P(p)ublic A(a)dministration is influenced by multiple factors, inclusive of complex policy issues, multi-faceted forms of accountability and hybrid governance models. Consequently, public administration organisations must strengthen their adaptive and complexity capacity to deal with environmental complexity through adopting a different leadership model that is characterised by distinct but complementary leadership functions. Complexity leadership theory (CLT) is thus adopted as an appropriate theoretical lens for the study due to its integrative, collective and relational approach to leadership, in spite of its limited application in the public administration context. Against this background, the purpose of the study is to apply CLT as the basis to determine the required leadership competencies that should underpin a complex adaptive system such as the Governance and Administration (G&A) Cluster of the South African government because of concerns regarding the unevenness or lack of appropriate leadership competencies, behaviours and skills to make the government cluster system effective. To address the purpose of the study and the underlying research problem, a mixed methods research approach was adopted to investigate the leadership competency implications of Public Administration reforms plus their links with intergovernmental relations developments, and the implications of the transition from leader-centric practices to collective and hybrid forms of leadership. An analysis of existing literature in these areas leads to the conclusion that the G&A Cluster, which is an intergovernmental relations structure, is an integral part of hybrid organisational arrangements whose effectiveness requires a different approach to leadership. The literature analysis further identifies a disjuncture between leader-centric practices and conceptions of leadership as a collective, collaborative and hybrid phenomenon. The disjuncture is attributed to the scarcity of leadership and competency-based management (CBM) literature to guide the development of complexity leadership practice, especially in inter-organisational arrangements, and reliance on theoretical analysis as the basis to propose competencies for complexity leadership. Thus, the study addresses the research question and simultaneously contributes towards knowledge and practice by providing an empirical lens to the dynamics of collective leadership in a government inter-organisational structure and advancing CBM through articulating seven adaptable principles and six competency clusters that inform the development of a meso level leadership competency framework for inter-organisational arrangements. The study is also contributing to the application of CLT in P(p)ublic A(a)dministration and improved understanding of CLT’s leadership functions by clarifying its competency dimensions. The study concludes with an outline of implications and recommendations for inter-organisational leadership competency development and practice as well as recommendations for further research. / Thesis (PhD (Public Administration and Management))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (2019-20210) Office of the Public Service Commission (2021) / School of Public Management and Administration (SPMA) / PhD (Public Administration and Management) / Unrestricted

This study extends the understanding of leadership emergence from a relational perspective (Hosking, 2011; Cunliffe & Eriksen, 2011; Uhl-Bien, 2006), specifically related to the forming of trusting relationships. The argument follows from the conceptual development of subjectification processes referred to as “care of the self” (Foucault M. , 1988; Foucault M. , 2005) and the implications of “regimes of practices" (Foucault M. , 2010; Dean, 2010). The findings contribute to our understanding of the relation between patterns of differentiation and reciprocity (as contextual definitions) and the relational emergence of leadership. We conceive leadership formed by actions that have no instrumental purpose beyond constructing a subject able to form trusting relationships and judge this to be a phronetic practice. The research is based on a case study of the executive team of a large copper mining company implementing a sustainability strategy that has as its central purpose the construction of trusting relations within a complex net of stakeholders. Based on this case, my second contribution is to conceptualise the function of “parrhēsia practice” (Foucault M. , 2010), a “truth game” about truth, truth-telling and action in the relation of the self and others, which is significant in the formation of the relational leadership of the “conscious pariah” (Arendt, 1978). The study examines how it is that “truth games” of examining the self and “reframing” interactional patterns can facilitate the relational emergence of phronetic forms of leadership. The research methodology, designed to deal from a non-dualistic perspective with the relational emergence of leadership, uses a narrative research approach to describe practices (Czarniawska, Narratives in Social Science Research, 2011). It is “uncovered” as representational and dualistic in the research relation, and a discussion of how a non-dualistic research approach could be developed is provided.

This thesis examines the theological and practical functioning of American Baptist Women’s Ministries, American Baptist Churches USA, as it has engaged in a “Becoming Beloved Community” initiative. It argues that theological grounding in a vision of Beloved Community is a necessary missing element in transforming the way the organization pursues its mission. Since 2014, the organization has conducted a cultural audit, assessing attitudes and readiness, and it has developed some strategies and tactics as a result. However, without a solid theological grounding and a deeper understanding of what adhering to a vision of beloved community may mean in terms of structure and decision-making processes, these strategies and tactics are less effective than they could be. This thesis draws upon the writings of Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr., on process theology, and on woman’s liberation theologies to assess current practices in AB Women’s Ministries and provide a more robust theological grounding for the concept of “Becoming Beloved Community.” In constructing the theological grounding, a list of marks of beloved community is developed and used as an evaluative tool for current practices in the organization. Using adaptive leadership theory and complexity leadership theory, the thesis also develops recommendations for the future.

The study examines the relationship between project leadership styles and success when affected by pressures such as time, project type, complexity and cultural diversity. The research examines the two well-known leadership approaches of transformational- and transactional leadership, and argues that transactional leadership, which has less focus on the leader-follower relationship, is more suitable and successful in projects with limited time. The transformational leadership style, which has more focus on vision and relationship between the followers takes time to build, and is therefore more successful for long-term projects. In order to examine this, a questionnaire was developed and sent out to 56 project leaders around the world. Findings indicate that time in projects have a negative effect on project success, and that both transformational and transactional leadership style has a dampening effect on this negative relationship, hence increasing the success. Furthermore, the study finds strong correlation between the two leadership styles, indicating that these should not be seen as two different attitudes, as leaders can show behaviors from both the transformational and transactional leadership style, possibly explaining the similar dampening effect. No further significant moderating effects were found in the variables project type, complexity and the project’s cultural diversity.

This mixed model approach research explored what are the perceived essential components of an ideal organization. The data were collected from 150 leadership development seminars from 2000 to 2006 hosted by a Fortune 500 company with participants from over 239 organizations producing 5396 responses. The qualitative primary data were unitized and statistically analyzed and synthesized to reveal significant categories and their relationships. The statistically significant categories represent the essential components of an ideal organization. The original qualitative responses manifesting the significant categories are presented in alignment with the emerging complex systems leadership perspective. / text

Bullying and toxic leadership in the U. S. Army disrupt bonding processes between leaders and subordinates, which may jeopardize military operations, threaten resiliency initiatives, inhibit leader development, and stifle innovation. Little research, however, has looked at the role of informal leaders who operate outside the formal power structure in military environments. Using social exchange theory as the foundation, the purpose of this case study was to explore the activities of informal leaders who mediated the normal and disrupted leadership bonding processes in an Illinois Army National Guard Infantry Brigade. The research questions explored the informal leaders' influence and behaviors to gain a greater understanding of the bonding processes. A maximum variation purposeful sampling was used to select 25 informal leaders from 8 company size units in an Illinois Army National Guard Infantry Brigade. Publicly available archival data were also considered. All data were coded inductively and then subjected to Braun and Clark's thematic analysis procedure, revealing the perception that informal leaders improved bonding between soldiers and leaders and reduced stress associated with military service. The implications for positive social change include recommendations to the Illinois National Guard to provide support for using informal leaders as a mechanism to promote more cohesive relationships between leaders and subordinates and to explore the use of informal leadership to reduce stress.

There is still very little known about network dynamics (Bell et al., 2006), especially when focusing on interorganisational networks (Provan et al., 2007). There is also limited empirical evidence on leadership within these complex network contexts (Davenport, 2005; Osborn et al., 2002). This thesis addresses these limitations by developing a theoretical framework for process leadership in the complex, often unpredictable and turbulent context of the interorganisational networked ecosystem. Understanding the complexity of networks and leadership is crucial to advancing network research, which this study aims to accomplish. Although previous studies indicate leader characteristics and behaviours (Huxham & Vangen, 2000), less evidence on the processes and dynamics of leadership within networks exists. Few studies have longitudinally examined the multiple boundaries and multi-level interactions within a complex interorganisational network, as the unit of analysis, as this thesis achieves. Moreover, little research has been conducted to understand network leadership processes, which represents a major gap in the network theory and complexity leadership literatures. In order to address these gaps as well as the gap between the two literatures, this thesis presents a comprehensive, longitudinal case investigation of network process leadership (NPL) within an interorganisational network embedded in the British National Health Service (NHS). By analysing processual dynamics, this thesis’s contribution is the foundation of a preliminary NPL framework. Based on analysing a public sector healthcare network over time, the findings emphasise four dominant thematic constructs surrounding NPL that emerged as highly significant: leveraging strategic system stressors and turbulence; adopting focal and non-focal roles; maximising social proximity; and the complementary, reciprocal formal and informal coproduction of leadership. These constructs provide the empirical and analytical grounds to help explain the critical leadership processes that drive a complex, interorganisational public sector network. Significantly, social capital dimensions underlie these interrelated higher order themes; thereby affecting wider inter-organisational network processes. As a primary contribution of this thesis, I argue that social capital is the critical concept linking network and complexity leadership theories, in order to provide a better understanding of NPL. The findings suggest network leadership calls for NPL and its relational, collective, facilitative approach involving social capital among multiple participants in a complex interorganisational network context. This is highly differentiated from studying unidirectional effects of a hierarchical, central leader within a single organisation. Theoretically, I argue the importance of social capital in the complex nature of leadership processes within interorganisational networked contexts. The research contributes to an understanding of how networks and social capital can be adapted or created by formal and informal leaders within networks to reflect changing processes to shape practices and network-wide development over time. Finally, I offer several operational mechanisms policymakers and network leaders could pragmatically employ to manage, lead, and facilitate interorganisational network processes. Overall, the significance of this study involves: filling gaps in the literature, offering a longitudinal case study on an interorganisational network over time, providing a foundation for theoretical development on leading in networks, illuminating insights into professional leadership within networks, and identifying policy and practical implications for leaders and managers.

As online learning continues to grow and became an integral component of many higher education institutions (Allen & Seaman, 2017), the role of leadership in guiding those online learning initiatives differs from institution to institution. At small, private colleges and universities, where online learning is seeing greater enrollment and growth (Clinefelter & Magda, 2013), teaching and learning centers (TLC) often have involvement in guiding and shaping online learning initiatives. This study investigated the role of TLC leaders in leading online learning initiatives. The value of this study is an examination of leadership during a period of transformation and change that requires TLC leaders to manage administrative directives, work with a diverse faculty base, and balance these sometimes competing interests. This research study sought to explore the perceptions and lived experiences of TLC leaders in online learning leadership within small, private higher education institutions. Utilizing complexity leadership theory as a framework for exploring the various leadership functions of TLC leaders, the study employed a transcendental phenomenological methodology (Moustakas, 1994). Participants included seven TLC leaders or other TLC staff who were involved in online learning initiatives at their institutions. Data was collected through a series of three semi-structured interview sessions based on the qualitative interview design of Seidman (2005). Analysis of the data generated themes centered around the three leadership functions of complexity leadership theory: administrative, adaptive, and enabling leadership.

The external competitive environments and internal group dynamics of organizations are increasing in complexity resulting in new challenges for organizational leaders to improve performance in underperforming teams. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to address what factors led to high-innovation outcomes in complex adaptive systems using a framework constructed from elements of complexity leadership theory and group dynamics research. An in-depth interviewing approach was used to collect data on the lived experience and meaning the participants attributed to their experiences regarding improved team performance. A total of 21 participants were selected from multiple business settings where their team experienced adaptive tension and improved group cohesion. Their stories were reduced into themes using an inductive process and later analyzed through the lens of complexity leadership theory. The factors that emerged in this study, leveraging tension in the group dynamics enabled through objectivity, roles, alignment, capability, execution, purpose, and work ethic that led to mutual respect, directness, and reliance, offer leaders an effective method for achieving sustained team performance. These factors can be used by organizational leaders to improve team performance and consistency in team outcomes over traditional command and control approaches with a work exchange that benefits individual team members. The findings from this study contribute to social change by improving not only team performance, but also member satisfaction. When leadership is viewed from the perspective of the whole system instead of from the perspective of the individual, the relationships between people emerge as the primary enabling factor for high-innovation outcomes.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-01T19:18:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 anacristina.pdf: 832502 bytes, checksum: fe7737e09526b2f6330d8b9946f16546 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-03-26 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This dissertation had the objective to analyze how the leadership process is characterized in the context of Y Generation based in Information Technology (IT) companies located at Florianópolis. The factors that motivated this research were a new generation beginning in the labor market, the difficulties to attract and retains talents in the companies, the changes in the labor relations in accordance with the development of Knowledge Era and the strengthening of the complexity paradigm. The nature of this work is qualitative, descriptive and multi-case study. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 16 professionals, among managers, human resources professional and Y generation employees into three IT companies that was experiencing different moments of their ways. The categories studied and analyzed were Y Generation, considering the young people was born between 1980 and 1990, and the leadership process. The results demonstrated that the three companies, despite they don`t have actions directed to the Y Generation, they are adopting postures in accordance with the needs and characteristics of this generation. Among these characteristics are the motivation linked with new challenges, the technological knowledge, the participatory behavior, the restlessness, the individual and critical personality, the long-short vision, the creativity and the search for flexibility and informality in the work. The companies, on the other hand, although they are based on a hierarchical structure top-down, present a decentralized leadership process, valuing labor relations that are constituted based in technical knowledge and delegation, and characterized by autonomy with responsibility. It was verified that the companies studied are implementing suggestion programs, plans of individual development and opening spaces for contestation. This is suggesting an evolution in the leadership processes, in the way to answer the needs of technological industry, the young professionals and for a more complexity leadership. / Esta dissertação objetivou analisar como se caracteriza o processo de liderança no contexto da Geração Y em empresas de base tecnológica da cidade de Florianópolis. A entrada de uma nova geração no mercado de trabalho, as dificuldades em atrair e reter talentos, a transformação nas relações no trabalho em consonância com o início da Era do Conhecimento e o fortalecimento do paradigma da complexidade foram fatores que incentivaram o desenvolvimento da presente pesquisa. A natureza do trabalho apresentado é qualitativa, do tipo descritiva, com delineamento de estudo de multicaso. Foram realizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas com 16 profissionais, entre gestores, profissionais de recursos humanos e profissionais da Geração Y, em três empresas de tecnologia que estavam vivenciando momentos distintos de sua trajetória. As categorias estudadas e abordadas na fundamentação teórica foram a Geração Y, abrangendo os jovens nascidos entre 1980 e 1990, e o processo de liderança. Os resultados demonstraram que as três empresas, apesar de não possuírem ações dirigidas para a geração Y, têm adotado posturas que vão ao encontro das necessidades e características dessa geração. Dentre essas características estão a motivação atrelada a novos desafios, o forte conhecimento tecnológico, o comportamento participativo, a inquietude, a personalidade individualista e crítica, a visão de curto prazo, a criatividade e a busca pela flexibilidade e pela informalidade no ambiente de trabalho. As empresas, por sua vez, apesar de estarem fundamentadas numa estrutura hierárquica top-down, apresentam um processo de liderança mais descentralizado, valorizando as relações no trabalho, as quais são constituídas com base no conhecimento técnico e na delegação, e caracterizadas pela autonomia com responsabilidade. Verificou-se que as empresas estão implantando programas de sugestões, de desenvolvimento individual e abrindo espaço para contestação, sugerindo uma evolução nos seus processos de liderança, de forma a atender às necessidades do setor, da nova geração de profissionais, e na direção de uma liderança mais complexa.