CHAPTER FOUR What is the emotional cost of distributed leadership? Clare Huffington, Kim James, and David Armstrong “1am paid for being able to think more clearly than anyone else but I don't know any training that can help me do this in relation to my industry” CEO, Pharmaceutical Company “These leadership development programmes have nothing to do with what I have to do every day—which is basically to fight my comer with other directors” Director, NHS Trust “People here are used to leadership meaning being top of a hierarchy and your authority coming from your experience and expertise. It is quite a new thought to them that leader ship means inspiring loyalty and influencing people exter- nally. They thought they got that automatically with the role and did not realize you have to eam it” CEO, Local Authority68 WORKING BELOW THESURFACE What is distributed leadership? ‘While there may be various styles of leadership (facilitative, charis- matic, authoritarian, etc), there are also different leadership con- cepts held by organizations; for example, hierarchical, distributed, matrix. The leadership concept encompasses more than a set of ‘competences or an idea of a style of leadership that is considered ‘desirable. It touches upon the assumptions in the organization that are held about the role of leader, the way leaders should use their authority, the way followers should relate to leaders and the way the leaders relate to each other and the outside world. The leader- ship concept that is widely subscribed to in the organization, ‘whether consciously or unconsciously, will impact on the emotional relations in the organization. Thus, the patterning of emotional rela- tions may change when a new leadership concept is espoused or when leadership development activity enables people to reflect on the leadership concept informing their behaviour. New organiza- tional dynamics will then emerge. ‘One of the strands in the debate about the importance of leader- ship in organizations today concerns distributed leadership oF “leadership at all levels”. This is seen as a requirement in new, flat- ter hierarchies with horizontal networks, inter-functional and cross- functional teams, and strategic alliances with suppliers, customers, and even competitors. Decisions need to be taken away from the ‘centre of the organization, at the point of contact between the orga nization and its environment. Even the most traditionally hierar- chical of organizations such as the army, the police, and education fare developing a leadership concept that involves devolution of decision-making. Gregory (1996) analyses the concept of leadership for the management of educational change, for example. He argues for a model of shared or distributed leadership for transformational implies collaboration in leader- tributed among many, it must also be integrated across ion. The notion of collabor~ ative leadership brings together the characteristics of the learning orgariization with leadership (Dentico, 1999). The term collective leadership is also used to describe this concept. Denis, Lamothe, and Langley (2001) argue that creating collective leadershi which members play complementary roles appears achieving strategic change. However, they note that leadership is fragile in a context of diffuse power an¢ objectives. ‘These writers argue the advantages of distributed, shared, achieving this different approach to leadership is ronment in which individual leaders are the focus of attention; any different models that underpin these terms and also raises the ques- ‘tions of what role the top leader plays when new models of leader- ship emerge. He argues that top leaders are engaged in eight key tasks (vision, core values, structuring the organization, motiva- ting employees, selection and training, communicating, team build- ing, and promoting change). We argue that a shift to distributed leadership requires not only a mindset change in the concept of leadership, an understanding of the tasks of leaders at various levels, but also a different understanding of the emotional chal- lenges facing leaders in these settings. Locke's analysis does not include key emotional aspects of top leadership and distributed leadership. In this chapter we draw on a number of recent experiences of, consulting to organizations seeking to implement or experiment with distributed leadership, to explore the dynamics associated with these challenges, and what they may indicate about the limits and conditions of the concept. Taking up and giving up: the challenge of transition The difficulty in implement istributed leadership emerges in ¥ ‘organizations that are explicitly adopting this model, but equally for more traditional organiza- ‘ions trying to move away from the notion of one leader to a more corporate team approach at senior levels. ‘An example is of a large technologically driven organization that had recently brought in a new CEO who had an international reputation as70 WORKING BELOW THE SURFACE a charismatic leader. After two years, during which he had brought about major change in culture and customer focus, he decided he needed a strategic group that exercised more leadership across the organization and did not depend upon his ideas and initiative alone. He brought together his top team in a series of workshops, the purpose ‘of which was to encourage the team to operate as a cohesive leader- than focusing on their particular individual remits within a strategy he had or would set. Given such senior team members had extensive leadership roles themselves, often managing large businesses within the overall organization, he was frustrated that in the wider business setting they seemed over-dependent on his leadership and disem- powered themselves as leaders of the organization as a During ‘the workshops, some of their dilemmas emerged. The first was that the leader’s charisma had meant that there was an element of “hero worship” for him in the organization that interfered with others’ self perception of being leaders in their own right. The second was a related and implicit perception that it was the CEO who needed to change his style in order to let others share in the leadership. The possibility of challenging him on this was considered a difficult issue—it seemed like a big risk to engage in such a conversation. The irony of this percep- tion—that he needed to fead the change in style so that they, the team members, could change their own behaviour— shop leaders played this back to them. It was following the leader rather than by addressing the risks of making changes themselves. They acted as though they could only change conce the leader changed, rather than understanding that a change in = telationship would be dynamic and required all of them to initiate adjustments in behaviour. In the event, and following the workshops, the senior team redefined their task as responding to the leader's invitation to engage in a wider behaviours played back to them during the workshops enabled them tose that “it is about ... evolving the role from one that accepts deci- sions handed down by the leader to engaging and influencing together with the leader the shape, the performance of the company”. Subsequently, the CEO and other directors were very receptive to ideas that these executives began to develop around some key issues that the leader had wanted them to engage with. WHAT IS THE EMOTIONAL COST OF DISTRIGUTED LEADERSHI? 71 The importance of this example is that it demonstrates how, even at the highest levels in the organization, senior executives can be disabled by feelings and perceptions, explicit or implicit, from. faking up distributed leadership roles. These may include feelings of dependency, fear of challenging and being challenged by others—seniors or peers—and the struggle to contain anxiety about exercising one's own authority as a leader on a wider organiza tional front. ‘To take up such roles can requize facing up to and dismantling (‘giving up”) established assumptions and relations—in this case assumptions and relations around the construct of the CEO as charismatic leader—which may also have served both to contain anxiety and to displace reservations and doubts about both one’s own and the organization's capability. Giving up the idea that the charismatic leader is the only leader needed, engaging their own Jeadership capabilities, meant being more in touch with the risks and potential failure, as well as success, associated with exercising shared leadership. The CEO would need to give up the easy acqui- escence of his directors to his ideas and face more challenge from them as they engaged in collective leadership of the business. To put this another way; distributed leadership, at any level, will tend to heighten and, as it were, to equalize feelings of vulner- and organizational; simultaneously lusory, protection afforded by more organizations that used primarily to emphasize external author- ity—the chain of command—these new organizations require people across the organization to exercise personal authority them- selves. Accessing personal authority without recourse to bureau- cracy, position, or formal power, is essential if the individual is to be capable of exercising choice, making independent decisions, bringing their imaginations and ideas to create new options, and persuading others to follow their direction. ‘This shift from external, hierarchically embedded authority toa more personal and laterally distributed exercise of leadership is psychologically demanding. On the one hand it presents challenges {0 one’s individual competence, professional, technical, and mana- gerial; to one’s readiness to make and act on judgements and