The discursive construction of collective leadership: An exploratory study

Stephenson, Peter

Abstract

The increasing popularity of collective leadership amongst leadership scholars has resulted in a surge in publications yet we know little about how organisational leadership is collectively constructed. This research aims to contribute to our understanding of how leadership is discursively constructed in a collective setting. Drawing on the concept of discursive constructionism this research explores the phenomenon of leadership as a collective construction. Discursive construction analysis methodology has been developed to address some of the challenges associated with researching a dynamic, context-specific, and multi-level phenomenon, which is capable of addressing the irrevocable connection between leadership, power, and culture.

The leadership meetings of an independent UK law firm over 12 months have been recorded and analysed in order to explore the ways in which leadership is constructed as a collective phenomenon. In order to analyse the data a bespoke methodology has been designed and implemented which brings together aspects of conversation analysis, thematic analysis, and thematic deconstruction.

The findings demonstrate the complexities and nuances of what Alvesson and Karreman (2000) termed big ‘D’ Discourses, and identify strategies the participants used to affect the influence of Discourse, whilst also exploring the ways in which Discourse influenced the effectiveness of the participants’ contributions to leadership. Using the concepts of deontic and epistemic orders, stance, and status the power dynamics of the organisation are explored through a fine-grained analysis of the discourse used in the construction of leadership. The findings contribute to our understanding of collective leadership by revealing some of the strategies actors use to encourage and discourage collective contributions to leadership, the ways in which power dynamics are played out between individuals discursively, and the effective (and ineffective) ways in which actors affect their own, and others, positions in relation to power. All of this is considered in relation to the influence of Discourse, which explores the nuances and complexities of collective leadership as a discursive construction.

The core contributions arising from the research are firstly, the identification of the strategies used by actors to influence Discourse, namely challenging, limiting, supporting, and building momentum. Secondly, to demonstrate that the nature of Discourse, rather than being the ground on which leadership is based as the extant literature suggests, is a more complex, nuanced, and intangible concept for which a more appropriate analogy may be coloured lights presenting the arguments in an infinite number of possible ways, each of which may be interpreted differently by each participant. The third contribution is to identify specific strategies participants in the study used to contribute to the collective construction of instances of leadership. The fourth core contribution is the identification of the strategies employed by the actors to influence their own and other’s stance. These contributions shed some light on the discursive practices used to construct collective leadership in an organisational setting.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Mar 14, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 27, 2024
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11803334
• Award Date: Jun 27, 2024