Abstract:
Recent scholarship in leadership development has focused on the limitations of the functionalist discourse. With increasing fervour, critical scholars claim that efforts to develop leadership and understand its development must move beyond entitative, individualist and outcome-oriented assumptions. Amidst the growing diversity and complexity of the leadership development field, the figure of the developer is still largely invisible. To address this lacuna, this research investigates the tensions encountered by developers, and their respective interactions in the development context. Such interactions are interpreted through an ontological perspective of organisational life as a series of dialogic, socially constructed performances. The findings of the research are based on data generated through a 12 month ethnographic research partnership. The researcher facilitated an emergent, collaboratively designed leadership development programme within the New Zealand branch of a global supplier to the construction industry. The approach to data generation and analysis combined traditional qualitative and participatory arts-based methods. These were informed by practices originating in the fields of applied theatre and organisational aesthetics, including performance ethnography and organisational theatre. There are two principle contributions of the research. First, a theatre-based metaphor and associated framework of 'aesthetic pedagogies' that enable scholars and practitioners to better understand the developer's role in the social construction of leadership development. Second, a radical, theatre-based technique for undertaking leadership development, known as 'organisational playmaking'. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the research, these contributions hold the potential to 'travel' into the related fields of organisational development, organisational aesthetics and applied theatre. A range of theoretical and practical implications may also help strengthen dialogue between these disciplines.