Discuss about the Practice Of Leadership In Messy World Organization.
The essay aims at providing an overview of the various ways of enactment of leadership in a world with messy organizations. Leadership refers to the act of motivating a group of individual for acting towards a common goal (Yukl 2013). The essay provides an insight into the scenario of leadership through three articles. These includes’ The Practice of Leadership in a Messy World of Organizations by Denis, ‘Body Possibilities of Leadership’ by Sinclair and ‘In the Praise of Incomplete Leadership’ by Ancona. There are also other articles published by Pullen and Rhodes, Carroll and Levy, Kempster , Raelin and Liu that has been referred for constructing the essay. The essay therefore tries to explain and identify the shortcomings of the current leadership practice and program. Through the essay, one can also get a description of the alternative approaches to the present leadership practice and programs and the impact of the approaches or practices. The essay also tries to put forward some of the newer leadership approaches of the 21st century along with a mention of the factors that drives such changes. The essay also tries to explain that the understanding of the leadership practices for effectively understanding of his/her leadership.
Leadership Enacted in Ways that Addresses the Messy World of Organizations
According to Denis (2010) the studies of leadership holds a longer history in the field of administrative science. Most of the leadership research focuses around the individual traits of the leader, transformational and transactional leadership forms, leadership behavior and styles against various contexts, on the role of the cognitive and demographic diversity in the top management, on psychodynamic dimensions that helped in driving the individual leaders. However, there have been several calls for focusing more on the activities of the leader and in injecting greater dynamism into the studies of leadership. As per Pettigrew (2013), there has been existence of ‘processual’ and ‘contextualist’ views on the leadership that places more attention on the emergence of leadership and the evolvement of the concrete organizational and social settings. This had also led to interactions within the context of the organization. However, at the centre of the dynamics for leadership lies the repetition in the relationship between the practice of leadership and its consequences. A way of looking at consequences represents considering them in three different categories that includes, substantive, political and symbolic. Substantive consequences refer to the structural change that is concrete. Symbolic consequences on the other hand concerns evolution of the meaning amongst the stakeholders (Tourish 2014). On the other hand, political consequences refer to the evolution of the roles of leadership by themselves. Political consequences refer to the decreased or increased credibility along with changes in the formal position for determining the scope of action of the leaders (Frohlich and Oppenheimer 2015).
As per Denis (2010), there are four approaches of the leadership practices in diverse settings for enabling a person to increasingly grasping the process and context of the leadership. It also helps in identification of the dilemmas of achievement beyond the prevalent myth of the absolute power. This is explained by drawing in examples of John, Ivor and Martin from the three case studies put forward by the author:
Leadership Viewed as Dynamic: The approach helps in understanding that leadership actions at a particular time possess the capability of changing the potentiality of effective leadership, sometime later. In this context, the initial success of John in the first case study resulted in the increase of power however; his actions posed a threat to the interest of the others that made it impossible for them to continue. As per the second case study, Ivor followed the leadership through earlier assimilation of values of the medical staff that helped him in convincing others to undertake a later change. The third case study relating to Martin is explained in the context through building of a coalition and obtaining of the consensus on the requirement of the closures resulted in the easier naming of the targeted hospitals.
Leadership Viewed as Collective: This refers to the fact that leadership is dependent on the collection of the co-leaders who plays a complementary role. In practicing, this leadership feature, John ensured building an effective alliance with medical council and the other board members who had a complementary role in initiating the change. Ivor, on the other hand practiced the feature through negotiation of his position with the power medical staffs. Martin on however, undertook moves in building an internal team with board members.
Leadership Viewed as Situational: This helps in understanding the context that leadership is the manifestation of the micro activities if the leaders in interacting with the others in the specific context. In the context of the case studies, John manifested the leadership practice in a manner where he was unable in persuading the team in adopting an alternative method of orientation whereas the leadership of Ivor manifested the ways in which he undertook warm connection along with interaction with the other people that resulted visibility internally as well as externally. On the other hand, Martin manifested the ways where he was able to present himself in public and ensure defending the closures of the hospital through demonstration and rational argument
Leadership Viewed as Dialectic: This provides with a perspective that the practices that seem effective often result in downside thereby resulting in a scenario where the strengths become the weakness of the leader. John used this practice of leadership in opposing a number of organizational members that would result in his failure someday. Ivor’s accessible and open style although helped him in gaining credibility but sometimes resulted in too hasty decisions which gave him no recourse in dealing with problems. Martin approach towards this practice of leadership although successful in achievement of closure decision but made the project unnecessarily complex.
John, Ivor and Martin have relied on the deployment of the relational competencies and the capabilities into their daily activities for achieving their positions of leadership. However, each one of them adopted it in different manner. Their capability of practically learning from dealing with the others resulted in the integration of the organizations in this messy world. Thus, for successfully undertaking an act, aspiring leaders need to use their practical knowledge for positioning them with respect to the others. Effective leaders should have the ability of moving easily through varied settings (Abrell and Rowold 2014). In other words, a skilled leader must be rationally and politically bound for conveying their appropriate emotions visible through signs of body language. An open door policy will remain dormant if leaders do not show signs of openness.
According to Sinclair (2005), accomplishment of the leadership is full-bodied and highly dramatic due to the presence of titillation and intimacy. The bodies remain central to the aspect of leadership. Power relations remain mapped onto the bodies and intricately enacted through unconscious norms that governed accessibility and the physical relations including worship, deference, attraction and revulsion. Thus, leadership is a representation of the bodily practice and a physical performance added with the accomplishment of the motivational and mental mastery. In other words, as per the Australia context, accomplishment of leadership is partially through the establishment of a hierarchy of the bodily masculinities. This can be explained through body saturated rituals in which the executives invites the bigger clients for attending the football and the tennis matches who settles in the corporate boxes drinking champagne while watching out for the lower bodies. Bodies represents site in the tremendous competition for designation. The overt norms of the bodily display are common for the junior level managerial roles where the leaders display mastery through denial or subordination of the body. Privatization of bodies also takes place when executives are taken in as the coaches and personal trainers (Ladkin 2013). Executives are driven to the extraordinary lengths for maintaining not only their fitness but also the impregnability of illusion. Moreover, the leaders who are physically frail and weak become a suspect in the continuation of the leadership norms.
Chris Sarra, the appointed principle of the Cherbourg school represents a leadership example where concern and physicality about the bodies represents the central part. This acted central to the vision where he articulates about engaging the children, changing community and parents in achieving the outcomes. Christian Nixon who is a chief commissioner of Victoria police comes across as relaxed and informal and is known for putting people at ease. People confides in her thereby giving her a higher intelligence level regarding the organization. Her friendliness helps in disarming people. Thus, both the leaders ensured exploring a destabilization of the bodily expectations in different manner. Partly consciously and partly unconsciously, they paved a means of being in the bodies that subverted and transgressed the norms thereby leading to systematic change. Both remained pressured and disciplined in moving back to the more conventional bodily spaces. The profiles of the two leaders have thus tried to show how the bodies remain central to the leadership and hence, individual experimentation, body norms and the subversion can help in dealing with the messy world of the organizations.
According to Pullen and Rhodes (2008), in the past two decades the narcissism concept has found some importance in the leadership studies. In business scenario, a narcissist or self-conscious leader strives for the personal success by winning through high visibility, fierce independence, upward mobility and defeat of the rivals. The narcissistic leader deals situations of antagonistic cooperation by engaging in jungle warfare of the organizations where domination and the struggle for the survival act as most vital personal values. Narcissism is used for examining the identity of the leader in fantasy and actuality and using the gender for examining the identity in context of femininity and masculinity. Narcissism helps in discovering the aspects of the identity work and brings back both quotidian and unspoken experiences of the daily lives at work (Arundale 2018). Introduction of the gender in the narcissistic leadership helps in the deepening and extension of the way that helps one in understanding the aspects of playing out in various practical manners (Grijalva et al., 2015). Moreover, combination of narcissism and gender puts forward a comprehensive and valuable way for studying and understanding leadership and its identity in the contemporary organizations.
According to Ancona (2007) the 21st century, corporations became more collaborative and less hierarchical due to the growing emergence of globalization and increasing importance of the knowledge work. Coordination between the actions of large groups has now become possible by bringing information within few centralized places. There is gradual reduction in the ambiguity and complexity of the problems. Increasingly decisions being made in the global context not only radically but also rapidly. Thus, no single person can stay on the top of every possible thing. However, the persistent myth about complete leader forces the executives draining him or her and in the process leading to the damage of the organization. In present times, leaders remain skilled in visioning the metaphors and the used stories for painting a descriptive picture of accomplishing the vision although they do not have a complete plan of reaching there. Hence, in leadership vision is created based on work life and enthusiasm that helps in motivating the leaders themselves and the others. In creating a vision, leaders also listen to something important and exciting. They should not be a position for expecting that not all the people are going to share their passion. Leadership of the 21st century also tries to put forward a shared vision and uses visual, metaphors and stories for conveying complex situations (Jaques 2017). Leadership also experiences an intense dichotomy on a day-to-day basis hence they cultivate in inventiveness for dealing with the messy organizations of the world. This includes encouraging creative means for getting a newer task done. In other words, different ways for organizing is experimented along with the search for finding alternative means for the linking and grouping of the people.
In context of Liu (2015) viewpoints, the theories of leadership in the present times have enhanced their focus on the morality and ethics thereby leading the exploration and development of the capacity of the leaders in exercising humanistic and positive behavior for the betterment of organization, society and the followers. The trend further got aggravated with the prominence in reporting of corruption and malfeasance during the last decade that chronicled the collapse of the corporate giants such as Enron in the United States and the HIH Insurance of Australia. Again as per Kempster et al. (2011), leadership helps in providing a prospect for the notions of societal purpose that helps ensuring a balance with the corporate purposes.
Further, Raelin (2011), brought in the concept of leadership as practice in privileging the engagement process thereby creating a basis for the learning. According to him, it is not just engagement that leads to the creation of leadership but there is also the need for both the collective and private reflection on experience. The participants learn in listening to each other and in listening to themselves through the others. They also learn in engaging the materials and artifacts that contributes to the daily unfolding. Thus, leadership directly is tied to the dedicated practices of the people (Northouse 2017). The practices help them in accomplishing and organizing the tasks that requires performance for achieving the required mission. Through the concept of leadership as practice, participants seem committed towards each other as a working body towards achieving a useful outcome. This helps them in learning to adapt to the exogenous changes that might lead to healthier re-appraisals for achieving their mission. This leadership helps in finding people who acts together, think together and talk together towards establishing the reality of their condition.
Carroll (2008) identifies the relationship between leadership and management. According to him, management and leadership is differentiated through nature of behavior, skills, activities and techniques. He also suggested that management and leadership deals with different set of concerns and activities. However, recently, existence of two approaches has focused attention on the relationship between the leadership and management based on the intentionality, context and mindset. Heifetz (2017) drew distinction between the adaptive work and the technical work. The adaptive work falls in the category of leadership whereas the technical work falls under management. Thus, it is the nature and context of the problem that it is sometimes necessary to decide whether the issue falls under leadership or management. On the other hand, Grint (2013) puts forward that leadership and management depends on the comfort and preferences of the social factors concerning the uncertainty and power against anything innate for a specific problem.
Conclusion:
To conclude, the essay suggests the dominant perspectives for promoting the contextualized, depoliticized and individualized view on leadership that helps in addressing the messy world of organizations. The essay thus helps in simplifying the contextual complexity and the rational of the leadership and overlooks the ways in which the unequal power structures remains reproduced in theorizing the leadership, practice and development. For addressing enacted ways of leadership, various leadership concepts proposed which helps in understanding that leadership as an occurrence in space between the people, embedded in the context and exercised through combined political project for attainment of justice, equality and emancipation and thereby shaping the messy structure of the organizations.
References:
Ancona, D., Malone, T., Orlikowski, N. and Senge, P., 2007. In praise of the incomplete leader. ead ership, p.108.
Carroll, B. and Levy, L., 2008. Defaulting to management: Leadership defined by what it is not. Organization, 15(1), pp.75-96.
Denis, J.L., Langley, A. and Rouleau, L., 2010. The practice of leadership in the messy world of organizations. Leadership, 6(1), pp.67-88.
Kempster, S., Jackson, B. and Conroy, M., 2011. Leadership as purpose: Exploring the role of purpose in leadership practice. Leadership, 7(3), pp.317-334.
Pullen, A. and Rhodes, C., 2008. It’s all about me!’: Gendered narcissism and leaders’ identity work. Leadership, 4(1), pp.5-25.
Raelin, J., 2011. From leadership-as-practice to leaderful practice. Leadership, 7(2), pp.195-211.
Liu, H., 2017. Reimagining ethical leadership as a relational, contextual and political practice. Leadership, 13(3), pp.343-367.
Sinclair, A., 2005. Body possibilities in leadership. Leadership, 1(4), pp.387-406.
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