Dirty hands & clean heels : 21 days of political leadership in the UK

The paper discusses 21 days of political leadership in the UK following the EU referendum, the publication of the Chilcot Report on the Iraq War, and the appointment of a new cabinet by the new Prime Minister, Theresa May. It begins by modelling four possible approaches to political decision-making by taking into account the intent of the decision-maker, their acceptance or avoidance of responsibility, and the nature of the consequences. It suggests that ‘Dirty Hands’ exists when the decision-maker recognizes the deleterious consequences of what they deem to be necessary action – and intends to engender these – but takes responsibility. ‘Clean Heels’ embodies a decision where the decision-maker recognizes the consequences might be deleterious and intends them to be so, but avoids all responsibility. Mea Culpa describes a decision-maker who did not intend deleterious consequences but having seen them occur takes responsibility. Finally, the Spectator is someone who has no intention of making any difference to anything and thus takes no responsibility, but often plays a destructively critical role from the sidelines. This heuristic – and it is no more than a heuristic – is then illustrated by considering the actions of four decision-makers during this period: Boris Johnson, Tony Blair, Nigel Farage, and Theresa May

Cultural change and lodestones in the British Police

• Purpose: This Research Paper considers a challenge to an occupational jurisdiction in the British police. Historically, street cops have defended the importance of operational credibility as a way of sustaining the value of experience, and inhibiting attempts to introduce external leaders. This has generated a particular form of policing and leadership that is deemed by the British government as inadequate to face the problems of the next decade. • Design: The project used the High Potential Development Scheme (HPDS) of the British police to assess the value of operational credibility and the possibilities of radical cultural change. Data is drawn from participants on the programme, from those who failed to get onto the programme, and from officers who have risen through the ranks without access to a fast track scheme. • Findings: Most organizational change fails in its own terms, often because of cultural resistance. However, if we change our metaphors of culture from natural to human constructions it may be possible to focus on the key point of the culture: the lodestone that glues it together. Operational credibility maybe such a cultural lodestone and undermining it offers the opportunity for rapid and radical change. • Originality: Most assessments of cultural change focus on those charged with enacting the change and explain failure through recourse to natural metaphors of change. This papers challenges the convention that cultural change can only ever be achieved, if at all, through years of effort

‘No More Heroes’: Critical Perspectives on Leadership Romanticism

This paper revisits Meindl et al’s (1985) ‘romance of leadership’ thesis and extends these ideas in a number of inter-related ways. First, it argues that the thesis has sometimes been neglected and/or misinterpreted in subsequent studies. Second, the paper suggests that romanticism is a much broader and more historically rich term with wider implications for leadership studies than originally proposed. Arguing that romanticism stretches beyond leader attribution, we connect leadership theory to a more enduring and naturalistic tradition of romantic thought that has survived and evolved since the mid-18th century. Third, the paper demonstrates the contemporary relevance of the romanticism critique. It reveals how the study of leadership continues to be characterized by romanticizing tendencies in many of its most influential theories, illustrating this argument with reference to spiritual and authentic leadership theories, which only recognize positive engagement with leaders. Equally, the paper suggests that romanticism can shape conceptions not only of leaders, but also of followers, their agency and their (potential for) resistance. We conclude by discussing future possible research directions for the romanticism critique that extend well beyond its original focus on leader attribution to inform a broader critical approach to leadership studies

The interplay of the Dirty Hands of British area bombing and the Wicked Problem of defeating Nazi Germany in World War II - a lesson in leadership ethics

The British area bombing of Germany in World War II has provided for enduring ethical controversy. Eschewing conventional approaches, we present area bombing as a Dirty Hands leadership response to the Wicked Problem of Britain’s wartime strategic predicament. Using historical methodology, we establish two distinct phases in area bombing: 1942-1944, when this was ethically contentious but politically necessary; and 1944-1945, which lacks a Dirty Hands legitimation. The second phase follows upon a six-month lull in area bombing during Bomber Command’s assignment to Overlord (D-Day) duties. It is characterised by credible alternatives to area bombing, a waning sense of proportionality in Bomber Command activity, and intensifying death and destruction without justifiable purpose. We relate the breaching of the boundaries of Dirty Hands in Phase II to a precise date - September 1944. This coincides with the mutation of the strategic Wicked Problem into a Critical Problem, visible in the stalling of the Allied land campaign in France. Mistaking this for a Tame Problem, the C-in-C of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, exploits the political context to escalate his commitment. Following Watters’ (2017) alignment of Critical Problems with Virtue Ethics, we argue that Harris’ leadership in Phase II is not consistent with Virtue Ethics (of which recognition of the boundaries of Dirty Hands is a function). Harris is the archetype of the leader who gets away with exploiting a Wicked Problem because his superiors have let down their guard. In the final instance, his failure of ethical leadership becomes their own

Agonistic governance : the antinomies of decision-making in U.S. Navy SEALS

This article expands organization theory about Wicked, Tame, and Critical problems and their associated decision-making styles, Leadership, Management, and Command, by offering a framework that spans across all three which we call ‘Agonistic Governance’: an approach to decision-making that is premised on the acceptance that complexity generates paradoxes and contradictions and, to be successful, organizational actors must have the agency to positively embrace these, rather than try to eliminate them, recognizing that some failure is the price of overall success. Through an ethnographic study of US Navy SEALs, we suggest that, unlike the cultures of conventional military forces, elite military units can thrive in a leadership environment that is much more subtle, paradoxical and complex, and can be seen as illustrative of Agonistic Governance. Findings reveal that the success of these groups is dependent on the construction of a contradictory decision-making model that recognizes leadership is often as much an art as a science, and an understanding that the willingness to seek out and learn from failure rather than avoid it, is itself part of the solution not the problem. Agonistic Governance offers a way to move from binary thinking rooted in decision-making models that aim to be internally coherent, unilinear and without contradiction, and instead offers a way to accept the irrational and paradoxical prevalent in today’s complex organizational environments. In effect, Wicked Problems an only be addressed by accepting that failure is a prerequisite not a proscription

What’sApp to Sunak

This article features a leaked WhatsApp message to the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. It was written by Mark E Avelli, a political consultant who sets out what has happened recently in the UK and how he suggests Sunak should act if he wants to remain unsuccessful. That sounds counter-intuitive but not when framed by the revolutionary political theory embraced by the consultant: success is rooted in understanding that victory is not to be acquired by saying and doing the right thing, but the opposite. Only when we understand that nobody actually wants political power and the responsibility that inevitably comes with it, do the actions of politicians make any kind of sense. Or for those keen on a short consulting takeaway to use in teaching political leadership: ‘fail fast and keep failing’. The focus here is obviously on the UK, but for readers in other countries that are led or used to be led by similar leaders, this article provides an explanation for why we keep electing people who appear to have no idea what they’re doing

Critical essay : wicked problems in the age of uncertainty

We are, apparently, living in unprecedented times, an Age of Uncertainty, when wicked problems whirl all around as we struggle to cope with Covid-19, environmental catastrophe and the right-wing populism that threatens to unravel all kinds of international agreements. In this personal reflection, 15 years after I wrote an article on wicked problems and the social construction of leadership, I take a look back, and forward, to see whether there ever was an Age of Certainty when only tame problems temporarily troubled us, or whether our understanding of the world is itself a social construction, open to dispute and thus we have always lived in uncertain times. In the process of this evaluation, I consider whether collaborative leadership, often associated with wicked problems, is as ubiquitous and effective as some proponents make out, and if it isn’t, what this says about our ability to address such problems

Understanding sovereign leadership as a response to terrorism: A post-foundational analysis

This study seeks to better understand how notions of sovereign power as a response to terrorism are built and bolstered through use of the signifier ‘leadership’. Through a post-foundational analysis of the speeches, press conferences and writings of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, we theorise ‘sovereign leadership’ as the deployment of the signifier leadership in ways that foreclose language so as to normalise the discourse and acts of sovereign power. Our key finding is that sovereign leadership offers a (misleadingly) straightforward solution to the complex problem of terrorism through foreclosing language so that alternative responses are excluded. In exploring articulations of sovereign leadership, we illuminate its contingency, and therefore, also its contestability, within a system of discursive resources. We posit three foreclosing moments that are drawn upon to bolster the urgency, affective salience and justness of sovereign leadership: emergency, positivity and vulnerability. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of our study for interpreting articulations of leadership in everyday organisational and political life

Toward 'socially constructive' social constructions of leadership

In their introductory editorial essay for this special issue, David Grant and Gail Fairhurst have done us a great service by valiantly producing a "Sailing Guide" to the Social Construction of Leadership (Fairhurst & Grant, 2010). As with rounding the Capes, this is not a task for the faint of heart. A sailing guide is designed to provide vital knowledge about a particular sea or coast, providing us with charts, warnings about potential hazards and an indication where we might find safe havens in a storm. Their sailing guide does this to great effect as it skilfully "boxes the compass" by revealing all of the potential directions that one might set one‟s sail by if one was sufficiently foolhardy to embark on a cruise of the social construction of leadership

Situating and progressing resistance leadership research : An interview with David Collinson and Keith Grint

Resistance leadership is a vital concept that gets to the heart of the power dynamics of organisations and societies. This interview with two of the key figures in critical leadership studies, Keith Grint and David Collinson, provides readers with an orientation to this area of research. It does so through providing definititional clarity, expanding on the concept’s value and summarising key ideas. From this basis, the value of resistance leadership is explored in relation to the climate crisis, inequalities and other key contemporary issues. The interview concludes through offering readers advice on how to pursue compelling and impactful research on resistance leadership