Exploring within the ‘black-box’ of leadership to make sense of the performative dynamics of conversation

Abstract

This study emerges from a co-constructed autoethnography by a practitioner and two academic facilitators studying the leadership-as-practice processes within a small-to-medium sized private wealth business. The study set out to explore the performative dynamics of conversation constituted in, and emerging from, socially engaged talk through leadership in the flow of practice, referred to as ‘in-flow-ence’. The study proposes a dynamic metaphor theory that builds on in-flow-ence to capture the complexities of conversation and offer thoughts about ways to reconstitute leadership practice to bring about changes in trajectories of social action.

Keywords

Leadership leadership-as-practice in-flow-ence conversational travel

Introduction

This study is an effort to explore what lies inside the ‘black-box’ of leadership process to understand ‘how’ leadership is co-created, ‘how’ it emerges, and ‘how’ it is actually accomplished (Simpson et al., 2018: 645). The leadership-as-practice (LAP) literature has consolidated the idea that leadership is not something stable, cohesive, and unambiguous (Alvesson and Kärreman, 2016; Raelin, 2016b; Simpson, 2016). It has also posed the challenge to scholars to theorise from the rough ground of ‘practice’ (Alvesson and Jonsson, 2018: 41). ‘Leadership as a set of practices’, has also been differentiated from ‘leadership in the flow of practice’ (Simpson, 2016). Leadership as a set of practices is about inter-action, influencing others, and encompasses a relationality that is dyadic and networked. Leadership in the flow of practice, on the other hand, is processual and performative. It focuses on the ongoing coordinated accomplishment of work, involving temporally unfolding and mutually constituting relationships and trans-actions (Simpson, 2016). As Raelin (2016b: 12) notes: ‘It is in the trans-action mode that we may find leadership-as-practice as a perpetually unfolding dynamic in which it is the action itself that re-orients the flow of practice towards new directions.’

Simpson et al. (2018) highlight the ‘performative dynamics of practice’ in a world that is ontologically continuous in motion. They suggest that we can notice when leadership is appearing in performative talk, by paying attention to directional shifts in the flow of ongoing action as it surfaces and falls away. In this context, the motive force is what Simpson et al. (2018: 647) call ‘in-flow-ence’ to reflect the mutually constituting nature of ‘power-with’, the latter being a concept articulated by Mary Parker Follett (Graham, 1995: 103). They further view in-flow-ence as ‘a movement constituted in, and emergent from socially engaged talk’ (Simpson et al., 2018: 649).

In this study, we take up the challenge to explain in-flow-ence in the context of a leader trying to influence shareholders, based in a remote location, to appoint him as CEO at a time when a difficult financial situation is displacing him from a central power position. Specifically, we seek to explain how leadership can be understood when the dynamic unfolding social practice needs to be reconstituted on an ongoing basis of ‘becoming and unbecoming’ (Tourish, 2014: 92), in order to bring about change in the trajectories of social action, through performative talk. Here we follow Simpson (2016: 168) who says that conversation can be broadly conceived in terms of words and actions that provide the vehicle for the performative becoming of practice. This study asks the question: How does leadership as in-flow-ence emerge and re-emerge from the rough ground of practice?

The rest of this paper is organised as follows: First the research approach, data collection and analysis are explained. Then a broad background context is provided to the findings, followed by a narrative elaboration of the themes generated out of the analysis of the flow of performative talk through time. The study ends with discussion of the findings and conclusions.

Research approach

The methodological challenge that this research created was a need for a dynamic approach that could capture a transitory world that, as Simpson et al. (2018: 657), note ‘is continuously enacting leadership as it engages, and is engaged by actors in the emergent in-flow-ence.’ This study emerged from the interactions between the owner of a private wealth management business (Luciano, Author 2) and academic facilitators (Author 1 and Author 3) who were coaching Luciano through a pedagogy of LAP, while he was writing about and making sense of his leadership practice during his Executive MBA. We felt it was important for the study to follow the unfolding contours of the first-person experience of a particular leader (Luciano) facing a particular dilemma in a particular situation. We wanted the reader to see the exploratory twists and turns Luciano undertook as he was gradually coming to an understanding of a possible line of action (Shotter and Tsoukas, 2014: 379). In designing this study, our intention was to enable it to unfold as a ‘performative’ study as practiced (Ramsey, 2014; Shotter and Tsoukas, 2014). We wanted to put ‘the performative-Luciano on stage’ (Denzin, 2014: 12) and allow the nervous and hesitant to be seen (Denzin, 2014).

We adopted a co-constructed autoethnographic methodological framing, to reveal the complexity of conversation within the ‘black-box’ of leadership in the flow of practice (Kempster and Stewart, 2010). The spirit of the autoethnography takes the form of Luciano consciously exploring and reflecting critically on the self (auto-) as both inquirer and respondent, and coming to know himself better through the process of the writing and the engagement within the social context of his business and the interaction with the academic facilitators (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005; Kempster and Stewart, 2010; Reed-Danahay, 1997; Tierney and Lincoln, 1997). The co-constructed narrative enables the conscious exploration of the connection between narrative and life (Kempster and Stewart, 2010), and reveals the complex processes of leadership practice through a reflexive, episodic self-narrative. Luciano not only recounts and reflects consciously and critically on himself. His writing (-graphy) also enables him to develop a narrative and an emergent temporal sense of himself within the flow of his efforts to lead in his organisation. In autoethnographic research, the process of continually re-appraising and re-interpreting the narrative through theorising is important (Ellis, 2004). The academic facilitators’ coaching helped Luciano to do this.

The iterative and reflexive process of building the story in a co-constructed autoethnography makes data analysis challenging (Kempster and Stewart, 2010). Nonetheless, Luciano’s honest, reflexive narrative account, which is interconnected with his life, provides a coherent and dependable source (Bochner, 2001). Through the process of having his narrative examined in detail by the academic facilitators, Luciano comes to know himself within the process of the research and the rewriting. The narrative ultimately reveals relevant aspects of his leadership in-flow-ence, enabling the reader to vicariously experience his journey (Kempster and Stewart, 2010: 210). For the academic facilitators, the goal of the co-constructed autoethnographic account (Kempster and Stewart, 2010) was to provide an illumination of the complex temporal unfolding of performative social talk in leadership practice. The role of Luciano was to interrogate Author 1 and Author 3 by examining the emergent narrative through two themes: leadership in the flow of ‘practice’ (which has been outlined above), and conversations for action (which is discussed in more detail below).

The academic facilitators’ coaching of Luciano had two complementary elements. First, there was coaching to give Luciano a set of concepts to experience his leadership becoming at a more granular level, to allow him to use lived-experience as a cue to inform his leadership practice and development on an ongoing basis. This form of development is recognised as practice-centred learning (Antonacopoulou, 2014; Holt and Cornelissen, 2014; Raelin, 2016b; Ramsey, 2014; Segal, 2010; Sewchurran and McDonogh, 2015; Zundel, 2012). Antonacopoulou (2014) highlights that this consciously competent experience of being in the midst of such human becoming is what accomplishes the goal of a practice orientation. Our approach followed Ramsey’s (2014) and Sewchurran and Scott’s (2009) suggestions to provide a set of concepts and theories that allow for ‘intentional attending to’ to occur, not as a wilful activity, but as natural attention. We also coached Luciano through the understanding of Heidegger’s concept of ‘being-in-the-world’ (Sewchurran, 2008). Typically, management and leadership scholars have used Heidegger’s ideas to make the case that educating managers has to be much more than giving them concepts and theories to be instrumentally applied in practice (Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2011). We attempted to dispel Luciano’s belief that managers operate in a wave of alertness, rationally choosing what theories to apply, and invoking thinking, reflection and sense-making on demand through acts of will when they detect the need to. We prepared Luciano, instead, to appreciate that actions and decisions mostly emanate from immersed doing, rather than detached seeing and contemplation. Moreover, we hoped that Luciano would get comfortable with being within situations, depending on ongoing adjustments and adaptations rather than having predesigned plans (Zundel, 2012).

The second complementary coaching intervention was to get Luciano to see the performative potential of social talk or conversation (Simpson et al., 2018). Conversations are a common thread that, to a greater or lesser extent, run through leadership (Carroll and Simpson, 2012; Fairhurst and Connaughton, 2014; Tourish, 2014). Alvesson et al. (2017) highlight that leadership conversation provides meaning to others through influence in asymmetric relationships, and for this influence to emerge, systematic and deliberate attention is required. We also attempted to use the ‘conversations for action’ ideas of academic, entrepreneur and politician, Fernando Flores (2013), as a way to sensitise Luciano to the performative potential of conversation. The questions, ‘How do we communicate for getting work done?’ and ‘How do we coordinate human action and instil a culture of commitment in working relationships?’ spurred Flores to develop the idea that we invent reality together in the commitments we make (in language) to one another when we speak (Flores, 2013: xiii). Through research with other academics and practitioners (Spinosa et al., 1999), as well as in his own consulting practice with clients, Flores built up a body of work that laid the foundation for some of the current understanding about action, workflow and commitment management (Flores, 2013: xi).

From Heidegger, Flores drew phenomenological notions that our ‘being-in-the-world’ (which Heidegger called ‘Dasein’) has a fundamental unity and it is impossible to separate a subjective and objective stance. Winograd and Flores (1986: 34–36) highlight Heidegger’s idea that in everyday life we find ourselves ‘thrown’ into situations in which we cannot avoid acting and must flow with the situation as it unfolds. In addition, this ‘thrownness’ means that we cannot predict what effect our actions will have on others. We also cannot step back and reflect on our actions and the actions of others because we do not have a stable representation of the unfolding situation and there is no way of determining afterwards what interpretation, if any, is right or wrong.

For Flores, ‘language is the essence of action’ or more specifically, ‘action is coordination in language’ (2013: 5). Borrowing from Searle, Flores stresses that speech acts create commitment and ‘to be human is to be the kind of being that generates commitments through speaking and listening’ (Winograd and Flores, 1986: 76). In other words, when you speak and listen in a specific type of conversation called a ‘conversation for action’, you make commitments and you invent possibilities (Flores, 2013: 14). Meaning arises in listening to the commitment expressed in the speech acts (Winograd and Flores, 1986: 68).

We sought to explore how these sensitivities, related to the performative dynamics of conversation when knowing is not sustained but is generative with the world, would play out in practice for Luciano.

Data collection and data sources

Hernes (2014) insists that because leadership research is situated, ‘thick descriptions’ are appropriate to richly paint the context and activities. The data for this study comprise 38,000 words of observations and reflections systematically recorded by Luciano on a regular, almost daily basis, over a period of 10 months from 31 January 2017 to 30 November 2017. In addition, a range of artefacts in the form of emails, notices, minutes and letters relevant to the company’s leadership were collected. These provide detail, or triangulate the data, by providing alternative perspectives of what was communicated and what happened. The data include stream-of-consciousness descriptions by Luciano of his experiences, critical incident reports, reflections and observations, as well as drawings. The data also include Luciano’s feelings, concerns and thoughts in response to the numerous conversations and activities that occurred over this period.

We acknowledge, following Weick, that ‘the creation of meaning is an attentional process’ and while action is occurring it cannot be noticed until attention is given to it (1979: 65). We were thus aware that Luciano’s narratives and reflections capture what he has chosen to pay attention to (Alvesson and Einola, 2018; Chia, 2014; Hernes, 2014). Transferability of the findings for wider application would thus need to take cognisance of the context and how one’s own unique situation is likely to lead to very different experiences.

Data analysis

As we set out to analyse the data, we asked ourselves: How do we identify acts and processes of leadership? Simpson et al. (2018) suggest that we can see leadership in shifts in direction during the flow of ongoing action (in-flow-ence). Ramsey (2016) suggests that leadership, being socially constructed, is borne out in conversations. She proposes that ‘conversational-travel’ allows us to see talk as invitational rather than constitutive, and identify moments of change and ‘meaning-making’ in leadership (Ramsey, 2016). This idea resonates with Simpson et al.’s (2018) concept of in-flow-ence. Conversations can reveal implicitly or explicitly the attempts being made at meaning-making (Alvesson et al., 2017) and where ‘difference’ is made (Ramsey, 2016). Conversations, collaborative agency (Raelin, 2016a), and activities or attitudes need to show or instigate change, difference or a new trajectory, and these can be units of analysis. Figure 1 shows how this illustration of ‘conversational travel’ was used to capture the changes in trajectory.

With these units of analysis in mind, we looked through the data for conversations that constitute action (which according to Flores (2013) is coordinated in language), particularly those that contradict or are different from the trajectory. We found it was impossible to disentangle the ‘leadership’ activities from the other practices that enabled the leadership to take place. In other words, the analysis needed to follow a hermeneutic reading, in which there was a circular movement between part and whole (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003). The ‘threads’ (Ingold, 2011) of Luciano’s journey are mostly talking and text, but also include the activities which might or might not relate back to the underlying intention behind the discourses (Alvesson and Kärreman, 2011). Luciano was networked, enmeshed and constructed through his interactions with others, and through his conversations, texts, activities, stream-of-consciousness writing, thoughts, feelings and personal meaning-making.

Initially the data were reviewed, and several critical incidents were identified. We noticed that these critical incidents did not encapsulate the ‘goings-on’ that happened in between the incidents, nor did they recognise the temporal flow of the experience. In ‘re-searching’, time emerged as ‘a main constitutive force’ (Hernes, 2014: 855), playing its own part in the leadership process, an ontology in itself. Time is significant in ‘conversational-travel’. Change may unfold informally and be ‘delayed-in-time’ from when a conversation of meaning-making took place. Carroll and Simpson (2012) identify the need for sufficient time for a topic to travel and for there to be discursive conversations which push forth new meaning. Time played such a role in this study.

A second review was then undertaken, this time at a more granular level, to sweep-in all relevant data in the hope of picking-up broader patterns of activities. Importantly, a creative disposition was adopted at this stage. From the reflections, all the data which included an element of leadership as identified by our units of analysis – namely, conversations for change of meaning or identified difference and interactions likely to foster tension points (Flyvbjerg et al., forthcoming) – were reviewed. As Chia (2014: 449) notes: ‘It is about re-thinking concepts, renewing observations, reliving experiences and re-enacting memories to discover deeper and more lasting insights’. In making sense of the data, we took to heart Schutz’s claim that ‘no lived experience can be exhausted by a single interpretive scheme’ (1967: 85) and drew on a number of different interpretive schemes through the process of analysing and reflecting on the data.

The narrative discussion traces Luciano’s goings-on with his shareholders in his organising endeavours. The unfolding events (excerpts of which are recorded below) highlight both the pattern of relations and events that evolved over time, as well as the ambiguity and uncertainty that it created in Luciano as a leader.

The context

This study is located within a private wealth management business founded by Luciano in 2001, in Johannesburg, South Africa. The study took place during a time when the organisation was facing financial challenges. Table 1 lists the people involved (using first name pseudonyms):

Table 1.

A list of the people involved.

	Location	Position	Responsibilities	Group a part of
Shareholders
Luciano	CT	ResearcherCEOControlling shareholder & founder	Offshore advisor ‘Manager’	Old ‘Board’New Board, DirectorManagement
Gerhard	JHB	DirectorSenior partnerMinority shareholder	Wealth Manager	Old ‘Board’New Board, DirectorManagement
Sebastian	JHB	Junior partner Minority shareholder	Wealth ManagerHead Investment Committee	Old ‘Board’Management
Management and staff
Estelle	JHB	Operations Manager	Client ServicesOperationsAccounting and financial controller	Management
Jan	JHB	Employee	Wealth Manager	Advisor
Non-executive directors and others in network
Rex	JHB	Board member – non-executive director	Staff wellbeing	Old ‘Board’ – FacilitatorNew Board, Director
Sipho	CPT	Board member – non-executive director	Viable Systems Model Advice	New Board, Director
John	CPT	Board non-executive	KPAs	New Board, Director
Jack	CPT	None	Sounding board	Broader Network
Ruff	CPT	None	Sounding board	Broader Network

Gerhard was appointed as the first financial planner in the Johannesburg office in 2008. Soon thereafter, Luciano relocated to Cape Town, South Africa from where he ran the business very much in the democratic leadership style (Raelin, 2016a), which he considers himself most comfortable with. The 1400 km physical distance between these two cities allowed Gerhard to enjoy a large amount of autonomy and responsibility. Sebastian, Jan and Estelle worked with Gerhard in the Johannesburg office. They shared a similar culture (defined as such by their shared Afrikaans mother-tongue). They also shared personal connections – Sebastian had studied with Gerhard, Estelle was a close friend of Gerhard when she was hired, and Jan was a son of one of Gerhard’s clients. (All these appointments were made with Luciano’s consent and agreement.) A professor in psychology, Rex (whom Luciano had a client–therapist relationship with in the earlier years of his business) provided soft-HR support, especially to the mostly younger staff in the Johannesburg office. During the course of the study Rex was appointed chairman and non-executive director. Gerhard and Sebastian were also directors. Luciano, who is the owner of the business, is an Italian-South African and sees himself as less conservative than his Afrikaans-speaking Johannesburg colleagues because he has more capacity to envisage and undertake riskier endeavours, and is more embracing of diverse cultures and alternative perspectives.

Findings

In analysing the data gathered during the 10-month period, seven broad themes emerged, each one of which constituted a period of time, some of which overlapped. Alvesson et al. (2017) provided a useful lens for understanding the type of organising (viz. leadership, management, power, group work, peer influencing and autonomy) which dominated each period. These themes, summarised in Table 2, are listed below and then discussed in more detail thereafter (Figure 1, discussed earlier in the context of ‘conversational travel’ illustrates the moments when there was a directional shift in the flow of action over these periods):

Table 2.

Themes classified according to ways of organising (following Alvesson et al., 2017).

Dominant theme engaged with over the period	Key event(s)	Ways of organising	Insight
Finances Theme I (31 January–8 June)	Company cashflow crunch. Luciano’s personal finances weakened	Managing	Lack of conversations precipitates financial challenges
CEO-ship Theme (24 March–9 April)	Luciano attempts to get formal appointment as CEO and fails	Luciano organising using power and leadership	A struggle for endorsement of asymmetrical relationships and leadership validation
Business Model Theme (9 May–19 July)	Minority shareholders push for an alternative business model	Group organising and autonomy	Following a relational, democratic leadership style, group organising and autonomy was privileged
Company-1st Model Theme (15 May–19 July)	Luciano influences shareholders to consider a more cohesive organisational model	Emergent leadership-as-practice from Luciano	Power implicit and used as boundary of resistance
Finance Model Theme II (19 July–04 August)	Junior shareholders ‘rescue’ the company financially	Emergent leadership amongst junior partners and group organising	Alternate modes of organising emerge out of power and leadership vacuum
Instituting a Board Theme (09 April–18 October)	Luciano engages in dialogue with a broader network	Emergent leadership as practice from Luciano and organising using power	Broad-based dialogue and embodied self-belief
Dethroned Theme (1 October, unresolved)	Luciano feels compelled to move into sub-standard office space	Absence of leadership or the assertion of authority when required.	Luciano’s lack of strong sense of self hindered adequate influencing or the use of power

Finances Theme I

CEO-ship Theme

Business Model Theme

Company-1st Model Theme

Finances Theme II

Instituting a Board Theme

Dethroned Theme

With the setting, participants and themes outlined, the findings could be explored in more detail. The reader should note that the findings are organised according to themes and not in time-consecutive order.

(1) Finances Theme I (31 January–8 June): Lack of conversations for action precipitates financial challenges

Ever since the company was established, Luciano had always personally managed the company’s cashflow, but around the time the study commenced the cashflow began to be managed in collaboration with a newly appointed financial controller (Estelle) based in Johannesburg. In the first month of the study, a shift in the direction of the performative talk occurred when Estelle alerted Luciano to an impending financial crisis. On 31 January 2017, Luciano reflected as follows: ‘The bank balance is going to be hammered tomorrow – no cushion, no money in the company coffers, no money in my personal accounts. No money to take from anywhere.’ (31 January).

Six months passed before the shareholders were notified of the company’s dire financial position by Luciano on 08 June:

I have a skype call with financial controller and seeking to leverage off the tension points we agreed to have a partner call that same afternoon to disclose and discuss the dire financial position of the company. Staff appreciated the honesty of this communication. (Luciano, 08 June)

Given that the financial position was easily observable and quantifiable, Luciano recognised that he had avoided having adequate conversations on the finances and surmised this was due to his own limitations and the broader organisational failure which had allowed the situation to fester. He theorised that the geographical distance (lack of proximity) between himself and the newly appointed financial controller, Estelle, meant that communication and engagement between them was poor.

(2) CEO-ship Theme (24 March–9 April): A struggle for leadership recognition fails

Major decisions were authorised by Luciano, the finances were controlled by him and the company’s identity shaped by his vision. He also continued to hold a key sales position in the company. Since founding the company, Luciano had only held the ‘leadership’ role informally. However, Luciano’s long-held desire to take on a formally recognised leadership role was clarified for himself, subconsciously, in a vivid dream he had on 05 March:

When I awoke, I realised my desire to be appointed as CEO was the same yearning I had had 25 years ago doing my National Service; to be recognised and awarded a position of authority, by virtue of who I am and what I had done. Recognition. This seems to still elude me. I am the offshore expert, founder of the business and director. But I haven’t been allowed the rank of CEO. (Luciano, 05 March)

On 24 March, Luciano used a facilitated strategy workshop to attempt to transcend his sales responsibilities and be appointed to a formally created CEO position. This led to shifts in the flow through inaction and failure to obtain reciprocal commitment to action as part of the performative talk. The workshop had first appeared a success in that the chair of the meeting encouraged the staff to award Luciano an acting CEO position, but the staff had not been adequately persuaded and the position was never ratified by the shareholders.

The senior staff and shareholders were reticent to appoint Luciano formally as CEO. The literature suggests that ‘although people continue to strive to see themselves and be seen by others as leaders, they often fall short of this identity’ (Alvesson and Spicer, 2015: 48) and this was the case for Luciano. Some of the objections that the shareholders raised included the following: ‘The company is too small at the moment for a full-time CEO role.’ ‘It can’t afford it.’ ‘Back to basics.’ ‘We need you back in the trenches.’

At the time, Luciano saw this as a vote of no-confidence in him as the head of the company and viewed it as a stripping of power. In reflecting on the event, Luciano was drawn to the Alvesson et al. (2017) model which suggests that leadership operates through an asymmetric relationship, and leaders must systematically influence meaning-making. This definition of leadership by Alvesson et al. (2017) was interpreted by Luciano as indicating that hierarchy and power are implicit in the leadership process. As the owner, Luciano recognised that there was little evidence he had been successful at systematic influencing. Luciano expressed his frustration with himself:

I seem to get fouled up in other people’s needs, wants and insecurities. I don’t find the conviction and drive. To know that I might be right and that it is worth a shot. Instead I get tripped up in trying to please and accommodate them. (Luciano, 02 April)

As events unravelled, Luciano began to sense his inability to influence or generate power-with. Luciano, who was unaware at this point of the social psychology of organising, perceived he had an ‘inability to lead’ and he notes that: ‘My inability to lead became apparent on 26 of July when in the face of significant financial stress in the business, the minority shareholders decided unilaterally to ‘bail-out’ the company through salary sacrifices.’ (01 October).

He felt powerless to seek alternatives and allowed the shareholders to solve the problem. A week later, on the 05 August, following their normal skype discussion, they requested to speak to Luciano about how they would be rewarded in shares as compensation for their commitment to ‘rescuing’ the company. This issue of shareholding had been on the table for many months and being a complex and delicate issue, with long-term consequences, Luciano had kicked the can down the road. He reflected: ‘I suppose this was their best shot, they had claimed the moral high ground in saving the company and now demanded to be recognised and rewarded.’ (01 October).

Luciano’s personal struggle to feel like a rightful leader (which he also called his ‘unravelling’ after not being made CEO) perhaps explained his internal resistance to influencing his team in the face of alternate perspectives, or to recognise the impact of not engaging in performative talk. These factors, together with the shareholders’ reluctance to endorse a hierarchical CEO position, rendered his leadership ineffective, he believed.

(3) Business Model Theme (9 May–19 July): Attempting to enact ‘power-with’

An alternative business model perspective for the organisation was aired by the junior partners of the company at the shareholders meeting on 9 May. They called it a ‘platform (or advisor) business model’ and they sought Luciano’s support and validation for this idea. This marked the beginning of a lengthy period of competing meaning-making over two alternative business models: The Platform Model and the Company-1st Model. This period continued until the informal Board meeting held on 19 July and was characterised by monthly shareholder meetings with Rex (whom Luciano felt had become more aligned to the Johannesburg team) as the facilitator; and it included formal letters of concern between shareholders, and a formal address to shareholders by Luciano, as well as numerous emails in-between.

Prior to the financial crisis, non-hierarchical ‘peer-to-peer’ interaction was accepted as the norm between the shareholders. Luciano’s leadership practices gave space to other perspectives to be voiced and explored. Of the Board meeting of 06 June Luciano observed:

I was good at listening and withholding judgement. The shareholders were able to express themselves openly I think and freely without feeling threatened. Gerhard was able to express his disappointments of feeling disenfranchised and in the dark and things having worked out differently to how he had expected. Gerhard showed that he was able to share in a personal way. This is valuable in terms of what leadership was trying to achieve. (Luciano, 06 June)

Over this period Luciano encouraged peer-to-peer (Alvesson et al., 2017), relational (Hosking, 2014), and democratic (Raelin, 2014) modes of organising, and this allowed space for alternative perspectives to be expressed. During this period, he reported feeling a lack of any explicit influence: ‘I was unable to hear them and then disagree and go on to impose my way of doing things.’ (Luciano, 05 June).

The extent to which Luciano withdrew from conversations affected the team. Luciano notes: ‘Sebastian said he doesn’t feel good when Gerhard and I aren’t talking to each other. There’s something missing.’ (30 August).

Luciano realised that leadership is subtler, more ephemeral, and therefore harder to recognise than the realm of functional management. He observed that management operates with the rational and anticipated, while leadership deals with the emotional, dialogical and emergent.

(4) Company-1st Model Theme (15 May–19 July): ‘Power-with’ through asymmetric relationship

At the best of times, Luciano appropriated his authority hesitantly. However, by virtue of his majority shareholding and a strengthening personal financial position, he found himself owning it more and more as the months progressed.

In my therapy I discover that I have an uneasy relationship with power. I have it by virtue of not only my ownership and control, but also by virtue of my age and experience. And yet power needn’t be bad, like any tool, it is how you use it. My problem is that I am reluctant to use it at all because I think it will harm. I don’t trust myself. (Luciano, 27 July)

‘I created a resistance, a line-in-the-sand, based on the values I thought needed to be upheld by the company.’ (Luciano, 30 November). Luciano’s growing awareness of his role during the strategy workshop process gave him confidence to use his asymmetric relationship, which he had by virtue of his controlling shareholding. His influencing took hold, initially surreptitiously – a word here and letter there, to lodge in his colleagues’ and shareholders’ subconscious. His authority became more evident in his letter to shareholders of 01 June, when he wrote: ‘I feel the company is at a crossroads … we need to continue working together as a company, through innovation, collaboration …’ (Luciano, 01 June).

Articulating his core principles for the company took shape slowly, but by the end of June, Luciano had become entrenched in his counter-position. In his address to his shareholders on 13 June he asserted that, for the business to continue, collaboration was a non-negotiable: ‘I will only want to stay with you if I can work with you in an engaging, collaborative and continuous way.’ (Luciano, 13 June). ‘The following states your condition: I don’t want to be in [the company], but not be benefiting from a fully collaborative …’ (Rex’s email response to Luciano’s statement, highlighting Luciano’s position).

Luciano articulated his position formally to the Board on 18 October, by making it clear that he was not prepared to compromise and that this should form the basis of future activity. The four principles (which he named ‘the company 1st-policy') he asserted, were that (1) the clients belong to the company; (2) know the clients; (3) collaborate to create comparative advantage; and (4) do not leave money on the table – maximise revenue margin.

(5) Finances Model Theme II (19 July–04 August): A leadership vacuum and alternate modes of organising

Inasmuch as the company’s financial position was exposed to shareholders on 08 June, it was not addressed (i.e. it was not fixed). A month later Luciano asked the financial officer to present the financial position to the shareholders. ‘The company’s financial situation had become dire. Cash flow would be insufficient to cover the expenses coming at the end of the month.’ (Luciano, 19 July).

Luciano, later reflecting on this, says: ‘I had placed the problem of the finances at their feet, as I felt I had little authority over the company’ (30 November).

What transpired over the next two weeks, between the 26 July and 04 August, was characterised by leadership as emerging out of a crisis. In response to the precarious position of the company, less than a week after the Board meeting on 26 July the Johannesburg partners offered an option to save the company by taking a salary sacrifice.

The Johannesburg senior staff acted together in the face of a perceived crisis, and collectively exerted power. Their relationship with the financial controller, Estelle, gave the Johannesburg staff access to the company’s financial position, providing them with the knowledge to assess the situation and make a decision without Luciano’s input. In summary, the junior partners (Gerhard and Sebastian) and the financial controller (Estelle) emerged with an attempt to rescue the firm. Luciano says: ‘At this moment they had some power over me, which allowed them to take action unilaterally.’ (30 November).

Luciano did not see, at the time, that the Johannesburg team might be trying to take action to help him improve the situation.

(6) Instituting a Board Theme (9 April–18 October): Broad-based dialogue and coming out of stuckness

Luciano reacted to the demands of his junior shareholders on 04 August by seeking advice and input elsewhere. He notes: ‘This day, the 05 August, became a turning point; I disengaged from my minority shareholders and senior staff and sought a broader conversational base, tapping into my broader value-net.’ (Luciano, 05 August).

Luciano’s view was that minority shareholders had become intransigent on some of the issues of shareholding, and so he sought a broader mandate and felt it necessary to embed a proper management and leadership structure to ensure processes were in place to deal with these sensitive issues.

During this period, Luciano’s focus reverted to the lower blue pathway in Figure 1. Unable to rely on his ability to take advantage of the asymmetric relationship between himself and other shareholders, his meaning-making had until now been in a peer-to-peer organisational style, using letters and agenda items to present the company principles.

After his reaction to the 04 August incident of shareholder demands, Luciano chose a more deliberate process of meaning-making. Once the company principles became clear by virtue of Luciano’s own sense making, they became a driving force for him. Luciano then began engaging with people outside the organisation whom he felt he could align to his company-1st policy. These new conversations brought out the ideas that had been incubating.

Using mostly his Cape Town social network, Luciano was able to engage in a leadership process of collaborative interactions and conversations. This organising was networked and represented in a meshwork of relationships which enabled the conversations. Through this process Luciano set up a Company Board for the first time and relied on his asymmetric power to push this through, by virtue of being the majority shareholder.

This period was characterised by a higher level of dialogue especially with his ‘new consultative partners’ – John, Sipho and Jack – who, being in Cape Town, were in close proximity to Luciano. These dialogues rekindled a broader conversational flow for Luciano. He started to insist on better communication between himself and the senior partner Gerhard as well:

16 August 2017 – Difficult Conversation with Gerhard. I tell him that things are not working out that I feel they don’t ever get back to me. I ask him why this is, why aren’t we having the conversations that we should be, or that we used to have? Is it only because he is busy or are there other issues? He assures me that he is just keeping his head down and doing his work. (Luciano, 16 August)

Luciano resorted to making decisions without looking for buy-in from partners. Luciano’s objective became to dissipate the use of power in the company – not just his own, but also that of others. The Board issued in a new era of a hierarchical management structure to support this.

To prepare the shareholders, as part of an envisaged collaborative meaning-making process, the idea of a fully functioning Board that included non-executive independent directors was tabled at the shareholders meeting in Johannesburg held on 30 August. The participants seemed in agreement, so Luciano then drafted a formal email to shareholders requesting a meeting to vote on the appointment of non-executive Board directors. He also sent a formal email to all staff to give them the opportunity to nominate directors.

Nevertheless, it seemed that dialogue had been inadequate to prepare the staff for the new Board structure. After this communication was sent, Gerhard called Luciano on 13 September. The call demonstrated that meaning-making had been inadequate, although after the telephone conversation some level of meaning-making had been achieved. Luciano records this as follows:

‘… why are we doing this?’ asked Gerhard. I reassure him with 100% conviction that it is not about hierarchy but about putting in place controls so that I don’t have to be there. It’s installing an autopilot and a trained cabin crew and control tower and procedures. He says they need purpose and role clarity, responsibility and goals. He likes idea that John could work with Estelle. (Luciano, 13 September)

When the process is viewed in the flow of time, we can see that feeling understood and being heard, is the in-the-moment unit of analysis – and the forbearer of meaning-making for Luciano. It is time as ontology, which transforms being understood and heard, into more conscious meaning-making. Time is the ‘interwoven continuum of activities’ that Hernes (2014) speaks of. If the flow of time had ended at this point, this research might suggest that shifting power relations in instituting a Board ‘fixed’ the problem, but this was not the case.

(7) Dethroned Theme: (1 October–unresolved)

In October, the junior partners insisted on allowing the lease for the Cape Town office to lapse and it was downscaled. Luciano resented this but did not resist, despite strong feelings about it. A month after moving into the new, downscaled office, on 07 November, the feelings of being inadequate returned, Luciano writes:

I am a muddled man. Tormented. Blamed, defeated. I give 51% of my earnings away to support my work and the rest of the company. I bail the company out every month. Why can’t I respect myself and retain what I need and feel I deserve for myself? Why do I need others to affirm and endow me, why don’t I have the voracity to claim and hang on to what I deserve? And yet I also know that the new aesthetics will bring new challenges and good growth – will push me back into the fray, expose me and force openness and vulnerability which as hard as it might be, will give new meaning to my life. (Luciano, 07 November)

In reflecting, Luciano questioned what leadership is. ‘If leadership only happens in conversations and interaction, then this is not about leadership, it’s about lack of it, it’s the leadership void. Interaction, the communication, real dialogue is missing. Meaningful interaction and communication are conversations which travel.’ (Ramsey, 2016).

Luciano says:

As a leader, if I felt it to be my role once again, I would probably make more effort to encourage interaction and conversation. Maybe I find it difficult to influence without legitimacy … Without legitimacy, I have withdrawn. Maybe it is necessary for some influence to be imposed. (Luciano, 07 November)

Luciano reflected that whereas previously he was able to claim a leadership position because of his control, since he has been stripped of power, his ability to lead by engaging in conversation in the company has been curtailed. If he feels that he does not have formal legitimacy to lead (or to influence, using his asymmetrical relationship by virtue of a designation or title), he finds it difficult to step into that role or to feel motivated. His own LAP, able to generate power-with is unlikely to emerge if he does not have formal legitimacy. He notes: ‘Personally, I need to be acknowledged or given the legitimacy to lead. I don’t easily step-into leadership roles or hierarchical ways of organising.’ (Luciano, 07 November).

In synthesising his data and writing this paper, Luciano became aware of feelings of his own anguish, resentment, disappointment, self-pity and anger that were evident in some of the reflections at the time of this study. Through this process Luciano developed the ability to recognise such situations of break-down and thrownness more easily and not allow these feelings to overwhelm him. Luciano’s desires for recognition as CEO is a human frailty few can escape from completely. As Heidegger would argue we human beings are forever recovering more authenticity from inauthenticity. This is a never-ending process of recovery until death. The honesty of the reflections in the manuscript can easily be mistaken to reflect a lack of ‘self-work’. We would encourage an understanding of seeing these reflections as honest courageous reflections about desires and how the situation unfolded. This helped us piece together a world we attempted to hold still and ponder about as we gradually became more coherent in our reflections about leadership in the flow of practice which we discuss below.

Discussion

‘Leadership conversation’ itself will seem trivial or irrelevant at times, but when tracing a process backwards, one ends-up at a trivial conversation. At the time, from the conversation itself, the influence of leadership or organising is subtle and difficult to detect, especially when in relation to knowledge workers such as wealth managers. Influencing can seem serendipitous and an oblique intervention. Good listening in conversation and a genuine willingness to understand may be the only clues of the meaning-making process taking hold. With hindsight, influencing meaning-making is frequently borne out of informal, and what appear as spontaneous, conversations that only become evident after the fact. We confirm Simpson’s (2016: 168) observation that it is conversation conceived broadly in terms of words and actions that provide the vehicle for the performative becoming of practice.

To theorise what we were observing, we developed the model in Figure 2 which brings together elements of leadership practices noted by Alvesson et al. (2017), which we co-constructed to further propose that systematic influence and collaborative meaning-making, driven by conversations (interaction, social talk), create difference or new trajectories over time.

Throughout this study we could see that having a good grasp of practice philosophy and conversation helped Luciano appreciate LAP philosophy. This grasp however did not inoculate Luciano from stress, anxiety and indecision. While the theory assisted in making his experience more understandable and richer, much of the process of interaction as it unfolded dynamically through time was affected by the psychological state Luciano found himself in. During the coaching sessions we regularly discussed the importance of mindfulness and quietening Luciano’s thoughts and conversations with himself – especially the negative ones. We appreciated that the quality of presence and openness he brought to discussions often made the difference in his interactions to systemically influence and change meanings. From this we conclude that the first key enabler of leadership in the flow of practice is the psychology of the individual (see Figure 2). A healthy psychological state facilitates systematic influence.

Perhaps what goes missing in leadership processes is not necessarily the conversations for getting or not getting commitment for action (Flores, 2013), nor conversations initiating a new trajectory for difference (Ramsey, 2016), nor communication for meaning-making (Alvesson et al., 2017). What might get lost in leadership in the flow of practice is the basic connection (relationships) between the organisational agents, as Weick (1979) notes. Luciano’s co-constructed autoethnography points to his awareness of the impact of the conversations he had not had, that frayed the leadership process and failed to connect the dots and weave the tapestry of meaning-making of organisational reality. In this conversational void, Luciano’s own negative projections of his abilities affected his interactions and invariably distorted his view of the real intentions and thinking of others.

We propose that perhaps conversations for connection would better prepare the ground for any change through meaning-making or action. Leadership requires conversations for building rapport, trust and respect in order to facilitate meaning-making for those doing the work. The second key enabler of leadership in the flow of practice is conversation – which prepares the ground for connection and meaning-making to occur (see Figure 2). Luciano’s physical distance from his colleagues limited his ability to connect and engage with them socially, making leadership in the flow of practice more difficult.

We started this study thinking about leadership as in-flow-ence; that is, as a movement constituted in, and emergent from socially engaged talk, where leadership is displayed as coordinated mass movement motivated by power-with. The power-with part of this idealised view of the display of leadership was challenging to achieve in practice. Saying this does not imply that it is not a worthy ideal we held onto. In this study, the pursuit of power-with and its dialogical emergence seemed to only be feasible to Luciano through asymmetrical power relations (see Figure 2). Luciano struggled most with generating power-with and, in his view, this is what scuppered his own attempts at leadership. Simpson (2016: 170) has empathy for studies such as ours where the de-centring of leadership is embraced intellectually but is found to be very difficult to operationalise in practice; this was also our experience. In effect, we found that having asymmetrical relationships might sometimes be necessary in leadership, but it is not sufficient to generate power-with. This realisation made it clear to us that the ability to generate power-with is dependent on psychological disposition, asymmetrical relationships and connected conversations.

The third key enabler of leadership in the flow of practice is thus the ability to generate power-with using asymmetrical relationships, mindful presence and conversations (see Figure 2).

Conclusions

Consistent with in-flow-ence, this study confirms that leadership is ephemeral and hard to identify at the times in which it is purported to have taken place. Perhaps this is because time is involved in qualifying acts of leadership. How do we know that leadership ‘constitutes’ (Alvesson and Kärreman, 2011) action and change, in the instance of being observed? Luciano notes his experience of time as follows: ‘In the moment, it is sometimes hard to discern whether the conversation is changing the trajectory of things through meaning. Only through time and looking back does it become clearer what was going on.’

Actors first converse, but it is only over time that they find space for contemplation; to consider, reconsider and caucus with colleagues. The meaning-making that Alvesson et al. (2017) refer to is not always apparent at the time of the conversation.

Through this study, we conclude that leadership understood as in-flow-ence amounts to being able to understand and guide the messiness which is inherent in the complexity of organising. It requires knowing when to allow processes to continue in their own emergent way, and when to intervene to disentangle and provide meaning-making. These moments of conscious agency of the drivers of leadership in the flow of practice will be ephemeral as the concept of in-flow-ence suggests. A more dynamic metaphor of leadership in the flow of practice might improve the chances of the enablers in Figure 2 being noticed more frequently.

Consequently, we put these observations together to offer a dynamic metaphor theory of LAP which can be understood using the metaphor of a stick floating down a stream. The stick is the leadership process and the stream of water flowing over and around it are the conversations. One expects the twig to float unobstructed to its destination, being taken by the flow of conversations. Sometimes it will move fast, other times it will bob about, but its pace and direction are always dependent on the conversations (the currents and eddies) in which it finds itself surrounded. Nevertheless, there will be occasions when the twig gets caught in an eddy, hooked on debris, even washed onto the riverbank and the twig will become brittle. It is during these times that intervention is necessary. It may only require a ripple to dislodge the twig or a nudge to get it moving on. We argue that this dynamic metaphor helps explain how the leadership process can be understood as in-flow-ence.

Footnotes

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their feedback on this paper.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biographies

Kosheek Sewchurran is the interim Director of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Kosheek is also the Programme Director of the Executive MBA interested in pedagogy for ‘as-practice’ scholarship.

Luciano Zaina is a business owner and leadership scholar.

Jennifer McDonogh is an executive coach working in the areas of Strategy-as-practice and Leadership-as-practice with Executive MBA students.

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