The Social Development of Leadership and Knowledge - Re-thinking Research and Practice: a Summary

How do you find something out? How might you feel in going about this task? How does this come to change your leadership and practice? We have taken these questions seriously and they form a structure of a book that will be published by Palgrave in 2013 called The Social Development of leadership and Knowledge. Experience does not follow a linear intellectual path that finally arrives at a clear destination. In fact we don’t arrive; instead we are in a constant process of arriving. Multiple avenues and possibilities fleetingly emerge and close: facing us with choices, dilemmas, exclusion, panic and hope. We draw on two contrasting districts of the city of practice – districts which are our professional homes, namely the interplay between policy-making and front-line action in Britain’s National Health Service, and the recruitment of executives to senior management positions in the private, public, academic and voluntary sectors. Intellectual lines of thought that have deeply influenced our thinking have included Ralph Stacey at al and Complex Responsive Process of Relating (Stacey, 2007) (Stacey, Griffin, & Shaw, 2000) and Pierre Bourdieu's notion of habitus (Bourdieu, Science of Science and Reflexivity, 2006). Both Bourdieu and Stacey explore themes of process and ongoingness that we strongly identify with. Stacey et al draw on analogies from complexity sciences as a way of exploring how people relate to reach other. This we find, particularly useful and adds to Bourdieu’s contribution. Both are keen to explore the effects that decisions and actions have when amplified or muted in the wider figuration of human interaction, some of which is known and open to experience, and other interactions which are not accessible. In summary, both Stacey and Bourdieu explore, in different ways, the impact of power relations between people as a means of connecting actions and their overt and hidden consequences. It is for these reasons that we find it helpful to explore these interactions in a more temporal way, rather than overly privileging separation and objectivity. It is in this context that we explore the connection between leadership and knowledge. Leadership literature is enormous and has almost buckled under its own weight. The question that we address is this: how does a practitioner take their own experience seriously? In doing so there is an opportunity for the practitioner to: explore their own context (or habitus as Bourdieu terms it) in acts of leadership (that require vision, courage and conflict) to change patterns of how people relate to each other and in doing do new patterns emerge in both predictable and unpredictable ways. These new patterns form topic of conversation and knowledge between people where further opportunities for leadership develop. The foundation of leadership development and knowledge is firmly anchored to a person’s own situation, a situation in which they occupy with others. We are therefore not saying that the weight of current leadership literature is wasted. Instead, it must be read and understood within the fabric of the leaders own experience. In this paper we explore some of the theoretical aspects and practicalities behind this

Bourdieu’s habitus and field: implications on the practice and theory of critical action learning

This paper considers the logic of practice of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in relation to critical action learning: in particular habitus which is co-created with field and the interplay amongst the two in the form of misrecognition and risk. We draw on interviews with participants who have experienced action learning as part of an NHS leadership programme. We argue that Bourdieu provides helpful ways of understanding and explaining the complex processes of social interactions which are centre stage in action learning – especially the ‘social friction’ through which action learners gain new insights and new prompts to action in their workplace from learning set members. These insights can support action learning practitioners keen to explore their own practice

W(h)ither the academy? An exploration of the role of university social work in shaping the future of social work in Europe

A controversial proposal to pilot the training of child protection social workers through an intensive work-based route in England is being supported and funded by the UK Government. Frontline, the brainchild of a former teacher, locates social work training within local authorities (‘the agency’) rather than university social work departments (‘the academy’) and has stimulated debate amongst social work academics about their role in shaping the direction of the profession. As a contribution to this debate, this paper explores the duality of social work education, which derives its knowledge from both the academic social sciences and the experience of practice within social work agencies. While social work education has traditionally been delivered by the academy, this paper also explores whether the delivery of training in the allied professions of probation and nursing by ‘the agency’ is equally effective. Finally, this paper explores the Helsinki model which achieves a synergy of ‘academy’ and ‘agency’. It suggests that there are alternative models of social work education, practice and research which avoid dichotomies between the ‘academy’ and the ‘agency’ and enable the profession to be shaped by both social work academics and practitioners

Getting embedded together: new partnerships for twentieth-century Catholic education

The educational landscape is undergoing a level of change unparalleled since the 1960s. The creation of ‘Free Schools’ and ‘multi-academy trusts’ (MATs), coupled with the changing demographic of urban populations and fiscal constraints, are requiring schools and dioceses to strategically address how to maintain and sustain a successful Catholic educational offer for future generations. In this chapter, we will argue that a cohesive approach between Catholic Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), schools and dioceses affords the best opportunity for delivering success and maintaining Catholic educational distinctiveness. Within a theological framework, we contend that this is realised through the paradigm of the sacramental perspective which interweaves the sacred and the secular and calls all to be ‘embedded together’

Optimizing a community-engaged multi-level group intervention to reduce substance use: an application of the multiphase optimization strategy

Abstract Background Rates of alcohol and illicit drug use (AIDU) are consistently similar across racial groups (Windsor and Negi, J Addict Dis 28:258–68, 2009; Keyes et al. Soc Sci Med 124:132–41, 2015). Yet AIDU has significantly higher consequences for residents in distressed communities with concentrations of African Americans (DCAA - i.e., localities with high rates of poverty and crime) who also have considerably less access to effective treatment of substance use disorders (SUD). This project is optimizing Community Wise, an innovative multi-level behavioral-health intervention created in partnership with service providers and residents of distressed communities with histories of SUD and incarceration, to reduce health inequalities related to AIDU. Methods Grounded in critical consciousness theory, community-based participatory research principles (CBPR), and the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST), this study employs a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design to engineer the most efficient, effective, and scalable version of Community Wise that can be delivered for US$250 per person or less. This study is fully powered to detect change in AIDU in a sample of 528 men with a histories of SUD and incarceration, residing in Newark, NJ in the United States. A community collaborative board oversees recruitment using a variety of strategies including indigenous field worker sampling, facility-based sampling, community advertisement through fliers, and street outreach. Participants are randomly assigned to one of 16 conditions that include a combination of the following candidate intervention components: peer or licensed facilitator, group dialogue, personal goal development, and community organizing. All participants receive a core critical-thinking component. Data are collected at baseline plus five post-baseline monthly follow ups. Once the optimized Community Wise intervention is identified, it will be evaluated against an existing standard of care in a future randomized clinical trial. Discussion This paper describes the protocol of the first ever study using CBPR and MOST to optimize a substance use intervention targeting a marginalized population. Data from this study will culminate in an optimized Community Wise manual; enhanced methodological strategies to develop multi-component scalable interventions using MOST and CBPR; and a better understanding of the application of critical consciousness theory to the field of health inequalities related to AIDU. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02951455 . Registered on 1 November 2016.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143194/1/13063_2018_Article_2624.pd

Supervisors' Perceptions of the Performance of Cooperative Education Employees Working in Federal Agencies

Through cooperative education programs, many public agencies employ college students part time or intermittently and groom them for future full-time employment The combination of winnowing and nurturing that occurs in these programs is believed to produce higher performing employees This study tests this hypothesis by comparing Federal supervisors' perceptions of the performance of co-op employees with those recruited from other sources Data come from the 1992 Merit Principles Survey, US Merit Systems Protection Board The results indicate that co-op employees perform at high levels, but they do not outperform other employees as a whole Next, we compare the performance ratings of Federal workers from seven other recruitment sources to see if any source is superior Some interesting findings emerge Of course, performance ratings are an incomplete indicator of an employee's value to the organization These ratings merely reflect supervisors' perceptions, and while high performance is important, agencies may wish to promote other goals in their recruitment and retention efforts such as workforce diversityYeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Who will make the 'best' use of Africa's land? Lessons from Zimbabwe

Conflict over African land – between small holders and large industrial farmers and between domestic farmers and global agribusinesses – raises key questions about who will make the best use of African land and which farmers do most to decrease poverty and produce more food, industrial inputs, and exports. Zimbabwe has already gone through two major changes in land occupation, and thus provides an important test of what is the 'best' use of the land. Three measures of 'best' use have been cited in Zimbabwe: reward for military victory, poverty reduction, and agricultural production. Initial evidence indicates that commercial small holder production is a better use of the land than larger, more mechanised farming

Dietary intakes in infertile women a pilot study

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Key health promotion factors among male members of staff at a higher educational institution: A cross-sectional postal survey

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