This thesis explores the phenomenon of leadership by senior public servants in Westminster system governments. Despite the important constitutional position held by senior public servants (SPS), we know relatively little about what they do day-to-day – in particular what their ‘leadership’ looks like, or how and why it occurs. To address this gap in knowledge, I use an inductive lens to study individual SPS leadership practices in response to strategic challenges they face, and the sensemaking pathways that lead them to engage in those practices. My approach in this study draws upon a critical realist application of the Gioia Methodology, a systematic approach to the development of new concepts designed to bring qualitative rigour into the process and presentation of inductive research (Gioia, Corley, Kevin and Hamilton, 2013). I examine SPS leadership and sensemaking in two sites of Westminster system government – New Zealand and Wales – and draw upon qualitative interview data to forge narratives and a conceptual model to explain how SPS leadership is accomplished. The findings reveal that SPS are not neutral, impartial bureaucrats, but are individuals whose identities and preferences shape their leadership on strategic challenges. Their preferences can align them to their minister’s agenda (agenda leadership), or lead them to try to alter an agenda, by engaging in practices to reframe the challenge and/or proposed government response (steward leadership). The model maps two distinct sensemaking pathways underpinning agenda and steward –leadership respectively, revealing how key extrinsic and intrinsic factors combine to shape each. The model, and its component freshly-instantiated concepts, afford new empirical evidence to the debate on the appropriate role of SPS in Westminster system governments, which to date has been dominated by theoretical and normative contributions. Drawing upon this new evidence, I argue that both agenda leadership and steward leadership by SPS are demanded to supplement the bounded leadership of elected ministers; and recommend updating socialisation, scrutiny and accountability routines to recognise the reality of SPS as independent, human sensemakers and leaders in government.

Change is a timely issue across organisations, particularly since the start of the economic crisis, and especially within English local government. Yet, this question remains dominated by macro and micro explanatory models which tend to exclude conflict, mess and power in favour of enumerating universalistic steps or leadership factors for successful change. This thesis problematises this literature, drawing on Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) political discourse theory and its mobilisation by critical management studies of organisational change. Three avenues are identified to further this literature. First, the organisation is analysed as an ongoing and fragile hegemonic project in which spaces are defined and consent must be constantly renewed. Second, the organisation is recast as a discursively constituted ‘site’ within a flat ontology, where change is not the result of some ‘bigger’ phenomena such as neo-liberalism or austerity, but instead is the product of situated articulations, disparate demands being mobilised as threats or opportunities requiring change. Finally, a third proposition articulates leadership in organisations as a set of multiple and changing practices, pragmatically deployed by organisational players. In exploring those avenues, a five-step ‘logics of critical explanation’ approach is deployed, characterising organisational change practices according to social (rules and norms), political (inclusions and exclusions), and fantasmatic (fears and hopes) logics (Glynos and Howarth, 2007). A nine month case study of an English County Council and its local strategic partnership’s organisational change project, Integrated Commissioning 2012 (IC 2012), is analysed to problematise the emergence, transformation and failure of practices of change in organisations. Rather than a set of factors or top-down causes and effects, this research demonstrates how change, organisations and leadership are best explained as discursive constructions, where a set of conditions drawn from a given site must be problematised. This research contributes to critical explanations of organisational change politics in three ways. First, by developing the concept of hegemony and hegemonic spaces, this thesis evidences how organisations and change are the result of ongoing struggles, consent being notably gathered by the constant refuelling of the fantasmatic appeal of change. Second, framing the organisation as a site generates a more complex, situated and dynamic understanding of the mobilisation of disparate demands within change discourses. Third, by considering leadership as a set of changing discursive practices and developing four situated dimensions of leadership in the case study, this research adds to critical leadership studies and discursive discussions of the role of individuals in organisational politics.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 248-259). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.B.A. (Rhodes Investec Business School)) - Rhodes University, 2008. / "Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Business Administration" - T.p.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 248-259). Also available on the Internet.

This study addresses the concept of fair governance based on an empirical study with marginalized groups, primarily Muslims, and their interaction with government agencies as its salient locus of investigation. Employing the research method of in-depth interviewing, I present a qualitative analysis of 35 semi-structured interviews with Muslims and government administrators. The methodological framework based on which these interviews are interpreted is rooted in the tradition of social constructivism as manifested in the grounded theory perspective of Charmaz. My examination of the hitherto unspoken political visions of the study participants and their shared perspectives offers pragmatic solutions to create greater equity and fairer inclusion of the marginalized in civic and political dialogues and in the administrative practice of government. Remarkably, the cultural changes towards justice and inclusion in the Government of British Columbia manifest that fair government is committed to creating a fundamental transformation in favour of marginalized groups. I find the most promising approach for such transformation occurs where bottom up and dynamic approaches of civil society are aligned with top down approaches of government to justice. The findings suggest that fair governance enhances its functionality and capacity through reflecting universal universalism in its policies and practices, heartening public spirituality and moving towards a more humane modernity rather than the extant western model of modernity. Thus, fair governance calls for diversity in expression of religious identity and challenges the mistaken images of Muslim women. Subsequently, fair government welcomes female religious actors, who act upon religious values, to its administration and respects their choice of clothing encompassing the scarf. Fair government, at all levels, ameliorates the ethical standards of its employees and employs authentic leaders, who act in a virtuous manner, care about employees’ deeply held values, and implement direct communication with staff. Such government supports legislative and constitutional reforms to consider a different outlook of the marginalized on political and social concerns, respects religious practices, honours Muslims’ identity and interpretation of life, and supports individuals who aim to improve humanity in Canada and its occupational settings. Rethinking Islamophobia in the context of the distinct need of government administrators for the institutional education about Islam, as a key finding of the study, depicts the emergence of “Islamoexploria”, as a new expression, which I coin. In my study, there is ample evidence to suggest that a sample of government administrators in British Columbia is in the age of post Islamophobia since they, as pioneers, have passed the stage of Islamophobia and entered a new era of “Islamoexploria”. Thus, they have produced the profound socio-cultural changes towards understanding Islam by shifting from fear of, ostensibly, the unknown to knowledge about the unknown and to approaches that are more sympathetic to Muslims. This finding suggests that fair government facilitates the journey from western Islamophobia, a demonstration of old racism, to “Islamoexploria”, a contemporary thirst for knowledge about Islam. Concurrently, Muslims remain responsible to contribute to fairness at large by role modeling their religious values, which greatly promote justice, compassionate attitudes, and humanitarian actions. / Graduate / 2022-12-07