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Church leaders’ narratives: An exploration in uncertainty and complexity

Simpson, Peter

Authors



Abstract

Organizational uncertainty and change sometimes requires leaders to practice the art of engaging with not knowing. At its simplest this art constitutes the act of moving forwards with the conscious awareness that all decision making is based on information that is incomplete or even entirely absent. This might seem obvious and straightforward. We all know that we do not know everything – and we are particularly aware that there are times when nobody knows what we would like at least someone with power and responsibility to know!

However, typically in organizations the prevailing dynamics encourage both leaders and followers to favour characteristics of ‘knowing’ in leaders. This can encourage leaders to feel the need to create an illusion of knowing, even in situations of uncertainty, both for their own sense of competence and in order to inspire the confidence of followers. In such a context it can be difficult even to hold onto the thought that 'not knowing' is a more accurate description of the state of organizational leaders.

The leadership literature has been dominated by the myth of the ‘leader as hero’, most prevalent in some of the literature on the leadership of transformational change (Kouzes and Posner 1987, Manz 1989, Tichy and Sherman 1993). It is commonly assumed that such leaders must know something that others do not. However, there has been a growing realisation that the complexity of organizations, and of the markets and society in which they operate, is never going to be ‘knowable’ or ‘controllable’ (Senge 1990, Stacey, 2003). This challenges the notion that leaders can guide the organization through change and uncertainty by means of superior knowledge. It might be that some individuals do have capabilities that contribute to effective leadership, but it is not possible that they can know what cannot be known. Consequently, if we are to understand what contributes to effective leadership in situations of uncertainty then it is necessary to investigate not merely what leaders know but also how they engage with not knowing (French and Simpson 1999, Simpson and Burnard 2000).

The 'knowing' imperative is so pervasive that it appears to dominate thinking and practice even within institutions whose primary task is holding and containing faith in the unknown and unknowable on behalf of society. This paper reports on a research study that gathered the narratives of leaders in one such institution, the Church of England.

The discussion will explore the potential links between the behaviours of religious leaders and the managers of secular organizations. In part this will be achieved by demonstrating how, increasingly, clergy in the Church of England are being encouraged to apply organizational management principles to their own roles and behaviours. In addition, the growing literature on spirituality in organizations will be drawn upon to show that the thinking and behaviours of religious leaders may also have relevance to business leaders.

The investigation of experience and action in a context of uncertainty requires a methodology that works at the interface between certainty and uncertainty. Narratives of personal experience have been argued previously to provide this. The study was based on a process of semi-structured interviews and action inquiry workgroups that encouraged six church leaders to tell and share stories in a conversational setting about their experiences of working in situations of uncertainty. Field texts, predominantly in the form of stories of personal experience , interpreted as a product of the creative interplay between raw experience and cultural discourse, have been used to access meaning rather than knowledge. The analysis identifies patterns, threads, tensions and themes in the leaders’ narratives.

Previous work has addressed this theme of leading in situations of uncertainty from the perspectives of Stoic philosophy (Simpson, French and Harvey 2001) and of psychoanalytic theory, in particular object relations and the writings of Wilfred Bion (French and Simpson, 2001, etc). This study extends this theoretical work by drawing upon Stacey’s (2003) work on conversations and narratives as complex responsive processes . In a similar manner to stoicism and psychoanalytic theory, Stacey’s theory challenges the prevailing organizational dynamic of knowing and offers the basis for a nuanced critical understanding of practice in situations of uncertainty and change.

Citation

Simpson, P. (2011, March). Church leaders’ narratives: An exploration in uncertainty and complexity. Paper presented at Fourth Conference on Rhetoric and Narratives in Management Research (RNMR) 2011, Barcelona

Presentation Conference Type Conference Paper (unpublished)
Conference Name Fourth Conference on Rhetoric and Narratives in Management Research (RNMR) 2011
Conference Location Barcelona
Start Date Mar 24, 2011
End Date Mar 26, 2011
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Peer Reviewed Not Peer Reviewed
Keywords leadership, complexity, complex responsive processes, spirituality, change management
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/965070
Publisher URL http://itemsweb.esade.edu/research/rnmr2011/programme.pdf
Additional Information Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Fourth Conference on Rhetoric and Narratives in Management Research (RNMR) 2011