Advances in Developing Human Resources

Edwards, Gareth; Elliott, Carole; Iszatt-White, Marian; Schedlitzki, Doris

doi: 10.1177/1523422315586616pmid: N/A

The ProblemLeadership development programs have become prolific in organizations in both the public and private sectors, with new initiatives endlessly being developed. Empirical and conceptual work that challenges some of the mainstream approaches to leadership learning and development has led to initiatives increasingly becoming complex in nature and to the use of innovative and unusual approaches. There is limited knowledge, however, regarding the impact of such techniques.The SolutionThis issue focuses on some core themes around enabling and enacting leadership development in organizations through creative techniques using art, poetry, symbolism, theater, drama, and film, and is rooted in experiences of delivering such interventions in a range of countries, sectors, and professions. Each article explores how these techniques can be translated into practice across a wide of variety leadership learning and development contexts and is rooted in the contemporary and critical leadership literature.The StakeholdersHuman resource development professionals seeking to identify key considerations in selecting creative techniques for effective leadership learning and development interventions, and academics advising on such selections and teaching leadership themselves, will be interested in these articles, which will also set the basis for further empirical research and theoretical reflection on the topic.

Sutherland, Ian; Jelinek, Jasna

doi: 10.1177/1523422315587894pmid: N/A

The ProblemFollowing executive students in a series of choral conducting workshops, this article explores the growing practice of arts-based leadership development. Based in experiential learning, arts-based learning claims to have great potential in connecting intellect and emotions, to meaningfully challenge norms and assumptions, and to value the relational and subjective aspects of human experience. However, to date, there is a lack of empirical, participant-focused work exploring the “what” and “how” of arts-based leadership development as well as its impact on professional practice.The SolutionThrough observational and interview data gathered at a European business school, this research takes a grounded, participant-centered approach to exploring the experiences of participants in three choral conducting masterclasses. The findings support the effectiveness of arts-based methods for leadership development; potent learning emerges. Moreover, nuance is added to understandings of how and what learning takes place, describing a process of learning as sensemaking to aesthetic knowing. The development outcomes centered on relational dynamics of leadership and the aesthetics of power and responsibility, with longer-term data showing positive impact on the professional practice of participants.The StakeholdersThis article speaks to HRD researchers, professionals, and development practitioners. Of interest for all three groups, the study overviews the growing trend of arts-based methods in leadership development while providing insights into how learning gets done,what is learned, and sheds light on longer-term impacts of this form of experiential learning.

Kennedy, Fiona; Bathurst, Ralph; Carroll, Brigid

doi: 10.1177/1523422315587896pmid: N/A

The ProblemAdaptive leadership calls for leaders to open up conflicts and differences and to help others engage with them. However, this sets up some tension with organizational priorities such as order and productivityWorking with difference and conflict is built on assumptions other than those that privilege efficiencies and smooth functioning. Taken-for-granted habits and assumptions about what is “good” and productive are at issue. Engaging with differences and conflict is not just a matter of learning new skills, it involves engaging with questions of mind-set and assumptions. The prospect of making space for differences may be threatening or seem to be out of bounds, particularly in traditional organizations.The SolutionIn this article, we argue that new practices privileging conflict and difference call for methods that disrupt habitual ways of working and that support people as they learn to respond to familiar situations in new ways. We offer montage, a technique adopted from the movie industry that sets disparate images side-by-side, as promising in this regard, providing temporary “new rules” that enable people to experience new ways of working.The StakeholdersThis article will be of interest to human resource (HR) professionals who select and sponsor leadership development interventions It will be particularly relevant for those in the area of learning and development who support new learning beyond workshops, in the context of day-to-day organizational life. It will also be of interest to researchers who seek to understand felt experiences in organizations and managers who are interested in reshaping their practice.

Cairns-Lee, Heather

doi: 10.1177/1523422315587897pmid: N/A

The ProblemWith the codification of leadership into frameworks, models, and theories that can be taught, leadership, an art that is essentially subjective, symbolic, and context-specific, is “translated into” an objective, pragmatic, and universal domain. Development can be elusive when approached from this universal perspective if external models distract leaders from exploring their own views and practices of leadership.The SolutionThis article explores the subjective and symbolic reality of those in leadership roles to discover what leaders can learn about their leadership and its development from awareness of their own mental models. These models are illuminated by an exploration of leaders’ naturally occurring metaphors and implicit leadership theories (ILTs) using clean language to acknowledge experience exactly as described while minimizing external influence or interpretation.The StakeholdersLeadership development practitioners can benefit from the innovative personalized approach to surfacing and exploring leaders’ own metaphors facilitated by clean language, offered in this article. Examples are given of the range of leadership metaphors surfaced with this method. Researchers can appreciate a novel approach to qualitative research interviewing and identify future research in surfacing ILTs through naturally occurring metaphor facilitated by clean language.

Tawadros, Tammy

doi: 10.1177/1523422315587898pmid: N/A

The ProblemRecent models of leadership emphasize the importance of adaptive, strategic, and socio-emotional capabilities for success. The development of leadership has transformed from teaching about the concept to an experiential learning of leadership, an approach that focuses on identity and problem solving. Over the past decade, improvisational theater and interactive drama based leadership development has received increasing attention; moreover, many advocate its use as a powerful and innovative experiential learning tool, to foster self-awareness and increase ability to deal with the unexpected and unpredictable. Through simulated, unscripted scenarios with actors, improvisation allows experimentation, discovery, and rehearsal of leadership behavior in a group context. It generates individual, relational learning that is immediate, emergent, and relevant to the emotional and cognitive complexities of real-world leadership. There is a paucity of literature on theater-based leadership. This makes it difficult for HRD professionals to justify giving theater-based leadership development (TBLD) techniques preference over other, less resource-intensive techniques.The SolutionThis article proposes a practical model for the systematic evaluation of TBLD techniques . A pathway mapping approach will be used. The model draws on recent social psychology research on social interaction and identity. Based on this, “micro” analytic techniques of discursive psychology and conversation analysis are proposed to examine patterns of leadership interaction behavior. The findings are to be used as a basis for building a “high fidelity,” evidence-based methodology for role-play and improvisation as development training for leaders. The approach offers a clear framework for HRD professionals. It will be used to analyze and inform the effective use of TBLD. This article is purely theoretical; it does not include empirical research.The StakeholdersMany can potentially benefit by using TBLD techniques, including human resource (HR) professionals and HRD practitioners, leadership development specialists and training providers, organization development practitioners, and professional actor trainers.

Boje, David M.; Rosile, Grace Ann; Saylors, Jillian; Saylors, Rohny

doi: 10.1177/1523422315587899pmid: N/A

The ProblemHow can leaders learn to use power in ways that minimize oppression and resistance, and instead are more liberating? As perceived oppression leads to resistance, leaders who are untrained in these power dynamics may enact oppressive behaviors and trigger resistance without awareness or intention to do so.The SolutionThis article describes a leadership training process we call storytelling theatrics. These storytelling theatrics formats explore power dynamics in multi-voiced scenarios that incorporate many perspectives. This method gives participants a voice in their own learning and creates actors instead of auditors. It brings hidden sources of oppression to center stage, to fully explore more liberating possibilities for both followers and leaders. Leaders can minimize repression and resistance if they understand, uncover, and confront these expressions of power.The StakeholdersOrganizational leaders as well as their followers are stakeholders in this embodied theatrical training. This intervention creates benefit for both leaders and followers, because both are potentially oppressed by power dynamics.

Edwards, Gareth; Schedlitzki, Doris; Ward, Jenna; Wood, Martin

doi: 10.1177/1523422315587903pmid: N/A

The ProblemThis article considers concepts of toxic and bad leadership from a critical, post-structuralist perspective and illustrates how this can be conveyed to management students through the use of film analysis. In response to the paucity of critical approaches within toxic and bad leadership studies, we suggest that film is a useful way of developing in-depth discussion in student and management groups to uncover underlying subtleties and complexity in leadership theory and practice.The SolutionWe connect to film clips from Batman: The Dark Knight, and explain how this film is used with students and managers to illustrate the ambiguous nature of “good” and “bad” leadership and explore the fluid, shifting, and relational nature of these two concepts. We conclude that students and managers can recognize this more readily through viewing, discussing, and analyzing film clips such as the ones discussed herein.The StakeholdersUniversity lecturers and students, executive educators and managers, general human resource development (HRD) professionals

Armitage, Andrew

doi: 10.1177/1523422315587905pmid: N/A

The ProblemMorgan explored in her book What Poetry Brings to Business the deep but unexpected connections between business and poetry. She demonstrated how the creative energy, emotional power, and communicative complexity of poetry relate directly to the practical needs for innovation and problem solving that face business managers, and how poetry can unpack complexity, together with the ability to empathize with, and better understand the thoughts and feelings of others. This, it can be argued, not only aids the creative process of individuals, but it can also help facilitate the entrepreneurial culture of an organization, develop imaginative solutions, and help better understand chaotic environments. However, despite Morgan’s welcomed addition, it still remains that there is still a dearth of literature of the use of poetry concerning toxic leadership practices.The SolutionAccording to Roebuck, reflexive practice can be described as a process of inquiry that facilities appreciation and understanding of contextualized views, deeper learning experiences, the development of ideas, and the conditions for actual change. Therefore, if organizations are not to objectify the creativity of those who aspire to be organizational leaders, then leadership development programs have to give voice to those who own organizational problems and their solution. Examples of organizational poetry will be presented to show how it can be used to unlock personal experiences and relationships within the context of working life. It will be argued that if stories are to represent reality as lived by those who report them, then poetry provides an alternative method of enquiry to inform contemporary leadership practices.The StakeholdersPoetry empowers individuals to internalize stories that carefully attend to context and settings to offer fresh perspectives on established truths, thus providing a way to explore hidden worlds that might often go unsaid in the milieu of normal conversation. As such, this article is aimed at those who need to develop an alternative paradigm for leadership and Human Resource Development (HRD) educational programs and want to adopt a more open dialogical approach to human relations within classroom settings and practice.

Garavan, Thomas N.; McGarry, Ann; Watson, Sandra; D’Annunzio-Green, Norma; O’ Brien, Fergal

doi: 10.1177/1523422315588358pmid: N/A

The ProblemArts-based leadership interventions have gained a foothold in the leadership development literature; however, few studies have investigated their effectiveness. These interventions include music, drama, art, and performance and are utilized to develop dimensions of leader mind-set.The SolutionIn this study, an arts-based intervention (leadership drawing exercise) is evaluated. Utilizing a quasi-experimental, pre-test, post-test design, we evaluate the impact of an arts-based intervention on four dimensions of leader mind-set: emotional intelligence, leader identity, openness to experience, and feedback orientation. Leaders in the arts-based intervention showed significantly greater improvement in emotional intelligence, leader identity, and feedback orientation.The StakeholdersThis article informs leadership development researchers, those making decisions about investment in leadership development and those who deliver leadership development. The article will be of interest to organizations that have to justify investment in leadership development.