Social work leadership for Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

From the late 1980s, the social work profession in Aotearoa New Zealand experienced transformational changes amounting to a revolution. Neo-liberal policies introduced by Labour and National governments in the late 1980s and early 1990s applied private sector management thinking to social work organisations and services. Social workers and social work leaders underwent intellectual and emotional dissonance as their professional values were challenged by neo-liberal organisational philosophy and practice. These developments created the need for social work leadership research to make sense of this river of change. Literature informing the research comprised leadership and management; the contexts of New Zealand’s welfare policy; international business and public sector leadership including what has become known as new public management; social work ethics and identity; and indigenous leadership models and their connections with biological complexity thinking. The aim of this study was to provide social workers from frontline practitioner level to senior managers with an Aotearoa New Zealand model of social work organisational leadership. The study is informed by the research question: What are the fundamental elements of organisational leadership within social work in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand? Research objectives included exploring how social work practitioners who hold, or have held, leadership or management responsibility in New Zealand conceptualise leadership; and to describe participants’ experiences of social work leadership. A constructionist, qualitative paradigm was employed, using semi-structured interviews. A theoretical symbolic interactionist perspective depicting social work’s practice value of empathy was applied. A descriptive/exploratory methodology was used and data were analysed thematically via NVivo software. Purposive sampling limited participants to registered social workers (RSW) and acknowledged that the researcher interpreted the meaning assigned by research participants. Twenty-three registered social workers drawn from diverse hierarchical levels, ethnicities, practice and management longevity, organisational functions, and state sector and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were interviewed twice. Four overarching themes emerged. The first identified core beliefs and values underpinning organisational social work leadership actions. These values comprised leaders’ identity and integrity; ethical leadership; human rights and social justice; systems thinking; spirituality and authenticity; and a society informed by the Treaty of Waitangi. The second theme identified leadership actions, comprising leadership and management; advocacy; communication as networking and story-telling; the use of power and authority; worker motivation and outcomes; and communication as thought leadership. The third theme described the influence of three contexts on leadership and leadership influences on those contexts: the public sector, NGOs and multidisciplinary settings. Drawn from these findings a summative social work model of leadership for Aotearoa New Zealand emerged.