Neo Institutional Theory and Leading Change

Currie, Lockett, and Suhomlinova have completed research that underscores the role of environment upon our leadership. In their article, "Leadership and Institutional Change in the Public Sector: The Case of Secondary Schools in England" (The Leadership Quarterly, 20, (2009), 664-679), they make the case that rather than being isolated to either personal characteristics or situation, leadership can be an amalgam of these but with another added: the environment in which the leader serves.

Their work is grounded in neo-institutional theory, a theory that posits the practices of our organizations are affected by the institutions within society. Among these are institutions with power to regulate and thus manipulate conformance and those that reify values and define what is normal. The use of the word "institutions" doesn't refer first to buildings or organizations but to an idea or ideal through which the accumulation of permissions to wield influence over human agency has become a structure of power over that agency. Examples of two such can be government and culture.

In a study that tracked the work of school principles tasked with introducing a "results oriented" leadership to their schools, they noted that the preferred and commonly accepted form of leadership for principles was a "moral" leadership that valued "wider social goals" over test scores. These two, results oriented leadership and moral leadership, in effect, reflected the public face of two institutions: the former representing the government and the latter the educational culture. Though the principle's had good reason to conform to the government's demands - such as sanctions against their schools - in those settings where students were socially deprived, principles chose to express leadership in support of the environment that fostered them: the educational culture and its insistence upon a moral approach to education.

It should not be concluded that the principles sole reason for rejecting the government legitimating their leadership was an unconscious need for acceptance by their faculties. Yet it does underscore the importance of environment upon our leadership and as importantly what we believe about the ultimate goal of that leadership. Further, it suggests that not only are we are a product of the environment that shaped our beliefs but also of the one in which we serve and from which we take cues regarding that service.

For those leading organizational change the implications can be sobering. In this instance, the principles were to counter the culture of their organization and in the process effectively negate decades of permissions that had come to govern human agency. Not all organizational change is so dramatic yet leading people to create a new story about themselves and the organization that defines them can be. To say it requires sensitivity of the leader is not fair to the tremendous strain s/he is placed under. Rather, it is essential for the leader to know themselves and in that knowing be fully aware of their values and what animates them.

Robin Dunbar's "Grooming and Gossip: The Evolution of Language" is an informative read about the dynamics of social interaction. It's helpful for the narrative leader by providing insight into language and its power to form social networks - issues that are key to Narrative Leadership.

Narrative and Implicit Leadership Theory

People are narrative beings. We express this in a number of ways but one that is poignant is how we make sense of activity and thought. The human way, our way, is to do so by the story line of past and immediate experience and the greater story of permissions and identity that culture provides. This makes the derivation of meaning and the experience that grounds it contextual. The necessity then is that if we are to derive meaning from stimuli it must have some comparable in experience.

This makes it essential that the leader have understanding of the stories that give shape to the lives of those s/he purports to lead. It also requires that the narrative undertaking be entered into aware that leadership will mean something different to each member. There is acknowledgement of this possibility in Implicit Leadership Theory where members determine the effectiveness of leadership by comparing the leader’s effort against their own internal model of what an effective leader is. Keller (1999) held that such models of leadership likely arise in the family unit where as a child we observe the first instances of leading and following.

The stories of our life do produce memories but also templates by which we know and understand. Learning them before attempting change, while slowing our effort to “get there,” helps make the transition a more humane affair.
William Salyards Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved.

Keller, T. (1999). Images of the familiar: Individual differences and implicit leadership theories. Leadership Quarterly, 10(4), 590-607.

Paul Cobley gives an excellent survey of narrative and provides a basis for understanding why narrative is critical for leadership. For the person interested in narrative and its integration with sociality this is the place to start.

Storytelling in Organizations

In the debate between organizations as rational or relational, Yiannis Gabriel shows the role of stories in organizational culture. His work is helpful for those who seek to lead while sensitive to the influence of story in and upon our everyday life and living.

Making Decisions

While leading change I have found that having guidelines for the decision process to be helpful. Among them is that the effects of a decision can last much longer than the time it takes to make it. This is especially true when the decision involves people as opposed to things simply because people are connected to other people. So a first good rule is to “slow up” the decision process by the number of relationships the decision is likely to affect. It is key that you not see this as an inability at or hindrance to being decisive but the opportunity to bring more people into your way of thinking about the proposed decision.

I have had moments when, on the spot, I’ve made the decision to terminate the role a person is fulfilling knowing that my action would affect the individual and that their friends and co-workers would question my judgment. However, advance work in listening and discussion, while not removing every obstacle, at least gave others the rationale behind what I was doing. So again, a first good guideline for decision making during change: the more relationships that are involved the greater that deliberation is in order.

Discourse and Identity

Bethan Benwell and Elizabeth Stokoe give an excellent overview and discussion of the formation of human identity in their book, "Discourse and Identity." Beginning with understandings prevalent in the Enlightenment to the social constructivist approach of Post-modern thought, their work is a necessary read for those who seek to lead narratively.

Leading and Leadership

I have been intrigued to discover what I call the difference between leading and leadership. In the first are the practices that build up a people and in the second the environment of mutual trust and respect that makes it possible. I point this out because I suspect that in human sociality the majority of people aren’t as interested in having a leader as in having leadership. Of course one cannot occur without the other but I think it serves to locate the primary task of leaders as “environmentalists” while reminding us that our role cannot be fulfilled in a vacuum: we need people. It’s oxymoronic yet so fitting in the grander scheme of life that what we need to accomplish our mission is also that which defeats it. Leaders and perhaps particularly narrative leaders then dance the perpetual steps of the unconvinced but always moving toward a destination, taking people with us.

Member Values

Re-narrating even working practices involves an appeal to transcendent values and asks if the practices that represent those values are the best way of relating to the world. Changing them requires another story, another way of looking at the same truth but through eyes freshened with possibility and that takes into account the myriad ways custom and technology creates new opportunities. When I say, “transcendent values,” I compare that term against another: “transactional value.” I’ve parsed an individual’s values as being held as transcendent or transactional (the language is mine). Values held transcendently are absolutely right or correct, non-negotiable, and resistant to change. Values held transactionally are those needed to transact a person’s living in a given situation or course of life. An example of this is one person’s comment that if the practices of the church changed she would “keep an open mind, evaluate it, and see if it’s something that the other members want to do.” When asked if other members were to change their position regarding the Bible being inerrant would she go along with that? Her response was a firm, “No.” “That’s one thing I won’t change.” The willingness to change and even adapt to a practice not completely of her liking so long as it was “something that the other members want to do” would not extend to every practice. Clearly, there was more than a single value or a single narrative at work.

What are the Origins of Narrative Leadership?

The expression, “narrative leadership,” doesn’t explore the vast knowledge base regarding leadership but references an underlying notion that leaders use narrative in their practice of leadership. Though “narrative leadership” is used in current leadership and organizational vernacular, its use in critical literature is limited. This sparseness of use is also reflected in its definition. Fleming (2001) who may have been earliest in its use provided no succinct definition except to say that narrative equips leaders in their sensemaking role. He held sensemaking as the ability to question an outdated interpretive scheme while providing a new alternative. Key to this is the leader’s ability to tell stories. Taking an altogether different tack from Fleming yet still grounded in the emotive nature of the leader’s speech, Gahmberg (2002) interpreted narrative leadership differently. He viewed narrative leadership as an analysis of the leader’s emotions, “particularly the dimension of enunciation” (p. 1).

To determine what Narrative Leadership could mean in a non-critical sense and in the current vernacular, I surveyed the course offerings of various educational institutions and consulting firms in the USA and UK and arrived at a somewhat unified description. Among them is that of Wales (2008) where narrative leadership is “storytelling as a change management technology and a tool for engaging others.” Cass (2008) described narrative leadership as using the “power of story for organizational and personal change.” Similarly, Hartford (2008) as well as Alban (2008) held it to be the use of “narrative for personal and organizational change” while Denning (2008), a popular business consultant and author in narrative, seems to take pains to not use the two words, narrative and leadership, as a conjoined expression. In an instance of his doing so, it refers to techniques that “use well-targeted and well-deployed emotion to stimulate self-motivated, coordinated action” (p. 1).

It is possible, if not likely, that the term “Narrative Leadership” emerged from other appreciative forms of leadership, particularly transformational leadership (Burns, 1978) and strategic leadership (Hunt, 1991). While this isn’t clear it is telling that common to each is the idea of talking with people about the organization’s future (Boal & Schultz, 2007) and what their individual futures may look like (Driscoll & McKee, 2006). In this vein Boje and Rhodesb (2005) appears to have provided the critical definition to which Fleming alluded and the various course offerings appealed. He stated,

The role of a narrative leader is to facilitate the transformation of one way of narrating the corporation to another, in this case from epic to novelistic. In terms of narrative strategy this is a transformation to more novelistic or polyphonic narration. It is also a means of reformulating meanings and changing organizational cultures and transmitting tacit norms. (p. 101)

In this understanding, narrative leadership assumes that to make sense of their worlds people and their organizations rely upon story (Allan, Fairtlough & Heinzen, 2002; Boje, 1991; Brockmeier & Harre, 2001; Owen, 1999). Thereby a possibly newer form of leadership emerges, one where a person’s storied connections are prized and developed (Boje, 2005).

For a complete list of cited references please follow this link.

Leading Change

There can be a good deal of talk about changing the story of a group and that as a means of making their enterprise better. Undoubtedly, stories of lore or founding stories are sometimes replaced but not likely changed. I think this is so because a story of the group's founding is approximated in the real - what is being talked about actually happened and you can't change facts.

What is possible however, is to replace one story with another. Founding stories and the identity they confer upon a group are ready for replacement when the practices they foster are no longer needed or accepted by the larger culture the group purports to serve. Here's an example: an entrepreneur begins a business and as success comes decides that to reward those who have stayed during the lean times there will never be a layoff. In the ensuing years the wisdom of this policy is seen in employee loyalty, low job turnover, high-quality production, and cost containment. Then the time comes when the product loses appeal in the marketplace. There is nothing wrong with either the policy of no layoffs or the product that supports them. What is wrong is that the culture the organization serves no longer supports the organization through the consumption of its product. If it will remain viable it must change. This could entail change to the product and even, for a time, change to its founding story of no layoffs. It is possible that for the company to survive the founding story could be replaced entirely.

Stephen Prickett's explanation of appropriation in his "Origins of Narrative", is interesting. Using the Christian Bible as the template, Prickett develops the idea that much of our sense of narrative in the West is influenced directly by its stories, particularly our allowing one thing to stand in for another. He calls this appropriation. Appropriation is used extensively in the Christian faith. Through it we understand a certain thing or event in scripture to have meaning to our life today. An example is in our appropriating David's triumph over Goliath onto challenges we face and our hope for a similar successful conclusion. Appropriation helps us deduce meaning and in its use we find another story to tell about our life.

We've all heard it before: the more things stay the same the more they change. Perhaps this has risen to a truism because it is true. Change is here to stay. People change yet feel that the systems or organizations that we're a part should never. And some, seemingly don't. I think you would be hard pressed to find a single organization that has not changed in some way, even the most durable and venerable around us. The most enduring has in myriad ways changed since its founding. Not all change is dramatic nor must it be extensive to be change. I believe that incremental change is easier for organization members to accept than that to its entire direction. To accomplish change of this magnitude it is necessary to restory the organization. This can be the work of narrative leadership.