Submission #14808
WHAT LIES BEHIND TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP’S PROGRESS? THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT LEADERSHIP STUDIES
AOM 2012, Critical Management Studies Division
By Suze Wilson, Stephen Cummings & Sarah Proctor-Thomson Victoria Business School, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
*Corresponding author: Suze Wilson,
[email protected] 1
Submission #14808
ABSTRACT Transformational leadership theory has dominated the field of leadership studies for over two decades. Given its significant influence, and the increasing ‘body of evidence’ that has been accumulated using this lens, it can be challenging for researchers to look afresh at leadership. Here, rather than simply looking for gaps in existing knowledge or assessing the credibility of claims made by other researchers, we deploy Foucault’s genealogical method to re-view transformational leadership as a concept by focusing on the problems that may have inspired its formulation and the power-knowledge relations that have helped it to solidify. We examine the stated historical origins, key assumptions and power related effects of transformational leadership theory and find it to be an expedient creation to help ensure stability in a world where increasing informality in organizations is seen as a good thing. In so doing, we demonstrate the fertility of Foucault’s method in opening up new thinking about leadership theory and we offer a detailed example of how this method might be applied in future research where the aim is to think critically about the conventions and assumptions operating within management knowledge.
KEYWORDS: Transformational Leadership, Foucault, Methodology
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Submission #14808
INTRODUCTION Transformational leadership (TL) theory’s dominant position over the last few decades is well documented (see, for example, Gardner, Lowe, Mossa, Mahoney and Coglisera, 2010; Jackson and Parry, 2011; Lowe and Gardner, 2000). With the maturation of the theory, research into TL has increasingly taken on the form of Khunian ‘normal science’, with the core constructs uncritically accepted by those using TL theory in their research, either directly as a model or construct or as a foundation for ‘advances’ such as Authentic Leadership Theory. Consequently, research attention has turned toward expanding knowledge of the antecedents, associated constructs and effects of TL or to examine its application in previously unexplored settings.
Examples of such work include Lyons and Schneider’s 2009 study of the relationship between TL and subordinate stress outcomes, Nemanich and Keller’s 2007 exploration of the relationship between TL and employees’ response to an acquisition, or Zhang, Tsiu and Wang’s 2011 study which included examination of the relationship between TL and group creativity in Chinese organizations. In each of these studies the research aim was to build on existing knowledge of TL rather than call into question its basic tenets.
In a context such as this it can be difficult for researchers to think critically about the basic assumptions which inform their research or to consider alternatives to the existing paradigm in which they have become embedded (Khun, 1962; Alvesson and Deetz, 2000; Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2000). Arguably since the 1999 special issue of The Leadership Quarterly (Volume 10: Issue 2), in particular Yukl’s influential assessment of the then state of TL theory and research (Yukl, 1999), little attention has been paid to the foundations upon which 3
Submission #14808 this theory rests other than attempts to ‘marry’ TL constructs and concepts with Authentic Leadership Theory (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999; Avolio and Gardner, 2005) and Ethical Leadership Theory (Brown and Trevino, 2006).
Critical scholars have challenged the epistemological and methodological limitations of much leadership research, arguing leadership warrants a more contextually informed and powersensitive framework of analysis than is typically employed if we are to really understand its complexity (e.g. Alvesson, 1996; Grint, 2000; Sinclair, 2008). The ontological assumptions embedded in most leadership theories have also been questioned, resulting in the view that leadership knowledge demands a non-essentialist, relational, processual, contingent and emergent notion of the self (e.g. Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003; Cunliffe and Eriksen, 201l; Ford, Harding and Learmonth, 2008). Some effects of popular theories, such as TL, on leaders’ sense of themselves have also been documented (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003; Ford, Harding and Learmonth, 2008; Sinclair, 2008). The insights arising from this body of literature invite us to view TL theory in a more ambiguous light than is normally offered by its proponents. However, while these few studies touch on TL they have been broad-brush in nature and thus do not focus on it directly. Indeed, unlike critical management studies, which is now an established network or ‘movement’ (Alvesson, Bridgman and Wilmott, 2009), a functioning ‘critical leadership studies’ that probes the field in depth is still at a nascent stage of development (Alvesson and Spicer, 2011; Sinclair, 2008; Ford and Harding, 2011).
In this paper, we focus on the case of TL theory, examining its historical origins and key assumptions, as a way of advancing critical reflection upon perhaps the fastest growing stream of academic research both in business studies and indeed more generally. By treating language (discourse) as constitutive of social reality and not simply descriptive, we also 4
Submission #14808 examine the potential effects for leader and follower subjectivity which TL theory produces. The problematizing approach we consciously take here is one that is intended to aid thinking differently and thus create space for fresh insights into the very idea of leaders as transformational agents which lies at the heart of TL theory, and, increasingly, at the heart of widespread assumptions about the importance of leadership.
METHODOLOGY In contrast to most studies which seek to identify and then redress gaps in existing knowledge, the orientation taken here is more disruptive, and involves asking “what may be fundamentally ‘wrong’ with the assumptions underlying existing studies” (Sandberg and Alvesson, 2010: 40). In this, we operationalize Foucault’s problematizing approach to social analysis which is characterised by a sceptical attitude toward truth claims and to assumptions of progress in the development of knowledge (e.g. Foucault, 1970, 1972, 1977a, 1978, 1985, 1986). The constructive value of such an approach is that challenging assumptions is more likely to lead to interesting and influential theory than are more conventional modes of inquiry (Sandberg and Alvesson, 2010). Introducing a Foucauldian perspective Michel Foucault’s work was widely appealed to in the early days of the formation of critical management studies. Some influential papers focused on particular periods of Foucault’s work (e.g. McKinlay and Starkey, 1998; Starkey and Hatchuel, 2002); others offered discussions or critiques about the use of Foucault (e.g. Burrell, 1988; Barratt, 2002, 2003; Knights, 2002), sought to unravel a particular target by using one of Foucault’s approaches (e.g. Hoskins and Macve, 1986; Knights, 1992; Townley, 1993; Hoskin, 1994; Fox, 2000), or applied some aspects of Foucault’s thinking to a particular dimension in a sample of companies (e.g. 5
Submission #14808 Covaleski, et al., 1998). Others still may be seen to have applied the spirit of Foucauldian analysis to the formation of management without specifying a Foucauldian method (e.g. Shenhav, 1995a; 1995b). However, interest in applying Foucault has appeared to have waned at just the moment when scholars have begun to think critically about leadership studies. For example, while Foucault was ever-present in the journal Organization Studies in the 1990s, peaking at 24 citations of his work in 2004, citations to his work in OS have since leveled off and may have begun to decline.
Because we believe that Foucault’s approaches are ideal for doing the sort of problematization research that Sandberg and Alvesson (2010) have recently advocated, because we believe that leadership studies should be a greater target for critical and problematizing research (for which Foucault’s work and our application of it to TL might act as a guide), because there is likely little awareness of his work among leadership scholars (and maybe less awareness among organization scholars generally than there was a few years ago), we begin this paper with an extended methodology section. We first provide an overview of the key philosophical features of a Foucauldian perspective. Then we outline the different approaches Foucault employed in his research until he arrived at his genealogical approach – the particular approach which we shall deploy in the case of TL. We then move to a detailed explanation of how we have operationalized the method for this study.
A Foucauldian perspective on the historical development of ideas A Foucauldian perspective is nominalist in its orientation, meaning ideas are treated as a construction or interpretation of the world that form in response to some kind of problematization of affairs and not as a direct representation of what actually exists (Flynn, 1994; Blaikie, 2000; Cummings and Bridgman, 2011). While ideas may develop through 6
Submission #14808 empirical observation, from this perspective the basic fact of what gets noticed and how it is interpreted are held to be strongly influenced by social norms, beliefs and values directed toward a ‘problem’ that has come into focus (Foucault, 1970; 1972; 1977a; 1978; 1985; 1986). So, for example, Foucault argues that the human sciences emerged as a means of ordering societies when a monarch or aristocracy as supreme rulers with universal powers became unacceptable, thus making a problem of how to keep societies functioning effectively without being inhumane to ‘deviants’. Human and social sciences were needed to objectively determine norms which could then be policed for the good of society, and indeed for the good of deviant individuals. Moreover, once an idea or indeed a whole new science or way of looking at the world is adopted as correct or truthful then it is understood to result in social practices and ways of being and making sense of ourselves and the world which may later appear to be entirely natural (Foucault, 1977a; 1978; 1985; 1986).
Research efforts which deploy a Foucauldian perspective are not directed toward discovering what really exists. Rather, this perspective entails a sceptical stance toward the existence of objective truths outside the realm of the physical sciences (Foucault, 1977a; 1978; 1985). Consequently, Foucault did not aim for or claim to have uncovered the ‘whole truth’ in his counter-histories, but sought to disrupt conventional knowledge just enough to raise doubt about what was promoted as the truth of the evolution of an object. Nor did he seek to explain whole periods against a criterion of linear progress, but to “define the conditions in which human beings ‘problematize’ what they are, what they do, and the world in which they live” (1985: 10). He tended to start with present concerns or particular problems (e.g., 'madness' or ‘leadership’), ask questions like ‘why do we treat madness (or leadership) as we do?'; and then question the normal responses (e.g. ‘because our modern methods are the best suited to counter (or normalise) madness’; ‘because we know more about how important leadership is 7
Submission #14808 and how it works then we ever did before’). The focus of Foucauldian research, therefore, goes to what people regard as the truth, how this came about and what are its effects (Foucault, 1977a; 1985). This radically different foci of attention from that of most research efforts is a key feature of the Foucauldian perspective and is instrumental in producing a fresh view of the phenomena being examined.
Work using this approach typically involves an element of historical analysis where the aim is to explain the development of contemporary thought and practice on a given topic (Dean, 1994; Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1983; Gutting, 1994). The topics chosen for examination are often those where contemporary knowledge and practice portrays itself as superior to that of the past; more truthful, scientifically grounded, humane or morally desirable (e.g. Jacques, 1996; Foucault, 1977a; 1978; Rose, 1990).
A Foucauldian perspective directs attention to a multiplicity of factors which influence the development of knowledge: underlying assumptions, social issues, the subjectivities and relationships invoked by different ideas, power, chance, and the historical context (Foucault, 1977a; 1985). Both the development of knowledge and social change more generally is understood as being an uncertain, complex process, without preordained outcomes and leading to various effects, some of which may be unintended or undesirable.
The approach seeks to produce a critical history of a contemporary ‘problem’ which portrays itself as a solution, in order to generate fresh thinking. It facilitates the researcher in producing an analysis which disturbs conventional understandings (Burrell, 1988; Dean, 1994; Guttung, 1994). This ability to generate disturbance is, we suggest, a particular
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Submission #14808 approach to critique which is not merely negative in its intent and effect (Guttung, 1994; Foucault, 1985). Instead, it is pivotal to enabling us to think differently.
The early Foucault becomes Archeaology, Archeaology becomes Genealogy… Foucault spent decades developing different strategies of inquiry toward his general aims. These can be divided into three main phases (Burrell 1988; Flynn 1994): the ‘early works’, the ‘archaeological’ phase, and ‘genealogy’, with each emerging in part as a response to flaws or weaknesses in the phase that preceded it. Consequently, understanding the preceding phases is useful (some would say imperative) to develop a good working knowledge of genealogy and its aims (Cummings & Bridgman, 2011).
Foucault’s early works (1965; 1975; 1976) critiqued psychology and psychiatry’s standing as sciences and their assumption that ‘normal’ sanity is an objective, pre-existing condition. Foucault (1976: 73) countered that “Man became a ‘psychological species’ only when the Age of Reason made madness a problem to be resolved and, hence, an object of inquiry”. ‘Madness’, as such, was not always present, waiting to be discovered by a rigorous enough science; it was brought into being by the very practices that made such a science (psychology) possible. Thus, against histories that traced the development of objects and the separate subjects that examine them, Foucault instead saw subject and object as co-determining one another. He would broaden out his analysis to argue that ‘Man’ did not exist until the practices constituted by the rise of humanism and the human sciences took hold (Foucault 1970). It was the emergence of humanism, in combination with the transition into modernity, which sought to move beyond customs or traditions like the power of the sovereign or his agents to ‘do violence’ in order to maintain control of society, which had made a problem of how control was to be upheld. This problem created the necessity for human sciences to come 9
Submission #14808 forth and provide what would come to be seen as objective universal norms that good people adhered to.
Foucault (1965: 142) highlighted the role played by psychology’s historical understanding of its progress in such a deceit. This presented psychology as at once building on noble foundations and advancing to bring forth a new “happy age in which madness was at last recognized and treated in accordance with a truth to which we had long remained blind”. But Foucault claimed that because this history is written as anticipation (the past viewed in terms of the present’s ‘heights’), two widely accepted, but illogical, ideas took hold: the idea that madness was not recognised until it was rigorously grasped by modern science (here historians retrospectively find the origin of psychology) and the idea that the pre-modern approach to madness was either simplistic or erroneous, despite the fact that psychology’s history has said that such an object had not been recognised yet. This was hardly a solid foundation on which to found a science.
Reaching further, Foucault argued that psychology’s attempt to found itself as a science had not overcome a mis-recognition. It had, in fact, promoted a misrecognition of a primordial understanding. He (1965; 1976) claimed that the modern discovery of ‘madness’ concealed real madness. Prior to modernity (e.g., during the Renaissance), our understanding was richer and more truthful.
Rather than addressing the history of one new science as before, Foucault’s archaeological period sought to determine the basis “common to a whole series of scientific ‘representations’” (Foucault, 1970: xi-xii). His focus was no longer on ‘how might a particular science not be a science and be keeping us from the truth?’, but rather ‘what was it 10
Submission #14808 that motivated the human sciences to present themselves as such, to create histories that promoted this, and the consequences of this will-to-science?’
Recognising the problem in promoting a pre-modern view of madness as superior, Foucault now presented the view that all truths, all conceptions of objects, are bound by the ‘strata’ within which they are situated. He defines this strata as an episteme: “a world-view, a slice of history common to all branches of knowledge, which imposes on each one the same norms and postulates, a general stage of reason, a certain structure of thought that the men of a particular period cannot escape” (Foucault 1972: 191). And he defined ‘archaeology’ as: “a history which is not that of [knowledge’s] growing perfection, but rather that of its conditions of possibility” (1970: xxii). By showing the singular conditions and specific statements that different episteme promoted, Foucault critiqued the current arrangements that we might assume to be natural or superior. In the modern episteme, for example, human studies must satisfy the conditions of the so-called ‘normal’ sciences to be ‘valid’. Foucault claimed this to be a terrible misfit, arguing that we should recognise the ‘specific’ configuration of all fields. In many ways, archaeology represents an advance upon Foucault's early works. Rather than simply presenting recent views as untruthful, it enables us to identify reasons why different views emerge as truthful in different ages.
Genealogy – the truth is shaped and maintained by the ‘family network’ In hindsight, Foucault (1980: 105) claimed that “what was missing from my work was the problem of ‘discursive regime’, the effects of power proper on the enuciative play. I confused it too much with systematicity… or something like a paradigm”. To help change tack he drew on Nietzsche’s view that there are no objective essential forms that can be appealed to: only chaotic webs and chance relations. In being afraid of this non-foundational uncertainty, 11
Submission #14808 people look to historians to show that the present actually rests upon grand origins, profound intentions and immutable necessities, and, in a circular manner, these “origins [become] the site of truth that makes possible a field of knowledge whose function is to recover it” (Foucault, 1977b: 151). In genealogy, Foucault thus moves away from the structuralist tendencies of archaeology. All knowledge is historical as before, but all history, and consequently all development, can now only be “a series of interpretations” not related to the nature of things or the strata in which they are embedded but to particular interests.
The question then becomes ‘if there is nothing positive that knowledge can attach itself to, what sustains our belief in the interpretations that we take as knowledge?’ Foucault’s answer was power; not power in an obvious or direct sense necessarily, but a more subtle view of a ‘network of relations, constantly in tension, in activity’ (Foucault, 1977a: 26). A power network that would influence what passed for knowledge in a particular domain. Archaeology examined the truths promoted by various episteme. Genealogy would focus upon these power/knowledge relations within and across periods of time. While Foucault (1980: 52; 194) saw such networks as positive in “perpetually creating knowledge” by producing “domains of objects and rituals of truth”; he claimed they at once repressed, censored and concealed other possibilities.
Playing an integral part in this producing-repressing relationship is the progressive history that a subject constructs out of a multiplicity of potentially contributing elements. This historical aspect produces by shaping the view and boundaries of the subject, thus making knowledge possible. However, it at once begins to shape a network that represses other interpretations. While conventional history thus aims at forming singular events into idealized and evolutionary chains of continuity (and thus, by association certain things that are 12
Submission #14808 discontinued), genealogy demonstrates how a field’s foundations are actually formed in a piecemeal fashion but then solidify to produce a sense of the development of knowledge while at the same time marginalising other possibilities. Whereas archaeology showed how things would come out the same within a particular episteme, genealogy allowed for the possibility of movement as interests and power relations changed. In Foucault’s words (1977b: 144), while certain points of historical “origin [would become] the site of truth” some things would be subject to re-interpretation and movement.
To begin the work of genealogical counter history, Foucault often began by juxtaposing different quotations to highlight discontinuities. In Discipline and Punish, for example, Foucault (1977a) highlighted the difference between Western ways of thinking in the 18th and 19th centuries by contrasting a grandiose description of the brutal public quartering of the regicide, Robert-François Damiens, with a little known prison timetable outlining the inmates' mundane routines. While the discontinuities in these examples where obvious, the networks that sustained them were not too dissimilar. Foucault argued that both were indicative of a wider social continuation of repression and control of deviance. And while modern histories of criminology might present the later as a development or increase in ‘humanity’, Foucault’s critique suggested that this was a continuity of normalization and degradation of individuality, but in a more subtle mental form than in a direct physical and public sense. From these juxtaposed examples related to a particular problem (e.g., how best to punish deviants), Foucault was able to expand out to explore the diagram of power relationships that would sustain the given regime, examining how it had emerged over time. In other words, genealogy focused on how things are constituted by a ‘diagram’ or web of relations that spreads out from a particular problem to incorporate particular ways of thinking, social functions and both positive and often unforeseen, over-looked or brushed-over negative effects (Noujain, 1987). 13
Submission #14808 Appling Foucault’s genealogical approach to Transformational Leadership Genealogy as a method of inquiry focuses on analysing how ideas and social practices change, develop, and come to be seen as correct and truthful and it involves examining the strategies, the networks of relationships, and the tactics that facilitate certain ideas and practices coming to the fore (e.g. Foucault 1977a, 1978). It does this without privileging individual actors as the source of change and without assuming that social change follows some natural progression to a higher state of perfection (e.g. Foucault 1977a, 1978). Instead, power is central to such an analysis and this analysis involves examining what the power/knowledge network empowers and restrains (Foucault 1977a, 1978, 1985). There is no assumption of necessity or a pre-determined outcome or direction in Genealogy; instead chance, opportunism and the capacity to dominate and to resist are treated as potential sources of social change (e.g. Foucault 1977a, 1978).
For the analysis of the TL literature offered here the primary sources are Burns’ Leadership (1978) and Bass’ Leadership and performance beyond expectations (1985). These were selected for examination because of their status as foundational classics within that literature: much of the subsequent TL literature is essentially a refinement or development of these works which elucidate the foundational tenets of the transformational conception of leadership. Secondary sources comprise a variety of texts which examine social, cultural, political and economic issues in the USA in the post-war period.
For the first stage of our analysis, statements from Burns’ and Bass’ books which claim to describe leaders and followers, as well as the ontological, epistemological and axiological assumptions the authors relied on were identified. These themes were themselves derived from the genealogical method (Foucault, 1977a; 1978; 1985). This material provided the 14
Submission #14808 initial descriptive stage of the findings which follows shortly. However to move to a full genealogical interpretation a second stage of analysis was required which involved identifying the links between the ideas and their historical context and drawing out the power-related dimensions of the ideas. For this, using Foucault’s work as our guide (e.g. 1977a, 1978, 1985), we developed four key questions which provoked us to go further in our examination of the data. These questions were:
What macro level social factors facilitate this conception of leadership?
What micro level factors within the field of leadership knowledge facilitate this conception of leadership?
What is the social function of these ideas?
What effects do these ideas seek/produce?
This stage of our analysis involved moving between the detailed ‘data’ provided by the texts themselves and the social context in which they arose, as we sought to develop a plausible interpretation of how these ideas came to be and what effects and functions arise from them. For each of these four key questions, supplementary questions were developed to provide further challenge to our thinking. These were not intended as exhaustive but were more in the nature of thought prompters. A sample of these is set out in table 1 below. TABLE 1 Genealogical Analysis: Stage 2 Thought Prompters
Key questions
Supplementary questions
1. What macro level social factors facilitate this conception of leadership?
2. What micro level factors within the field of leadership knowledge facilitate this conception of leadership?
what effects do these ideas have on the field? what norms of knowledge production do these ideas reinforce or counter? what problems do these ideas seek to solve for the field?
3. What is the social function
were these ideas promoting change or stability in the social
what social, political or economic trends or events, if any, are influential in accounting for the emergence of these ideas? what cultural values and norms do these ideas rely on/form part of?
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Submission #14808 of these ideas?
4. What effects do these ideas seek/produce?
order of the time? what problems were treated as priority? whose interests are served by these ideas and in what way? what new versions of human subjectivity come into being with the development of these ideas? what social practices and institutions came into being, were reinforced or were undermined with the development of these ideas? what existing knowledge was reinforced or undermined by these ideas and what new knowledge was developed?
In what follows, our findings are presented in two stages. In the first stage we provide a detailed description of the key claims contained in Burns’ and Bass’ work which relate to matters of genealogical interest. In stage two our analysis is more directly theoretical in nature, as we apply the genealogical method to produce a plausible interpretation of the social function, effects and macro and micro level contextual factors which gave rise to the influence that TL theory has today.
THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP TO ENABLE THINKING DIFFERENTLY …the concept of leadership has out-lived its usefulness. Hence, I suggest that we abandon leadership in favour of some other more fruitful way of cutting up the theoretical pie. John B. Miner (1975). ...the study of transformational and charismatic leadership [has]… save[d] the day. Indeed, I contend that a major, if not the major, contribution of the field of transformational and charismatic leadership has been its transformation of the field [of leadership]. This transformation involves a field [that was] rigorous, boring, static… inconsequential… providing little value… The advent of transformational/charismatic leadership changed all that. James G. Hunt (1999).
If we accept the claims made in the quotation from James Hunt as correct, what has been achieved in recent decades appears truly a testament to the productivity of the science of the 16
Submission #14808 leadership studies project and its discoveries. The historical narrative has a happy ending; we have never been in a better position or known more about leadership than we do today, and this is triumph over adversity. Such an account is, of course, tremendously appealing, reinforcing influential contemporary values such as our faith in ‘science’, ‘progress’ and the value of ‘hard work’ as well as in this thing called leadership and, by association, human agency. We can – or at least our leaders can – if we/they are clever enough, control our destiny.
However, what our genealogical analysis highlights is that TL, as the rejuvenating font of leadership studies, is more an expedient creation in response to an emerging set of problems and assumptions about progress than an objective/scientific discovery. Moreover, the not untypical historical account voiced in Hunt’s words, in promoting as it does the genuine and serious endeavours of these great new leadership scholars, has had the simultaneous effect of repressing doubt and further scrutiny of what has really been achieved and how that came about. Our critical examination below is intended to ‘mess up’ this tidy and appealing narrative. In a culture now saturated with accounts of the actions of leaders, where leadership is commonly treated as the answer to every problem, a critical assessment of how this has come to pass is, we argue, much overdue.
Stage 1: what is said to be true about leaders and followers We begin with a detailed description of key features of Bass’ and Burns’ early works, considering firstly their conception of leaders. In these texts, “the leader” first emerges as an agent of morally uplifting change. Their relationship with followers is said to be one ‘not only of power but of mutual needs, aspirations and values’ (Burns, 1978: 3). Here, ‘leadership emerges from, and always returns to, the fundamental needs and wants, aspirations, and 17
Submission #14808 values of the followers… (it) produce(s) social change that will satisfy followers’ authentic needs’ (Burns, 1978: 3). A key assumption at this early stage is that ‘followers have adequate knowledge of alternative leaders…and the capacity to choose among those alternatives’ (Burns, 1978: 3).
As the approach developed and sought to substantiate its claims by deploying social science norms of speaking the truth a more specific set of leader attributes emerged: a ready-made identity, available for wider dispersion and intended for replication was produced. The leader became more fully and formally specified as a charismatic individual with high levels of ‘selfconfidence and self-esteem’ (Bass, 1985a: 45), capable of defining priorities and meaning in a manner which others find persuasive (Bass, 1985a). The leader is portrayed as someone motivated to inspire others through emotional appeals and intellectual stimulation and concerned also with individual follower’s needs, views and development (Bass, 1985a). It is claimed the leader acts by connecting with the needs of others, satisfying the leader’s own needs in the process of satisfying the needs of others (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985a).
The transformational leader is expected (and warranted) to induce changes in thought and practice in regards to such diverse matters as ‘who rules and by what means; the work-group norms, as well as ultimate beliefs about religion, ideology, morality, ethics, space, time, and human nature’ (Bass, 1985a: 24). To achieve these kinds of results the leader ‘invents, introduces, and advances the cultural forms’ resulting in change to ‘the social warp and woof of reality’ (Bass, 1985a: 24). Because it is now assumed that the leader functions in a workplace setting with formal authority, withholding or granting rewards dependent on performance also becomes part of the leader’s role (see Bass, 1985a); the original assumption
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Submission #14808 of follower choice in regard to who shall lead simply fades from view as the transformational leadership enters the workplace.
Followers are portrayed in these texts as persons with unmet needs and unrealised potential: to address these gaps in their lives consequently requires the intervention of the leader (e.g. Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985a). It is said followers may not fully understand their own true needs and hence the leader is to be the one who can reveal these to them (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985a). Matched to this the follower is portrayed as someone in need of guidance, amenable to change, needing to be changed, requiring someone else to prompt this change, and benefiting from this change (e.g. Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985a). Such a conception seems to replicate important features of the modern therapeutic relationship which Foucault has argued derives from the medieval confessional practices (1978). Followers are said to be naturally self-serving but amenable to becoming self-denying. Via the leader’s intervention followers are expected to ‘transcend their own self-interest for the good of the group, organization, or country’ (Bass, 1985a: 15).
The qualitative and often overtly normative nature of the original claims made by Burns (1978) were fairly quickly adapted to better fit the norms of a positivist social science paradigm (e.g. Bass, 1985a). Theoretical efforts were made to develop formal constructs and then subject these to empirical testing (e.g. Bass, 1985a, 1985b). Henceforth transformational leadership was more strictly spoken of as an empirical phenomenon, serving to naturalise and normalise its existence (Alvesson and Deetz, 2000). Moreover the basic proposition of leaderas-change-agent seems to have achieved a significant cultural resonance which heightened interest in it and helped advance its influence on the field and on practitioners. We turn, therefore, to examine the historical context in which these ideas arose. 19
Submission #14808
Stage 2: how these ideas came about and their effects Macro and micro factors giving rise to Transformational Leadership theory The emergence of the idea of the transformational leader in the USA of the 1970’s and 1980’s can, we argue, most usefully be understood as a strategic response to a range of social, political and economic factors and events, and not simply as an intellectual breakthrough in our understanding of leadership. Amongst these factors, for example, we recall that at this time the US had recently experienced high profile political leaders whose rhetorical flair, as well as the content of their ideas, excited a strong emotional response from both supporters and opponents. President Kennedy and Dr King are particularly noteworthy examples of this (Burns, 1978; Heath, 1975; Roos, 1972). While Charismatic Leadership Theory (e.g. House, 1977; Conger, 1989) sought to account for the appeal of such individuals, TL theory offered a broader agenda with a greater focus on substantive change, and was perhaps also more palatable at a time when charismatic leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini remained etched in living memory.
While both the Vietnam War and Watergate provoked significant unease about the moral authority of leaders (Ackerman, 1975; Burns, 1978; Capitman, 1973) TL theory seemed to address such concerns via its (ostensible) focus on follower needs (e.g. Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985a). The on-going effects of the so-called counter-culture, which questioned established ways of doing things, had meant it was becoming increasingly difficult for those in positions of authority to secure willing obedience simply by reference to their authority (Ackerman, 1975; Capitman, 1973; Peters and Waterman, 1982). America’s industrial sector was also struggling to retain its competitiveness, with challenges such as the oil crisis and stagflation
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Submission #14808 eroding confidence that American business and political leaders knew what to do (Ackerman, 1975; Magaziner and Reich, 1982; Peters and Waterman, 1982).
TL theory however spoke directly to an audience contemplating an environment which was seen as having dramatically changed and which appeared to require widespread reform and new ways of doing things to regain American dominance. TL theory put itself forward to offer ‘new answers to new questions…using a new paradigm or pattern of inquiry’ (Bass, 1985a: 4) and thus resonated strongly with the social context of the time. In a different context the chances of TL theory attracting such significant positive attention could well have been radically different.
Reinforcing the network of relations encouraging the emergence of a need for TL, was the treatment of what was seen as a struggle between forces for centralization and decentralization, and a consequent growth in what we might call informal organization structures and control mechanisms, by the increasingly popular field of inquiry called management studies (Cummings, 2002: 154ff.). In the 1960s perhaps the first management guru, Peter Drucker (1964: 107) outlined the contours of the debate, both for his fledgling field and the world more generally, thus: The importance of the question whether decentralization is absolutely more efficient than centralization does not lie, primarily, in its application to business management. It is actually the question whether a socialist economy can be as efficient economically as a free-enterprise economy. By the time that management studies ‘went Pop’ in the 1980s, an emancipatory movement, away from centralized structures, was a key part of the mantra espoused by new best-sellers like In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982). In the United States, the world’s leading manufacturer and exporter of management knowledge, businesses faced losses in 21
Submission #14808 productivity and strong foreign competition in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The answer? Among other things, consultants-cum-authors, headed by Peters and Waterman (1982), wrote that fluid decentralized structures were replacing rigid centralized bureaucracies in the most innovative companies and suggested that such structures would make most companies more competitive.
In Western countries as far flung as Great Britain and New Zealand, local authors, following in Peter’s and Waterman’s wake, examined their own excellent companies. Gurus in the United Kingdom gushed of “winning through autonomy” and spoke of a watershed: When Fritz Shumacher wrote ‘small is beautiful’ he was spitting in the wind. Now the wind has turned and even many of the largest companies are scurrying to turn themselves into confederations of small business units (Goldsmith and Clutterbuck, 1985: 40). In New Zealand, leading lights (Inkson, et al., 1986) spoke of the need “to set free the zest and energy that autonomous people discharge when they are really trusted” (p.149); and stressed that: “self-determination and self control enables the organization to build not only its performance, but also its complement of people able and willing to accept the responsibilities of the future” (p.159). Inkson, et al. (1986) referred back to their inspiration for legitimation: In Search of Excellence is full of stories of excellent companies whose route to excellence had included the ruthless excision of a growing head-office cancer of this [centralized control] type (p.156). In turn, these writings were endorsed, and reinforced, by Peters who wrote on their back covers that the British book was: “readable, the data are hard, and the conclusions are unassailable” and that he was “thrilled” by the New Zealand version.
Other authors saw decentralization as part of a new wave in which “new political parties, new philosophies, and new management techniques sprung up and explicitly attacked the centralist 22
Submission #14808 premises of the previous ruling paradigm” (Toffler, 1981: 268). John Naisbitt (1982) subsequently summed up the direction that things were moving in the title of his chapter on the ‘megatrend’ decentralization: “Centralization → Decentralization.” This path was reconfirmed and perpetuated by textbooks emphasizing that “The clear trend today is toward more decentralization” (Stoner and Freeman, 1989: 323). Probably the 1980s most thorough study of the relationship between centralization and autonomy suggested that “beliefs will swing towards decentralization unless this is discredited by a series of disasters” (Brooke, 1984: 340). As Naisbitt wrote, “The decentralization of America has transformed our very culture,” and that: Centralized structures are crumbling all across America. But our society is not falling apart. Far from it. The people of this country are rebuilding America from the bottom up into a stronger, more balanced, more diverse society (1982: 97). At the same time an American, but internationally popular, textbook Understanding Organizational Behaviour (Callahan, Fleenor and Knudson, 1986: 592), explained why other countries were resisting following America’s lead in this righteous quest: While Japan has a fairly homogeneous culture that allows more focused and accepted direction from authority, America prides itself on being a melting pot. A consequence in a society that supports individual rights is that groups and individuals want to be distinct and to have choices that reflect their situations. The trend of decentralization is one response to this diversity. But, this wave of fantastic Western decentralization needed something in place to avoid a descent into an unstructured rabble. Just as the human sciences emerged to help create order out of the potential emanicipatory chaos of democratic revolution, something needed to emerge to promote stability in a world where diversity and decentralization was the way of the future. And that something was a vibrant rejuvenated leadership studies – a field that would explain why and how we need to put our faith and trust in certain transformational
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Submission #14808 characters who could focus these newly released waves of energy and thus deserve to be followed.
TL theory also provided a solution to another more particular concern of its advocates in the then sub-field of management: the dismal state and status of the leadership studies (Hunt, 1999). Following Stogdill’s dismissal in 1948 of the results of close to five decades of research dedicated to developing a trait-based theory of leadership various other theories and models were advanced with limited success (Bass, 2008; Jackson and Parry, 2011). As noted earlier, Miner (1975) went as far as proposing that leadership itself was no longer a useful concept. Soon after, Lombardo and McCall (1978) characterised the field as marked by a “mindboggling” number of “un-integrated models, theories, prescription and conceptual schemes”; they claimed “much of the literature is fragmentary, trivial, unrealistic and dull” and “the research results are characterised by Type III errors (solving the wrong problems precisely) and by contradictions” (Lombardo and McCall, 1978: 3). By 1999, however, a narrative of success and vibrancy about the state of leadership studies could be offered and accepted as credible in the field’s most prestigious journal (Hunt, 1999). Even more recently Jackson and Parry (2011) argued that there has never been a better time to study leadership. TL theory, then, as well as resonating with the wider social context in which it developed, also provided a solution to the dilemma facing leadership researchers in the late 1970’s by breaking with previous assumptions and models and stepping out in a new direction.
The bold claims made by proponents of TL about leaders’ right to shape others’ reality, values and beliefs is, we argue, heavily reliant on a cultural context already primed to see those in authority as fundamentally benevolent in intent and effect. This context shapes what is sayable in respect of leadership as much as it shapes the silences and omissions we can see 24
Submission #14808 in this conception of leadership. The appetite to so readily accept the claims made about leaders, to grab at them with such enthusiasm, reinforces Meindl et al.’s (1985) contention that a romantic view of leadership colours contemporary perceptions, generating a focus on the potentially positive aspects of leadership and a turning away from the potentially problematic aspects of a relationship based on inequality.
The effects of the Transformational Leadership concept We turn now to the potential effects of the TL concept for leader and follower subjectivity which arises when, following Foucault, these texts are treated as not simply descriptions of who we are but as constructions of what we might become (Foucault, 1977a, 1978, 1985). The subjectivity of the leader created here, then, is that of someone who expresses themselves through and in others, by assisting others to become more like the leader. Leader success is thus akin to reproduction by way of cloning. The transformational leader may take a male or female form and can be found in factories and offices everywhere, encouraging others to become like themselves. They are said to appeal to both reason and emotion, suggesting facts and feelings are of equal merit in the domain of leadership.
The leader depicted here appears as someone who harbours no doubts as to their own capacity; the only challenge may be to find followers whose ‘authentic needs’ match those of the leader. The leader’s ability and apparently fundamental need to change the beliefs, values and reality of others is to be governed by a relationship of symbiosis that is to be formed between leader and follower (Bass, 1985a). This apparently will suffice to ensure leaders do not abuse their position. The leader’s capacity to imagine a different future, to engage others enthusiasm for that, to enhance others performance and to nurture their development means
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Submission #14808 the leader is one who functions in creative, strategic, operational and interpersonal modes with equal ease. There is apparently nothing of which the transformational leader is incapable.
However this self is also one that can never be satisfied with what exists outside itself, because change is a compulsive requirement for the transformational leader. There is always to be something in the transformational leader’s environment needing improvement or change. There is no scope for stability, for modest goals or merely adequate performance. Everything and everyone must shine, always, in this conception of leadership. Nothing is ever quite good enough. There is a demand for constant movement: so long as something is changing the transformational leader warrants their own existence, their very being. If nothing changes it is as if the transformational leader ceases to exist as such.
Complementing this conception of the leader, the follower exists in this model as a person whose potential can only be achieved through the actions of a leader. Hence the transformational leader is one who frees followers from a life of unrealised potential to which they are otherwise condemned: the leader-as-saviour? It is as if the follower is perpetually in limbo in the absence of the leader, waiting for the leader’s inspiration, advice, sanctioning or reward to guide their next move. The follower as depicted here offers a passivity which serves as a perfect counter-weight to the leader’s energy. While the follower is credited with possessing values, goals and dreams of their own, these are simultaneously discredited as being self-serving and inauthentic in the absence of the leader’s influence.
The relationship between leader and follower proposed in TL theory is full of (unexamined) paradoxes: leader self-expression is intended to bring about follower self-denial, yet this is simultaneously said to be in the follower’s authentic interests, of which they may be unaware. 26
Submission #14808 A follower’s potential can here only be achieved by leader intervention, implying an inadequate or non-existent agency on the part of followers. However the leader’s very existence relies on followers being prepared to change themselves (to become more like the leader) suggesting the agency to resist resides in followers, posing a threat to the leader’s success. Problematically, it seems that if followers become leaders, a proposition posed as the ultimate achievement of leadership (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985a), this would result in both leader and follower losing their distinctive subjectivity and role and thus their raison d’être. As a potential identity script for actual persons to deploy (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003; Ford et al., 2008) TL theory offers a precarious existence.
Turning to consider the macro level function served by this conception of leadership, we have seen that in this paradigm ‘leadership’ and ‘stability’ are placed in opposing camps (see table 2). ‘Leadership’ is here associated with change, reform, upheaval, with whatever is bigger, better, faster, stronger and newer, expected to conquer whatever is smaller, slower, weaker and older. In the context in which it arose, then, TL theory can be understood to function as a strategic power/knowledge device which supports the requirements of capitalism to find new sources of profit by asserting the desirability and inevitability of constant change and improved performance. The role granted to leaders positions them as facilitators handmaidens - to the requirements of capitalism, while followers function as consumers of leadership with the promise that such consumption will satisfy “authentic needs” (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985a). The model also functions to enhance the moral authority of managers and to extend the scope of managerial intervention. With the development of TL theory, managerial intervention extends beyond merely motivating the employee to work harder to defining the employee’s values, beliefs and reality.
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Submission #14808 In claiming that leaders can and should change followers’ reality, values and beliefs, individual autonomy and responsibility for such matters are pushed aside, yet we are told this is really in followers’ best interests. Instead those in authority are tasked with addressing those concerns on followers’ behalf. There seems to be no issue too challenging for the truly transformational leader to take on, no problem beyond their capacity to solve. It is as if leadership is the answer, no matter what the question or problem, an essential force for good, and only good, in which leaders are imbued with special gifts. Here, their corner offices are akin to holy places while their utterances have become the source of truth and salvation.
TABLE 2 Summary of Key Findings Key questions 1. What macro level social factors facilitate this conception of leadership?
Key findings
2. What micro level factors within the field of management and leadership knowledge facilitate this conception of leadership?
3. What is the social function of these ideas?
3. What effects do these ideas seek/produce?
TL theory developed as a response to perceived political, economic and moral problems wherein change was privileged over stability TL theory resonated with key cultural values which accepted as legitimate the right of leaders to shape followers behaviour and values TL needed to rejuvenate a belief in leadership to provide focal points to ensure efficiency in a world where organization decentralization was coming to be seen as a universal good. TL developed in an academic community in a state of theoretical crisis and provided a solution to that crisis TL theory is enmeshed in the norms of positivist social science to establish its naturalness and legitimacy as valid knowledge TL theory legitimates and naturalises the requirements of capitalism for constant change and better performance TL theory acts to uphold existing social relations TL theory enhances the moral authority of managers to work on the self of employees TL theory creates a leader self that can never be satisfied with itself or others and a follower self that needs the leader to achieve its potential
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Submission #14808 IMPLICATIONS Our analysis suggests that TL theory is best understood as a socially and historically contingent development rather than simply as an intellectual breakthrough. It emerged as a considered response to a specific set of problems and relies on a specific set of (challengeable) assumptions about the nature of leaders and followers and their respective rights and roles. It privileges change over stability. Centralised decision making based on rank/authority is privileged over dispersed, collective decision making based on membership of a group, organization or society. The performativity requirements of modern capitalism are given priority rather than for example, relational, creative or politically progressive values. It is of course not value neutral, nor should we expect it to be so. However by paying attention to the values it carries, our analysis offers an alternative perspective on TL theory.
A clear challenge to the universalist assumptions and assertions of the theory’s proponents is posed by our findings. In turn this suggests that more research is required to establish the contextual conditions in which TL is and is not relevant. In a knowledge-intensive workplace, for example, where professional expertise is the source of economic value and where collaboration and peer esteem are key motivators of performance, what relevance is TL? Might an alternative theory of leadership be more appropriate? We suggest there is much that could be done to further our understanding of the boundary conditions for the appropriate use of a TL approach.
Further, our findings suggest that TL theory carries with it a set of potentially problematic effects. These effects emerge at the level of the subjectivity of the individual leader and follower as constructed by TL theory, at the level of the leader-follower relationship and at the societal level in terms of the role, scope and focus granted to leadership. Here we suggest 29
Submission #14808 that further theoretical work is required to determine if it is possible to revise the theory to remove the problematic assumptions of follower inadequacy and to address the risk of constructing grandiose leader subjectivities who consider it their duty and right to change others to become more like them. Conceptual consideration of the limitations we might wish to impose on transformational leaders in their attempts to change others warrants more attention, as does the means of measuring compliance with such limits. At the macro level, further examination of the purpose of leadership in different contexts and privileging different interests from those normally taken for granted also constitutes a fertile opportunity for further research.
CONCLUSION
Our contribution here has been to offer a critically and historically oriented account of developments in TL theory. Our findings indicate that the currently accepted narrative of developments in the field is inadequate. We suggest that the transformational conception of leadership is not wholly positive but instead relies on questionable assumptions and serves to produce unintended and potentially undesirable consequences. In particular, we argue that TL theory produces problematic effects for leader and follower subjectivity, for the balance of power between leaders and followers and for the role and scope of influence granted to leaders. As a power-knowledge construct which, we argue, is strongly aligned with the interests of capitalism, we suggest that the potential of TL to be deployed for social change beyond these interests may be less than has previously been understood. While our focus here pertains solely to TL theory and to its development within the academic literature, it is hoped that our detailed explication of how Foucault’s ideas can be operationalized might provide a
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Submission #14808 useful working model for further critical theorisation of other power-knowledge constructs within management studies.
TL theory, from a Foucauldian perspective, is fundamentally a creation or invention rather than a discovery. Transformational leaders ‘exist’ only because we choose to interpret, promote and institutionalise a particular way of acting and being between persons labelled ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’. TL theory offers a script to those who accept such labels for how to behave, what to prioritise and how to think of themselves and others. However none of this is inevitable nor is it inherently venal in its intent or effect. We suggest that by enriching our understanding of the potential limitations of TL theory using a Foucauldian perspective new research opportunities become evident. Our findings moreover enable us to step back and take stock of the very idea of the transformational leader, to question if this is indeed who we want to take charge of our nations, our organizations and our very selves. In so doing, we hope that our paper may add to a small but growing swell of interest (e.g. Alvesson and Spicer, 2011; Sinclair, 2008; Ford and Harding, 2011), in thinking critically about our current fascination with the construct we call ‘leadership’.
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