When ‘Good’ Leadership Backfires: Dynamics of the leader/follower relation

Leaders and followers as discrete entities

Most researchers view the leader as the major driver of the leader/follower relation. As Antonakis, Cianciolo and Sternberg (2004) put it, ‘the initiative tends to be with the leader’ (p. 5). An endless number of studies proceeds from the questionable assumption that if the leader acts in the right, good way (transformational, authentic, servant, situational, etc.), then a predictable outcome and a good relation will be accomplished because the followers respond with satisfaction, commitment and effort to (perceived) leader qualities.

Many researchers indicate that it is time to move away from this leader-centric view, seeing the leader as a heroic figure putting imprints on passive followers, just being recipients of influencing acts (Collinson, 2006; Ladkin, 2010; Uhl-Bien & Ospina, 2012). This has led to a strong interest in, and upgrading of the significance of, followers (Uhl-Bien & Carsten, 2017). Despite the increased interest (Bligh, 2011; Uhl-Bien, Riggio, Lowe, & Carsten, 2014), followership is still poorly understood (Gabriel, 1997; Kellerman, 2008, 2013), in particular in a relational context. Realizing the significance of followership, scholars have also studied follower identities, traits and behaviour and introduced follower typologies (Carsten, Uhl-Bien, West, Patera, & McGregor, 2010; Collinson, 2006; Crossman & Crossman, 2011; Kellerman, 2008). The basic assumption is still that leaders act and followers respond, although followers may be active in co-producing leadership outcomes and not only passively deferring to leadership influence (Carsten, Uhl-Bien, & Huang, 2018; Kellerman, 2013). Followers can be significant in granting or not granting (DeRue & Ashford, 2010) or attributing leadership (Meindl, 1995; Pfeffer, 1977). They may also be more or less inclined to resist leadership efforts (Collinson, 2005). In some cases they favour professionalism, autonomy, pro-activity or horizontal relations and thus do not engage that much in followership (Blom & Alvesson, 2014). Followership means ‘a willingness to defer to another in some way’ (Uhl-Bien et al., 2014, p. 83), which may be less common in organizational practice than assumed by leadership researchers.

Leaders and followers as relational entities

More and more researchers see leadership as something where relations are central. Many see leaders and followers as relational entities identifying attributes of individuals as they engage in interpersonal relationships (Uhl-Bien, 2006). Here the emphasis is on perceptions and cognitions by people involved. Studies on leader-member exchange (LMX) represent this type of relational entity approach and suggest that for both leaders and followers, higher-quality relationships in the leader-subordinate dyad lead to positive outcomes, such as better performance, higher job satisfaction or well-being for individuals (see Anand, Hu, Liden, & Vidyarthi, 2011; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995; Thomas & Lankau, 2009; Wang, Law, Hackett, Wang, & Chen, 2005). The focus is on the relationship between the leader and each subordinate irrespective of the group (Markham, Yammarino, Murry, & Palanski, 2010). Hosking (1988), in her criticism, views this approach as expressing a physicalist approach to leadership, privileging the leader person over the leadership process. LMX studies rarely examine the underlying relational and socially constructed aspects of this process. Instead, they typically rely only on (quantified) responses from subordinates, often leading to one-dimensional and static characterizations of relations in terms of high or low LMX. Interestingly, when both leaders and members are asked to assess their relation, they often diverge (Cogliser, Schriesheim, Scandura, & Gardner, 2009; Erdogan & Bauer, 2014).

Relational social constructionist leadership

Researchers adopting relational views of leadership, sometimes being very similar to, or being synonymous with, what is labelled ‘shared’ or ‘practice’ views, have ‘produced a confusing variety of research accounts and conceptualizations’ (Endres & Weibler, 2017 p. 215). The interest is typically in systems or groups encompassing many individuals. We here follow Endres and Weibler who refer to this (set of) approach(es) as relational social constructionist leadership (RSCL).

Views of what a social construction is differ significantly, with some authors leaning to realist assumptions, some to phenomenology and others to poststructuralist understandings (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2017). Most social constructionist types of studies emphasize ongoing processes of the creation of social reality through interpretations and interactions. Rather than studying persons called leaders, the focus is on interaction and relations (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2012; Carroll & Simpson, 2012; Uhl-Bien & Ospina, 2012). Leadership is seen as a practice or social accomplishment (Simpson et al., 2018). Individuals may be emphasized to some degree but many authors see ‘the basic unit of analysis in leadership research as relationships, not individuals’ (Uhl-Bien, 2006, p. 662) and understand leadership as ‘a shared process focusing more on the collective capacity of people to accomplish their work together’ (Raelin, 2011, p. 200). In some versions of social constructionism, individuals are not only downplayed but even disappear as the relation and processes take centre stage and emergent relationalities become the key concern (e.g. Crevani, 2018; Hosking, 2011). Here, the underlying philosophical assumption is the process ontology paying attention to leadership processes ‘in which definitions of social order are negotiated, found acceptable, implemented and re-negotiated’ (Hosking, 1988, p. 147).

The key element here is the relation that takes place within a social unit that is fairly tight and productive, engaged in joint action, creating results in a rather consensual and harmonious way. From this perspective, it makes sense to avoid rigid leader/follower categorizations and instead consider ‘moments of asymmetry in everyone’s experience of organizational life, rather than the totalizing asymmetry of bounded roles’ (Tomkins & Simpson, 2015, p. 1015). There is an interest in what Crevani (2018) formulates as ‘the fluidity in the enactment of organizing’ (p. 87), ‘providing or creating direction in organizing processes’ (p. 88) or seeing ‘leadership processes in which a number of simultaneously existing stories-so-far meet, co-evolve, leave, clash, return and so on’ (p. 89). This means a move of focus from ‘single individuals to what the process of leadership is about’ (p. 90).

Problematizing the social constructionist approaches

We broadly align ourselves with social constructionism but find most approaches partly problematic.

First, a positivity bias dominates in positivist as well as social constructionist and relational work. Cunliffe and Eriksen (2011), for example, move between relationality as a philosophical position and as empirically positive types of relations. Drath et al. (2008) claim that ‘leadership theory would seek to explain how people who share work in collectives produce direction, alignment, and commitment’ (p. 636). Similarly, Hosking (2011) suggests that leadership is ‘a relational practice, on-going in and supportive of dialogues, emergent processes, relational responsiveness, multiplicity and appreciation’ (p. 462). Frequent expressions are ‘common understanding’, ‘shared’, ‘intersect’, ‘dialogue’ and ‘relational responsiveness’, indicating a convergent, aligned view of leadership relations, although ‘possible contestation’ is also mentioned but much more rarely (Fairhurst & Connaughton, 2014, p. 10). Negative or mixed outcomes are most often not on the agenda.

Second, there is limited attention to leadership and followership as distinct aspects, roles or phenomena. When leadership is considered a relational process, the line between a leader and a follower is blurred and there are strong interactional qualities. We agree that ‘individuals do not only enter into relationships, but are also brought into being by those relationships’ (Drath et al., 2008, p. 641). However, a relational view does not necessarily mean that leadership/followership as distinct elements and positions disappear or become insignificant. Moreover, consideration of followers tends to be absent, i.e. there is no reference to ‘shared followership’ or the ‘followership process’. People that ‘lead together’ may need to ‘follow together’ as well. Understandings, identities (self-views) or roles (expected positions to take) as leader or follower are still relevant. Taking different key elements seriously is not the same as working with dualisms or strict boundaries between separate, entity-like actors.

Third, some real-life construction processes are not entirely shared – there may be significant variation and fragmentation in how individuals construct and re-construct elements in social dynamics, and sometimes these may be idiosyncratic or ‘a-social’. People engage in work in unequal and different ways. Construction processes may therefore not always be shared or communal. While still being ‘social’ in the sense of being related to a social, cultural world offering meaning, there may be individual, personal meanings and understandings associated with fantasies, attributions, identity work and so on that are not communicated or become ‘socially accessible’ in the form of explicit disagreement. When people interact in a social context, their reality creation may involve variation, conflict and fragmentation, creating disrupted rather than fully shared social realities. While recognized within the social constructionist approaches, the extent to which the understanding of collective processes and accomplishments is shared among the members of the workgroup is rarely addressed. Power issues, asymmetries and dysfunctional dynamics are then overlooked (Endres & Weibler, 2017).

Fourth, looking at the processual and social constructionist studies on relational leadership, it often becomes difficult to see the process of leadership as different from group dynamics. In studies adopting relational social constructionist approaches, ‘leadership’ tends to become indistinct and disappears into social dynamics and assumed sharedness. Key elements – such as individuals somehow being there taking or granting roles in an asymmetrical relationship – are absent or downplayed. However, the very point of talking about leadership implies followership (Alvesson, Blom, & Sveningsson, 2017; Ford & Harding, 2018). Reading Crevani (2018), Hosking (2011), Raelin (2011) and others advocating a radical process or relational view makes one wonder why they refer to leadership and not to group work or social collaboration. Surely there are good reasons to be interested in the social production of direction, collaboration, shared purpose and so on without using the signifier leadership. As Alvesson et al. (2017) point out, there are both horizontal and vertical organizing processes and the very point of talking about leadership is that there is a clear element of hierarchy or asymmetry in the relationship, not only a temporal asymmetry of experiences. Ford and Harding (2018), Shamir (2012) and Uhl-Bien et al. (2014) all underscore that leadership cannot be fully shared: ‘if it is fully shared, I suggest we don’t call it leadership because the term loses any added value’ (Shamir, 2012, p. 487). As Ford and Harding (2018) point out, the rather all-embracing view of leadership as almost any collaborative mode of working can be seen as an attempt of colonialization, in that all everyday harmonious working relationships are labelled ‘leadership’ (Ford & Harding, 2018, p. 14), expressing ‘a unitarist dream of organizations where everyone works towards a shared outcome’ (p. 20).

The concept of the leader/follower relation

The leader/follower relation (LFR) concept we introduce in this study responds to the four criticisms of relational social constructionist leadership (RCSL) thinking we mentioned earlier and offers a theoretical alternative to LMX (see Table 1). LFR views leader- and followership as an ongoing, group-based social construction where people relate to each other in a dynamic way and create interactions, including a significant element of asymmetrical influence. The LFR is dynamic in nature and may shift in character and diversities of meanings that sometimes are salient and sometimes disappear in ongoing interactions. But if the leader/followership is not a recurring theme in the relationship, we see no point in using the LFR concept or talking about leadership. Unlike most previous constructionist studies, some of which include a functionalist understanding of leadership being defined by a positive outcome (e.g., Drath et al., 2008; Raelin, 2011), LFR does not assume only or mainly positive outcomes. The understandings team members have of the leader/follower relation may not be shared and these may fluctuate over time. Sometimes the leader (i.e. the person recognized as leader) may be salient as such, but active group members or a self effacing leader may turn the leader into an ‘ordinary’ group member, thus ending or ‘parking’ the LFR for a more egalitarian relationship and a shared process. Efforts to provide direction may lead to confusion. Arguably, most relations include consensual, conflictual, frictional, diverse and ambiguous elements, as well as stable and shifting qualities (Alvesson, 2019).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Positioning of the LFR concept.

Key element/Theory	LMX	RSCL	LFR
Central question asked	What are the effects of a good/bad relation between a leader and a follower?	How is leadership constructed in a shared social process? How does leadership unfold in organizing processes?	How does leadership emerge as the result of mutual influencing between the leader and follower(s) in their roles within a specific relational context?
Conception of relations	Perceived quality of the leader/follower relation	Collective movements and shifting trajectories in the dialogical processes of interacting and relating	Asymmetrical relations within a context where positions are co-constructed in terms of a leader and follower(s)
(Typical) empirical focus	Responses to standardized scales	Study of communication, practices and interaction	Study of shared and diverse meanings
Unit of analysis	Perceptions/attitudes of leader and member(s)	A group in process/‘system’ level	People involved in a leader-follower relation
Individual subjects	Distinct entities with given roles	Radically decentred subjects being part of a group process	Moderately decentred, relationally defined subjects
Nature of the relation	Stable	Fluctuating, strongly processual	Partly processual, partly stabilized through e.g. institutional or seniority-based framings of roles

LFR builds on a social constructionist understanding, but although people co-construct relations they may also partly create their worlds in relative isolation, occasionally becoming surprised by the emergence of unexpected viewpoints and reactions of others seeing organizational life differently. In this sense, there are also asocial constructions, emerging from fantasies, attributions, individual sense-making and identity work, not necessarily being expressed socially. While fluctuating relations and how they evolve may be challenging to study in the field, we believe it is important to try to dig beneath the surface and gain insights into complex relational aspects. In the context of leadership, social constructions are typically formed in a situation where the leader is in a more senior, high-influencing role and others are assigned to, or construct themselves, in more junior, follower positions. People construct themselves and are constructed by others as different in terms of responsibility, respect and expectations/entitlements of exercising and having influence. Relations may be ambiguous, shifting and multi-dimensional, but the asymmetrical nature of the relationship is central.

Many workplace relations or organizing processes may not be best addressed through leadership or followership vocabulary. Despite the current popularity of leadership talk, this concept should not be employed to try to illuminate everything. Often employees do not define themselves as followers or view their managers as leaders (Alvesson et al., 2017; Learmonth & Morrell, 2017). In these cases it does not make much sense to talk about leadership (or followership) at all. We suggest that LFR may be a helpful way of understanding, for instance, team dynamics when one person is given the role of the leader and s/he and others consider this person as such. LFR may also be informal, in emerging relations. Leader and follower positions may be explicit and openly recognized or more implicit, subtle – but still characterized by asymmetry in influencing and inequality in experience.

Analysis of material

In the hermeneutical methodology we broadly follow, the analysis of material is the ‘result of reality construction processes, and subjectively construed by the research team’ (Clarke, Brown, & Hope Hailey, 2009, p. 331). The various indicators need to be understood in the context of the entire material and through a temporally evolving part-whole-part contextualization. In-depth understanding is achieved by a critical and productive confrontation between data and the pre-understandings or life experience of the researcher/interpreter (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2017; Ricoeur 1976, 1981). In our case, the first author’s over ten years’ career as a senior project manager in a large international firm was a source of practical experience, helpful in capturing and interpreting salient phenomena that otherwise might have been difficult to detect. Relations are hard to observe directly, so they need to be uncovered by following cues. The researcher engages initially in guesswork and then in a disciplined, increasingly sophisticated interpretation of the empirical material that s/he accumulates over time. Here, the world of the researcher meets the worlds of the team members, and develops into an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the team and the way members think, feel and relate to each other (Einola & Alvesson, 2019).

As a short illustration of how we used our own pre-understandings and hermeneutic interpretation in this study to uncover relational difficulties originating in leader/follower relations, let us consider one minor, but significant, remark in our data. One participant, Sam, says about the work process that ‘in the end the tasks are combined’. But Nea, the leader, spent much of her time and energy on polishing the work that went way beyond ‘combining’, mainly because the task outputs were, she felt, often of insufficient quality. When Sam says ‘are combined’ it appears as a simple work operation. This reflects a lack of recognition and concern about the leader and is a crucial clue to the understanding of the LFR. In our case, Sam seems to be genuinely unaware that the final phase was tough and stressful and required more than ‘combining’. It is the understanding of the latter – as part of the hermeneutical circle – that made us pay attention to the seemingly trivial statement, that indicated Sam’s accentuated, carefree follower positioning. We also considered other clues and studied all the material in this manner. This way, we also excluded intentional ‘freeriding’, a common problem in teamwork acknowledged by both practitioners and researchers, as an explanation to hidden problems. All team members seemed to genuinely think that they were doing their fair share. In our iterative data analysis, we looked for specific episodes, shared or differing views among members, as well as temporal shifts. From these fluctuating, sometimes converging and sometimes diverging individual narratives, emerges a dynamic understanding of the leader/follower relation.

The case team

The five members of the team, Yoshi, Sam, Gina, Nea and Lana, represented four nationalities and were spread across three sites. The team rarely met and communicated mostly via synchronized and asynchronized online platforms. The team members had chosen Nea, who was at the time a manager in a multinational company, as the leader. Nea, aware of her superior experience, willingly accepted this role. All explicitly constructed her as the leader. She was never questioned or openly challenged during the project. Even in the exit team interview in which the atmosphere was warm and respectful, she was the person who spoke the most and the others did not contradict her. This mutual granting and accepting of leader and follower roles should greatly facilitate an effective leadership process (DeRue & Ashford, 2010), which was only partially true, as we shall see.

For Sam, the teamwork is good enough all along, although towards the end there may be some fatigue and ‘lack of motivation’, (which perhaps best describes his own state as he frequently talks about ‘motivation lagging behind initial ambitions’). He enjoys the pleasant atmosphere and Nea’s relaxed approach to leading the team. When things get tough, the members joke around together and consider that ‘done is better than perfect’ when the quality standards have to be lowered somewhat to meet deadlines. ‘Our team is like a diesel motor. First well planned and organized, but it takes time to see the results. . . In the end, the tasks are combined and we are effective as a team’ (Sam).

For Gina, the members give their best even when time is scarce. She appreciates what she refers to as good atmosphere, respect of others and ‘smooth and constructive communication’ that is ‘open’ and ‘polite’ and such that ‘everyone wants to sacrifice to complete the cases on time and do their best’.

Lana confirms this positive view and describes the team as inclusive, democratic and pleasant. She openly acknowledges Nea’s and Yoshi’s effort for the team and refers to Nea as someone who ‘always knows what to do’.

I feel that my team is the best one. Everybody is involved in teamwork and does what she/he actually can. We come to a conclusion very fast. . . I feel that my team is perfect, because we always have a discussion and divide our tasks. All members try to help others. Especially I appreciate Nea’s and Yoshi’s energy. (Lana)

So far, we get a consistent impression that this is a very well-functioning group, guided by excellent leadership. Climate, discussions, clarity, helpfulness, commitment, knowledgeable and energetic but also relaxed leadership and, when time is scarce, realistic ambitions are key qualities of the ‘perfect team’. The three voices are very consistent. They all construct the team as a productive organization, empathetically and democratically coordinated by the leader who is liked, respected and seen as competent.

But if we consider the views of the two remaining members of the team, the team is far from ideal. During the first two weeks, as indicated in his diary, Yoshi appreciates the good atmosphere: ‘Our good point is that we are not that serious and can do the task with fun. This is a good point for continuous improvement like Kaizen’ (Yoshi). However, by the fourth assignment, he becomes completely frustrated.

To be honest, I don’t want to work with this group again because every time, only Nea and I take the responsibility for the cases. Of course, there are things we should do to improve the team’s condition, but nothing happened even when we had had several plans to improve. (Yoshi)

At the end of the team’s life he thinks that ‘we were not a real team, just individuals’ and describes some of the team experiences as ‘the worst ever’.

Nea says repeatedly that her teammates are ‘really very nice people’, but at the same time she becomes exhausted. She refers to what she considers her teammates’ bad behaviour and poor attitudes, especially when it comes to time management and responsiveness.

I have yet to manage the assignment so that I would not have to spend excessive amounts of time on it during the weekend. . . . I am the team leader in our group and I find it very frustrating. I do not get answers – or even reactions – to my questions I post in Skype. Also, the deadlines I have set or we have mutually agreed on, have yet to be respected. (Nea)

During the execution of the last case, Nea, completely exhausted, finally has an outburst. ‘WHERE IS EVERYBODY?’ she types online. To her surprise, she finds that this works – people shape up and get on with work, so she wonders why she did not do that earlier and questions whether she just needs to be bossier in the future to ‘make it’ in management.

The team is an interesting combination of shared and split meanings, with three very positive and two increasingly or intermittently frustrated members. According to Yoshi as well as Nea, teamwork was a difficult and frustrating experience especially towards the end, with sloppy and loosely coupled members. Meanwhile, the other team members were highly appreciative of Nea’s leadership and their team experience. Two ambiguities arise. One is the shared understanding of the good social climate and productive social interactions combined with deep frustrations from two people. The other is the leader Nea oscillating between ‘they are good people and all is ok’, ‘this is all my fault’ and ‘why are they not more active and so much is left with me’.

Smooth interactions on the outside – erosion of the team on the inside

Social interactions are smooth, or so it seems on the surface. All praise the good atmosphere and the smoothness of idea generation, and a combination of democratic, committed and inclusive decision-making with occasional, well-motived interventions by the elected leader. There are no big egos; people are helpful, understanding and tolerant. Even the variably frustrated Yoshi and Nea openly refer to the good spirit, people having fun and being very nice.

The others for whom everything is fine do not capture the oscillating frustration of Nea and Yoshi, because the two do not clearly communicate that they are dissatisfied. The subtle signs they send – Yoshi pushing everyone to speak in meetings and scheduling work tasks for better discipline, and Nea giving (what she thinks of as) clear instructions and setting expectations – are often missed. So, on the level of the explicit – dialogues and social interactions – there is a consensus that everything is fine, even extraordinary, but then the underlying cognitions and sentiments diverge. When dialogues have been conducted and people are doing their parts of the task, much of the shared team spirit and positivity seems to fade away. We can talk about split followership: polite dialogues and shared experiences of good group spirit, but at the same time there is limited responsiveness and proactive taking of responsibility.

Towards the end, Lana feels ‘the group has become a real team’ in which she would like to work in the future if there were similar projects. ‘Togetherness’ and ‘trust’ are for her what best defines the team. Gina believes that team discussions ‘make you want to think broader or see also the big picture next time’ and with time ‘information becomes clearer and understandable and everybody understands why we are heading towards that way’. Here we see a strong sense of common understandings, inconsistent with other accounts. Sam refers to being sick or away attending other priorities and openly declares he does not know what really happened when he was busy elsewhere.

Thus, there is no awareness of the ‘real team’ not being a reality in the eyes of two members. Gina and Yoshi both use the family metaphor carrying radically different meanings to describe the team.

Our team is like a family with no parents and yet very united. No one condemns a suggestion no matter how valueless it may sound. (Gina)

Our team works like a family. Children can do nothing without orders of a parent. In this team, Nea was the mother and I the father. When parents do not say anything, children don’t take any actions. They are waiting for orders from parents because they acted like passive. When parents were busy, our team did not proceed anymore. (Yoshi)

For Gina, the team family means support and tolerance, for Yoshi it is about immaturity and lack of responsibility by the ‘delinquent’ members. There is a combination of shared and contradictory meanings of team functioning and LFR here. The contradictory meanings of presence and need for parents/no parents and the tight involvement versus passivity and dependence mean a source of confusion and lack of the shared understanding central for direction and productive cooperation.

The positive and supportive interaction is striking and could be seen as a key group resource, probably also at times reducing the frustrations of Nea and Yoshi and making it easier for them to make an extra effort. Pleasant interactions also may make criticism more difficult. But the positivity also provides a false sense of everything being fine, preventing or excusing the less active members to move out of a passive, immature positioning.

‘Shrinking’ of the followers – ‘enlargement’ of the leader

The overall understanding of the ‘followers’ is that they are committed, work hard and keep deadlines – they are good team members. The good results are the ‘objective’ proof. Sam is partly an exception, as he appreciatively relies on the team when he is sick or has other tasks to attend to. For him, everyone tries to be as active as possible – under the circumstances. He appreciates what he perceives as easy decision-making in the team and thinks that contributing with ‘facts’ (isolated parts of work) equals work well done as a whole. ‘We spoke about decisions and we just made our united opinion after everyone had given their facts. It was pretty easy because everyone tried somehow to adapt to our team and take no big roles’ (Sam).

For Nea, the members’ late and sometimes what for her are low-quality deliveries underscore a lack of reliability and trust, while the others feel that they have done their fair share, illustrating that leadership is not only privilege but also sacrifice (Grint, 2010). The fairly passive ‘back-seat’ position of Sam, Lana and Gina who tend to wait for instructions and consider doing their parts is enough, does not necessarily mean that they are intentional free-riders, only that they take a follower (or secondary) role in relation to Nea. The follower role is embraced as limited, narrow and subordinated to the leader in terms of initiative, responsibility, influencing and work activity. There is little thinking about the entire picture. This is best understood in a relational context. In our case, Nea, knowing her seniority vis-a-vis the others, takes a large workload and does much work leading to good results, setting less of an inspiring example than an excuse and reason for others to take a more laid-back position. Yoshi is an exception, as he sees the inequality not only in the social status and influence but also in the workload and contributions. The others do not seem to think so much about this, but are very happy – mostly due to thoughtlessness and the fairly worry-free junior position they take, not sharing or reducing the burden of Nea. They see themselves – with the partial exception of Sam – as active and committed. But they do so from a typical position of followership: with a limited outlook, great trust in the leader to do overall thinking and fix things. The leader takes on an extra burden, becoming additionally in charge, responding to the laid-back position-taking by the followers, who in turn respond with even more reliance on the leader and thus further reinforce passivity.

Differing meanings of leading – and following

There are diverse views about what it means to lead and to follow. The group works in a participative way, but Nea is expected to distribute tasks, make decisions and clarify issues when the team does not move forward. Yet, she does not want to boss people around as ‘they are supposed to know what to do’. Nea and Yoshi think all members should be active and self-guided, which they do not think is the case. Lana, Gina and Sam are not aware that there is anything wrong with their way of being in the team. Sam thinks the team works so well as a collective that it is not so dependent on his efforts.

I feel that our team works because it was fine for everyone that I was sick and couldn’t participate in this case. We spoke that I’ll do a bit more work for the next case and our team succeeded well even without me. I would say that that’s a good ability of our team. (Sam)

Of course, being passive and taking limited responsibility can be seen as trait-like, but may also be understood in a relational context. While Nea and Yoshi in a silent partnership make sure the pitches are patched together and delivered with quality in a timely manner week after week, the others are rather happy with themselves just delivering their parts – a mythical ‘team out there’ and/or the leader takes care of the rest for them. Yet, when Nea is absent, even Sam steps in and makes a more serious effort. The team values open discussions and democracy but assume that Nea should decide when participation is low or decision-making ineffective. This works fine in dialogic organizing processes, but is not followed up by autonomous and proactive team membership in action. Gina and Sam both state acceptingly that ‘our leader had to manifest her powers’ and ‘step in’ so the task would be done on time – but Nea only gradually realizes that some team members need a firmer hand.

Decisions regarding the case, the strategies, etc. are done democratically, but I quite often take decisions about different tasks within the team as a team leader. I noticed that democracy and questions do not really work with those, things are just left ‘hanging’ and undone, if I leave it to that. (Nea)

Perhaps things would have been better if Nea had been more confrontational, but the positive views the team members held of her can be attributed to her non-confrontational style. This helped to form what appeared to be exceptionally good relationships, at least from most group members’ point of view. By the second case, Gina feels the members have built strong relations with each other and that ‘everyone’ wants to do their best. In her view, ‘some are so polite that it makes you want to go the extra mile for them’. It is almost like she is doing a personal favour to Nea. When Nea exercises her authority, the others comply. This may work best when done infrequently – more consistent authoritarian or directive behaviour may backfire. Still, she is seen as knowing best, hard-working, caring, friendly and considerate, being the leader of a ‘perfect team’ (Gina).

A comment on the difficulty of getting the leader/follower relation ‘right’

In our case study, we noted a lack of prompt negative feedback to the team members when it might have been productive. The nurturing of a good social climate was central. Zaleznik (1997) warns against psychopolitics, giving too much weight to feelings and smoothening social relations at the expense of work and results. Many leadership scholars emphasize ‘processes of social construction and emergent practices that reflect common understandings through which leadership gains legitimacy and produces outcomes’ (Ospina & Uhl-Bien, 2012, p. xxii). There is an assumption of ‘a reciprocal relationship’ and something ‘inherently relational’ (Fletcher, 2012, p. 84). Positivity, trust, shared views and good climate are key here, precisely what Sam, Gina and Lana saw as characteristics of their team, while Yoshi and Nea tend to consider them as immature and passive, without realizing that they see each other and the team relations quite differently. The relationality was thus clearly asymmetrical and frictional.

Being clear and direct about the lack of unsatisfactory performances or having realistic ambitions would surely fix the problems, one could perhaps somewhat naively assume. Fletcher (2012) refers to ‘pseudo-relationality’ or ‘relational malpractice’, exemplifying this with ‘protecting incompetence rather than confronting it’ (p. 96). There is also an idea that ‘incompetence’ is an objective fact and that ‘real’ relationality means also confronting. Of course, some people may not construct behaviour as ‘protecting incompetence’, but as being considerate, supportive or caring, and consider ‘confronting’ as authoritarian or unfair. Good climate and relation-building may call for patience and tolerance as well as holding back one’s perhaps uncertain impressions. Incompetence may be a premature judgement as competence may improve over time. A more direct, confrontational Nea is not a self-evident solution if the others think they are doing their best and are happy with merely good task outcomes, not aspiring to be outstanding.

Confrontations could have meant that people might (temporarily) have improved their work behaviour, but the good climate and the members’ initial positive views of Nea could have turned into a negative group dynamic. It may well be so that when it becomes clear that Nea’s outburst or directive acts were motivated and justified, they had the ‘right’ triggering effect as the others felt guilty. Gina acknowledges this aspect.

In business, I guess as a leader one must watch one’s choice of words. Depending on your choice of words, the employees can go the extra mile to get the project done. We all slept very little yesterday because our leader was so stressed that we wouldn’t meet the requirements. I sacrificed my sleep because of her humility and I guess the rest of the members also did the same. (Gina)

This is exactly what an advocate of transformational leadership would predict as a successful leadership outcome. But the effect is partial, hard to accomplish and comes at a high cost. The fact that people being led are different and situations change poses constantly new challenges. This does not make things any easier. In this case, Nea’s extraordinary work efforts and caring, non-confrontational behaviour facilitated group cohesion. Important here are the positive views the team members hold of Nea. It is as if teamwork and outcomes are something only Nea is ultimately responsible for. She is the key figure here – and the others become marginal. Yet, all team members saw themselves as committed. The ‘upgrading’ of Nea as the person in charge meant that the others took an exaggeratedly relaxed position, a dynamic that then contributed to the erosion of the team from within.