Distributed Properties

This article argues for a reconceptualization of leadership. Possible substitutes for leadership are reviewed along with a number of existing dualisms. These are rejected in favour of the claim that the leadership of organizations is most appropriately understood as a distributed, rather thanas a focused, phenomenon. Various attributes, dimensions and applications of distribution are then considered, and a revised approach to action and influence in organizations centred on conjointly performed activities is thenproposed. For this new formulation a summary is provided of the core concepts of, and recent developments in, activity theory. It is shown that two particular advantages of this approach include the helpful model it provides for contextual analysis—an aspect sorely neglected by the field of leadership—and its focus on the evolving division of labour in organizations, the prime mover for tracking emerging patterns of distributed leadership.

[1]  B. Shamir,et al.  Leadership in Boundaryless Organizations: Disposable or Indispensable? , 1999 .

[2]  D. Hosking,et al.  Distributed Leadership and Skilled Performance as Successful Organization in Social Movements , 1986 .

[3]  Tony Bush,et al.  Educational Management: Redefining Theory, Policy and Practice , 1999 .

[4]  Andrew Sayer,et al.  The New Social Economy: Reworking the Division of Labor , 1991 .

[5]  R. C. Hodgson,et al.  The executive role constellation : an analysis of personality and role relations in management , 1965 .

[6]  Andrew Sayer,et al.  The New Social Economy: Reworking the Division of Labor , 1991 .

[7]  John M. Jermier,et al.  ''Substitutes for leadership: Their meaning and measurement'' - Contextual recollections and current observations , 1997 .

[8]  Bobby J. Calder,et al.  An Attribution Theory of Leadership , 1977 .

[9]  J. G. Hunt,et al.  Crosscurrents in leadership , 1979 .

[10]  Peter C. Gronn.  Obituary for Structured Observation , 1987 .

[11]  유화자.  기독교 사역과 Leadership , 1997 .

[12]  Lev Vygotsky.  Mind in society , 1978 .

[13]  G. Yukl,et al.  Leadership in Organizations , 1981 .

[14]  Peter C. Gronn,et al.  Leaders in Context: Postpositivist Approaches to Understanding Educational Leadership , 1996 .

[15]  John M. Jermier,et al.  Substitutes for leadership: Their meaning and measurement , 1978 .

[16]  R. Heck,et al.  Can Leadership Enhance School Effectiveness , 1999 .

[17]  L. S. Vygotskiĭ,et al.  Mind in society : the development of higher psychological processes , 1978 .

[18]  Alan Berkeley Thomas,et al.  Controversies in Management , 1993 .

[19]  J. Gee,et al.  The New Work Order , 1996 .

[20]  Leon J. Goldstein.  The End of History and the Last Man , 1993 .

[21]  Robert G. Lord,et al.  Leadership and Information Processing: Linking Perceptions and Performance , 2002 .

[22]  B. Bass,et al.  Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior , 1999 .

[23]  Peter Gronn,et al.  Substituting for leadership: The neglected role of the leadership couple , 1999 .

[24]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  The Ambiguity of Leadership , 1977 .

[25]  Christian Heath,et al.  Cognition and communication at work: Convergent activities: Line control and passenger information on the London Underground , 1996 .

[26]  M. Archer,et al.  Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach , 1997 .

[27]  Edward B. Klein,et al.  The psychodynamics of leadership. , 1998 .

[28]  F. Fukuyama,et al.  The End of History, or a New Crisis?@@@The End of History and the Last Man. , 1993 .

[29]  Barry M. Staw,et al.  New Directions in Organizational Behavior , 1976 .

[30]  K. Weick.  FROM SENSEMAKING IN ORGANIZATIONS , 2021, The New Economic Sociology.

[31]  A. N. Leont’ev,et al.  Activity, consciousness, and personality , 1978 .

[32]  J. Porac,et al.  Cognition and Communication at Work , 1999 .

[33]  J. Meindl,et al.  The romance of leadership as a follower-centric theory: A , 1995 .

[34]  Peter C. Gronn.  On Studying Administrators at Work , 1984 .

[35]  A. Strauss.  Work and the Division of Labor , 1985 .

[36]  C. Grey.  ‘We Are All Managers Now’; ‘We Always Were’: On the Development and Demise of Management , 1999 .

[37]  K. Weick,et al.  Collective mind in organizations: Heedful interrelating on flight decks. , 1993 .

[38]  Stewart Clegg,et al.  Handbook of organization studies , 1997 .

[39]  Q. Willis,et al.  Observational Studies of Australian School Administrators: Methodological Issues , 1981 .

[40]  G. Smart.  The new work order: behind the language of the new capitalism , 2000 .

[41]  S. Fiske,et al.  The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1935 .

[42]  Y. Engeström,et al.  Activity theory and individual and social transformation. , 1999 .

[43]  James G. Hunt,et al.  Transformational/charismatic leadership's tranformation of the field , 1999 .

[44]  Y. Engeström,et al.  Perspectives on activity theory: Play, learning, and instruction , 1999 .

[45]  C. Barnard.  The Functions of the Executive , 1939 .

[46]  E. Jaques.  Requisite Organization: The CEO's Guide to Creative Structure and Leadership , 1989 .

[47]  F. Blackler.  KNOWLEDGE AND THE THEORY OF ORGANIZATIONS: ORGANIZATIONS AS ACTIVITY SYSTEMS AND THE REFRAMING OF MANAGEMENT* , 1993 .

[48]  Edwin Hutchins,et al.  Distributed Cognition in an Airline Cockpit , 1996 .

[49]  Jonathan H. Turner,et al.  Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach.By Margaret S. Archer. Cambridge University Press, 354 pp , 1997 .

[50]  G. Yukl.  An evaluation of conceptual weaknesses in transformational and charismatic leadership theories. , 1999 .

[51]  Warren E. Miller,et al.  LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE , 1984, Case Studies in Work, Employment and Human Resource Management.

[52]  Peter C. Gronn.  Neo-Taylorism in Educational Administration? , 1982 .

[53]  Alekseĭ Nikolaevich Leontʹev.  Problems of the development of the mind , 1981 .

[54]  E. Hoyle,et al.  The management of schools , 1986 .

[55]  P. Begley,et al.  The values of educational administration , 1999 .

[56]  Peter C. Gronn.  The Making of Educational Leaders , 1999 .

[57]  B. E. Partridge,et al.  The Nature of Managerial Work , 1974 .

[58]  Mike Broddle.  We are all managers now , 1991 .