The bumpy road to exercising leadership: Fragmentations in meaning and practice

Abstract

The present study focuses on a manager's understanding of leadership and how this guides-or does not guide practice. The paper reports an empirical in-depth study of a middle manager in an international manufacturing company. We link our discussion to both-the mainstream leadership studies, which assume that managers have a solid type of leadership behavior, and authors with a meaning-oriented, linguistic approach to leadership, in which language, self-awareness, and behavior are linked. The present study suggests that leadership attempts can vary, be divisive, and that a manager's advocacy efforts are driven by a multitude of different, partly opposing, forces, meaning a decoupling of ideas and behavior in leadership practice. The paper raises the question of whether managers' meanings of leadership correspond with what they do in practice.

Burns, Senge, and the Study of Leadership

“…Within this category are articles in which references to Burns appear in lists of references or lists within texts and articles in which there is very little of the substance of Burns' writings (e.g., articles that mention transactional or transforming leadership without defining the terms). Here, references to Burns are largely too brief to convey any sense of the complexity of his thought (Albritton, Oswald, & Anderson, 2008;Alvesson & Jonsson, 2016;Andersen, 2016;Barisione, 2009;Beck, 2014;Bligh & Kohles, 2008;Carter, 2012;Chace, 2015;Choi, 2006;Clark & Waldron, 2016;Collinson, 2005Collinson, , 2017Collinson & Grint, 2005;Conger, 2013;Conrad, 2008;Crossman & Crossman, 2011;Cunningham & Jackson, 2011;Delbecq, House, de Luque, & Quigley, 2013;Edwards, 2017;Erickson, Shaw, & Agabe, 2007;Ewest, 2015;Flanigan, 2017;Fourie, van der Merwe, & van der Merwe, 2015;Frawley, 2009;Gabriel, 2005Gabriel, , 2015Gabriel, , 2017Gleeson & Knights, 2008;Goethals, 2017;Gormley-Heenan, 2006;Griffey & Jackson, 2010;Gronn, 2005;Groves & LaRocca, 2012;Harris, 2005;Harter, Ziolkowski, & Wyatt, 2006;Hetland, Sandal, & Johnsen, 2008;…”

Leading from the Bottom Up: Leadership Conceptions and Practices Among Early Career Engineers

“…Their findings challenge the dominant perceptions of leadership in the literature which are based on "assumptions of coherence, integration, context and direction" (p.13). Instead, the researchers found fragmentation between the manager's leadership ideas and practice, with noticeable differences between espoused leadership meanings and their actual use in practice [8]. This paper adds depth and richness to our understanding of leadership, but its focus on an engineer in a position of leadership does not tell us about the process of leadership development at an early career stage.…”

“…Alvesson and Jonsson (2016) conducted an in-depth single case study of a middle manager in a large, international manufacturing company, completing ten interviews and eight observations of the manager in meetings [8]. Their findings challenge the dominant perceptions of leadership in the literature which are based on "assumptions of coherence, integration, context and direction" (p.13).…”

“…We chose a smaller number of cases for which to develop individual case descriptions and more in-depth analyses of the interplay between different themes in context. We returned to the literature for clues that might explain some of the emerging findings, and found that the article by Alvesson and Jonsson (2016) in particular illuminated some of the complex dynamics at play [8]. Finally, the refined conceptual framework was applied to a smaller set of cases to highlight situations where early career engineers' conceptions of leadership, opportunities for leadership, and practices of leadership were either aligned or disconnected.…”

“…However, we still needed our own conceptual framework to make sense of the different dimensions and aspects of leadership without being overly prescriptive or narrow. The paper by Alvesson and Jonsson (2016) in particular highlighted the inherent contradictions that can exist between an individual's espoused leadership approach and their actual practice. With this in mind, we decided to organize our conceptual framework around three key perspectives: an individual's conception of leadership, the opportunities for them to enact leadership, and the actual leadership behaviours they display.…”