3.12 leadership (1)
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LeadershipPowerandIdentity.pptxENTE 3522: Perspectives on creative leadership
Doing Leadership Differently:critical perspectives to producing leadership identities
Huriye Yeröz [email protected]
Being Leaders: Identities and Identity Work in Leadership
Mainstream perspectives and theories are devoted to finding ways of making organisations more efficient and effective.
Critical perspectives has a political intent that is concerned with exploring organisations as places and which people work, the lives they live there, oppressive nature of work and how organisation is achieved et cetera.
Being critical leaders
Profitable workplace
Abused workforce
Critical
Normal
Paradigms are lens or ways of thinking about reality. Different lens create different conclusions
Identities
Critical Perspective to Leaders’ Identity identity work
We will introduce some critical perspectives on identity. These include the
ideas of our identities as
multiple and potentially contradictory,
constantly being negotiated as they are being performed.
We will question and critique the notion of a single perfectible leadership identity and, tested against her or his experience and with others,
Most individuals readily grasp that the business of being ourselves rarely proceeds smoothly or according to plan.
Leaders Identity identity work
Leaders are both authors of and objects in identity production, their efforts sometimes described as ‘identity work’ (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002).
Identity
Identity is a subjective and adaptive self-concept that individuals construct as they engage in questions such as ‘Who am I’ and ‘How should I act’?
Process of identity construction are influenced by the interplaying of cognitive, emotional and social interactions
Individuals construct and enact their identity is influenced by how they think and feel about current and future identity states as well as interactions with others
Discourse/narratives about work and organization can mould human subjects but are also balanced against other elements of an individual’s life history
Identification formulation
(Ashforth, Harrison & Corley, 2008)
Core of identity
I am “A” (self definition) I am value “A” (importance) I feel about “A” (affect)
Context of identity
I care about “B” (values)
I want C (goals) I believe “D” (beliefs)
I generally do “E” (stereotypical traits) I can do “F” (knowledge, skill, abilities
Behaviors of identity
I do “G” behaviors
Lack of identity?
Leadership identity? Psychological perspectives
Identity as an individual
developmental accomplishment. The focus is on how people develop and maintain an integrated and coherent sense of who they are, sometimes equated with measures of psychological health.
Being Leaders: Identities and Identity Work in Leadership
Leader as a brand: encouraging the commoditization and marketing of the self. The vision or ideal is of a perfectible self-as-leader, including an appealing but ‘fictional belief in the self as an autonomous entity’ (Roberts, 2009).
ASSUMPTİON: identity is usually assumed to be a unitary coherent construction produced by the individual, who is then exhorted on a treadmill of self- improvement.
Leadership identity? Sociological perspectives
Social psychologists (Gergen,
1991) and cultural theorists have questioned psychological accounts, showing the role of social forces and institutional power in identity-making.
The production of self is never done in isolation and is an ongoing negotiation, not a once and for
all achievement.
Leadership identity? Critical perspectives
Societies regulate the identities that may be taken up and individual leaders conform to and
struggle against societal and organizational scripts of who they should be as leaders.
A model of identity work
Situational factors
Individual factors
Identity work
Identity demands
Culture of individualism
Weak collective identity
Dual function tactics
Seeking refreshment
Involving other people
Tapping spiritual resources
Identity demands
Social identity as calling
Identity expectations
Strong situations
Identity tensions
Overidentification
Identity intrusion
Lack of identity transparency
Identity tensions
Underidentification
Preservation of personal identity
Identity transparency
Differentiation tactics
Separating role from identity
Setting limits
Creating an identity hierarchy
Enacting ephemeral roles
Flipping the on/off switch
Integration tactics
Merging role with identity
Infusing self-aspect into tasks
Casting self as emblem
(Kreiner, Hollensbe & Sheep, 2006)
Critical Leadership Studies: Ontology
Identity is understood as a reflexively ordered narrative which is constructed by social interactions and ordered by institutionalised patterns of being and knowing
Tilly’s two components of ‘identity’ – relating the ‘experience a category, tie, role, network, group or organization’ to the ‘public representation of that experience; [which] often takes the form of a shared story, a narrative’ is important (1996: 7)
“Identity worker” is a popular metaphor which embodies the processes of forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising constructions about oneself at work by drawing upon cultural resources and their experiences
Identity is not objective, fixed and unified
Organizational control and leaders@ role and position
Identity regulation
Discursive practices concerned with identity definition that condition
process of identity formation and transformation
Identity work
Interpretative activity involved in reproducing and transforming self-identity
Self-identity
Precarious outcome of identity work comprising narrative of self
Prompts
Informs
Induces
Re-works
Accomplished through
Responsive or resistant to
(Alvesson & Willmott, 2002)
Identity regulation- leaders@followers’ role
Manufacturing subjectivities
However:
Overly deterministic and totalizing view which ignores individual agency
Subjects are passive and are too stupid or lazy to resist
Not capable of maneuvering between identities
(Thomas, 2009)
| Perspective | Strategies | Objective |
| Identity controlling can be used as a form of surveillance and self discipling the subject | Performance appraisals, career structures, mentoring, strategy, TQM, and management by objectives | Conjoin individual notion of self with the organization’s values and goals in their own subjectification removing resistance. |
Pressure to produce a Leadership Identity
IDENTITY--‘Where leadership used to be a series of tasks or characteristics, it is now an identity’ (Ford, 2008). There is a pressure for authoring a biographical self-narrative or composing and telling a compelling story about oneself!
PRESSURE--Even senior, ostensibly powerful people in organizations feel deeply powerless in the face of pressures to be a certain self (Sinclair, 2018)
At an institutional level, aspiring leaders are also subject to increasing levels of surveillance and discipline around producing the ‘right’ identity.
Leaders are subject to image ‘makeovers’ and coached in presentation and communication styles. They must cultivate their personas to engender confidence among stakeholders and share markets (Sinclair, 2018)
Pressure to produce a Leadership Identity: Societal Surveillance & Discipline
Pressure to produce a Leadership Identity: Societal Surveillance & Discipline
‘Beauty’ pageants for business leaders in which panels select top leaders in particular categories: for example ‘Young Entrepreneur’ or ‘Best Director’. Such events are choreographed and stage-managed to convey the requisite levels of gravitas with a calculated hint of ‘quirkiness’ or individuality.
Furthermore, it’s not just the track records or the mental acumen that is the focus of this image crafting – bodies that are upright and uncontaminated by vulnerabilities are also often employed in the selling of leadership selves (Sinclair 2005, 2009).
Pressure to produce a Leadership Identity: Societal Surveillance
Pressure to produce a Leadership Identity: Critiquing Romanticism & Institutional Surveillance
The second trend is the measurement and management of leader performance, which is now a pervasive aspect of organisational life. Appraisal processes, feedback instruments and other techniques of selection and promotion mean that most leaders are regularly tested against and expected to have their identities conform to organizationally specified norms of success
Yet, recent from the global financial crisis suggests that many CEOs escape being held to account for their financial performance at the helm of their companies. Perhaps while pressures to produce a convincing leadership identity are endemic, they rarely work in rational, evidence-driven ways.
Followers’ role: Leadership Identity
Followers are important though often neglected participants in processes of leadership identity making (Collinson, 2006; Gronn, 2002)
Hogg et al. (2003) maintain that perceived leadership depends on the degree to which an individual leader is seen to embody or be ‘prototypical’ of the group’s identity.
Who is deemed an authentic leader and why is indelibly tied to a society’s myths and history.
Foregrounding Power in Leadership identity
Critique of neoliberal discourse
Critical discourses against neoliberalism
Equal opportunities: anyone can make it – the American dream
(“stop moaning! Stop making up excuses!”)
Wealth does not trickle down and the rich get richer
More FTSE 100 CEOs are called John than are women Class + gender + race = intersectionality
Critique of neoliberal leadershıp discourse
Critical discourses against neoliberalism
CLASS
Capitalism is based on class struggle: bourgeoisie vs. proletariat
GENDER
Patriarchy: systemic advantages for straight men
RACE
Colonialism and racism: whiteness as system of oppression
Leadership Identity Meets with other identity markers and globalizing conditions
Societies regulate the identities that may be
taken up and individual leaders conform to and
struggle against societal and organizational scripts of who they should be as leaders which often interacts with
Other markers of identity such as gender and race (Essers and Benschop, 2009; Thomas et al., 2004);
the impact on identity processes of trends such as globalization and the international mobility of markets and labour; and of
processes of resistance (Prasad and Prasad, 2002).
Critical Leadership Perspective: Leadership Identity
Available leadership spaces and societal readiness to endow leadership capital are already deeply inscribed by gendered and cultural assumptions (Eagly and Karau, 2002).
Critical Leadership Perspective: Gendered Leadership Identity
Women leaders in traditionally male-dominated environments experience particular pressures to produce non-threatening leadership selves, to camouflage aspects of their gender, their children and sexualities (Sinclair, 1995; Thomas and Davies 2005; Thomas et al., 2004).
Critical Leadership Perspective: Leadership Identity
Male leaders also experience pressure to conform to often narrowly prescribed understandings of how they should look and who they should be (Connell 2000).
Critical Leadership Perspective: Leadership Identity
When leadership meets with other identitiy markers, race, ethnicity, age, sexuality, socail class, disability and so on particular types of leadership selves are thus being demanded and produced in the search for authenticity and they are, in deep and self-disciplining ways, agents for maintaining the cultural status quo.
This is despite frequent claims for leaders to be agents of ‘transformation’ or to ‘just be yourself’.
Transforming identities
Identities are not fixed but are socially constructed; they shape and are shaped by societal and institutional structures
“You are no longer at kindergarten!”
“You are no longer at college!”
“You are no longer at your undergrad!”
“You are no longer at uni!”
“ Hi to the leaders of tomorrow!
CLS: Agency & identity
Discourse provides the resource by which identities may be constructed yet discourse can also constrain how identities are constructed because the social context – which discourse of the past creates – inscribes what can be said and who can say it.
Struggles over identity claims have never been simply about cultural issues but have always invoked material issues of redistribution. For example, gay and lesbian struggle against heterosexism can be seen as an ideal type of the politics of recognition.
Even if the causes of homophobia can be classified as cultural, its oppressive effects are material and require remedies of redistribution as much as recognition such as materal’zed through systematic limits to their freedom, constant risk of abuse, violence and death, and unjustly limited access to resources and opportunities’ (Young, 1997:157).
The causal link between agency and identity
Micro-political resistance
Resistance forms if the subject’s position offered is against the individual’s identity and interest. This results in low levels of disturbance, weakening hegemonic grips, opportunities to exploit spaces that enable the construction of alternative identities and meanings within forms of domination
Resistance and identities
(Thomas, 2009)
Identities are both the source of oppression and a site of emancipation – site for political contestation
Individual identity which is the accumulation of discourse
Subject position offered as the dominant discourse
Contradictions SPACE
and tension
Resistance and identities
Dis-identification and resistance
Purposefully rejecting the attributes he or she believes define the organization. It can be expressed in terms of cynicism, irony, humor and other forms of engagement.
Stops short of out right rebellion and is behaviors such as foot dragging and feigning ignorance. Self identity disengages from the normative perspective of managerialism
Although, the fantasy of the autonomous subject who stills complies with the demand of work could argued create a bogus sense of self- determination which ideological control because illusory sense of freedom. It is a pessimistic and self-defeating appreciation of agency and resistance
(Thomas, 2000)
Resistance and identities
Good Luck with your Identity Work as Future Leaders!
(Thomas, 2000)
