Leadership and Identities

2020 ◽  
pp. 749-765
Author(s):  
Jackie Ford
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Relational Leadership ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
Charismatic Leader ◽  
Leadership Identity ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
Critical Leadership ◽  
Social Uncertainty ◽  
Insight Into

Recognition that leadership identities are competing, multiple, contradictory, and complex challenges dominant and uncritical suppositions about identities in leadership studies. Recent research on the production of leadership identities and the importance of looking beyond the individualistic and charismatic leader enables insight into the relational and intersubjective processes through which leadership is performed. Research by critical leadership scholars over the last two decades highlights the significance of interpersonal relationships and the powerful effect that interactions between leaders and led can have on lives and identities at work. Contemporary research on what has become labelled ‘relational leadership’ has the potential to offer more radical approaches, but this has yet to be realized. This chapter, located within feminist psychosocial theorizing, sheds light on leadership identity challenges at a time of considerable economic crisis, social uncertainty, and political repositioning. It further explores the question of whether these relational promises can now be realized in practice such that new forms of leadership and followership identities can be enacted that create workplaces that are more egalitarian and benevolent.

The invisible norm: An exploration of the intersections of sport, gender and leadership

Leadership ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Ryan ◽  
Geoff Dickson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Rugby Union ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
Gender And Leadership ◽  
Sport Leadership ◽  
Critical Leadership ◽  
Underrepresentation Of Women ◽  
Critical Leadership Studies ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Insight Into

The gender leadership problem is not the underrepresentation of women, but the dominant presence of groups of men and valued forms of masculinities. We argue that critical leadership studies would benefit by considering sport to explain the nuanced relationships between leadership, sport, men and masculinity and the ensuing invisible norms that marginalise women. In doing so, we respond to calls for critical leadership scholars to examine situated power relations in more reflexive and innovative ways. Sport influences, and is influenced by, the inequalities of gender, class, age and race. The intersection of sport, leadership and gender provides an otherwise unavailable insight into what is normalised, men and the masculine subtext of leadership We examine New Zealand’s relationship with Rugby Union to achieve both of these aims. We conclude that Rugby is anything but benign or irrelevant when it comes to understanding gender and leadership in New Zealand.

EXPRESS: From Empathic Leader to Empathic Leadership Practice: An Extension to Relational Leadership Theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 001872672199845
Author(s):  
Guowei Jian
Keyword(s):  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Dyadic Interaction ◽  
Relational Leadership ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
Leader Emergence ◽  
Leadership Practice ◽  
Constructive Process ◽  
Narrative Practice ◽  
Relational Leadership Theory ◽  
Empathic Leadership

Does empathy merely take place in leaders’ mind? How does it help us better understand and practice leadership? In the past, entitative relational leadership studies have mainly drawn on a mind-based understanding of empathy and focused on the association between individual empathy trait and leader emergence and effectiveness. Such an approach overlooks leadership practice of empathy as a constructive process. By integrating emerging research from diverse disciplines from philosophy to communication, the paper first offers a constructionist view of empathy, based on which empathic leadership practice is conceptualized. The paper explicates how leadership practice of empathy construction is rooted in relational ethics and takes place in both synchronic dyadic interaction through conversation as well as diachronic narrative practice with a collective other. By conceptualizing empathic leadership practice through a social constructionist approach to empathy, the paper makes significant contributions to our understanding of relational leadership.

An Approach for Humanizing Leadership Education: Building Learning Community & Stakeholder Engagement

2021 ◽  
pp. 105256292110413
Author(s):  
Shaista E. Khilji
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Development ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Stakeholder Engagement ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Leadership Education ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
Leadership Development Programs ◽  
Critical Leadership ◽  
Critical Leadership Studies

In recent years, scholars have become critical of mainstream leadership development approaches. In particular, Petriglieri and Petriglieri refer to the dehumanization of leadership, whereby leadership breaks its ties to identity, community, and context. The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for humanizing leadership using the case example of George Washington University’s Organizational Leadership & Learning (OLL) program. Embedded in the critical leadership studies (CLS) approach, the humanizing principles, and the humanistic leadership paradigm, the OLL program’s leadership learning approach focuses on building a learning community and stakeholder engagement. I describe its pedagogical goals and instructional strategies that help promote a psychologically safe space where learners build trusting relationships, integrate diverse perspectives through respectful dialogues, and develop a sense of the “common good” and culture of equity through issue-centered learning. Using classrooms as “identity spaces” and “leadership learning laboratory” allows learners in the program to practice the co-construction of ideas through mutual influence and interactions. This paper makes a valuable contribution to developing future leadership development programs.

So what is new about leadership-as-practice?

Leadership ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 384-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Collinson
Keyword(s):  
Structuration Theory ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
Critical Leadership ◽  
Critical Leadership Studies

This paper returns to the original focus of my earlier 'Leading Questions' article (Collinson, 2017) which questioned Joe Raelin’s (excessive) claims that LAP is a distinct ‘movement’, particularly new and supercedes post-heroic perspectives and is more critical than critical leadership studies. Arguing that Raelin's claims overstate the value of LAP, this rejoinder draws on Giddens’ structuration theory to illustrate my points about structure, practice and resistance in relation to the foregoing responses from Leadership As Practice (LAP) contributors (Raelin et al, 2018).

Is leadership a myth? A ‘new wave’ critical leadership-focused research agenda for recontouring the landscape of educational leadership

2021 ◽  
pp. 174114322110662
Author(s):  
Linda Evans
Keyword(s):  
Educational Leadership ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
Departure Point ◽  
Object A ◽  
Critical Leadership ◽  
Critical Leadership Studies ◽  
New Research ◽  
Why Questions

Intentionally provocative, this study identifies weaknesses in mainstream educational leadership scholarship, and draws upon ‘new wave’ critical leadership studies to propose a new, potentially paradigm-shifting, direction for the field. The central argument is that educational leadership researchers, in focusing predominantly on how institutional heads and other formal ‘leaders’ may best ‘do’ leadership, are addressing the wrong questions and setting off from the wrong departure point. The unit of analysis should shift, it is argued, from leadership to influence, within a new research agenda that replaces surface-level, causality-assumptive ‘how?’ and ‘why?’ questions that have shaped mainstream educational leadership research for over thirty years, with more fundamental ‘who? and ‘what?’ questions, aimed at identifying who is in fact doing the influencing. An aspect of such inquiry is leadership scepticism and agnosticism, which confronts the question: Does leadership exist, or is it a myth that we have reified? A highly original feature of the proposed new research agenda is the adoption of the author's theoretical notion of a singular unit of micro-level influence as an ‘epistemic object’ – a concept derived from STEMM research, denoting a vague and undefined potential focus of inquiry that may (or may not) turn out to be significant.

Context and conditions matter: Stress and strain in the exercise of leadership power

Leadership ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Krauter
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Stress And Strain ◽  
Conservation Of Resources ◽  
Leadership Studies ◽  
Business World ◽  
Workplace Organization ◽  
Self Assessments ◽  
Critical Leadership ◽  
Critical Leadership Studies ◽  
Leader Role

Current research shows that a significant number of leaders suffer from strain which effects their application of power. This is a highly relevant leadership issue in today’s challenging business world. This study applies conservation of resources theory and the critical leadership studies approach to re-think leadership dynamics such as stressors and strain factors and their influence on power-related behaviour. The leader role, leader–member relations, workplace, organization and environment can be identified as resource passageways which create, maintain or limit the development of resources such as power-related behaviour. Research on the self-assessments of 43 German leaders from private sector shows that strain factors, leader role and leader–member relations can influence power-related behaviour. The data also show the importance of clarifying demands and expectations to prevent resource loss, otherwise overtaxed leaders are highly likely to use negative forms of power-related behaviour. The results demonstrate the need to improve understanding of the leader role with its increasing demands to be more flexible, agile and ambidextrous, but also to accept the human limitations of those who take on senior positions. Hence, the study findings demonstrate that context and conditions shape the situation in which leaders are embedded and therefore how to handle power is not only a problem for leaders themselves. The article also discusses the limitations of these findings and outlines possible directions for future research.

scholarly journals Boarding and lodging practices in early twentieth-century Scotland

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEFF MEEK
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Economic Importance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Position ◽  
Insight Into

ABSTRACTThe social and economic position of lodgers in Europe and North America has attracted considerable scholarship, yet the financial and interpersonal relationships between lodgers and boarders and their hosts in working-class homes is somewhat underdeveloped. This article examines patterns of lodging and boarding in working-class homes in Scotland between 1861 and 1911, focusing upon multiple layers of connection between paying guests and householders. This article demonstrates that connections had national and ethnic roots, and that taking in lodgers and boarders was of prime cultural and economic importance for many. The ability to offer space played a crucial role in the social and economic status of single, separated and widowed women, and this article offers an insight into the sometimes troubled relationships between landladies and their tenants.

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