Professor Richard Bolden delves into what the surprise resignations of Nicola Sturgeon and Jacinda Ardern reveal about today’s toxic leadership contexts, what it means to be a “strong leader,” and how leaders transition out of their roles.
The surprise resignation of Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister of Scotland, less than a month after Jacinda Ardern stepped down as Prime Minister of New Zealand, provides a sobering insight into the immense scrutiny and pressure that senior leaders now face. Both had seen high levels of popularity and had been widely praised for their handling of the COVID pandemic. They have also experienced a barrage of criticism and declining popularity more recently. Each has shown huge commitment and resilience yet note that there comes a point when it’s time to step aside and make room for someone else to lead.
“It’s time, I’m leaving, because with such a privileged role comes responsibility. The responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead and also when you are not. I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple.” (Jacinda Ardern, 18 January 2023)
“Since my very first moments in the job I have believed a part of serving well would be to know almost instinctively when the time is right to make way for someone else. In my head and in my heart, I know that time is now. That it’s right for me, for my party and my country.” (Nicola Sturgeon, 15 February 2023)
Both Sturgeon and Ardern are values-based leaders who demonstrated a firm commitment to ethical and moral principles. Their championing of kindness, compassion, and inclusion has led to some commentators attributing their stepping down to a failure of “woke” politics (e.g., Sky News Australia, 2023 and Morgan, 2023), but this is a gross simplification of the issues and fuels the culture wars that seem to characterize contemporary political discourse. As Sturgeon stated in her resignation speech:
“I have spent almost three decades in front line politics – a decade and a half on the top or second top rung of government. When it comes to navigating choppy waters, resolving seemingly intractable issues, or soldiering on when walking away would be the simpler option, I have plenty experience to draw on.
So, if this was just a question of my ability – or my resilience – to get through the latest period of pressure, I would not be standing here today.
But it’s not.
This decision comes from a deeper and longer-term assessment.
And the nature and form of modern political discourse means there is a much greater intensity – dare I say it, brutality – to life as a politician than in years gone by.
All in all – and for a long time without it being apparent – it takes its toll, on you and on those around you.” (Nicola Sturgeon, 15 February 2023)
Whilst much leadership theory and research focuses on the dysfunctional characteristics of “toxic”, “narcissistic” and/or “psychopathic” leaders, far less attention tends to be given to the toxic environment in which senior leaders often find themselves. Padilla and colleagues (2007) work on the “toxic triangle” goes some way towards addressing this by highlighting the interdependencies between destructive leaders, susceptible followers, and conductive environments, yet it continues to emphasize the psychopathology of individual leaders as a key ingredient in the process. Whilst there are, no doubt, plenty of examples where this is the case, what of the situations where fundamentally “good” people are exposed to unsustainable demands?
In their resignation speeches both Sturgeon and Ardern made a point of saying that they are “human” and that their decision to step down was, in part, made to protect the wellbeing of themselves and their families/loved ones.
Peter Frost’s (2003) notion of leaders as “toxin handlers” comes perhaps closer to capturing what happens in such situations. As with people who work in environments where they come into contact with hazardous substances, leaders may find themselves dealing with situations that are harmful to their health (for further elaboration see Hartley and Bolden, 2022). In their resignation speeches both Sturgeon and Ardern made a point of saying that they are “human” and that their decision to step down was, in part, made to protect the wellbeing of themselves and their families/loved ones. They also noted that it was in the best interests of their respective countries due to the fact that they no longer felt they had the energy required to sustain such a role.
Such an approach stands in stark contrast to the defiance of Donald Trump, Jose Bolsonaro, and Boris Johnson when they were required to stand aside and the subsequent attempts by their followers to get them reinstated. Whilst “strong” leadership continues to be associated with determination and persistence, Sturgeon and Ardern provide examples of how strength can also be demonstrated by knowing when to pass on the leadership baton to someone else. In so doing, they may also hope to retain a degree of dignity and respect that can so rapidly be eroded by desperate attempts to cling on to power.
In reflecting on the examples of Ardern and Sturgeon, I am reminded of a piece of work that I and colleagues conducted over a decade ago (Brookes et al., 2011), where we explored the experiences of people transitioning from senior leadership roles and the associated identity dynamics of “becoming an ex” (Fuchs Ebaugh, 1988). It struck us that, whilst a lot of attention is given to preparing (or persuading) people to take on leadership roles, far less attention tends to be given to supporting their transition out of such roles. Van Gennep’s (1960) work on rites of passage provided us with a useful framework for considering how any role transition involves going through a process of separation from an established identity, followed by a liminal period (where identities are fluid and uncertain), and, ultimately, arriving at a point of reincorporation where new identities are formed. Such notions underpin Ibarra et al.’s (2010) work on “identity-based leadership development” and the importance of “identity work” (Sinclair, 2011) in the process(es) of becoming (and unbecoming) “a leader.”
Nicola Sturgeon concluded her resignation speech as follows:
“So, to the people of Scotland – to all of the people of Scotland – whether you voted for me or not – please know that being your First Minister has been the privilege of my life. Nothing – absolutely nothing – I do in future will ever come close.” (Nicola Sturgeon, 15 February 2023)
For Ardern and Sturgeon, coming to terms with their new identities as former Prime/First Ministers is a journey they are only just beginning. We should watch and learn how they manage this transition and use it to inform our own work as leaders and leadership developers.
Brookes, V., Hooper, A., Bolden, R., Hawkins, B. and Taylor, S. (2011). The Mid-Life Career Transition “… and so what do you do?” Working Paper for the Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter Business School.
Frost, P. (2003). Toxic Emotions at Work: How Compassionate Managers Handle Pain and Conflict. Harvard Business School Press.
Fuchs Ebaugh, H.R. (1988). Becoming an Ex: The Process of Role Exit. University of Chicago Press.
Hartley, L., & Bolden R. (2022). Addicted to Leadership: From Crisis to Recovery. In M. Witzel (Ed.), Post-Pandemic Leadership: Exploring Solutions to a Crisis. Routledge.
Ibarra, H., Snook, S., & Ramo, L.G. (2010). Identity Based Leadership Development. In N. Nohria & R. Khurana (Eds.), Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice (pp. 657-678). Harvard Business Press.
Padilla, A., Hogan, R., & Kaiser, R. (2007). The Toxic Triangle: Destructive Leaders, Susceptible Followers, and Conducive Environments. The Leadership Quarterly, 18, 176-194.
Sinclair, A. (2011). Being Leaders: Identities and Identity Work in Leadership. In A. Bryman, D. Collinson, K. Grint, B. Jackson, & M. Uhl-Bien (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Leadership (pp. 508-517). Sage.
Daily Record. (2023, February 15). Nicola Sturgeon Resignation Speech in Full as First Minister Gives Surprise Decision [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y-WCD3sj1Y
Van Gennep, A. (1960). The Rites of Passage (M.B. Vizedom, & G.L. Cafee, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1908).
Several representatives from Bristol Business School at UWE Bristol are attending this years International Studying Leadership Conference (ISLC) in December. We are delighted that this year’s conference will be held in person, the first able to do so since Bristol Business School hosted the ISLC in 2019, where we hosted over 140 delegates from across the globe to discuss “Putting Leadership in its Place “. The conference featured three keynote addresses and five parallel streams (including almost 90 separate papers) exploring Place in leadership theory and practice and led to the publication of special issue of the journal leadership, which can be accessed here.
This year’s conference hosted by the University of Sussex Business School, in the city of Brighton and Hove continues to challenge the status quo of leadership research. Looking to explore ‘’Leadership and the future of humanity’’, the ISLC has put a spotlight on the need to develop better models of leadership more widely, not only within business organisations but also political networks, communities and countries. This conference will examine new ways of theorising about leadership that challenge mainstream approaches by showcasing papers that ask big questions about important issues such as leadership in politics, the issue of climate change, the growth of social inequality and other significant global issues. Further details can be found here.
Bristol Business School has always had a strong presence at the ILSC conference, this year is no different with four papers by academics and research leads from Bristol Leadership and Change Centre that will be discussed at the conference.
Apocalypse then and now: ‘End of the world’ cosmologies and the future of humanity
Peter Case, Professor of Organisation Studies, UWE, Bristol
This paper examines the ways in which collapse is understood, the prescriptions that follow, the kinds of organising and leading around these prescriptions. We want to enumerate the cosmologies at play here, and how they influence the ways in which collapse is foreseen and the responses they invoke. Our working hypothesis is that some responses will be characteristic of ‘apocalyptic cosmologies’ that construe time as leading towards an ‘end of days’ in which collapse is a kind of fulfilment – an end in itself, or possibly a gateway to some other-worldly resurrection and salvation.
Developing previous work on climate change and apocalypse (Gosling & Case, 2011; Bendell, 2018) and our interests in premodern thought and practice (Case & Gosling, 2007), we seek to show by way of salient historical comparison how collective patterns of response emerge frequently enough to be seen as typical of European culture when facing existential threat and imminent collapse.
We conclude with a re-examination of contemporary responses to the so-called climate emergency, and some proposals for how we citizens can contribute in constructive ways informed by a more diverse cosmological repertoire. Our paper will contribute an analysis of what might happen to leadership, as well as how leadership might assist a ‘better collapse’.
Tackling severe and multiple disadvantage through systems change
Richard Bolden, Professor of Leadership and Management, UWE Bristol
This paper presents insights from an eight-year longitudinal evaluation of a collaborative partnership project designed to transform the design and provision of services for people with severe and multiple disadvantage (SMD) in the city of Bristol in the UK. The research was informed by ‘realist evaluation’ principles, whereby we sought to understand the mechanisms through which interventions produce outcomes within particular contexts (Pawson and Tilley, 1997). As appropriate for evaluating complex interventions (Skivington et al., 2021), we captured multiple perspectives, experiences and outcomes over time through a combination of methodologies underpinned by a theory of change.
Whilst a diverse range of findings, recommendations and conclusions have been reported, within this paper I will focus on insights around how the programme has facilitated systems change – ‘an intentional process designed to alter the status quo by shifting the function or structure of an identified system with purposeful interventions’ (Abercrombie et al., 2015). A review of evaluation insights, alongside learning from the team leading the initiative, has revealed seven key enablers of systems changeor SMD that might be used by people developing or running systems change activities
The post truth games of populist leaders: Insights from Franz Kafka
When we reflect on the conference theme of leadership and the future of humanity, we may find it hard to feel anything but despair. The world feels unstable, and many of its most prominent leaders seem to pander to their constituents’ grievances rather than exercising anything we might call ‘ethical leadership’ (Ciulla, 2020). In such a climate, truth often has less clout than ‘post-truth’, and this is often linked to a dismissal of experts (Foroughi et al., 2019). Amplified by social media spats, post-truth approaches suggest that everyone is entitled to their own preferred version of events. Most notorious in this narrative space is the ‘alternative facts’ discourse of former US President, Donald Trump; but other populist leaders have also relished the fact that their words do not have to be true – indeed, they can often be palpably false – to be effective.
This paper draws on the fiction of Franz Kafka (1883-1924) to explore the tactics of post-truth leadership. Kafka has extraordinary relevance for leadership, not least because “of all writers, Kafka is the greatest expert on power” (Canetti, 1982, p.62). Kafka has long been heralded for his unique perspective on many of the past century’s most pressing issues – bureaucracy, technology, violence, alienation, and the institutions of work, family, religion and the law. Kafka’s work interweaves, amplifies, undercuts and distorts these themes, revealing their often-terrible relation with power. Recent Kafka scholarship has challenged popular understandings of Kafka as under-dog or victim of the System, arguing instead that both Kafka and his protagonists are agents as much as victims of power (Corngold et al., 2009; Tomkins, 2024). Kafka’s world is one where ‘facts’ are often insignificant in comparison with ‘alternative facts’ in skilful hands, whether these hands belong to the overtly powerful or the apparently powerless.
Using visual methods to understand the translation of inclusive leadership across different language context
Doris Schedlitzki, Professor of Organisational Leadership, London Metropolitan University
Sylwia Ciuk, Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies, Oxford Brookes University
Gareth Edwards, Professor of Leadership and Community Studies, UWE Bristol
Harriet Shortt – Associate Professor in Organisation Studies, UWE Bristol
In this presentation, we will provide practical examples from our project to illustrate how we have used Participant-led Photography (Shortt and Warren, 2019) to research the social construction and translation of inclusive leadership narratives across three different languages within the work context of a multinational organisation. In particular, we will show how this innovative method, which has not been applied to translation and leadership studies before, has given participants a verbal and non-verbal way of expressing – and reflexively exploring – the intangible aspects of inclusive leadership practice. The inclusion of visual data in our analysis also helps to challenge the use of English as the only ‘valid’ language to carry and share leadership knowledge.
We will further provide examples from our analysis to date to show how this methodological approach enables us to take a rigorous approach to inductive theorising. Data analysis involves identification of themes in both narrative and visual data using a new visual methodological/ analytical approach – Grounded Visual Pattern Analysis (GVPA) (Shortt and Warren 2019). This methodology enables a multi-modal translation and interpretation of leadership, since GVPA provides researchers with the opportunity to systematically analyse the narrative and visual data whilst privileging the meanings the participants ascribe to their photographs. Building on such a comprehensive and detailed analysis of participants’ experiences and practices enables us to understand better how they translate (linguistically and through practice) inclusive forms of leadership.
Over the past seven weeks the world watched on as Liz Truss crashed and burned as Prime Minister of the UK. After just 45 days in office — two weeks less than the election process through which she was appointed and, if you take out the period of national mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, shorter than the average shelf life of a lettuce (Economist, 2022, Daily Star, 2022) — Liz Truss unceremoniously stepped down as leader of the Conservative Party.
There is no shortage of journalists and political commentators writing their own accounts of what’s happened but, in this blog post, I would like to reflect on this as a leadership researcher and educator. To do this, I will consider the case from individual, organizational and societal perspectives.
An Individual Perspective: The Fall of Liz Truss
Without doubt, the most common way in which Liz Truss’s time in office will be analyzed is in relation to her own shortcomings and failures as a leader. The benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing and there are many people coming forward to express the concerns they had about her character and suitability for the role of Prime Minister.
Over the past few days, I’ve heard her described as “tin eared,” “naïve,” “arrogant,” “stupid,” “talentless,” and many more things beside. Whilst these may or may not be a fair assessment of her qualities, they beg the question of why on earth her candidacy was supported by so many ministers and members of the Conservative Party if this is how they felt about her. Surely there was some evidence of this, or an attempt to assess her suitability, before she was given the biggest job in UK politics?
I’ve always been dubious about the motivations of anyone who would wish to become PM or President given the immense responsibility and public scrutiny such roles carry. Indeed, in a reverse Catch-22 type scenario, anyone ambitious enough to put themselves forward should perhaps be deemed unsuitable and hence ineligible for the role. There’s plenty of research evidence on the psychopathology of leadership and the risks of narcissism, greed, and corruption amongst senior leaders in all walks of life. Such toxicity is clearly not healthy, but it’s a mistake to lay the blame wholly on the individual leader her/himself — indeed we may need to take a closer look at ourselves.
The psychodrama of Westminster over the past weeks, months, years says perhaps as much about our own relationship to leaders and leadership as the individual protagonists themselves. In a recent book chapter I co-authored with Lucie Hartley, drawing on insights from her time as CEO of a drug and alcohol charity, we reflected on the addictive nature of leadership (Hartley & Bolden, 2022). While individual leaders may become trapped in destructive cycles of addictive behavior, the causes and consequences are not entirely of their own making. The tendency to romanticize leadership and the heroic qualities of successful leaders disguises the fact that we frequently place people in situations that would turn even the most admirable individual into something else.
While I have no doubt that Liz Truss willingly and enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to be Prime Minister, she did so at a time of extreme turbulence. Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam (2005) coined the term the “glass cliff” to describe the circumstances in which female leaders and leaders from minority backgrounds are disproportionately more likely to be appointed to senior leadership roles in times of significant risk. While there are a number of possible explanations for this trend, it means that these individuals are placed in particularly precarious situations where the likelihood of failure is at its greatest. As the political commentator Andrew Marr stated in relation to the unraveling of Liz Truss’s government: “It was triggered by the immediate causes: bad political judgement, naiveté about markets, personal arrogance and cliquishness. Truss is simply not good enough — not shrewd enough in judgement, not persuasive enough as a communicator — to be prime minister. But this is the failure of an idea that would have collapsed even had Britain been led by better politicians” (Marr, 2022).
While I have no desire to present Truss as a victim, she became the embodiment of a set of ideals promoted by certain factions of her Party that were fundamentally out of step with the realities of the markets and wider society. She stated that in her commitment to growth she was prepared to do things that might be considered unpopular. Modeling herself on Margaret Thatcher, she claimed to be “a fighter not a quitter” and “not for turning”… until the markets and public opinion forced her to U-turn on pretty much everything she’d put in place during her time in office. We expect a lot of our leaders — including the ultimate act of self-sacrifice when things turn bad (Grint, 2010).
An Organizational Perspective: A Divided Party
The Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain is one of the main political parties in the UK. It represents the right-of-centre political interests and agendas and, within England at least, faces its main opposition from the left-of-centre Labour Party. There are currently 357 Conservative ministers, representing around 55% of all members of the House of Commons. The government comprises a Cabinet of senior leaders appointed by the PM and a large group of “back bench” members of parliament (MPs) elected to represent the interests of their local constituencies. An oppositional form of government is maintained, whereby, the party in power sits opposite the opposition parties in the main chamber of the House of Commons and legislation and policies are debated and voted on by members.
The origins of the UK structure of government dates back to the 13th and 14th centuries, with current arrangements largely unchanged for over 100 years. Unlike typical organizations, the PM’s authority comes from the mandate gained through General Elections, which occur every 4-5 years, where the public get to vote for their preferred party/candidate. These are supplemented by local elections to approve changes in representation between the national election cycle and by occasional national referendums on key issues, such as the UK’s membership of the European Union in 2016.
Within such an environment, the ability of the PM to instill a sense of “confidence” and maintain “discipline” is key. While MPs usually vote along party lines, within a democratic system of government they have the freedom to vote in the way they believe best serves the interests of the electorate. There are occasional exceptions to this, such as the vote on fracking on the evening of Wednesday 19th October 2022 that descended into chaos when Conservative MPs were informed that it was a “confidence vote” and they were expected to vote “no” to a motion to ban fracking no matter what their personal opinion on the matter or the views of their constituents. Despite the attempts of party “whips” and senior Cabinet members to encourage (force) members to vote as directed, 32 (nearly 10%) did not register a vote.
The events of the past few weeks have highlighted deep divisions within the Party that have existed for many years. Rather than all Conservatives sharing a unified set of beliefs, values, and priorities it is a loose affiliation of divided factions. These are the issues that David Cameron was trying to resolve when he called the national referendums, firstly on Scottish independence in 2015 and then membership in the EU in 2016. He hoped that once they had been decided through a public vote, MPs would fall into line and follow the guidance of the PM and Cabinet. In reality, however, such votes — particularly Brexit — seemed to further cement divisions within the Party and have led to widespread resistance and challenge across the different sub-groups — fueling, in large part, the churn of senior leaders, including three Prime Ministers and four Chancellors of the Exchequer (responsible for managing the national budget) in the last few months.
Commentators suggest that the Conservatives need to find a “unity candidate” to replace Liz Truss, someone who can lead and engage people from across the whole party, but such people are in short supply. The contenders — Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordant, and (the former PM) Boris Johnson — are all divisive given that they represent the interests of particular stakeholders rather than the whole party… not to mention the wider country. While Sunak, the runner up in the previous election campaign, has now gained sufficient support to be named the new leader, he has a significant challenge ahead in engaging those who hold him personally responsible for the departure of Boris Johnson and the drama that has since unfolded.
At the end of the day, leadership is about building, rather than burning, bridges.
The social identity approach to leadership, outlined by Alex Haslam and colleagues (2020), highlights the need for leaders to be seen to represent the interests and identity of a collective and to be doing it for “us.” Application of these ideas to the COVID-19 pandemic by Jetten et al. (2020) goes further, suggesting that (1) leaders need to represent us, and in a crisis “us” becomes more inclusive; (2) leaders need to be seen to do it for us, and there is no place for leader exceptionalism; and (3) leaders need to craft and embed a sense of us, and this creates a platform for citizenship.
This mirrors evidence from the Center for Creative Leadership on the nature and importance of “boundary spanning” leadership — defined as “the ability to create direction, alignment, and commitment across boundaries in service of a higher vision or goal” (Ernst & Yip, 2009). Direction, alignment, and commitment are far from evident within UK politics at the moment, and with its absence, the sense of shared purpose and capacity for collaboration needed for effective leadership and governance have evaporated. As the long-standing Tory MP Charles Walker stated following the chaotic vote on 19 October — “I’ve had enough of talentless people putting their tick in the box, not because it’s in the national interest but because it’s in their own personal interest” (Walker, 2022).
A Societal Perspective: Uniting Around a Shared Purpose
To understand Liz Truss’s spectacular failure, however, it is not sufficient to just consider individual and organizational factors. The speed and scale of her demise was largely shaped by factors beyond the direct control of either her or her colleagues.
She came into her position at a time of significant economic and geopolitical turmoil. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and a number of related factors (including the legacy of COVID-19) had driven up fuel costs and impacted food production, which had a direct impact on the cost of living for people across the UK. There were urgent calls for support in helping businesses and working families as well as those already receiving benefits, to cope with the rising cost of bills for fuel, food, and a wide range of essentials. Rapid action was required to put systems and processes in place before the winter in order to minimize the adverse effects.
The policy advocated by Liz Truss and her allies was one of establishing the UK as a high growth, low tax economy. Described by some as “Singapore on Thames” and others as “Trussonomics” — the approach is founded on the idea of cutting red tape and taxes to drive economic growth. This “trickle down” approach proposed that cutting taxes for the wealthiest would benefit those on lower incomes by mobilizing spending and job opportunities. This vision was core to Truss’s campaign to be elected as Party leader and was presented as confident and optimistic in the face of her opponent, Rishi Sunak’s, campaign that spoke of hard times ahead and the need to reign in public spending. When 141,000 Conservative members voted on whom to elect as party leader in September 2022, 57.4% chose Truss over Sunak (Statista, 2022), quite probably because of the more inspiring vision she set out of a post-Brexit Britain.
While those Conservative party members who voted for her, however, may have been persuaded by her argument, the “markets” were far less sympathetic — particularly when her (then) Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced a “mini budget” on 23rd September 2022 that included £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts. This “spooked” the markets and led to a rapid drop in the value of the pound, forcing the Bank of England to intervene, increasing interest rates and buying government bonds. The crisis in the financial markets was fueled, to a large extent, by the lack of communication and engagement between Truss and Kwarteng with the business and financial sector (including the Bank of England and, indeed, their own MPs) in advance of the announcements. The unusual decision not to check projections with the Office for Budget Responsibility (established to give independent advice on the UK’s public finance) further undermined confidence — leaving many to assume that the government’s plans were not based on robust analysis and would leave a large gap in the UK economy.
Together, these factors demonstrate the importance of building consensus and support with key stakeholders beyond the immediate team/organization before launching a significant shift in strategy. Without this, the perceived competence, credibility, and legitimacy of leaders can quickly evaporate, making it very hard (or impossible) to regain sufficient support to move forward. The series of U-turns on the policies within the mini-budget, while essential to rebuilding some kind of stability within the markets, whittled away what remaining authority Truss held such that there was no option than to eventually resign.
Where Next?
Today we find ourselves turning to a new leader of the Conservative Party — someone who will also take on the role of Prime Minister. Recent events illustrate the ambivalent relationship to leadership we have in the UK (Bolden & Witzel, 2018). We appear to love and hate our leaders in equal measure — to put them on a pedestal and then topple them when they fail to behave in ways, or to deliver, what we expect (despite the warning signs that might already exist or the incredible demands they face).
While the primary focus of the current crisis in UK politics is “leadership,” we may, perhaps, be advised to spend more time thinking about the importance of “followership.” While each of the contenders for the role of Prime Minister had their own group of loyal advocates, to be successful Rishi Sunak will have to gain the support of a diverse range of stakeholders — including his own party, business and financial services, the public sector and the wider UK population — and demonstrate how he will represent and deliver against their needs and aspirations rather than those of a narrow clique. At the end of the day, leadership is about building, rather than burning, bridges. It is about articulating and working towards a shared purpose that unites, rather than divides, those around them. Ultimately, this might require those in senior leadership positions to put aside their own personal ambitions in the pursuit of a genuinely collective endeavor. As with the apocryphal quote of a Roman Senator claiming “there go my people… I must go after them, so I can find out where they want me to lead them!” (Witzel, 2016) — the key to political leadership is to follow the “will of the people.” Whether or not anyone in the current UK government has the willingness or capacity to do this is yet to be seen.
References and Further Reading
Bolden, R. and Witzel, M. (2018) ‘Dis-United Kingdom? Leadership at a crossroads’ in S. Western and E.J. Garcia (eds) Global Leadership Perspectives: Insights and Analysis, London: Sage Publications, pp 161-169.
Bolden, R., Hawkins, B., Gosling, J. and Taylor, S. (2011) Exploring Leadership: Individual, organizational and societal perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. – Second edition to be published in March 2023.
Ernst, C. and Yip, J. (2009) Bridging Boundaries: Meeting the Challenge of Workplace Diversity, Leadership in Action, 28(1), 3-6.
Grint, K., (2010) The Sacred in Leadership: Separation, Sacrifice, and Silence, Organization Studies, 31, 89-107.
Hartley, L. and Bolden R. (2022) ‘Addicted to Leadership: From crisis to recovery’ in Morgen Witzel (ed.) Post-Pandemic Leadership: Exploring solutions to a crisis, London: Routledge.
Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S. D. & Platow, M. J. (2020). The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, influence and power, 2nd Edition. London & New York: Psychology Press.
Jetten, J., Reicher, S.D., Haslam, S.A. and Cruwys, T. (2020) Together Apart: The Psychology of COVID-19. London: Sage.
Ryan, M. and Haslam, S. A. (2005) The glass cliff: evidence that women are over-represented in precarious leadership positions, British Journal of Management, 16, 81-90.
Witzel, M. (2016) The first paradox of leadership is – leadership! In R. Bolden, M. Witzel and N. Linacre (eds) Leadership Paradoxes: Rethinking leadership for an uncertain world. London: Routledge.
Dr. Richard Bolden has been Professor of Leadership and Management and Director of Bristol Leadership and Change Centre at Bristol Business School, University of the West of England (UWE) since 2013. Prior to this he worked at the Centre for Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter Business School for over a decade and has also worked as an independent consultant, research psychologist and in software development in the UK and overseas.
His research explores the interface between individual and collective approaches to leadership and leadership development in a range of sectors, including higher education, healthcare and public services. He has published widely on topics including distributed, shared and systems leadership; leadership paradoxes and complexity; cross-cultural leadership; and leadership and change. He is Associate Editor of the journal Leadership.
Richard has secured funded research and evaluation projects for organisations including the NHS Leadership Academy, Public Health England, Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, Singapore Civil Service College and Bristol Golden Key and regularly engages with external organisations.
Over the past year Professor Richard Bolden, along with colleagues at the University of Bristol, has been conducting a scoping study on “leadership in global higher education”.
The report, published by Advance HE on 6th September 2022, presents an overview of insights and findings from 11 round tables and four dissemination and engagement events conducted between October 2021 and March 2022.
These conversations “provided rich and revealing insights into a turbulent and changing HE landscape” and hold significant implications for effective leadership across the sector. The report forms the basis for a major survey of HE leadership, to be launched by Advance HE later this month.
It is now over two years since the arrival of Covid-19, which plunged much of the world into lockdown and caused immense social and economic disruption and loss. On 11th March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a pandemic and as of 22nd March 2022, there have been over 470 million recorded cases and 6.1 million Covid-related deaths worldwide (World Health Organization, n.d.).
As governments in London, Washington D.C., and elsewhere call to “build back better,” and numerous organizations follow suit, it is easy to become so focussed on the future that we forget what we’ve been through. Without doubt, now is a time of both opportunity and need, but levels of physical and emotional exhaustion are at an all-time high. A report published in March 2022 notes a 25% increase in the prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide since the outbreak of the pandemic (World Health Organization, 2022). The impacts of Covid, however, are not equally distributed. We are, of course, now painfully aware of the disproportionate impact of the virus on people of Black, Asian, Indigenous, and minority ethnic backgrounds, but the lasting effects on them and other populations are harder to discern (Tai et al., 2021). Research on staff who worked in intensive care units at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, shows a 40% likelihood of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — twice that of military veterans recently engaged in combat (Greenberg et al., 2021).
Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to work with professionals from a range of contexts and have been struck by the levels of exhaustion reported. This is particularly prominent amongst people working in health and care — many of whom had to keep working through the pandemic, often on the Covid “frontline” facing considerable personal risk and witnessing unimaginable trauma. In a series of reflective sensemaking discussions I had with staff from the National Health Service in England in Spring/Summer 2021, people compared their experiences to “clinging to a lifeboat” following a shipwreck or “being thrown out of a perfectly good airplane without a parachute.” A veteran from the UK armed forces, now working as an NHS Manager, described the height of the pandemic as worse than anything he had witnessed during the Helmand province campaign in Afghanistan. Another participant, a Black female NHS administrator, described her experiences of working through the pandemic whilst her brother and three other family members passed away, summing up with the observation that “This year has been about so much more than work!”
The emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983) of “putting on a brave face” and telling others “we can get through this” is an additional burden that has been carried. As one NHS leader said:
One day feels everything is doom and gloom and you know you’ve got a huge burden to try to deal with… and then you are trying to be optimistic as the leader… the rest of the staff look to you and how you’re coping, which often has been a huge influence on how the rest of the team are feeling… so you often have to wear a full smile and you know, the false positive to say “you know we can get through this.” You know try and support each other, But you’re carrying that burden yourself and it can be feeling very isolating.
More recent discussions with staff from higher education institutions around the world paint a similar picture, albeit usually without the same degree of personal risk (Parkin et al., 2021). Nonetheless, people describe the immense turbulence and uncertainty of the past two years and the repeated need to adapt to changing circumstances and demands. Whilst some might question the accuracy of such accounts, it is worth noting that the PwC Global Crisis Survey 2021 ranks the higher education sector as the second hardest hit by the pandemic (just behind hospitality and leisure), with 83% of organisations reporting a “negative” or “significant negative” impact (PwC, 2021).
In a TED talk titled The Human Skills We Need in an Unpredictable World, recorded just six months before the outbreak of the pandemic, Margaret Heffernan (2019) contrasts resilience with robustness. Her argument is that sectors such as healthcare, law and order, and the supply of essential services such as food, water, and energy, need to focus not just on the ability to get back up after a set-back but on the ability not to break under pressure in the first place. In order to do this, she suggests, we must abandon our obsession with efficiency and focus instead on “preparedness, coalition-building, imagination, experiments, bravery” that underpin our “capacity for adaptation, variation and invention.”
This is precisely what many organizations are now doing — including the healthcare and higher education institutions mentioned earlier — but in the wake of the pandemic there is a further “R” that requires attention. The physical and emotional exhaustion that now permeates many workplaces and communities also requires a significant investment in recovery. I’m not talking here of the economic recovery stressed by politicians and business leaders (although that is undoubtedly important) but of the slow and challenging process of human healing. In order to achieve this, we need to move beyond a rhetoric of “compassion” to a genuine “ethic of care” that “reconnects experiences across the so-called work-life boundary” (Tomkins & Simpson, 2017).
Recognition of the pain and suffering that accompanies change is not new. Indeed, Heifetz and colleagues (2009) made precisely this point when outlining their theory of adaptive leadership, arguing that “Honoring the reality that adaptive processes will be accompanied by distress means having compassion for the pain that comes with deep change” (p. 29). West and colleagues (2017), writing on compassionate leadership in healthcare, conclude that “In order to nurture a culture of compassion, organisations require their leaders — as the carriers of culture — to embody compassion in their leadership” (p. 4). Yet, as Maak and colleagues (2021), reflecting on insights from the pandemic, argue “It cannot be overstated, how demanding it is for a leader to make space for human moments, and to be present for and attentive to those who suffer in a situation in which pressure on the leader is relentless” (p. 74).
At a time when we are still figuring out how best to move forward from the pandemic it is worth remembering the saying, “In a world where you can be anything, be kind.” Kindness and compassion require a conscious choice — to look beyond our own preoccupations to consider the perspectives and experiences of others. The mobilization of groups and communities throughout the pandemic, as well as the near global solidarity and support shown for the Ukrainian population following the unprovoked attack by Russia, demonstrate our capacity for empathy and care. The question now remains how we can carry this forward. Then, and only then, will we have demonstrated our capacity to “build back better.”
Interested in learning more about this topic? On 12-13 July 2022, the Bristol Leadership and Change Centre will be hosting the 12th Developing Leadership Capacity Conference, with a theme of “Leading to Care – Foregrounding Health and Well-being in Leadership Development and Education.” Confirmed keynote speakers include Michael West and Leah Tomkins (mentioned above) as well as Tracie Jolliff. The event will be run online with no registration fee in order to enable wide attendance. The call for papers is now open. The extended deadline to submit is 3rd May. Further details at https://lnkd.in/dJpE7Ekk.
References
Greenberg, N., Weston, D., Hall, C., Caulfield, T., Williamson, V., & Fong, K. (2021). Mental Health of Staff Working in Intensive Care During Covid-19. Occupational Medicine, 71(2), 62–67. https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqaa220
Heifetz, R. A., Linsky, M., & Grashow, A. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World. Harvard Business Press.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. University of California Press.
Maak, T., Pless, N. M., & Wohlgezogen, F. (2021). The Fault Lines of Leadership: Lessons From the Global Covid-19 Crisis. Journal of Change Management, 21(1), 66–86.
Tai, D.B.G., Sia, I.G., Doubeni, C.A., & Wieland, M.L. (2021, October 13). Disproportionate Impact of COVID-19 on Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups in the United States: A 2021 Update. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-021-01170-w
Tomkins, L., & Simpson, P. (2017). An Ethic of Care: Reconnecting the Private and the Public. In D. Knights, & C. Mabey (Eds.), Leadership Matters: Finding Voice, Connection and Meaning in the 21st Century (pp. 89-101). Routledge.
West, M., Eckert, R., Collins, B., & Chowla, R. (2017). Caring to Change. The Kings Fund.
World Health Organization. (n.d.) WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard as of 5:27pm CET, 22 March 2022. https://covid19.who.int
“In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.”
Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, 1920
Over the past few weeks a series of stories have dominated news headlines around the world that, whilst in different contexts, bear a number of striking similarities.
The first of these concerns revelations about a string of parties hosted at 10 Downing Street during the pandemic. Whilst Prime Minister Boris Johnson has consistently attempted to deflect allegations and blame, arguing that these were work events and that Covid restrictions were followed at all times, the public and indeed his own party have become increasingly frustrated by his unwillingness to apologise and take responsibility, and his apparent disregard for the rules that he and colleagues had imposed across the country.
The second regards the ability of unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic to enter Australia to play in the Australian Open. For Djokovic this would enable him not only to defend his title but also to potentially achieve the highest ever number of Grand Slam titles in men’s tennis. His Visa application, however, has been contested on the basis of him breaching Australian Immigration rules around COVID vaccination status, as well as an error in the reporting of prior travel on his Visa form.
And the third relates to whether or not Prince Andrew will face trial for alleged illegal sexual activity. Needless to say, the Prince has consistently denied these allegations – publicly stating that he’d never met his accuser (despite photographic evidence to the contrary) and even taking part in a televised interview where he endorsed his position by stating that he was ‘unable to sweat’ and was picking up his daughter from pizza restaurant on the evening of one of the suggested incidents (despite no substantive evidence to support either claim).
Headlines on the BBC News website, at 11:00 on 14/01/2022
These stories have been widely reported, not just in mainstream media but also through the internet and social media where each has fuelled a storm of opinion and memes. Despite their obvious differences, what each of these stories has in common is the sense that people in positions of power and influence believe that they are free to operate beyond the rules that govern the ways that others are expected to live their lives. Whilst these are just the latest in a long history of examples of privilege and inequality what is notable this time is the turning tide of public opinion. Whilst there remain those that support and defend the protagonists our collective willingness to forgive and forget is in rapid decline. In each case people are frustrated not just by the incidents themselves but the lack of respect that the continued avoidance of accountability demonstrates. Trust has been broken and, whatever the outcome of any of these sagas, will be difficult to rebuild – not just for the individuals themselves but also the institutions they represent.
Together, these cases illustrate the reciprocal and relational nature of leadership. As Professor Joanne Ciulla argues: “Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.”[i] In each of these examples the moral foundation of these individuals (and their institutions) has been brought into question, which erodes their credibility, authority and ability to influence others.
Linked to this is the sense of one set of rules for them and another set of rules of the rest of us. A fundamental premise of the social identity approach is that leaders must demonstrate that ‘we’re in this together’. Professor Stephen Reicher and colleagues have spoken particularly about the need for identity-based leadership through the pandemic and highlighted the consequences of failing to do so[ii]. The (post) pandemic situation is particularly pertinent in the cases of Boris Johnson and Novak Djokovic where the tough lockdown conditions and personal loss endured by populations in the UK and Australia make breaches of the regulations – and the apparently dismissive ways in which they have been responded to – particularly egregious.
These cases also highlight the complex, systemic nature of leadership and the need to focus attention on small details as well as broader patterns[iii]. Whilst Boris Johnson, for example, may have weathered many a storm during his career an overt breach of Covid regulations may well be enough to unseat him his position in parliament (much as it has for others in the government). For Djokovic, a failure to complete his Visa application correctly may put pay to his ambitions to win the 2022 Australian Open. And whilst not wishing to defend his actions, differences between legal systems in the UK and USA may have contributed to Prince Andrew being indictable for alleged crimes in New York.
Overall, these stories demonstrate shifting social trends around our relationship with and deference towards people in positions of power and authority. Whilst I believe we are still far from a world of ‘post-heroic leadership’, our collective tolerance for people who appear arrogant, or elitist appears to be waning. As leadership scholars, educators and practitioners, however, we must also be careful not to be drawn in the polarizing vortex of opinion that such stories fuel. Whilst these particular examples may be playing out in public view – exposing the sordid intricacies for all to see – we must also remain alert for the stories that remain hidden from view. On the day that I am writing this article, for example, the journalist Carole Cadwalladr is appearing in the High Court to defend her decision to publish and share her account of the ways in which Trump, Farage, Banks and others used Facebook to spread misinformation to influence the outcome of Brexit vote[iv]. Such cases are risky and expensive yet, unless people are willing to speak-up we may find democracy slipping away.
I began this article with a quote from Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel ‘The Age of Innocence’, which highlighted the tensions and ambiguities within a world undergoing social and political change. There are many that would argue we are at a similar turning point in history – facing the combined challenges of COVID-19, climate change, and social inequality that call for a reappraisal of who ‘we’ are, what ‘we’ stand for and who ‘we’ are willing to follow. In the words of Wharton, if we are not content with the answers that we find then we have the capacity to redraw the boundaries within which we find ourselves.
“Who’s ‘they’? Why don’t you all get together and be ‘they’ yourselves?”
Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, 1920
[i] Ciulla, J. B. (ed.) (1998) Ethics: The Heart of Leadership. Westport, CT: Quorum. P. xv.
[ii] See, for example, Jetten, J., Reicher, S., Haslam, S.A. and Crowys, T. (2020) Together Apart: The Psychology of COVID-19. London: Sage.
[iii] See, for example, French, R. and Simpson, P. (2014). Attention, Cooperation, Purpose: An approach to working in groups using insights from Wilfred Bion. Karnac.
The killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, USA on 25th May 2020 triggered a wave of protests about racial inequality that have spread around the world. In my home city of Bristol, UK the Black Lives Matter march on 7th June led to the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader whose sculpture had stood in pride of place in the city centre for 125 years. The ironic fact that the bronze cast was then dragged to the quayside and unceremoniously dumped into the water at almost precisely the same place as his ships had docked over three hundred years ago did not go unnoticed[1].
Colston, who was born in Bristol in 1636 and lived there for much of his life, made his fortune as a merchant – initially trading wine, fruits and cloth before becoming involved in the slave trade. From 1680-1692 he worked for the Royal Africa Company, which held a monopoly for trading along Africa’s west coast, serving as deputy governor from 1689 to 1690. During his time at the company around 84,000 Africans were transported into slavery, with an estimated 19,000 perishing in the process[2]. Despite his involvement in this abhorrent trade, Colston was widely celebrated for endowing significant sums of money to local schools, hospitals, alms-houses and churches. His statue was erected by the Victorians in 1895 to commemorate his philanthropy and his name still features on many city landmarks.
The actions of the protesters that day drew a range of reactions. Whilst the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, described it as ‘utterly disgraceful’ and the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, called it a ‘criminal act’ others took a more nuanced approach. Marvin Rees, the elected Mayor of Bristol, whilst not condoning the wilful damage of public property said the statue had been a ‘personal affront’ to him and many other people for years and that he ‘did not feel any sense of loss’[3]. As televised interviews for Channel 4 and BBC later that day pushed Rees to give a binary response to questions about the repercussions of the incident, he took the opportunity to lay-out the complexities of the context in which it had occurred. Rees outlined the sensitivities and challenges and the need for an open and honest debate about the history of race and inequality in the city. As the first elected Mayor of Afro-Caribbean descent in Europe, who took up his post in 2016 amidst the effects of the Brexit vote and sustained cuts to local government funding, he needed to mobilise the support of a diverse (and divided) population and a wide range of stakeholders. Whilst he actively supported campaigns to review Colston’s legacy, including a decision to rename the city’s Colston Hall music venue, attempts to remove Colston’s statue (or, at the very least, install a new plaque describing the atrocities that he had committed) had thus far been undermined[4]. With a finite amount of time, resource and political capital, Rees had many other priorities to attend to in order to address the challenges and divisions within the city[5].
Whilst some expressed outrage that the statue was pulled down David Olusoga, Professor of Public History at University of Manchester and a resident of Bristol, pointed out that the real question was why “21st-century Bristol still had a statue of a slave trader on public display” in the first place[6]. To those who suggested that removing Colston’s statue was an attempt to erase the city’s past, he responded “the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue is not an attack on history – it is history”. The legacy of Colston is writ large across the city and will not be forgotten simply because his image no longer gazes down upon those who walk the city’s streets. In an interview for the BBC on the day of the protests Olusoga argued “statues aren’t about history they are about adoration. This man was not great, he was a slave trader and a murderer”[7].
The speed with which other cities across the country have responded by reviewing and removing statues that fail to reflect the multi-cultural nature of contemporary Britain shows that these thoughts are finally being heard[8]. The history of colonisation and slavery that fuelled Britain’s economic, cultural and political influence for many centuries has become woven into the fabric of our institutions and society leaving many of us blind to the day-to-day racism and inequality it perpetuates.
Speaking at the funeral of George Floyd on 9th June Rev. Bill Lawson, who had campaigned alongside Rev. Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960’s, said “back in the days when I used to be part of marches, all the marchers were black, but now there are white people who know the story and there are Hispanics who know the story and there are Asians who know the story”[9]. He went on to say “Out of his [George Floyd’s] death has come a movement, a worldwide movement. But that movement is not going to stop after two weeks, three weeks, a month. That movement is going to change the world.”
The events of the past few weeks have a great deal to tell us about the nature and purpose of good leadership in contemporary society. Firstly, they demonstrate that in the second decade of the 21st Century we are still far from the ‘post-racial’ society that some may claim. The roots of racism go back many years and will no doubt take many more to rectify. The diversity of our workforce and communities is widely acknowledged as a significant source of creativity, innovation and competitive advantage yet the relatively superficial attempts to tackle unconscious bias within organisations barely scratches the surface of the discrimination experienced by black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) individuals on a daily basis. The role of leaders in a progressive, multi-cultural society is to actively foster and promote diversity in all its forms and to dismantle systems, structures and processes that “inhibit the full and equal engagement of all individuals”[10]. This is difficult and demanding work that requires significant time and emotional investment. It requires listening to and learning from the lived experience of others, and to actively champion and support marginalised individuals and groups. To quote Ruth Hunt, former CEO of the LGBT rights organisation Stonewall, “if you have any power whatsoever, think about how you can share it”[11].
Secondly it shows the need for a deep appreciation of context, informed by genuine respect for the plurality of perspectives on any particular issue. The Police Superintendent for Bristol, Andy Bennett, noted that whilst his officers were present when the statue of Colston was removed and pushed into the harbour, a decision was taken not to intervene as doing so was likely to lead to further disorder. In explaining this decision, he said “whilst I’m disappointed people would damage one of our statues, I do understand why it has happened, it is very symbolic” [12]. Bennett, like Rees, demonstrated a nuanced understanding of the issues and the potential for unintended consequences from his actions. Whilst, of course, attention would have been given to the immediate context of the situation it is highly likely that he also considered the wider context of policing and criminal justice within the city. Bennett and his colleagues had invested considerable time and effort over many years building and strengthening relationships, trust and collaboration between diverse groups and communities and would, no doubt, be well aware of the long-term knock-on effect of heavy-handed policing in a situation such as this. For those protesting that day the statue of Colston was a vivid symbol of oppression and a reminder of the lack of progress that had been made in tackling systemic inequality[13].
And thirdly it demonstrates the importance of genuine, open discussion in mobilising and sustaining social change. Both Rees and Bennett’s response to the incidents in Bristol on 7th June show a real awareness of the importance of shifting the narrative from blame to reconciliation. The day after the protest Bristol City Council announced its intent to create a new exhibition at the city’s MShed Museum featuring placards and banners from the march, most likely alongside the despoiled statue of Edward Colston once retrieved from the harbour. A day later, Rees announced the launch of a new commission to document and share the ‘true history’ of Bristol[14].
Recognition of the disproportionate impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on BAME communities – both in health and economic terms – alongside a growing sense that not enough is being done at national level to address this is, of course, another key part of the backdrop to recent events[15]. At the time of the Black Lives Matter protests, the UK was still experiencing high numbers of infections and deaths from Covid-19 and laws were in place to enforce social distancing and prohibit gatherings of more than six people. The fact that so many people still took to the streets demonstrated the strength of emotion and level of concern about racial inequality.
Following the suffering and disruption caused by Covid-19 and the trauma of George Floyd’s death there is perhaps a glimmer of hope. Back in April Rees argued that the post-Covid recovery in Bristol should focus on building a “more sustainable, more inclusive, more fair and more just” economy and had begun rallying support for this across the city[16]. Indeed, the groundwork for such an approach had already been laid over the past few years through the development of the One City Approach[17] and the launch of the One City Plan in January 2019. This bold vision and action plan was inspired by a similar initiative in New York that set out a long-term strategy, co-produced with diverse communities and stakeholders, to build a thriving and inclusive city aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals[18]. The three aspects of inclusive place-based leadership outlined above – allyship, understanding and dialogue – will undoubtedly form the bedrock of Bristol’s recovery plan as it emerges from lockdown into a post-Covid world, hopefully building a stronger sense of shared purpose and commitment to learning from our past and moving forward in a caring and considered way.
Note
Whilst the opinions expressed in
this article are my own, they are informed by my work with number of colleagues,
including Anita Gulati, Dr. Addy Adelaine, Professor Carol Jarvis and Stella
Warren, whose own ideas have greatly influenced my awareness and understanding
of leadership and inclusion. My reflections on the leadership of Marvin Rees
and Andy Bennett are informed not only by media reports but also through engaging
directly with each of them on citywide initiatives, including the Bristol One
City Approach, Bristol Leadership Challenge and Bristol Golden Key.
From 13-15 December 2019 Bristol Leadership and Change Centre hosted the 18th International Studying Leadership Conference, which was attended by around 140 delegates from 13 different countries.
The conference featured three keynote addresses (Prof Peter Case from UWE, Prof Sonia Ospina from the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and Prof Elena Antonacopoulou from the University of Liverpool), a panel discussion at City Hall (chaired by Prof Robin Hambleton with contributions from Mayor Marvin Rees, Kalpna Woolf and Andy Street), five parallel streams (including almost 90 separate papers) and a gala dinner at the Marriott Royal Hotel on College Green.
Participants have been invited to submit their papers for a special issue of the journal Leadership on the conference theme of ‘Putting leadership in its place’, which will be edited by Neil Sutherland, Gareth Edwards, Doris Schedlitzki and Richard Bolden.
We are delighted to announce that we will be hosting a Research Symposium event on Thursday 6 June 2019. This afternoon research event will take place before our evening Professorial Lecture with Steve Kempster.
Thursday 6 June 2019, 14:00-17:00 Bristol Business School, UWE Bristol
In the face of environmental, social,
political and economic change organisations are coming under increasing
pressure to demonstrate responsible and inclusive leadership that makes a
lasting, positive impact to the lives of the communities they engage with.
Whilst such principles are now well accepted in both policy and practice the
continuing prevalence of discrimination, inequality and unethical practice,
combined with a loss of trust and a growing sense of disengagement and
disillusionment across significant parts of the population, suggest that
implementing such an approach is not so straightforward.
This event, organised by Bristol Leadership and Change Centre in collaboration with the Centre for Responsible Management at the University of Winchester, opens
up a space for discussion and reflection around the paradoxes and possibilities
of responsible and inclusive leadership, drawing on the latest theory and
research in this field. The event is designed for academics, students,
consultants and practitioners interested in and/or responsible for the
management of people and organisations. It may be particularly beneficial for
those working with or towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and/or with
the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME), as well as those
with a responsibility for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) and mobilising
culture change.
This event
will be hosted at Bristol Business School, UWE, Bristol and will be followed by
a Distinguished Professorial Lecture by Professor Steve Kempster. Both events are free to attend
although registration is required in order to reserve a place.
Session 1
The Responsible Management and Leadership Paradox: An interactive
workshop
Dr Simon M Smith Department of Responsible Management and Leadership, University of Winchester
This interactive session is designed
to explore and discuss the day-to-day realities faced with delivering
responsible management and leadership. This will be presented as a number of
paradoxical situations that we address within the world of business and will
lead into a rich and diverse set of discussions around responsible management
and leadership.
There will be a short introduction to
outline the conceptual paradox theory of ‘Organizational Ambidexterity’ applied
to the responsible management and leadership context. No experience with this academic
construct is needed. A number of situations are then provided to all
participants to instigate a discussion of how these situations are dealt with
on the frontline. As well as increasing our understanding of these paradoxical
realities, it is hoped that we will inspire how to tackle such situations
through shared practice.
Session 2
Learning from Lived
Experience: Opportunities and Challenges for mobilising lasting change on
leadership and inclusion in the NHS
Recent years have seen increasing emphasis on
the need for collective, compassionate and inclusive leadership in UK public
services. The National Health Service (NHS) constitution in particular places a
legal and moral requirement to address inequality in all that it does. Despite an espoused commitment to equality,
diversity and inclusion, however, and a series of associated policy and
practice initiatives, inequality gaps continue to increase, compounded by
successive neo-liberal policy agendas that have contributed to a growing
financial deficit, constant political and systemic interventions, increasing
fragmentation and conflicting accountabilities.
A recent initiative from the NHS Leadership
Academy – Building Leadership for Inclusion – intervenes at both an individual
and systems level. Engaging meaningfully with ‘lived experience’, it aims to
foster inclusive leadership and hasten the speed of change, a commitment
reiterated in the NHS Long-Term Plan
to “do more to develop
and embed cultures of compassion, inclusion, and collaboration across the NHS” (NHS England, 2019: 89). Whilst a more
abstract concept than ‘equality’ and ‘diversity’, ‘inclusion’, with its
emphasis on perceptions and experience (rather than objectively measurable
criteria) highlights the cultural-cognitive
dimensions of change. In so doing, we suggest, it offers the potential to
address systemic causes, rather than surface-level symptoms, and to support the
complex, messy, emotional and politicised work of mobilising large-scale
culture change.
In this session, we will share findings from
our action research and evaluation on this initiative, including enablers and
barriers to change. We will also invite
participants to reflect on their own lived experience of inclusive and
non-inclusive leadership and the challenges of mobilising lasting change on
this agenda.null
How to attend
If you would like to attend this research symposium please register your details online: Click here to register
If you would also like to attend the evening Professorial address with Steve Kempster (please see below for details) you will need to register separately for this event.
Professorial Lecture Series: Professor Steve Kempster
The talk will focus on Steve’s new book (with Thomas Maak and
Ken Parry) out in February 2019 that explores the role of leadership in making
manifest societal purpose to everyday business activity – how business value
and social impact can be aligned and realised. Too little attention in
leadership is focused on the responsibilities and activities of those who lead.
Steve will seek to answer the question ‘leadership for what?’ He will outline an answer through focusing on responsible leadership of purpose through an interdisciplinary perspective. Responsible leadership moves the axis of leadership from leader – followers to leader – stakeholders; away from looking at leadership as person-centric – the qualities, abilities, and effectiveness of the leader – to a focus on the purposes, responsibilities, and activities of leadership. For further details and to register please visit our event page.
Bristol Leadership and Change Centre is delighted to be hosting the 18th International Studying Leadership Conference in 2019 at Bristol Business School, UWE Bristol.
In contemporary tumultuous societal landscapes, some commentators claim that answers for problems are located in heroic individuals, whereas others take a more holistic approach and call for an understanding of context, culture and place in leadership practice. Only through understanding the relationship between leadership and the environment, they argue, will we be able to develop more effective and sustainable forms in the future; forms that are responsive, flexible and sensitive to change. We will define the concept of place in due course, but before note that researchers and scholars interested in studying place and leadership share some common similarities.
Most significantly, they challenge the notion that leadership is the sole responsibility of one individual who acts as if in a context-free vacuum. That is, mainstream approaches to leadership tend to valorise the quest for locating a ‘magic recipe’ of leadership attributes that can be farmed out to any individual to allow them to become effective in any situation. Very little attention is paid to other factors outside of the individual that may impact on success, largely because the ideal-type leader is seen to be so omniscient and omnipresent that place is deemed irrelevant. Despite the continued popularity of this simplistic approach (as evidenced in contemporary airport texts and ‘how-to’ guides), scholars from a diverse range of backgrounds take issue with the a-contextual nature, claiming it to be overly prescriptive (Graeff, 1983), to represent a North American bias (House, 1995) and to fail in capturing the nuanced and fundamentally idiosyncratic character of day-to-day leadership practice (Sutherland et al, 2014). They fail to ask questions such as: Why does leadership style vary from place-to-place? Why do certain leaders work well in some contexts and not in others? Why has the magic recipe of leadership not yet been found, in almost 100 years of formal leadership research?
We propose that focussing efforts primarily on individual leaders is problematic and reductionist. Instead, concentrating on the relationship between leadership and place can offer a deeper and more representative account of how leadership activity occurs. In some cases this may involve investigating how place influences leadership (e.g. how leaders have to conform to particular societal codes) and in others it may note how leadership influences place (e.g. the part that leaders play in shaping organisations and subordinates). Whilst we are reluctant to concretely define what we consider the concept of ‘place’ to encompass, there are some broad strokes we can draw at this stage, and would encourage those interested to submit work centered around the following questions: What is place? What aspects of it are important to consider for leadership practice?
What is place? What aspects of it are important to consider for leadership practice?
Geographical place. Scholars interested in ‘Worldly Leadership’ have long spoken about the importance of considering national culture and context on leadership practice, noting that for too long leadership studies has assumed a predominantly Western slant. Rather, geographical place bears influence over possibilities and constraints for doing leadership, and gives rise to a variety of different forms.
Societal values & beliefs. Leading on from the former point, within issues of geographical location come the associated values, beliefs and ethical assumptions. Indeed, if we view these as inherently socially constructed, it seems clear that there can be no overarching way of defining what ‘good’ leadership is constituted by. Rather, we must develop approaches that acknowledge the importance of local constructs.
Organisational culture and space. Moving beyond the macro level, consideration must also be paid to the organisational environments in which leadership happens. In what ways do leaders influence culture? In what ways are they influenced by existing cultures? What influence does the layout of space have on the day-to-day experience of doing leadership?
Structure, power & politics. The imagined structure of organisations and enmeshed power relations also constitute a part of place. Attention must therefore be paid to existing social relationships, roles and responsibilities, hierarchical assumptions and reporting relationships. Indeed, all of these aspects influence how effective certain styles of leadership may be. Do more autocratic styles of leadership work better in highly centralised organisations, compared with more fluid approaches in flatter groups? Does the structure of an organisation change with different forms of leadership, or vice versa?
Historical developments. Leadership styles, types and leader-follower relationships are also determined by history. Human beings cannot separate themselves from the ‘baggage’ of experience, and from this perspective we might note that deeply enmeshed relationships have positive or adverse effects on future leadership possibilities. Here then, we may focus on issues of time, not just considering what we wish future leadership to look like, but how we may learn from present and past practices.
How might we go about researching place and leadership practice?
With this in mind, attention must also be paid to the methodologies employed for investigating leadership. Indeed, if we are to welcome the notion of place, then we must (re-) consider how leadership is studied. To date the most common method continues to the questionnaire and survey (Bryman, 2005), and whilst interviews are increasingly in popularity we argue that further steps can be taken to understand the complexity of the task, including but not limited to: Ethnography; Collaborative inquiry / action research; Historiography; Narrative inquiry; Sensory methods. Headway is being made with this recently, with Sutherland (2016) arguing for deep participant observation as a way of understanding organisational discourses and leadership work, and Shortt (2014) promoting creative and visual methods to capture the day-to-day experiences of organisational actors. Whilst these approaches vary considerably in philosophy, style and outcome, all allow for a deeper appreciation of the interrelationship between myriad concepts of place and leadership. This stands in stark contrast with a more traditional approach of simply examining one piece of the puzzle: an individual leader and their personality.
What are the benefits of including place on the leadership research agenda?
In addition to reflecting on the place of place in leadership research, and the ways in which it may be studied, we also encourage thoughts on the various opportunities and potentialities that a place-based approach to leadership can bring. For example:
That it allows us to move away from the wild goose chase of mainstream approaches, and rather than seeking to find a ‘one best way’ of doing leadership that works in any situation, understand the leadership is an inherently context dependent act that requires a deep knowledge of individual situations.
This may in turn lend to a greater appreciation for ‘alternative’ styles of leadership. Indeed, in casting our gaze beyond the conventional singular heroic individual, we may observe that this dominant narrative may become challenged by currently marginalised alternatives. That is, more distributed or hybrid configurations of leadership may receive more attention and gain traction as actionable and practical alternatives to the ideal-type individual leader.
A place-based approach can also promote a general appreciation of continual reflection and organisational learning. In situating place as central on the research agenda, we acknowledge that flux is inevitable and situations are in constant transformation. Therefore, a significant part of leadership effectiveness is being able to keep up and respond positively to change. Through accepting reflection and being open to learning, leadership may become a more socially sustainable act.
Finally, this place-based approach could be central in fostering connections between communities. Rather than seeing organisations as separate from their environment, Hambleton remarks that this perspective can allow leadership to “play a significant role In advancing social justice, promoting care for the environment and bolstering community empowerment” (2015).
Keynote Speakers
Professor Sonia
Ospina, Professor of Public Management and Policy at the NYU Wagner Graduate School
of Public Service, USA
Professor
Elena Antonacopoulou,
Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the University of Liverpool Management
School, UK
Professor Peter Case,
Professor of Organisation Studies, Bristol Business School, UWE, UK and Professor
of Management and Organisation Studies, James Cook University, Australia
Other highlights
There
will be a conference dinner in central Bristol on the night of 16th
December to which all delegates are invited.
Following
the conference delegates will be invited to submit their work for a special
issue of the international peer-reviewed journal Leadership on the conference theme of ‘Putting leadership in its place’.
Additional activities and opportunities will be
confirmed nearer the time
Submissions
Whilst we encourage submissions linked to the
conference theme we will also welcome abstracts on any theme linked to research
on leadership and allied fields.
Submissions to the conference should be in the
form of a 750-word (excluding references) abstract and should be forwarded to
the conference organisers from1st June to 1st
September 2019 at blc@uwe.ac.uk. The conference committee will consider
abstracts as and when they are submitted and a decision communicated to authors
soon after submission.
All submissions should include on the cover page:
Title
Name of author(s)
Organisation affiliation/position(s)
Address
E-mail address
Topic Area and Stream
The submissions should be:
A word or PDF file
Written in English
Indicating word count clearly on cover page
Conference fees
Early bird rate (inc. conference dinner) by 30th September 2019 – £295 per person
Standard registration (inc. conference dinner) from 1st October 2019 – £345 per person
Student fee (subject to availability) – £245 per person
Please note: conference fees do not include accommodation which should be arranged separately by conference attendees.
Delegates can book accommodation at the
Holiday Inn Filton for the below reduced rates by quoting the reference “UWF”:
Sunday 15 December – £79.00
Monday 16 December – £99.00
To book this accommodation please contact Holiday Inn Filton on 0117 910 4270 between 8:30am – 5:30pm (Monday – Friday) or email reservations@hibristolfilton.co.uk
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