark, the UK, Israel, Ethiopia, South Africa and beyond, they are less concerned with traits that people can possess and learn, or magical promises of recipes for success, and more with the socio-political process of the interaction between people from which leadership emerges as a theme. We focus on understanding leadership as a practice within which communication, research, imagination and ethical judgements are continuously improvised. So rather than idealising leadership, or reducing it to soothing tools and techniques, we suggest how leaders might become more politically, emotionally and socially savvy.
This book is written for academics and practitioners with an interest in the everyday challenges of both individual and group practices of formal and informal leaders in different types of organisations, and is an ideal resource for executives and students on leadership development programmes. We hope this volume will help readers to expand the wisdom found in their own experience and discover for themselves and for others, a greater sense of freedom.
Author(s): Kiran Chauhan, Emma Crewe, Chris Mowles
Series: Complexity and Management
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 266
City: London
Cover
Endorsement
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Contributors
Preface to the Complexity and Management Series
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
A Crisis in Leadership and in Understanding It
Audiences and a Summary of Chapters
Part I: Being Leaders
Part II: Developing Leaders
Themes: Improvised Practice, Communication and Judgement
A Practice-Based Understanding of Leadership
Formal and Informal Communication in Leading
Research and Practical Judgement By Leaders
Notes
References
Part I Being Leaders
2 From Magico-Mythical Thinking to Making Promises and Forgiving: A Headteacher’s Critique of Transformational School ...
Introduction
The Big Bang for Education: A Brief History of Schools’ Policies in the UK
Transformational Leadership: The Dominant Leadership Paradigm in Education
Distributed Leadership Theories
Relational and Multifaceted Trust Theories
Transformational Leadership as an Example of Magico-Mythical Thinking
The Inescapability of Plural Views of the Good in Organisational Life
Relationally Co-Constructed Responsibility for Action in Organisational Life
Reducing the Anxiety of Uncertainty By Negotiating With Others as a Community of Inquiry
Conclusion: The Importance of Promising and Forgiving for Leadership
Final Remarks
Notes
References
3 Acting Into the Unpredictable Future: A Project Manager’s Appreciation of a Complexity Perspective
Introduction
Traditional Ways of Understanding Acting
Acting Understood as Complex Responsive Processes of Relating
Acting With ‘end-In-View’
Acting Into the ‘Living Present’
Time Has a Direction
The Paradox of Being Part of a Process
Concluding Remarks – Implications for Leaders
Note
References
4 Leadership as Inquiry: Rhythm Analysis as a Response to Contemporary Idealisations of Freedom
Introduction
Developing Collaborative Leadership in a Danish Municipality
Selves as Paradoxically Being Formed By and Forming the Social
Rhythms of Freedom in Leadership
Acceleration as a Challenge for Freedom in Leadership
Resonance and Reflection as an Immanent Part of Negotiating Degrees of Freedom Within Leadership
Some Implications for Leadership Practice
Summing Up
Note
References
5 A Dialogue With Adam Habib: Radical Pragmatism – Navigating Social Justice in Universities in the Neo-Liberal Era
Notes
Part II Developing Leaders
6 A Critical Look at Corporate Leadership Development
Introduction
Conceptualising Leadership and Leaders
‘Bullshit Bingo’ – Thinking Critically About the NEWTECH Workshop
Further Reflections On the Narratives (NEWTECH and GLOCO)
Implications of Adopting a Critical View of Leadership Development
Interdependence and Emergence
Communication and Meaning-Making
Shifts in My Corporate Leadership Development Practice
Conclusion
Note
References
7 Leading as Practice: Expedition-Based Learning With NASA In the Canyons
Introduction
The Complexity of Daily Activities
Debriefing the Activity of Leading Or Leadership
Sensemaking, Making Sense, and Making Judgments
A Practical Model for Leading: Four Roles, Seven Skills, and One Style
Active Followership
Communication
Expedition Behavior
Judgment and Decision-Making, Tolerance for Adversity and Uncertainty
Conclusion
Note
References
8 A Group Analytic Approach to Executive Education: Lessons From the Larger Group
Initial Reflections
Experiential Groups I: a Group Analytic Approach
Experiential Groups II: Psychodynamic Approaches
Interim Reflections
Experiential Groups III: Large Group Perspectives
Executive Education: Lessons From the Larger Group
The Role of the Conductor/convenor Is to Participate
Larger Groups Facilitate the Collective Exploration of What It Means to Be Human
Learning to Speak Out in the Larger Group Takes Time
Small/median Groups Prepare Participants for Working in Larger Groups
All Voices Must Be Represented
Conductors/convenors Are as Prone to Getting Caught Up in the Emotional Tumult as Anyone Else
Closing Reflections
Notes
References
9 Can Talent Be Managed? A Critical Perspective On the Practice of Talent Management
Introduction
Talent Management – the Traditional Way
Critical Perspective On the Traditional Approach to Talent Management
Involved Detachment as a Response to the Illusion of Objectivity
Practical Judgement as a Response to the Illusion of Predictability
Developing an Alternative Approach to My Practice
Practical Implications
Zoom Assessment: a New Challenge of COVID-19
Ethical Implications
Conclusion
Note
References
10 A Dialogue With Sewit Haileselassie Tadesse: Developing Leadership
Note
11 Final Notes On the Practice of Leadership
A Richer Account of Leading
An Invitation to Research and an Ethical Challenge
Note
References
Index
