SLOWING DOWN TO SPEED UP: AN EXPLORATION OF LEADERSHIP AND RELATIONAL REFLEXIVITY

I will explore the notion of leadership in this thesis; more particularly I will explore how the use of relational reflexivity can facilitate leadership.  Leadership is a topic that has been researched and written about extensively.  Before addressing the concept of relational reflexivity, I would like to address the trends in leadership theory and practice.  Yet, even with a voluminous history, the study of leadership has not yielded the hoped for results.  (Antonakis, J., Cianciolo, A. T. & Sternberg, R. J. 2004).  A review of the current leadership literature unearths a number of assumptions about leadership that have shaped the very nature of how leadership is viewed and studied.  

The overlying assumption is that leadership emanates from a person; be it a trait, or behaviour.  Leadership is embedded in either who a person is or how they behave. The quest becomes how to unlock the key and find the innate qualities or the behaviours a person needs to acquire to be an effective leader.  I will explore an aspect of leadership that focuses on the interaction between people; that is, leadership as a relational practice.  

Much of the current literature explores leadership from the individual perspective of the person exercising leadership.  Leadership is examined as a characteristic or activity of the person in a role.

Social constructionism postulates that our language, our social discourse constructs our reality.  (Grint 2005) (Gergen & Gergen 2003) If we examine leadership then as a relational reality, that is, as something that happens between people, our focus of inquiry then shifts.  We are no longer examining what emanates out of a person or the impact of a person’s behaviour on others.  Rather we begin to examine what are the leadership relational practices that occur between people.  The difficulty of doing this practically is addressed by Westerman and Steen who argue that this internal-external dichotomy is pervasive in theory, research and practice in clinical psychology.  (Westerman, Steen 2009).  The same appears true in research into leadership.  Again, predominant theme today presents the leader as being the primary agent for transformation. (Antonakis, J., Cianciolo, A. T. & Sternberg, R. J. 2004)  As a result much of the current leadership training practices aim at increasing the skills of the leader, particularly their interpersonal skills and knowledge of others.  (Stone, Patterson, 2005) (Bolden, R., Gosling, J., Marturano, A. and Dennison, P. 2003)

Westerman argues that the very framework of “interpersonal” behaviour comes out of the Cartesian bias that is at the heart of how we have researched human behaviour.  (Westerman, 2005)  This bias presents the individual as separate from the world.  What happens if we shift the focus and examine the behaviour of an individual as being embedded in the world, in their relationships and not separate from them?  Rather than focusing on the interaction of two separate entities, the focus turns to the dance, the cooperation between the entities.  They are not separate but are continually shaping and co-directing the dance.  

What happens when we apply this to leadership?  If leadership is defined as the influencing process and its resultant outcomes; new ways of speaking and exploring leadership become possible if we focus on what the relational practices between people that allows for the alignment of mutual influence and shared focus as well as realizing the desired outcomes.