Dances of leadership: Bridging theory and practice through an aesthetic approach
Arja Ropo
Professor, Department of Management Studies, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Erika Sauer
Development Director (Economics and Business Administration), Department of Management Studies, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
PP: 560 - 572
Abstract
We wish to develop the argument in this paper that through aesthetic and artistic work, practices and their metaphorical use, we have a potential to better understand the relationship between academic leadership theory and practical action. By aesthetic approach we mean the experiential way of knowing that emphasizes human senses and the corporeal nature of social interaction in leadership. In this paper, we discuss how leadership could look, sound and feel like when seen via the artistic metaphor of dance. We use the traditional dance, waltz and the postmodern dance experience of raves to illustrate our argument. By doing so, we challenge traditional, intellectually oriented and positivistic leadership approaches that hardly recognize nor conceptualize aesthetic, bodily aspects of social interaction between people in the workplace.
The ballroom dance waltz is used as a metaphorical representation of a hierarchical, logical and rational understanding of leadership. The waltz metaphor describes the leader as a dominant individual who knows where to go and the dance partner as a follower or at least as someone with a lesser role in defining the dance. Raves, on the other hand represent paradigmatically different kind of a dance and therefore a different understanding of leadership. There are neither dance steps to learn, nor fixed dance partners where one leads and the other follows. Even the purpose or aim of dancing may not be known at the beginning of the dance, but it is negotiated as the raves go on. We think that raves describe the organizational life as it is often seen and felt today: chaotic, full of unexpected changes, ambiguous and changing collaborators in networks. Here leadership becomes a collective, distributed activity where the work processes and the targeted outcome is continually negotiated.
Through the dance metaphors of waltz and raves, we suggest aspects such as gaze, rhythm and space to give an aesthetic description both to a more traditional and an emerging aesthetic paradigm of leadership where the corporeality of leadership is emphasized. We wish to make the point that leadership is aesthetically and corporeally co-constructed both between the leader and the followers as well as between the researcher and the subjects. The metaphor of dance illustrates the corporeal nature of leadership both to practitioners and theoreticians.
Keywords
leadership, aesthetics, corporeality, metaphor, dance
Article Text
Leadership Theory and Tradition of Knowledge
Leadership as a focus for theory and research escapes commonly shared definitions. Numerous definitions have been proposed over the years (eg Bass 1990; Bryman 1996; Kouzes & Posner 1993; Yukl 2002). According to Yukl (2002: 2), most definitions of leadership reflect the assumption that it involves a process whereby intentional influence is exerted by one person over other people to guide, structure and facilitate activities, and relationships in a group or an organization. The definitions differ in many respects, such as who exerts influence (leader-centered vs shared), type of influence (enthusiasm vs compliance), basis of influence (cognitive reason vs emotions) (Yukl 2002: 5).
Differences between leadership and management have also been widely discussed (eg Kotter 1990; Howell & Costley 2001; Yukl 2002). We follow the line of thinking that today's organizations operate in complex environments that call for an integrative view of leadership and management (Howell & Costley 2001: 7). One illustrative example of the complexity is provided in the Competing Values Framework developed by Quinn, Faerman, Thompson and McGrath (1996, 2003, 2007 - the latest edition with St Clair). They emphasize the need for both - an approach in conceptualizing and practicing what they call ‘managerial leadership' where people and issues are dealt with simultaneously in the context of competing values of flexibility and control and internal and external focus. We think that rational reasoning, structures and rules, as well as emotionally based commitment and charismatic behaviors, are needed.
Bryman (1996) provides a comprehensive description of the leadership theory development both in terms of substantive content and methodology. He draws the line between the early studies of leadership traits and behaviors and what he calls the New Wave leadership. By this he refers especially to transformational and visionary leadership studies that began to grow from the mid-1980s in the context of frame-breaking changes taking place in many industries globally.
Another development that Bryman (1996) points out is the issue of distributive or shared leadership instead of the typical individually centered leadership approach. Pearce and Conger (2003) provide a broad discussion of shared leadership (for distributed leadership, see also Brown & Gioia 2002; Gronn 2002). The comparison of leader centered vs shared leadership is vital in our analysis of the two dance metaphors - waltz and raves. We will illustrate and discuss these later in the article.
In terms of research methodology and the type of knowledge development, Bryman (1996) states that positivist methods are still ‘in the driver's seat' in the leadership research. However, recently, qualitative methods have been increasingly discussed in Alvesson and Sveningsson (2003) and Bryman (2002, 2003).
Hunt and Ropo (2003) discuss the notion of first and second discipline leadership approaches referring to experimentation and regression perspectives in leadership research (typically cross-sectional, variable-based contingency models). Hunt (2008) states that these approaches seem to follow the Newtonian assumptions, such as predictable causes and ultimate understanding of physical events' one-way linear relationships. By third discipline approach, they point to leadership as a complex adaptive system and processual approaches to leadership (often qualitative), where research attempts to catch reality in flight, and explore the dynamic quality of people and organizations with no predictable cause and effect (Hunt 2008: 479). Here, leadership is considered to be an emerging social construction embedded in a unique context (ibid). Hosking (1999) and Dachler and Hosking (1995) have earlier developed a social constructionist relational approach to study and understand leadership and change with the emphasis on multiple realities. ...continues...
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