‘I don’t know what’s going on’: Theorising the relationship between unknowingness and distributed leadership

IF 4.5 2区管理学 Q1 MANAGEMENT

Human Relations Pub Date : 2024-01-09 DOI:10.1177/00187267231218630

Sarah Bloomfield, Clare Rigg, Russ Vince

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Surely a leader should know what to do? But what happens when complexity means they cannot know which path to take? We answer this question with an ethnographic study of distributed leadership (DL) in an organisation grappling with inherent tensions within its mission. The article makes a counter-intuitive argument for the value and utility of unknowingness, defined as a state of awareness of both an absence of knowing and one’s inability to know. Three inter-related aspects to unknowingness are developed – acceptance of not knowing, tolerance of the discomfort of not knowing, and distribution of unknowingness – leading to an innovative theory of unknowingness. We reveal how unknowingness and DL are bound with each other in the sense that not knowing can enable distribution of leadership within the organisation, whilst DL addresses challenges in complex organisations associated with not knowing. We thereby provide an illustration of the interplay between those with hierarchical authority and others dispersed throughout an organisation. In sum, we provide an alternative perspective to the heroic, all-knowing individual leader.

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我不知道发生了什么"：不可知性与分布式领导力之间关系的理论研究

领导者当然应该知道该怎么做？但是，当复杂性意味着他们不知道该走哪条路时，又会发生什么呢？我们通过对一个组织中的分布式领导（DL）进行人种学研究，回答了这个问题。文章反直觉地论证了 "不可知性 "的价值和作用，"不可知性 "被定义为一种对不可知和无法可知的认识状态。文章提出了不可知性的三个相互关联的方面--接受不可知性、容忍不可知性带来的不适以及不可知性的分布--从而提出了一种创新的不可知性理论。我们揭示了 "不可知 "与 "领导力 "是如何相互联系在一起的，即 "不可知 "可以促进组织内领导力的分配，而 "领导力 "则可以应对复杂组织中与 "不可知 "相关的挑战。因此，我们提供了一个具有等级权威的人与分散在整个组织中的其他人之间相互作用的示例。总之，我们为英勇的、无所不知的个人领导者提供了另一种视角。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Human Relations Multiple-

CiteScore

12.60

自引率

7.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Human Relations is an international peer reviewed journal, which publishes the highest quality original research to advance our understanding of social relationships at and around work through theoretical development and empirical investigation. Scope Human Relations seeks high quality research papers that extend our knowledge of social relationships at work and organizational forms, practices and processes that affect the nature, structure and conditions of work and work organizations. Human Relations welcomes manuscripts that seek to cross disciplinary boundaries in order to develop new perspectives and insights into social relationships and relationships between people and organizations. Human Relations encourages strong empirical contributions that develop and extend theory as well as more conceptual papers that integrate, critique and expand existing theory. Human Relations welcomes critical reviews and essays: - Critical reviews advance a field through new theory, new methods, a novel synthesis of extant evidence, or a combination of two or three of these elements. Reviews that identify new research questions and that make links between management and organizations and the wider social sciences are particularly welcome. Surveys or overviews of a field are unlikely to meet these criteria. - Critical essays address contemporary scholarly issues and debates within the journal''s scope. They are more controversial than conventional papers or reviews, and can be shorter. They argue a point of view, but must meet standards of academic rigour. Anyone with an idea for a critical essay is particularly encouraged to discuss it at an early stage with the Editor-in-Chief. Human Relations encourages research that relates social theory to social practice and translates knowledge about human relations into prospects for social action and policy-making that aims to improve working lives.