Cult leadership is fuelled by our needs and fantasies. We expect normal behaviour from our leaders and sometimes use rose-coloured glasses to view the leader's individual capacities. Currently, much of what is normal is viewed through the modern lense of performance management, psychodynamic forces and leader/organisation dualism. That is, normal leaders tend to focus on accountability, individual motivations and leadership that controls the system from outside.
A leader who acts abnormally will tend to increase anxiety and disappoint. According to Richard Williams (pp34-60 in 'Complexity and the Experience of Leading Organizations', edited by Griffin & Stacey, 2005), 'the deconstruction of the idea of knowing and solving on the part of the leader will engender great feelings of anxiety on the part of those for whom the leader is an object of safety and security in a world that is perceived to be turbulent with change and impregnated with threat.' (p59)
My view of leadership is a mixture of traditional/modern ideas about direction and emerging/postmodern ideas about interaction. I wonder how well I will balance my normal and abnormal leadership and how soon people's anxieties will become noticeable?
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I don't need more anxieties from my leader but I am hoping there will be less as we begin to see forward growth and picking up of issues /ideas currently shelved. There's room for a bit of abnormality - after all, commencing the role on April 1st - what can one say!
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ReplyDeleteWe glossed over this at uni (nursing); the public perception of what a nurse is and what nurses actually do being very different, so whenever someone talks about something like this it sparks my interest.
ReplyDeleteIn nursing I think that you have to do both, if you give the appearance of being the quintessential, almost archetypal nurse, it gives the patient and relatives a peace of mind that makes it easier to do the stuff that you need to that really looks after the patient/family. If the patient and family have complete trust and confidence in your abilities, then you can more effectively manage care.
If a leader behaves abnormally, but then achieves what the followers perceive to be positive results, then that behaviour will cease to be seen as abnormal but rather as visionary. There's a challenge for you Conrad.
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