Table Of ContentRelational Perspectives on Leading
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Relational Perspectives
on Leading
Edited by
Mette Vinther Larsen
Aalborg University, Denmark
Jørgen Gulddahl Rasmussen
Aalborg University, Denmark
Selection and editorial matter © Mette Vinther Larsen and
Jørgen Gulddahl Rasmussen 2015
Remaining chapters © Contributors 2015
Foreword © Kenneth J. Gergen 2015
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may
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First published 2015 by
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Contents
List of Figures vi
Foreword vii
Kenneth J. Gergen
Notes on Contributors x
Introduction 1
Mette Vinther Larsen and Jørgen Gulddahl Rasmussen
1 Relational Leading 5
Mette Vinther Larsen and Jørgen Gulddahl Rasmussen
2 Leadership in Relational and Distributed Practice:
General and Historical Perspectives 31
Hanne Dauer Keller and Søren Willert
3 Communication as Relational Practice of Leading 53
Lone Hersted, Mette Vinther Larsen and
Jørgen Gulddahl Rasmussen
4 Dialogue and Power 81
Marita Svane, Lone Hersted and Pernille Schulze
5 Relational Creation of Leadership Identity 107
Charlotte Øland Madsen, Randi Riis Michelsen and
Lone Hersted
6 Leaders’ Use of Maps, Guiding Images and Momentary
Meaningful Actions 129
Søren Willert and Mette Vinther Larsen
7 Developing the Competence to Lead in Everyday Situations 153
Anja Overgaard Thomassen and Jørgen Gulddahl Rasmussen
8 Relational Leadership: Ontology and Practice 175
Charlotte Øland Madsen and Jørgen Gulddahl Rasmussen
References 189
Index 197
List of Figures
2.1 Relational field model 35
6.1 Receptive phase: the process leader listens and is affected 143
6.2 Expressive phase: the process leader decides
on response X 144
6.3 New receptive phase: the process leader listens
and is affected 145
vi
Foreword
Kenneth J. Gergen
A century’s quest for rationally and empirically grounded principles
of leadership is reaching its end. It is not simply that the tens of
thousands of books and articles on leadership have yet to yield broad
agreement on sound practices. There is also a pervasive sense that
the traditional view of the organization as an ultimately rational and
controllable system is misconceived. This sensitivity to irrational
unpredictability has been increasingly intensified in recent decades as
developments in communication technology radically alter the con-
ditions of space and time. In the present world, ideas, values, opin-
ions, and insights developed at any point on the globe may spread
around the world in microseconds. Because innovation is the child of
cultural cross-breeding, new ideas, products, organizational designs,
and business practices are under production everywhere. These make
their way rapidly into the local landscapes of our lives. And because
we are all increasingly inter-linked on the planet, a shift in the poli-
cies or practices of any government, religious institution, or signifi-
cant business enterprise may have unceasing ripple effects. In effect,
the quest for rational comprehension and control of a fundamentally
predictable system is coming to a close. Instead we must find ways of
dealing with infinite fluidity, disruption, and deviation, along with
horizons of potential that have never before been imagined. In terms
of organizational futures, the questions are profound. And of fore-
most concern: how are we to understand leadership and its practice
under these conditions?
One major answer to this question has been to shift the site of
understanding from independent entities – whether persons, objects,
or organizations – to relational process. In the relational world, we
understand from Heraclitus that “all is flow.” There are no clear sepa-
rations in a world of flow, because all that we have viewed as inde-
pendent entities are mutually inter-stitched or co-created. Leadership
is not, then, embodied in an independent actor who causes the
organization to act as it does. Rather, organizational actions emerge
vii
viii Foreword
from the confluence or flowing together of relational processes. Leaders
must move within these processes, understanding that the conse-
quences of their actions do not belong to them alone, but to the
relational turbulence into which they are secreted. Further, we under-
stand that the consequences of actions are fundamentally unpredict-
able, that there will be multiple reverberations across time, and that
the emergents may bring with them emergencies that will ever chal-
lenge the organization anew.
As a reader you are surely aware that the preceding paragraph is
highly abstract. The concepts are frustratingly ambiguous, and the
implications for practice utterly lacking. In part this is because it is
only within recent decades that the search has begun for alternatives to
the modernist conceptions of organizations as predictable systems and
leadership as systems management. Everywhere there is a struggle to
give verbal form to a world yet unveiled, to press beyond the accepted
but unworkable conventions of understanding. In effect, at this point
in time, we do not quite know how to talk with each other about
these matters. Indeed, for the more radical, it is not clear that talk-
ing about these issues is the most effective way to proceed; to describe
and explain is still to stand outside as opposed to moving within the
processes themselves. At the same time, there has been too little in
the way of practice sharing. Organizations everywhere are struggling
with the challenges of rapid change; across the spectrum of organiza-
tional life there are adaptations and innovations. Only a few of these –
such as flattening organizational structures and design thinking – have
made it into the broadly shared spheres of dialogue. Under conditions
of radical transformation, we must reconsider organizational practices
from the ground up, from the simple day-to-day conversations that
take place to multi-organizational collaborations.
It is within this context that one must appreciate the major signifi-
cance of the present work. The contributing authors have read and
listened broadly to the relevant dialogues – within both the scholarly
and organizational worlds. They have separated the major lines of
thinking from passing conversation in a way that brings clarity and
dimension to the concepts at play. Conceptions of plural voices, con-
tinuous emergence, challenges of interpretation, the co-creation of
meaning, the pivotal function of language, dialogic process, power
relations, and the ability of people to construct new ways of mov-
ing forward with each other, are all somewhere towards the centre
of contemporary discussions. They are all illuminated in the present
Foreword ix
work. Yet, the authors of the work press further than illumination;
they also see linkages among these concepts. They tie the threads
together in such a way that the reader can begin to appreciate the
entire tapestry of which they are a part. This is no small matter. There
is no other work to my knowledge that attempts to draw together the
major voices in the conversations on relational leading into an inte-
grated and comprehensive whole. These authors go to great effort to
share these ideas and to draw together the wide ranging communities
that should be brought into the future-forming dialogues.
The creation of a conceptual tapestry is in itself a significant
achievement. However, there is another dimension to the present
work that renders it both unique and significant: these scholars are
ultimately pragmatic in their concerns. It is not scholarship for itself
that interests them, but scholarship with a practical purpose. The
numerous examples that bring these concepts to life in the pages of
this work are only an appetizer. Additionally, embedded in the text,
we find instances in which the reader is brought into a process of
experiential leaning. We also have accounts of how leaders can use
“momentary maps” and guiding images to facilitate the productive
flow of conversation, and a discussion of leadership training relevant
to relational leading. This is a work that brings scholarly interchange
into the marketplace of everyday life, while recognizing and appreci-
ating the multiple complexities at stake.
Does this mean that the task of understanding and implement-
ing this new direction in leadership is now accomplished? Have the
authors completed the tapestry? Scarcely! This is not a work that ends
in tidy conclusions, with simple diagrams for success. The authors are
well aware that the conversations will and must continue – both in
the scholarly world and in the many contexts of practice. The pace
of global change will only quicken; organization and disorganiza-
tion will be in mutual tension everywhere. And with these changes,
meanings will be transformed, innovations will multiply, and new
realities will emerge and be in conflict. In these turbulent waters the
concept of leading will continue to shift along with the range of pro-
ductive practices. Thus, while a relational orientation represents a
profound shift in paradigms of understanding, it also warns us that
whether we are scholars or practitioners, inquiry, sensitivity, dia-
logue, adaptation, and innovation must be continuous. As we move
into the future, I for one would count myself very fortunate to have
the authors of this work as my close companions.
