Leading Questions: Dialogue in organizations: Developing relational leadership

Abstract

Introduction

This article is a summary of my book Dialogue in Organizations Developing Relational Leadership. I describe how and why the book emerged, my search of the current literature, the unresolved problems I found and the consequent approach I took to conveying the complex, rich and ‘colourful’ relationship between leaders and followers. I propose a theory of leader–follower encounter that celebrates the ‘between space’ in leadership relations (Bradbury and Lichtenstein, 2000). The book is a passionate plea to regain our capacity to genuinely relate to one another as Thou rather than It (Buber, 1958) in our organisations.

To set the context, the focus of my work for the last 10 years has been in leadership development; working alongside ‘leaders’ who wish to engage, motivate, direct, inspire, empower, delegate to and generally get more out of their ‘followers’. The predominant assumption in this field is that the leader–follower relationship is crucial and should be enhanced and perhaps exploited. This quest typically involves discussion relating to what the leader has to do or how they have to be, in order to change their ‘follower’. Readers will recognise this approach stemming from a post-positivist ontology which examines the leader, the follower and the relationship as ‘things’ which can be measured and which fortunately possess certain cause and effect characteristics predicated on the leader having significant agency.

The limitations of this approach have been well documented by social constructionists who point to the complexity of the relational process through which we come to diverse understandings of leadership. However it was not just the simplification of the leadership relation that unsettled me; rather it was the abstraction which I perceived reduced that relation to an exercise in transaction. What if our compulsion towards fragmentation, control and transaction lead us to be that way with one another? What if our models, frameworks and encouragement to ‘apply these back in the workplace’ entrance leaders into seeing their relationships as trial experiments through which they test ‘inputs’ with the aim of getting more efficient productive ‘output’? If we were to see our relations in this way would it not be alienating, boring, under-whelming, dehumanising? Would we not be ‘hammering’ ‘vibrant bright orange’ leadership into ‘a shapeless, hapless, colorless, life-less condition’ (Hansen et al., 2007: 545), thereby reducing our capacity to understand the theory and practice of ‘effective’ leadership?

In my search for a more ‘bright orange’ depiction of leadership, I hopefully turned to relational leadership theory (RLT) (Uhl-Bien, 2006) for inspiration. I found the differentiation of entity and constructionist-based theory helpful and was naturally drawn towards the latter which seemed more comfortable with the ambiguity and the phenomenon of leadership relation that I was interested in. But still some ‘colour’ was missing.

Journeying through constructionist relational leadership theory; the search for ‘colour’

Exploration of the literature on constructionist RLT led me to spot three main focus areas within it: constructs, processes and practices. Firstly, scholars have focused on the various constructs of ‘leader’, ‘follower’ and ‘leadership’. Their framing question is ‘what does leadership mean and who do we regard as leaders?’ This question then leads to a discussion on the implications that different constructs have on issues such as what and who is rewarded in organisations and who is seen to be more or less powerful (e.g. Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2012).

Secondly, researchers have focused on the processes through which such constructs are developed and enacted (e.g. Barge, 2012). Their framing question is ‘how do we come to these understandings of leadership and how are they maintained or altered?’ The predominant focus in RLT has been on linguistic processes. However, elsewhere, a group of authors (none of whom surprisingly are included within Uhl-Bien and Ospina’s 2012 edited book on RLT) have turned their attention more towards non-linguistic processes of relating, exploring affect and embodied sensing (e.g. Bathurst and Ladkin, 2012).

The third area of focus that I perceive in the RLT literature is that of relational leadership practices. Scholars have asked ‘what should leaders do if they understand their relationality?’ They emphasise practices which complement an understanding of leader–follower relation as emergent and plural, for example practices dealing with unexpected problems (Bathurst and Ladkin, 2012), practices which attend to the invisible, visceral sense of relation (Ladkin, 2013) and improvisational practices (Küpers, 2013).

Overall, the popular conceptualisation in constructionist RLT is on how, linguistically, leadership is constructed and the consequent implications relating to power and politics. Perhaps preferred research methods have led to this focus of attention, or perhaps it is the other way round; the nature of the questions has led to certain methods being employed. Ironically, RLT as a whole has favoured exploring leader–follower relations through asking those in positional roles (assumed to be leaders), in interviews (where the researcher is assumed separate and objective), what their opinion on their relationships (without the ‘follower’ present) is in hindsight (rather than in the moment) (see Fairhurst and Connaughton, 2014 for a similar critique). Is it in any way surprising therefore that the in-the-moment, dynamic, rich sense of relation in the between space has escaped expansive description?

I did not see scholars focusing in-depth on the questions that consumed me; ‘what is it like to be in relation where leadership is being constructed?’ ‘How do we come to understandings of the quality of our relation?’ Quality of course has been amply examined in RLT through entity perspectives (most notably through LMX theory, see Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995, Sheer, 2015) but, within this, quality is examined un-problematically, often as an ideal destination as opposed to a sense which is dynamic, complex and subjective. Leader–follower relations are placed on a spectrum from good to bad but can they be categorised so neatly and comprehensively?

Taking inspiration from Bradbury and Lichtenstein’s (2000) call for furthering research in the relational ‘space-between’ in organisations, I was drawn to exploring the ‘between space’ of leader–follower relation which I noted had been described as dialogic (Cunliffe and Eriksen, 2011) in constructionist RLT. Both the phrases ‘space between’ and ‘dialogic’ led me to Martin Buber’s work on I and Thou. Buber is credited with popularising both terms so I felt sure his work would have filtered into RLT. However, I was surprised to see that it had only been used sparingly within the leadership literature field (see Ashman and Lawler, 2008 for a notable exception) and was virtually non-existent in RLT. Despite Bradbury and Lichtenstein’s work being quoted in most chapters of Uhl-Bien and Ospina’s authoritative text Advancing Relational Leadership Research (2012), Buber, who had provided Bradbury and Lichtenstein’s founding inspiration, was not mentioned even once.

I wondered whether Buber’s work might serve as a lens through which we could celebrate the experience of intersubjectivity with greater colour. Specifically, I wondered how Buber’s concept of I–Thou dialogue might inform the theory and practice of Relational Leadership. However, if I also embarked on interviews or ethnographic study methods I surmised that I was unlikely to depict the between space any differently to how it had been represented thus far. A different approach was called for which might ‘keep research into dialogue itself dialogic’ (Cissna and Anderson, 2004: 203).

A different approach

In seeking to conceptualise the between space, I wanted to move away from the focus on interviews with positional leaders, exploring in hindsight their singular perspective on relating. I took my cue from a number of authors. Firstly, Kort (2008) advised that ‘leadership’ should be explored in contexts other than the manager-subordinate dyad. Secondly, Ladkin (2013) called for an exploration of relational leadership which might access more of the non-linguistic processes in the between space in the moment. Thirdly, Fairhurst in Fairhurst and Antonakis (2012) requested the generation of more ‘naturally-occurring and dynamic open-ended data’ (p. 453) in RLT. Fourthly, there were calls to research relationality from the inside rather than external to relation (Barge, 2012). Finally, as stated above, I wished to respond to Cissna and Anderson (2004) by attempting an approach which might be congruent with the subject matter; in other words an approach inspired by a dialogic orientation.

Consistent with the above and with my commitment to generate practical as well as propositional knowledge (Heron, 1996), I embarked upon action research; first-person (Marshall, 2004) and co-operative inquiry methods (Heron, 1996). Action research is characterised by mutuality, researching with and alongside others, rather than on them, in a dialogic manner, with the aim of improving practice (Reason and Bradbury, 2008). The co-operative inquiry, comprising eight individuals from different organisations, ostensibly peers, allowed us to explore leadership and dialogue in non-hierarchical contexts, in the moment of relation (see Reitz, 2015 for more detail). I intended to use ‘full form’ inquiry (see Heron, 1996) where I would be a full research subject as well as researcher alongside the others in the group. Unusually, we were also intending on cycling through action and inquiry within the meeting, exploring dialogue between us ‘in here’ in the moment as opposed to focusing on our stories of our leading and dialogue ‘out there’.

Through our work with each other and our analysis of our meeting transcripts, I developed four key themes. Firstly, ‘presence’ refers to the impact our busyness has on the way we assess the ‘worthwhileness’ of our interaction, leading to an inability to ‘turn’ (Buber, 1958) towards the other. Secondly, ‘rules of the game’ refers to our capacity to ‘be’ rather than to ‘seem’ in Buber’s (1965) language in the face of dynamically constructed norms which can feel perilous to contravene. Thirdly, ‘mutuality’ refers to the implications of how we construct power inside the between space, often as a consequence of the ‘labels’ we place on each other (such as ‘CEO’, ‘woman’, ‘young’). Finally, ‘complexity and simplicity’ refers to the cacophony of dynamic micro-processes emerging and conflicting in the between space paradoxically co-existing with the simple possibility of meeting the other, fleetingly, as Thou.

I wrote a conference paper (Reitz, 2012) on these themes and circulated them to my co-operative inquiry group. A member of that group, Richard, responded:

… All of what you are saying here makes ‘sense' – but does it capture the ebbs and flows of our dialogue, in particular the intimacy of it? … . Something about capturing the experiential quality of this … This isn't a criticism – just a yearning for something of the rich, deep, dark red reality of real contact and emotional depth that we have (I have) experienced at times – like the meeting just before Christmas, when I have a recollection of real intimacy and connection that built and built ….

Richard had tuned into a simmering disappointment I was carrying with my work so far. Despite a different methodological approach, I had still, using a grounded theory approach, ended up with an interesting but somewhat lifeless depiction of our experience. My conundrum was well explained by Tsoukas (1994) who, describing the epistemological approach of contextualism, differentiated between ‘quality’ which ‘is the intuited wholeness of an event’ and ‘texture’ which ‘is the details and relations making up the quality’ (p. 767). He remarks that ‘when we intuit the whole, we suppress its details (i.e. its texture), and when we analyse a pattern we tend to underplay its wholeness (its quality)’ (p. 767). My search for ‘texture’ through thematic analysis could not help but suppress the quality which I was seeking to foreground.

I set about conveying our experiences in a more presentational manner through using images and stories of key moments in the group (see Reitz, 2015). This began to bring out what it was like to be in moments of dialogue within leadership relations and it in turn led me to formulate the beginnings of what I refer to as a theory of leader–follower encounter.

Towards a theory of leader–follower encounter

In the translation of Buber’s I and Thou by Kaufmann (1970), Buber is quoted as saying ‘all actual life is encounter’. By ‘encounter’ Buber means ‘the event that actually takes place when one steps into a mutual relationship and reciprocally meets Thou in the present moment, whole person to whole person’ (Kramer, 2003: 43). My use of ‘encounter’ rather than ‘relational’ is intended to encompass more than the ‘to-ing’ and ‘fro-ing’ linguistic tennis match between individuals. It is intended to orientate study in RLT also towards the moment of meeting where those in relation are changed energetically; the unique, contextually dependent, fleeting phenomenon of dialogue, thereby developing a more holistic rich picture of the leadership dynamic and its potential.

My research attends to four areas which I propose could offer a trajectory for interested RLT researchers to develop further, developing a theory of leader–follower encounter focused on what it is like to be within leadership relations and our dynamic constructed sense of quality within those encounters.

Firstly, I attempt to illuminate the complexity of the moment of leader–follower encounter showing the dynamic, multi-faceted space between. To fragment and simplify the between space, for example by using a limited conceptualisation of dialogue (as linguistics alone), achieves a deep exploration of specific processes; however, it is also important to convey how a multitude of processes are interdependent, intertwined and embedded. If the latter is not done, then our understanding of the leadership phenomenon is surely simplified and partial. Furthermore, as soon as language is employed to describe the space between, we automatically separate ‘it’ into something which exists discreetly. Our focus of attention is diverted as a result of this fragmentation and the implications of inhabiting an un-separated field are discounted. A theory of leader–follower encounter would therefore search for further ways in which we might convey the richness of our encounters both through language and other presentational forms of expression. It might then seek to deepen our understanding about how these encounters affect our decision-making, our sense of fulfilment in work and our ability to provide creative solutions to the dramatic issues that we face as a society in the 21st century.

Secondly, such a theory might seek to explore, as I begin to, how the way we construct leadership and followership infuses our sense of quality in our encounters and vice versa (in this regard I respond to Ashman and Lawler’s 2008 question regarding the possibility of I–Thou relation between leader and follower). If we persist in understanding leadership as positional, hierarchical, superior then that holds certain implications for the possibility of dialogue and the sense we have of the quality of our relating. Alternatively, if we understand leadership in a more expansive manner, such as ‘changing the character of conversations’ (one of many suggestions made by the co-operative inquiry group), that could hold very different consequences for the quality of our encounters.

Thirdly, and linked to the point above, developing our understanding of the quality of the between space might serve to explore business ethics at a time when corporate scandals and the consequences of silence in organisations is increasingly worrying. Writers such as Hancock (2008) have begun this by providing an exploration into an ethics based on recognition; an ethics which is both intersubjective and embodied. He argues that both utilitarian and deontological perspectives ‘fail to consider the temporal, spatial and embodied nature of such intersubjective encounters’ (p. 1357). I suggest further work is required though in order to understand what might draw us away from being present to such relationality as well as the ‘nature of intersubjective encounters’.

Finally, and ultimately, research in this area might lead us to consider the implications that the quality of our encounters might have on how we come to know what it is to be human. What do we miss out on if our leadership relations are constricted to the transactional, if we ‘mismeet’ each other (Buber, 1958) and if we blind ourselves to the complex beauty (Bateson, 2000) of the space between us? Tony, a member of the co-operative inquiry alludes to this:

Tony: I wonder if you get to a point of dialogue where … you can have discussions about the organisation, but in a very different way to the mechanistic, the budget, the strategy, the action plan, the blah, blah. I come away from some of our meetings sometimes – I chair most of them so a lot of it is down to me, I’m sure – feeling quite empty at the end of it. We’ve got a lot of work done, we’ve all worked hard, but you just feel a bit kind of like ((sighs)) … you know

I recall his sense of weariness, of disappointment when he made this comment and the wistfulness I perceived when he considered the possibility of experiencing his meetings ‘in a different way’.

Conclusion

Through my book, I wish to question whether the ‘spaces’ for dialogue between leader and follower in our organisations are sufficiently expansive to explore creatively the pressing ethical, societal and existential issues our organisations face this century. Dialogue in Organizations: Developing Relational Leadership signals the restricted view of the between-space in leadership relations to date and proposes an additional trajectory towards a theory of leader–follower encounter. It is distinctive in conveying the dynamic sense of quality in leader relations and the importance this may hold in the practice and theory of relational leadership; my aspiration is to connect with and encourage further innovative work in this area. I wish to passionately call for collective inquiry into what it means to be human beings encountering each other genuinely in service of our capacity to flourish. At a time where ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’ must contemplate a paradigmatically different perspective regarding our impact on the finite resources in this world, surely our capacity to realise our intersubjectivity and inherent relationality when encountering one another must be a worthwhile and urgent endeavour.

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