Abstract
Many contemporary organizations operate in complex, changing environments that require organizational actors to continuously identify and actively engage in the leadership work of producing direction and organizing future action around emerging issues in everyday work. While leadership studies have long focused on individual leaders, there is increasing attention to the collaborative leadership work that take place throughout the organization.
However, leadership literature carries a baggage of romanticized notions of someone or something extraordinary, which have taken new forms in today’s pluralistic understandings of leadership. Idealized expectations and glossy images, not only of individual leaders but also of leadership collaboration, are alive and well. For leadership theory and research to provide realistic depictions of how actors succeed in leading together, and the difficulties and tensions involved in this work, more practice-oriented studies are needed.
This dissertation studies the collaborative work of leadership actors in mobilizing committed future action on organizational issues in everyday interactions. It examines the work, challenges, and practices involved in mobilizing commitment as a situated social action by which someone visibly commits to taking responsibility and action on a given issue.
To this end, the dissertation employs ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA), which is concerned with how actions are organized and mutual understandings are produced through situated talk and interaction. It draws on ethnographic data collected from two Danish organizations, including interviews, observations, and video recordings of meeting interactions.
The three included articles show that the leadership work involved in mobilizing committed future action centrally consists of negotiating the nature of a problem, available solutions, ownership, individual and shared accountabilities, as well as ongoing improvisation and balancing of influence attempts to elicit a committed rather than a compliant response. This collaboratively accomplished leadership work comprises ambiguities, dilemmas, conflicts, and power dynamics that leadership actors navigate to reach sufficiently clarified agreements and commitments.
The dissertation contributes to existing leadership theory by demonstrating that leadership work in practice is both mundane and incredibly complex; it serves as a central site for constructing and deconstructing agency; and it primarily involves skillfully improvising, balancing, and adapting one's contributions and influence attempts to fit the situation and interaction at hand.
However, leadership literature carries a baggage of romanticized notions of someone or something extraordinary, which have taken new forms in today’s pluralistic understandings of leadership. Idealized expectations and glossy images, not only of individual leaders but also of leadership collaboration, are alive and well. For leadership theory and research to provide realistic depictions of how actors succeed in leading together, and the difficulties and tensions involved in this work, more practice-oriented studies are needed.
This dissertation studies the collaborative work of leadership actors in mobilizing committed future action on organizational issues in everyday interactions. It examines the work, challenges, and practices involved in mobilizing commitment as a situated social action by which someone visibly commits to taking responsibility and action on a given issue.
To this end, the dissertation employs ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA), which is concerned with how actions are organized and mutual understandings are produced through situated talk and interaction. It draws on ethnographic data collected from two Danish organizations, including interviews, observations, and video recordings of meeting interactions.
The three included articles show that the leadership work involved in mobilizing committed future action centrally consists of negotiating the nature of a problem, available solutions, ownership, individual and shared accountabilities, as well as ongoing improvisation and balancing of influence attempts to elicit a committed rather than a compliant response. This collaboratively accomplished leadership work comprises ambiguities, dilemmas, conflicts, and power dynamics that leadership actors navigate to reach sufficiently clarified agreements and commitments.
The dissertation contributes to existing leadership theory by demonstrating that leadership work in practice is both mundane and incredibly complex; it serves as a central site for constructing and deconstructing agency; and it primarily involves skillfully improvising, balancing, and adapting one's contributions and influence attempts to fit the situation and interaction at hand.
Original language | English |
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Place of Publication | Frederiksberg |
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Publisher | Copenhagen Business School [Phd] |
Number of pages | 149 |
ISBN (Print) | 9788775683291 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9788775683307 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2025 |
Series | PhD Series |
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Number | 05.2025 |
ISSN | 0906-6934 |