Building bridges from the margins: The work of leadership in social change organizations
Section snippets
Advancing a relational leadership perspective to explore connectedness
Reviews of the current discussion in leadership research (Uhl-Bien, 2006, Jackson and Parry, 2008) suggest that leader-centered and follower-centered models of leadership have given way to perspectives that attend, instead, to the “space between” leaders and followers (Bradbury & Lichtenstein, 2000), thus highlighting the relational processes of leadership. Relationality refers to the theoretical understanding that self and other are inseparable and co-evolve in ways that must be accounted for.
Developing a constructionist methodology to match constructionist understandings of leadership
A constructionist perspective of leadership defines it as a community process of meaning-making, which unfolds as the group sets direction, creates commitment and faces adaptive challenges (Parsons et al., 1953, Drath, 2001). As the property of a group (Dachler & Hosking, 1995), leadership is found in the work of that group, not in specific individuals. Meaning-making does not just occur in people's minds, however: it always occurs in relationship (Schall et al., 2004, Ospina and Sorensen, 2006
Methods
Drawing from stories about the work of leaders in 40 US organizations, this study used interpretive, narrative inquiry techniques (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000, Ospina and Dodge, 2005, Reissman, 2002) to identify the leadership practices that promote the vital boundary-crossing capacity needed by organizations working with marginalized communities. There are two members of a larger research team, whose make-up changed somewhat over the long course of the research, but included multiple faculty
Findings
We identified five leadership practices which create conditions that bring diverse actors together and facilitate their ongoing ability for collaborative work: prompting cognitive shifts; naming and shaping identity; engaging dialogue about difference; creating equitable governance mechanisms; and weaving multiple worlds together through interpersonal relationships. Some practices operate at the intra-organizational level—they bring together potential supporters with very different interests
Discussion
Elements of these leadership practices have been highlighted in the relational leadership literature, as well as in other fields—particularly the negotiation and conflict resolution literature and the collaborative public management literature. However, we viewed these practices in combination as a way of understanding the fundamental capacity to bridge differences. Further, we identified two additional underlying assumptions. Considered as a whole, we offer a comprehensive and integrated
Conclusions
In this article we have explored leadership practices that participants in social change organizations use to cultivate connections among disparate and often divided constituencies. Our work offers three contributions to this Special Issue on Integrative Leadership. First, we bring the voices of members in the particular context of social change organizations, a context largely unrepresented in the academic leadership9
References (83)
- et al.
The relationship between vision strength, leadership style, and context
Leadership Quarterly
(2001) The paradox of post-herioc leadership: An essay on gender, power and transformational change
Leadership Quarterly
(2004)- et al.
Sensegiving and the role of cognitive shifts in the work of leadership
Leadership Quarterly
(2008) - et al.
Relationship-based approach to leadership: Development of leader–member-exchange (LMX) theory over 25 years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective
Leadership Quarterly
(1995) - et al.
Thinking outside the box by looking inside the box: Extending the cognitive revolution in leadership research
Leadership Quarterly
(2000) - et al.
Understanding the dynamics of leadership: The role of follower self-concepts in the leader/follower relationship
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
(1999) - et al.
Leadership and the organizational context: Like the weather?
Leadership Quarterly
(2006) Relational Leadership theory: Exploring the social processes of leadership and organizing
Leadership Quarterly
(2006)- et al.
Collaborative public management; New strategies for local governments
(2003) - et al.
Collaborative governance in theory and practice
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
(2008)
Crossing boundaries: An exploration of effective leadership development in communities
Dialogue and human cultural evolution
Leadership and performance beyond expectations
Frameshifting: Lateral thinking for collaborative public management
Practical reason: On the theory of action
Relationality in organizational research: Exploring the “space between”
Organization Science
Design and implementation of cross-sector collaborations
Public Administration Review
From the ground up: Grassroots organizations making social change
Collaborative leadership: How citizens and civic leaders can make a difference
Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research
New leadership for the common good
Integrative leadership: Observations from a University of Minnesota seminar series
Integral Leadership Review
The primacy of relations in socially constructing organizational realities
The practice of everyday life
The deep blue sea: Rethinking the source of leadership
Making common sense: Leadership as meaning-making in a community of practice
Reflection on leadership, race and power
Shared leadership: Paradox and possibility
White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness
Distributed knowledge coordination across virtual organization boundaries
The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration
Frame analysis
Leadership: Limits and possibilities
Leadership without easy answers
A social identity theory of leadership
Personality and Social Psychology Review
Organizing, leadership and skillful process
Journal of Management Studies
Constructing power: Entitative and relational approaches
Ecology in mind, mindful practices
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology
Cited by (158)
The role of collaborative human resource management in supporting open innovation: A multi-level model
2023, Human Resource Management ReviewUsing data analytics to capture the strategic and financial decision-making of Europe's top football club
2023, Technological Forecasting and Social ChangeLeading without position power: preliminary validation of the multiparty collaborative leadership scale (MCLS)
2024, International Journal of Conflict ManagementEnabling social change: a case study of complex adaptive leadership within an informal settlement in Iran
2024, International Journal of Public LeadershipPublic service management during the Covid-19 lockdown: a qualitative study
2024, Public Management ReviewPracticing Dialogue: How an Organization can Facilitate Diverse Collaborative Action
2024, Journal of Business Ethics