Evaluating Leadership Development - A Democratic ... - Springer Link

Evaluating Leadership Development - A Democratic Leadership Perspective

Evaluating Leadership Development - A Democratic Leadership Perspective Ashly H Pinnington and Dennis J Tourish

This paper considers the evaluation of leadership development and reflects on the psychological resistances, political obstacles and cultural impracticalities of developing democratic leadership. The focus is on the development and sustainability of democratic leadership through processes of evaluation. While the authors acknowledge that there exist formidable obstacles to the collective practice of evaluating leadership development, suggestions are made for practitioners and researchers who nonetheless remain interested in democratic leadership.

Democratic Leadership - Why Bother? Resistance to democratic leadership is abundant and it is not unusual for it to be stereotyped as idealistic and impractical: In short, interesting theory ... but is that all there is? Would this persuade any organization to take your ideas on board?’ (Anonymous Reviewer 2, Social Science Journal)

Its denial is commonplace among people persuaded by autocratic leadership practices and power distance strategies. The evaluation of leadership practices and specifically of leadership development may be perceived by autocratic leaders as unnecessarily reducing their sources of personal power by increasing the flow of information and collective communication with negative political results for the authority of autocrats. Likewise, its rejection can be anticipated amongst the disillusioned, cynical or resistant. Those who are not in power may see democratic leadership practices as unlikely to subvert the status quo and functioning as a gimmick or fad which encourages employees to believe they have more influence than actually is the case: ‘Given that most organizations are monarchies, or aristocracies at minimum, the term democracy is used by theorists and managers to suggest that employees have a say in their exploitation when they actually have little. If I convince my boss to beat me with a stick instead of with a whip, this is not democracy.’ (Anonymous Reviewer 1, Social Science Journal)

Radical political and organisational theories offer a range of concepts such as hegemony, ideology, false consciousness, contradiction and dependency which are likely to portray participants in organisational processes who seek to encourage more democratic leadership as the dupes of wider social and economic forces beyond their control and comprehension. Such pluralist frames of exploitation and powerlessness are unlikely to be ameliorated by countertheories of radical subjectivity, postmodern parody and play, because the goals and purposes of democratic leadership are repeatedly conceived by postmodernists as either farcical or as a dangerous modernist illusion. The bureaucratic and institutional arrangements necessary to implement evaluation studies of organisational and individual practices are unlikely therefore to impress researchers persuaded by ethics of care because they institutionalise HR interventions and technologies which seek to generalise across individuals within the collective organisation. Therefore, they set up norms which obscure or interfere with individual free choice and ethical decision making. They may also fall short of practitioners’ concerns with corporate social responsibility and the duty of care, and whenever they do this may signify ethical and moral conflicts that call into question the worth of evaluation procedures or their outcomes. It is then not surprising that evaluation of employee development often will fall short of actively promoting more democratic leadership - neither its proponents nor its detractors hold much enthusiasm for its implementation.

Philosophy of Management Volume 8 Number 1 2009

27

Ashly H Pinnington and Dennis J Tourish

Encouraging More Democratic Leadership Democracy is espoused as being desirable for a number of political and ethical reasons, but for democratic leadership to work effectively, it requires many people’s active participation in decision making. Lewin & Lippitt and White are often cited in the social science literature and credited with defining democratic leadership. 1 They proceeded by distinguishing it from autocratic and laissez-faire styles noting its reliance on defining characteristics of group decision making, active member involvement and criticism. It differs from other leadership styles by its greater emphasis on the authority of the group, 2 antipathy towards authoritarianism and intolerance of the persistence of large inequalities in status and power.3 Arguably, leadership concepts of employee involvement, participation and empowerment will only function democratically in a regime that continuously legitimates freedom of speech and over the long-term leads to some equalisation of power relationships. Consequently, we emphasise the collective rather than the individual leader consistent with Gastil’s definition of democratic leadership: As defined herein, democratic leadership is conceptually distinct from positions of authority; rather, it is defined as the performance of three functions: distributing responsibility among the membership, empowering group members, and aiding the group’s decision-making process. Many, most, or all members of a group serve these functions, regularly exchanging the roles of leader and follower. 4

However, we depart from Gastil’s approach by seeking to retain the leader-follower distinction so as to accommodate the reality that many leaders are appointed in democratic systems and hold particular roles and responsibilities. Over the last twenty five years, there has been renewed interest in experimentation with more participative working relationships and practices, 5 and growth in such phenomena as high involvement management.6 Interest in the concept of ‘empowerment’, where the creative and innovative energies of employees are liberated for the collective benefit, is also said to have grown in the 1980s. These types of innovation are sometimes portrayed as inverting the managerial hierarchy through permitting people more capacity to express their own views and wield influence. Despite there being some empirical research evidence finding instances of achievement in employee participation and involvement7 the overall picture however is one of only limited progress in developing systems to institutionalise employee influence and voice.8 Moreover, the permissible level of participation generally remains controlled and limited by

1

Lewin, R & Lippitt, R ‘An experimental approach to the study of autocracy and democracy: A preliminary note’ Sociometry, 1938, 1: 292-300; White, R K & Lippitt, R Autocracy and democracy New York: Harper & Bros 1960 2 Kutner, B ‘Elements and problems of democratic leadership’ In: A W Gouldner (ed) Studies in leadership New York: Harper & Row 1950 pp 459-467 3 Anderson, R C ‘Learning in discussions: A resume of the authoritarian-democratic studies’ Harvard Educational Review 1959, 29: 201-215 4 From p 953 in: Gastil, J ‘A definition and illustration of democratic leadership’ Human Relations 1994 August 8: 953-975. 5 Seibold, D & Shea, B ‘Participation and decision making’ In F Jablin & L Putnam (eds) The New Handbook of Organizational Communication: Advances in Theory, Research and Methods London: Sage 2001 p 664-703 6 Lawler, E E High-involvement management San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 1986 7 Pinnington, A H & Hammersley, G ‘Quality circles under the new deal at Land Rover’ Employee Relations 1997, 19(5): 415-429; Richardson, H A & Vandenberg, R J ‘Integrating managerial perceptions and transformational leadership into a work-unit level model of employee involvement’ Journal of Organizational Behavior 2005 August, 26(5) 561-590 8 Dundon, T Wilkinson, A Marchington, M & Ackers, P ‘The meanings and purpose of employee voice’ International Journal of Human Resource Management 2004 September 15(6): 1149-1170; Heller, F ‘Influence at work: a 25-year program of research’ Human Relations 1998, 51: 1425-1444

28


Evaluating Leadership Development - A Democratic Leadership Perspective management.9 There is then continuing support at least by default for ‘command and control’ techniques of leadership even though many leadership researchers and practitioners conclude that over the long-term autocratic leadership styles lack efficacy.10 Since the notable corporate failures and problems of the last twenty years11 stakeholder forms of governance have become more actively promoted, and democratic and federalist ethics of governance have been suggested by some as appropriate ways forward.12 However, a perennial problem facing advocates of more democratic styles of leadership such as these is that times of crisis and problems of productivity are viewed by many as requiring an autocratic, albeit shortterm, unilateral ‘directive’ style of leadership. 13 The issue is compounded by the fact that democratic leadership has not invariably proven itself to attain superior results in field and laboratory experiments.14 Nonetheless, there is some evidence that top-down leadership and suppression of upward influence are characteristic of poorer performing organisations. 15 Workplace democracy has not been prominent in many of the discussions of workplace reorganisation, and the models of involvement and participation applied in practice have granted employees more responsibility without commensurately increasing their contribution to the decision making process.16 To implement more democratic leadership than is presently the case may therefore require a new ethic, one where all employees become more flexible and skilled in crossing the normative line delineating ‘leadership’ from ‘followership’.17 In this paper the concept of leadership is understood as dependent on reciprocal influence processes and shared leadership. This is inconsistent with many mainstream general definitions which traditionally have seen it as an individual-level skill.18 It is likewise incompatible with charismatic and transformational leadership theories to the extent that they assume an individualistic conception of charismatic or heroic or visionary leaders persuading groups of followers to make self-sacrifices and exert exceptional effort.19 An influential group of academic researchers and leadership development practitioners espouse the assumptions of charismatic and transformational paradigms of leadership20 which however can be contested 21 primarily 9

Wheeler, J ‘Employee involvement in action: Reviewing Swedish codetermination’ Labor Studies Journal 2002 Winter 26(4): 71-98 10 Bennis, W ‘The end of leadership: exemplary leadership is impossible without full inclusion, initiatives, and cooperation of followers’ Organizational Dynamics 1999, 74: 71-80 11 Coffee, J C ‘A theory of corporate scandals: Why the USA and Europe differ’ Oxford Review of Economic Policy 2005 Summer 21(2): 198-211 12 Deetz, S & Brown, D ‘Conceptualising involvement, participation and workplace decision processes: A communication perspective theory’ In: D Tourish & O Hargie (eds) Key Issues in Organizational Communication. London: Routledge 2004 pp 172-187 13 Dunphy, D & Stace, D ‘The strategic management of corporate change’ Human Relations 1993 August 46(8): 905-918 14 p 402 in: Gastil, J ‘A definition and illustration of democratic leadership’ Human Relations 1994 August 8: 953-975 15 Yukl, G ‘An evaluation of conceptual weaknesses in transformational and charismatic leadership theories’ Leadership Quarterly 1999, 10: 285-305 16 Ackers, P Marchington, M Wilkinson, A & Goodman, J ‘The use of cycles? Explaining employee involvement in the 1990s’ Industrial Relations Journal 1992, 23(4) Winter 268-83; Cheney, G ‘Democracy in the workplace: Theory and practice from the perspective of communication’ Journal of Applied Communication Research 1995, 23: 167-200; Tüselmann, H-J, McDonald, F & Heise, A ‘Employee relations in German multinationals in an Anglo-Saxon setting: Toward a Germanic version of the Anglo-Saxon approach?’ European Journal of Industrial Relations 2003 November, 9(3): 327-351 17 Gibbons, P T ‘Impacts on organizational evolution on leadership roles and behaviors’ Human Relations 1992, 45(1): 1-18; Lippitt, R ‘The changing leader-follower relationships of the 1980s’ Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 1982, 18(3): 395-403 18 Day, D V ‘Leadership development: A review in context’ Leadership Quarterly 2001, 11(4): 581-613 19 Bass, B M Leadership and performance beyond expectations New York: The Free Press 1985; Bass, B M Bass and Stogdill’s handbook of leadership New York: The Free Press 1990; Conger, J A The charismatic leader: Behind the mystique of exceptional leadership San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1989 20 Bass, B M Transformational leadership: Industrial, military, and educational impact Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998; Conger, J A & Hunt, J G ‘Charismatic and transformational leadership: Taking stock of the present and future (Part I)’ Leadership Quarterly 1999, 10: 121-127 21 Tourish, D & Pinnington, A H ‘Transformational leadership, corporate cultism and the spirituality paradigm: An unholy trinity in the workplace?’ Human Relations 2002, 55: 147-172


29

Ashly H Pinnington and Dennis J Tourish because they lack a robust foundation for employee voice and democratic participation. New leadership constructs working within the normative leadership tradition such as authentic leadership 22 have been proposed with the purpose of creating a more ethical and healthy climate in organisations. They are based on individualistic concepts of increased leader and follower trust, self-awareness and self-regulation, and as they themselves attest it remains for future research to demonstrate that they are sufficiently rigorous theoretical conceptualisations23 and can be efficacious in practice for overcoming corporate management problems and excesses. Further, recent innovations to the transformational leadership paradigm24 have sought to be inclusive of diversity such as gender, race and ethnicity, and they may go some way towards promoting leadership through discussion and collective processes of decision making. Democratic models of the leadership process proceed from the assumption that leaderemployee relations should be characterised by adult-to-adult relationships. 25 From this perspective, authentic and democratic adult relationships are more rather than less likely to be characterised by free speech, the open exchange of views, the elimination of status differentials and a free flow of critical opinion and feedback in both directions.26

How Might Leadership Development Be Evaluated and Assist Its Practice To Be More Democratic? ‘Montesquieu defined a democracy as a government where the supreme power is lodged in the body of the people. If the author of this ms. is truly interested in promoting democracy, this should be the starting point.’ (Anonymous Reviewer 1, Social Science Journal) ‘In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.’ Montesquieu The Spirit of Laws Bk VI, Ch 2 Source: http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/montesquieu/montesquieu.html

A survey issued as part of an European Union funded project on ‘Evaluating Leadership Development in Scotland’ (ESF Grant 4A.1/N/MA/4/103423) found that only half of the 192 organisations returning the survey implemented one or more of David V. Day’s (2001)27 commonest leadership development practices; 360 degree appraisal, coaching, mentoring, social networks, job assignment, action learning.28 These practices are all open to multiple and conflicting purposes and capable of serving both democratic and undemocratic intents. Whenever they are implemented more comprehensively in an organisation there is some prima facie evidence of the HR management of employees’ careers, and evaluation practices have the capacity to reveal ways that they are coordinated in serving various management objectives.

22

Avolio, B J & Gardner, W L ‘Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership’ The Leadership Quarterly 2005, 16(3): 315-493 23 Cooper, C D Scandura, T A & Schriesheim, C A ‘Looking forward but learning from our past: Potential challenges to developing authentic leadership theory and authentic leaders’ The Leadership Quarterly 2005, 16(3): 475-493; Gardner, W L Avolio, B J Luthans, F May, D R & Walumbwa, F ‘“Can you see the real me?” A self-based model of authentic leader and follower development’ The Leadership Quarterly 2005, 16(3): 343-372 24 Alimo-Metcalfe, B & Alban-Metcalfe, J ‘Leadership: Time for a new direction?’ Leadership 2005, 1(1): 51-71; Eagly, A H ‘Achieving relational authenticity in leadership: Does gender matter?’ The Leadership Quarterly 2005, 16(3): 459-474 25 Ackers, P & Preston, D ‘Born again? The ethics and efficacy of the conversion experience in contemporary management development’ Journal of Management Studies 1997, 34(3) September: 677-701 26 Dahl, R A Democracy and its critics New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989 27 David V Day ‘Leadership development: A review in context’ Leadership Quarterly 2001, 11(4): 581-613 28 Pinnington, A H & Tourish, D J ‘Evaluating leadership development - A democratic leadership perspective, Fourth International Philosophy of Management Conference, St Anne’s College, Oxford, 8th-11th July 2007

30


Evaluating Leadership Development - A Democratic Leadership Perspective Commonly-expressed explanations for less implementation of these leadership development practices than might be prescribed in business and management textbooks is that they are costly, uncertain in their development outcomes and of variable contribution to organisational performance. In other words, organisations can achieve a level and style of leadership with few or none of these development interventions. However, the converse does not necessarily apply so readily because it can be argued that comprehensive implementation of these and other development practices facilitate high levels of communication consistent with democracy. The activities of promoting democracy here are assumed to be resource intensive and dependent on multiple activities of cooperation. Whereas one can imagine situations where all six development practices are implemented within a strategy and culture of undemocratic appropriation of employees’ expertise, for them to function over time they require the persistence of collaborative networks of inter-personal and inter-group communication. During phases of their organisational history, powerful corporations and industries have been found in empirical research studies to adopt more sophisticated approaches to human relations than do many other organisations and industries. In our survey, for example, organisations in the oil and gas industry, had a higher participation rate in 360 degree feedback than the mean score for participation attained by the three sectors overall (private, public, not-for-profit).29 Promoting democracy in these situations immediately becomes problematic because one cannot assume that merely higher participation of itself or as a custom and practice will lead to more democratic activity or results. Indeed, it may be the case that such instances of higher participation do not promote more democracy and neither does it mean that there will be more effective organisational management of employees’ work lives. Quite simply the practices may be in abundance and attain longevity without either serving aspirations of more democratic leadership or securing specifically managerial, instrumental goals. Approaches to leadership and leadership development practices are open to a variety of styles of leadership and objectives. Consequently, if one is seeking to promote more democratic leadership then evaluation measures would have to deliberately consider specific signs and indications of democratic processes and outcomes because the current organisational approaches to leadership and to leadership development of themselves are not inherently biased either for or against. This is likely to be all the more difficult in environments where evaluation is perceived as an additional task and of limited benefit. The difficulty of designing and implementing such studies becomes all the more prevalent in the context of a risk society 30 and audit culture where many feel that there is too much rather than too little management assessment and evaluation. Most readers will agree that leadership in organisations can be improved although there is less of a consensus on what should be done specifically about democratic leadership.31 The initial literature review above presented a pluralist perspective on democratic leadership that aims to encourage the exercise of leadership by both leader and followers. The business and management literature specifically addressing leadership development draws substantially on ideas from training and development, and from appraisal. Training and development is understood here in its widest sense of learning activities ranging from developmental job placements, action learning projects, mentoring and networking through to the more traditional classroom-based methods. The leadership research on traits, personality and style have less to offer the approach advocated in this paper because they concentrate on selecting individual leaders for inherent qualities or on the basis of elite education and training often bolstered by ecological concepts of adaptation and survival. Democratic leadership is distinctive for viewing it as imperative to develop leadership qualities and activities across all categories of employer and employee.

29

Pinnington, A H & Tourish, D J op cit 2007. Beck, U Risk society: Towards a new modernity London: Sage Publications, 1992. Originally published as, Ulrich Beck Risikogesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 1986. 31 Slater, P & Bennis, W G ‘Democracy is inevitable’ Harvard Business Review 1990, HBR Classic [first published in March-April 1964], September-October, 167-176. 30


31

Ashly H Pinnington and Dennis J Tourish The literatures on training and development offer a wealth of resources for informing attempts to improve democratic leadership, and have become more rather than less diverse over recent decades. For example, the Handbook of Research on Teaching, published every ten to fifteen years, overviews developments in theory and practice since publication of the previous volume. The 2001 publication edited by Richardson 32 shows a very diverse field and greater commitment to using different theoretical and methodological approaches than was evident in the 1963 publication edited by Gagné. 33 More broadly, the oft-debated diversity of theory and practice in management and organisation studies indicates plentiful alternatives for improving democratic leadership are available.34 Specifically in the field of leadership development, the field of training and development has the potential to play a more central role than hitherto in facilitating organisational processes for improving leadership. Day’s 2001 review of research and practice acknowledges its significance discussing what he sees as six main themes in current research and practice: 360degree feedback, coaching, mentoring, networks, job assignments and action learning. Day’s research interests are not specifically concerned with generating more democratic leadership rather he assesses each of them in the light of the general literature on leadership for the extent that these interventions offer assessment, challenge and support. He identifies their potential contribution to human capital and social capital and in so doing begins to offer a ready conceptual schema for thinking about how the traditional boundary drawn between leaders and followers can be changed. Taking his use of the normative distinction made between intrapersonal and interpersonal leadership ‘capacities’, leaders need assistance with developing their human and social capital, but to be consistent with the collective requirement of participation in democratic leadership, then so do followers. This is a demanding ethic and one which leaders and employees in many organisational contexts including development programmes may want to ignore for numerous political and social reasons such as desire for conformity, risk minimisation and face-saving.35 When it is implemented, evaluation is often ‘knowledge work’ that has the possibility of informing and improving democratic leadership. The roles and utilisation of knowledge is different from many of the concepts in circulation within the field of knowledge management where the purpose of adding value for owners and organisations is often, 36 although not invariably,37 the paramount concern for researchers and business leaders. Knowledge generated in evaluation in democratic contexts has to serve the general interest of the collective, but can in addition have more esoteric or individual ends that may indirectly contribute to overall collective interests. Critical communication in work organisations often will be considered in the light of participants’ pragmatic goals and work tasks. In other words, there will be calls for ‘pragmatic diagnosis’38 which shift the focus of attention from trying to define exact states of mind and opinion to identification of what leadership strategies can assist employees in

32

Richardson, V (ed) Handbook of research on teaching 4th Edition Washington DC: American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2001 33 Gagné, N L (ed) Handbook of research on teaching: A project of the American Educational Research Association Chicago: Rand McNally 1963 34 Carr, A ‘Management as a moral art: Emerging from the paradigm debate’ Philosophy of Management 2004, 4(3): 47-62; Hassard, J S & Kelemen, M L ‘Production and consumption in organizational knowledge: The case of the “Paradigm Debate”’ Organization 2002, 9(2): 331-56 35 Argyris, C ‘Some limitations of the case method: Experiences in a management development program’ Academy of Management Review 1980, 5(2): 291-298; Berger, M A ‘In defense of the case method: A reply to Argyris’ Academy of Management Review 1983, 8(2): 329-333; Goffman, E Interaction ritual - Essays on face-to-face behaviour London: The Penguin Press 1967; Kallifatides, M ‘The tough ones’ In: Sven-Erik Sjöstrand, Jörgen Sandberg & Mats Tyrstrup (eds) Invisible management London: Thomson Learning pp 49-68 36 Barney, J ‘Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage’ Journal of Management 1991, 17(1): 99-120; Nelson, R R & Winter, S G An evolutionary theory of economic change Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982 37 Kamoche, K & Mueller, F ‘Human resource management and the appropriation-learning perspective’ Human Relations 1998, 51(8): 1033-60 38 Ohlsson, S ‘Some principles of intelligent tutoring’ Instructional Science 1986, 14: 293-326

32


Evaluating Leadership Development - A Democratic Leadership Perspective particular circumstances. Weick’s39 characterisation of sensemaking in Organization Science research attests to its situated nature whereby participants (both practitioners and researchers) are pragmatically and symbolically involved in defining the work environment rather than having to rely upon the scientific analyses of independent observers. The overall rationality pursued during sensemaking 40 is closer then to pragmatist senses of action 41 and narrative interpretation42 than it is to the standardised technical logics of the decision sciences. Realist perspectives on management informed by the realist philosophy of science43 we contend can inform democratic leadership by attending to issues that participants and stakeholders may be unconscious of or confused about. Realist researchers aim to go a step further than do some empirical researchers merely noting behaviours and events, by offering possible explanations of what could happen.44 The realist perspective does not inherently privilege either the micro-level and psychological concerns of individuals or the macro-level institutional, societal issues and sociological discourses. Approaches informed by realists such as Bhaskar and Harré & Madden45 view the world as subdividable into levels of reality, for example: experiences at the concrete level of reality, events conceptualized as partially revealed to consciousness, and at the deeper level still, causal mechanisms involving powers which hold capabilities and once activated may lead to events or patterns of events. Mainstream approaches to leadership share an interest in promoting a greater understanding of political and social constraints and opportunities, however, the purview of democratic leadership is broader. Research pursing realist assumptions may be useful for identifying ways that obstacles to the sustained implementation of democratic leadership can be surmounted. Contemporary realist research in organisation and management studies addresses ‘how social groups and organizations are produced and reproduced’. 46 Some of the key theoretical concerns of the realist research agenda are fundamental to improving democratic leadership, notably gaining a better understanding on ‘the extent to which social relations are simply reproduced and the extent to which outcomes can be changed by agents?’ Realist research has argued in favour of theory more precisely addressing the connections between organizations and societies. It is plausible that more understanding of this area will hold some application for implementation of evaluation aiming to support more democratic leadership. To illustrate from the topic of employee dissent, Ackroyd 47 argues that both conformity and dissent constitute the reality and structures of organisations, but voicing dissent that is ineffectual can be especially hard and personal experiences of the ‘real’. Voicing resistance and opposition may be difficult and at times unpleasant activities, and following Ackroyd’s realist line of argument, researchers should seek an improved understanding of what powers and resources different groups can mobilise under these circumstances. Then, extending this line of argument further, researchers and practitioners may be in a better position to know how employees can take more control of their organisations through processes of democratic leadership.

39

Weick, K E Sensemaking in organizations London: Sage Publications, 1995, pp 172-73. Weick, K E op cit p 178 41 Dewey, J Experience and nature New York: Dover, 1958 [1925]; Watson, T J In search of management (revised edition) London: Thomson Learning 2001 42 Czarniawska, B Narratives in Social Science Research London: Sage, 2004; Polkinghorne, D E Narrative knowing and the human sciences Albany, NY: State University of New York Press 1988 43 Bhaskar, R A A realist theory of science 2nd edition, New York & London: Verso, 1997 [1978]; Bhaskar, R A The possibility of naturalism. A philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences 3rd edition, London: Routledge 1998 44 Tsoukas, H ‘What is management? An outline of a metatheory’ In: S Ackroyd and S Fleetwood (eds.) Realist Perspectives on Management and Organisations London: Routledge 2000, 26-43 45 Harré, R and Madden, E H Causal Powers Oxford: Blackwell 1975 46 Ackroyd, S & Fleetwood, S (eds) Realist perspectives on management and organisations London: Routledge 2000 p 19 47 Ackroyd, S ‘Connecting organisations and societies: A realist analysis of structures’ In: S Ackroyd & S Fleetwood (eds) op cit 2000, pp 87-108 40


33

Ashly H Pinnington and Dennis J Tourish This paper has acknowledged a variety of reasons for leaders and followers not engaging in democratic leadership and has sought to clarify how it might become better institutionalised. Realist research is open to attending to common dualities48 in social science research including problems of structure/agency and conflict/cooperation in organisations. In summary, the realist approach may have an important role to play in understanding contemporary boundaries for the institutionalisation of democratic leadership through its attention to structural constraints and opportunities and to possible causal mechanisms existing in organisations and societies.

Conclusions Limits placed on the exercise of democratic leadership should be understood with a view to developing practical applications such as better institutionalising evaluation and encouraging followers to cross the line between leadership and followership. Researchers and practitioners interested in the implementation of democratic leadership should be cautious of some of the work on leadership for underestimating the capacity of employees to participate more fully. If democratic leadership is to engender more ‘leaderful’ rather than ‘led’ organisations, then the commonly-circulated stereotypes of the follower will have to be submitted to more critical examination than has sometimes been the case in the past. The exercise of democratic leadership may indeed be impractical if there is a normative societal perception of followership being both natural and attractive.49 Disempowering and anti-democratic facets of popular and elite cultures will have to be addressed if democratic leadership initiatives are not to be immediately dismissed as idealistic, utopian and thus impractical. It is probably not inconsequential that expectations for democratic leadership are more likely to arise in organisations that are influenced by democratic societal institutions of government and education. 50 It is a matter for future research whether or not this form of leadership has greater prospect of prospering in particular societies, structures, cultures and organisations. It may be so that particular organisational forms designed to promote collegiality such as professional partnership firms go some of the way towards espousing democratic principles of leadership, 51 but as an institution these organisations have not proven themselves to be especially robust either in resisting autocratic management style or in maintaining distributed and democratic leadership.52 Democracy does not solve every organisational problem, and its practice is riddled with paradoxes.53 Thus, it is too easy to think of reasons why it can’t be implemented. In the previous section, we have considered what we believe to be two important avenues for promoting democratic leadership through resources from training and development and realism.

48

Reed, M I ‘Expert power and control in late modernity’ Organization Studies 1996, 17(4): 573-598; Reed, M I ‘In praise of duality and dualism: Rethinking agency and structure in organisational analysis’ In: S Ackroyd & S Fleetwood (eds) op cit 2000 pp 45-65 49 Goffee, R & Jones, G ‘Followership’ Harvard Business Review 2001 December 79(11): 148 50 Blackler, F & Kennedy, A ‘The design and evaluation of a leadership programme for experienced chief executives from the public sector’ Management Learning 2004, 35(2): 181-203; Inglehart, R & Baker, W E ‘Modernization, cultural change and the persistence of traditional values’ American Sociological Review 2000 February 65: 19-51 51 Greenwood, R & Empson, L The professional partnership: Relic or exemplary form of governance? Organization Studies 2003, 24(6): 909-933 52 Lazega, E The collegial phenomenon: The social mechanisms of cooperation among peers in a corporate law partnership Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; Nelson, R Partners with power: The social transformations of the large law firm Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 1988 53 Stohl, C & Cheney, G Participatory processes/paradoxical practices: Communication and the dilemmas of organizational democracy Management Communication Quarterly 2001, 14: 349-407

34


Evaluating Leadership Development - A Democratic Leadership Perspective This paper has argued that participation and voice cannot be accommodated within the confines of leadership theories that exaggerate the role of individual leadership, legitimise the stifling of dissent and diminish the importance of democratic approaches. Increasingly, competitive success we are told must be built on people and their active participation in corporate affairs. Institutionalising evaluation of democratic leadership is one way of introducing a democratic ethos more firmly into organisations. The concepts and practicalities of democratic leadership require further elaboration before any marked improvements are likely to be achieved. The concept is limited by the inadequate evaluation of democratic leadership processes. The practicalities are under-explored and the risks from experimentation without proper institutional support are high. In this paper, we have sought to take the first step for invigorating the scope and potential of democratic leadership by focusing on how normative concepts of leadership and leadership development do not directly address the role and contribution of democratic approaches. Further, this agenda aims to offer grounds for more hope than do critical accounts which in emphasising power, surveillance and subjugation in their analysis sometimes present only fleeting glimpses of local emancipation. Ashly Pinnington

Professor Ashly Pinnington is Dean Faculty of Business, The British University of Dubai. His first degree was in BA (Hons) in Philosophy (University of Kent) and he then moved into the area of business studies receiving his PhD in Management (Brunel University, UK) in 1991. Most of his research work is on Human Resource Management publishing articles in academic journals such as Organization Studies, Human Relations and books with McGraw Hill and Oxford University Press. He previously contributed Charles Handy: The Exemplary Guru to this journal Volume 1 Number 3 2001. His current research interests are leadership development, ethics and employment, and the internationalisation of law firms. Dennis Tourish

Dennis Tourish is Professor of Leadership and Management at Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University, in Scotland. He holds a First Class BSc in Human Communication, MSc (with distinction) in Health and Social Services Management and a PhD in organisational communication, all from the University of Ulster. He has published widely on leadership, management and communication issues in academic journals such as Human Relations, Journal of Management Studies, Long Range Planning and Leadership. He is the co-editor or co-author of six books on these issues. He also serves on various editorial boards, and is an associate editor of Management Communication Quarterly.


35