An enactive perspective on comprehending leadership: a comparative case study approach

Leadership is a significant element in the present life of organizations. Recent reviews suggest building novel frameworks through which leadership, as a phenomenon, could be understood comprehensively, considering all the aspects of human experience. The autopoietic perspective on cognition suggests that the quality of human experience is determined by the interplay between the biological and social dynamics of an active situated human agent, we enact our ‘reality’, rather than recognize one. Thus, an integrated approach to the study of any phenomenon in the social domain requires focus on the interrelatedness of the biological, mental and social aspects. This exploratory paper provides an insight into the findings of an empirical study of leadership consonant with an enactive perspective on human experience, including the biological, behavioral and social dynamics of the leadership phenomenon. The research implemented mixed methods under the umbrella of a multidisciplinary comparative case study. Heart rate variability (HRV) demonstrated as the biomarker for physiological data, semi-structured interviews, the Leadership Behavior Development Questionnaire (LBDQ) and a researcher’s reflective diary were used to collect qualitative data and assist in understanding behavioral attributes. The results indicated a correlation between physiology, attitudes and behaviors, social dynamics and performance

The Consultant-Client Relationship: A Systems-Theoretical Perspective

The aim of this paper is to explain consulting failure from a systems-theoretical perspective and to provide a new framework for analysing consultant–client relationships. By drawing on Luhmann’s systems theory, clients and consultants are conceptualised as two autopoietic communication systems that operate according to idiosyncratic logics. They are structurally coupled through a third system, the so-called “contact system”, which constitutes a separate discourse. Due to their different logics no transfer of meaning between the three discourses is possible. This contradicts the traditional notion of consulting as a means of providing solutions to the client’s problems: neither is the consultant able to understand the client’s problems nor is it possible to transfer any solutions into the client system. Instead, consulting interventions only cause perturbations in the client system. Consequently, the traditional functions of consulting are called into question. The paper discusses the implications of this analysis with relation to the traditional approach to consulting, and presents a tentative framework for a systemic concept of consulting

The Consultant-Client Relationship: A Systems-Theoretical Perspective

The aim of this paper is to explain consulting failure from a systems-theoretical perspective and to provide a new framework for analysing consultant–client relationships. By drawing on Luhmann’s systems theory, clients and consultants are conceptualised as two autopoietic communication systems that operate according to idiosyncratic logics. They are structurally coupled through a third system, the so-called “contact system”, which constitutes a separate discourse. Due to their different logics no transfer of meaning between the three discourses is possible. This contradicts the traditional notion of consulting as a means of providing solutions to the client’s problems: neither is the consultant able to understand the client’s problems nor is it possible to transfer any solutions into the client system. Instead, consulting interventions only cause perturbations in the client system. Consequently, the traditional functions of consulting are called into question. The paper discusses the implications of this analysis with relation to the traditional approach to consulting, and presents a tentative framework for a systemic concept of consulting.Consulting; Consultant-Client Relation; Consulting Failure; Systems Theory

Understanding and Responding to Destructive Leadership in School-Related Contexts: An Autopoietic Perspective

Leadership is integral to the health and wellbeing of individuals and organisations. Relevant literature typically assumes a conception of leadership as ethical influence for good purpose, yet it is not always so. When exercised destructively, leadership has the potential to cause personal distress, group dysfunction and cultural fracture. Although some theoretical literature discusses such leadership, there are few empirical studies. This study applies autopoietic theory to explore the existence and impact of destructive leadership in school-related contexts and suggest possible prevention and intervention strategies. The research methodology used is phenomenography, which seeks to understand a phenomenon by defining variation in collective experience. Fifteen interviews were undertaken with leaders in school-related settings who identified with having past experience of leadership practices they defined as destructive. The purposive sample population was cross-sectoral and cross–school phase. The study is framed by three research questions which aim to identify the qualitatively different ways by which the phenomenon can be understood. The findings suggest that destructive leadership causes significant, lasting and pervasive harm to individuals and organisations; that it is exercised as power and control without adequate checks and balances; derives from personality dispositions, professional inadequacy or aberrant values; and impacts in personal, interpersonal or intrapersonal cycles, mediated or mitigated through individual or social conditions. Five contributions emerge: a phenomenographically-derived framework to analyse a dysfunctional social system; an autopoietically-derived interpretation of individual, organisation and ethical impact; reinforcing vicious and virtuous circles of control and trust; a theory of ‘dysergy’, whereby the sum of the parts of a dysfunctional system constitute a diminished whole; and a whole system approach to intervention. The theoretical implication of the study is of the potential for personal and organisational learning, while the practical implication is for the application of a whole system model of leadership

Interactive Art and the Action of Behavioral Aesthetics in Embodied Philosophy

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The Theory Of Opportunizing And The Sub-Process Of Conditional Befriending

By applying the orthodox grounded theory methodology, the article offers a new conceptual theory of the Business Company, as well as new and grounded concepts as building blocks of the theory. The core variable of the emergent theory is the discovered latent pattern of “opportunizing”. Opportunizing explains practically all the variation in the data. It is found to be the main concern and the recurrent solving of it in business. One of the five sub-dimensions of opportunizing is “conditional befriending”. It consists of three sub-processes: “confidence building”, “weighing up for influence/match” and “modifying behavior”. The theory suggests new insights into business management practices. The data indicate relationships between performance of companies and the “weighing up” of elements in the sub-process of “confidence building”. Opportunizing is compared to the “hard core” of different theories of business, and opportunizing as well as conditional befriending are compared to the sub-disciplines of business economy. This comparison reveals some fundamental differences. One explanation for these differences might be the grounding of the discovered theory in the agenda of those being studied rather than in the compulsory, preconceiving agenda of the mainstream research community

Rewriting the grammar of secondary schools: lessons in paradigm change from multi-age organisation

The author’s public works described below are systemic in style but embrace a multi-disciplinary perspective. They speak of incoherence in the traditional structure of schooling caused by same-age organization, more accurately, an incoherence in structuration, the duality of structure and agency described by Giddens (1979). The public works argue that as the complexity of social and learning demands on schools increase, the same-age structural form is increasingly unable to cope and that any attempt at an upgrade will not work. To mask this learning handicap, the school as an organization changes how it communicates, deploying semantics and linguistics to subvert the meaning of care, capacity, complexity, and collaboration. The public works argue that such an unconscious process negatively impacts both individual and organization learning besides being detrimental to participant wellbeing. Put simply, schools are using the wrong organizational system. The public works argue that the perpetuation of the traditional same-age organizational structure used in secondary schools accounts for the failure of reform and the apparent resistance of schools to change. Such a problem is exacerbated by the absence of a viable alternative form of organization, a systemic way of seeing that exposes organizational assumptions and frames of reference, what is happening at the level of policy reception in the everyday. The arrival of the vertical tutoring system provides such a lens and the means by which the two systems (same-age and multi-age) can understand and see each other. The thesis of the public works argues that the inability of schools to match their capacity to cope with system demand embeds an unconscious process (mindset) of reasoning, the “defensive routines” observed by Argyris and Schon and described by Dick and Dalmau (1990). The prolonged absence of a viable alternative exacerbates such unconscious self-deception. The public works have six broad intentions: 1. To describe a viable and alternative form of organization called the vertical tutoring system (VT) trialled by schools worldwide. 2. To use the VT model as a means of interrogating existing assumptions and frames of reference used in traditional same-age schools. 3. To illustrate the transformative learning challenges involved in such a paradigmatic shift. 4. To show how the “lines of inquiry” (described below, pp. 2-6) can be used to account for the failure of reform. 5. To show how and why age-group organization determines the grammar of schooling (the way schools work) 6. To explain how vertical integration (multi-age grouping) releases the agentic capacity needed for paradigmatic change

Education Reform at the "Edge of Chaos": Constructing ETCH (An Education Theory Complexity Hybrid) for an Optimal Learning Education Environment

EDUCATION REFORM AT THE "EDGE OF CHAOS":CONSTRUCTING ETCH (AN EDUCATION THEORY COMPLEXITY HYBRID) FOR AN OPTIMAL LEARNING EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT AbstractCurrently, the theoretical foundation that inspires educational theory, which in turn shapes the systemic structure of institutions of learning, is based on three key interconnected, interacting underpinnings -mechanism, reductionism, and linearity. My dissertation explores this current theoretical underpinning including its fallacies and inconsistencies, and then frames an alternative educational theoretical base - a hybrid complex adaptive systems theory model for education - that more effectively meets the demands to prepare students for the 21st century. My Education Theory Complexity Hybrid (ETCH) differs by focusing on the systemic, autopoietic nature of schools, the open, fluid processes of school systems as a dissipative structure, and nonlinearity or impossibility of completely predicting the results of any specific intervention within a school system.. In addition, I show how ETCH principles, when applied by educational system leaders, permit them to facilitate an optimal learning environment for a student-centered complex adaptive system.ETCH is derived from Complexity Theory and is a coherent, valid, and verifiable systems' framework that accurately aligns the education system with its goal as a student-centered complex adaptive system. In contrast to most dissertations in the School Leadership Program, which are empirical studies, mine explores this new theoretical orientation and illustrates the power of that orientation through a series of examples taken from my experiences in founding and operating the Lancaster Institute for Learning, a private state-licensed alternative high school in eastern Pennsylvania

Threats to Autonomy from Emerging ICT’s

This thesis investigates possible future threats to human autonomy created by currently emerging ICT’s. Prepared for evaluation as PhD by Publication, it consists of four journal papers and one book chapter, together with explanatory material. The ICT’s under examination are drawn from the results of the ETICA project, which sought to identify emerging ICT’s of ethical import. We first evaluate this research and identify elements in need of enhancement – the social aspects pertaining to ethical impact and the need to introduce elements of General Systems Theory in order to account for ICT’s as socio-technical systems. The first two publications for evaluation present arguments from marxist and capitalist perspectives which provide an account of the social dimensions through which an ICT can reduce human autonomy. There are many competing accounts of what constitutes human autonomy. These may be grouped into classes by their primary characteristics. The third publication for evaluation cross-references these classes with the ICT’s identified by the ETICA project, showing which version of autonomy could be restricted by each ICT and how. Finally, this paper induces from this analysis some general characteristics which any ICT must exhibit if it is to restrict autonomy of any form. Since ICT’s all operate in the same environment, the ultimate effect on the individual is the aggregated effect of all those ICT’s with which they interact and can be treated as an open system. Our fourth paper for evaluation therefore develops a theory of ICT’s as systems of a socio-technical nature, titled “Integrated Domain Theory”. Our fifth publication uses Integrated Domain Theory to explore the manner in which sociotechnical systems can restrict human autonomy, no matter how conceived. This thesis thus offers two complementary answers to the primary research question

Theorizing the client-consultant relationship from the perspective of social-systems theory

Over the last few years research on management consulting has established itself as an important area in management studies. While, traditionally, consulting research has been predominantly a-theoretical, lately researchers have been calling for an exploration of different theoretical approaches. This article has been written in response to these calls. It explores a new perspective for theorizing the client–consultant relationship based on the theory of social systems by Niklas Luhmann. According to this approach, clients and consultants can be conceptualized as two autopoietic communication systems that operate according to idiosyncratic logics. They are structurally coupled through a third system, the so-called ‘contact system’. Due to the different logics of these systems, the transfer of meaning between them is not possible. This theoretical position has interesting implications for the way we conceptualize consulting, challenging many traditional assumptions. Instead of supporting the client in finding solutions to their problems, this perspective emphasizes that consulting firms can only cause ‘perturbations’ in the client’s communication processes, inducing the client system to construct its own meaning from it