leadership at sydney atheists
i can’t believe it. semester is over, i’ve submitted my second assignment. it was due yesterday and i got it in at 12.45 this morning. less than an hour late, that’s pretty incredible for me. i was given less than two weeks for it, right after putting in another one in exactly two weeks. did he think the problem had disappeared because i came through once? well i guess this makes it nearly-twice, though it’s pretty substandard for an essay. i’m hoping he accepts it as an experiment, project or case study, especially since i’ve included my draft objects and rules as… what, supporting evidence? writing that was the reason i couldn’t spend time on this, oh, apart from formwork being laid for a concrete path outside my window on my last day to work on it, with no warning… so i hope he appreciates it even though i’ve given him a big rant with not nearly the referencing i expect of myself. or the coherence, and i know i’ve often put in work that just didn’t have time to be put together. oh, and it’s totally unedited. i think a majority of the text was actually written between about 10pm and 12.45am, and i’m not one of those people who can rely on that kind of thing. and i had an 8am meeting in the city this morning. so i’m very glad i’m generally pretty literate. it shouldn’t be massacred too much as i did employ my usual colour coding system to mark paragraphs which have some kind of start, finish and idea. by the time i clicked send, all i had was blue text so i’m hoping my running categorisation was at least slightly accurate. i doubt i’ll be able to read it again to find out, but it’s here just in case. as for the actual content… it’s been a very interesting exercise, but i’m not actually going to stand by what i’ve said too heavily. at least not unless i’m forced to actually read the thing and find out what i’ve said! i’m doing that nice turn where one writes in a blog things that should probably remain private – there are two people mentioned specifically and i’ve edited out the name of the one who isn’t me, but it’s not hard to tell who i’m talking about if you know the organisation. in painting the situation with a broad brush i suspect i’ve been overly harsh or at least rude to him, and in examining the situation from the perspective of what i personally can contribute i suspect i’ve exagerated my own competence. whatever my misgivings, this is my archive of essays so i’m posting it, in the assumption that nothing bad will come of it, as why would anyone want to read it if i can’t even manage to? but hah! turns out it’s within 10% of word count and i didn’t even check. had to do something right, somewhere…
Leadership in Sydney Atheists Incorporated
Sydney Atheist Action Group was formed a year and a half ago in April 2008, by members of a non-political discussion group, the Atheist Meetup, who wanted to do something beyond the scope of that group. Initially the Action Group consisted of a collective structure along with eight collective working groups which dealt with various projects and functions identified by the members in the first meeting.
Soon one member, A., was proposing structures, setting agendas, chairing collective meetings and doing a large proportion of the talking, while putting a particular viewpoint, “Positive Atheism”; encouraging working groups to set targets and report to the main collective.
In July 2008 came the group’s first big challenge and chance for exposure, responding to a papal visit and the NSW government’s corresponding financial and planning indiscretions. Priority was focused heavily on the world youth day and tshirts working groups, to the exclusion of most others. The plan was ambitious for a fledgling group, now rebranded as Sydney Atheists, including poll posters, a picnic, a small ‘greeting’ protest, and involvement in the large No To Pope protest, with a big banner and several people wearing Sydney Atheists tshirts. Overall people were very pleased with the events and the response, which supported a much grander view of the small organisation, in line with the new name and A.’s vision. A. was solidified as a leader due to guiding the planning process, much work, and being listed as the contact person and therefore being interviewed several times.
In September 2008, in line with this vision, Sydney Atheists incorporated. The organisation gained a committee structure, a legal status, a post box, restructured subcommittees run by officebearers, A. as president, and tensions over transparency, control and purpose. A. and a few others took care of the paperwork and legal aspects, a few points were hashed out in big acrimonious meetings and others were glossed over in order to meet deadlines. An executive was formed, with many office bearer positions tailored to specific candidates. Elections therefore went smoothly despite opposition to the previous process.
In the next year there were many achievements, from a stall at the Newtown Festival, a Mardi Gras float and progress on getting philosophy classes into NSW schools, to regular social events and podcasts and maintaining a functional website. Yet division was solidifying within the committee, as it began to appear that four people were running the organisation without the support of the rest of the active membership. Several members were concerned about accessibility and transparency issues, ranging from loss of membership forms and lack of minutes to closed meetings, and an assortment of questions regarding purpose and direction. A member was castigated for being aggressive while wearing a Sydney Atheists tshirt, and the president tried to install a manifesto which not only took an unpopular position, but was seen by many as inappropriate for an atheist organisation, regardless of popularity. Suspicion grew and people were attacked on all sides; in part, A.’s style was simply incompatible with the activists. His initiating of structure was seen as far too directive for a voluntary organisation full of people who wish to lead change themselves and not just follow. There were many attempts to resolve misunderstandings and come to compromises, but suspicion only increased and aggression became more vocal online, while both committee and subcommittee attendance decreased.
Currently, Sydney Atheists runs mainly through an email list, a website, monthly meetings and irregular subcommittee meetings, and unofficially through Meetup events. Most productive work is at a halt, with the latest people doing work on the education subcommittee dropping out without handovers, and the IT subcommittee overloaded and underattended. Most members of the structured committee have resigned or dropped out of communication, and while people are still confused about that structure, monthly committee meetings, scheduled two hours prior to Meetup events, are now running with acceptable attendance under the assumption that any interested person is equally entitled to attend, participate and vote. The current participants are heavily drawn from those who were involved in subgroup work and the discussions dissenting to the structure. Meetings and email discussion are now both largely calm and productive, though not all tasks required are committed to, or enforced.
The organisation seems to be cohering due to a more ideologically homogenous group remaining motivated to be active at the present time, in the wake of several resignations. In September 2009 A. announced his intention to resign as president, followed rapidly by the other office bearers. Online argument died down and meetings began to be held and attended. The first AGM was set for November, and productive discussion began on how to change the structure beforehand, to make the organisation more workable. The period between the resignations and the annual general meeting was acknowledged as important for the next stage of the organisation. After two well-attended, calm and productive committee meetings in September and October, there seemed to be a sense among attendees that there was a chance to make changes which could be ratified properly at the AGM, leading into a stable new year. People volunteered to make changes to the Objects and Rules of the organisation, and to give notice of the AGM. However lapses still existed in allocating and monitoring tasks, and after a while all discussion stopped. The pre-AGM meetings were not organised and a draft revised Objects and Rules was not written by the deadline for posting notice of AGM business.
In November 2009, the AGM was rescheduled for December and the conditions were finally met correctly, including a final draft revision being submitted for ratification. Several trenchant problems appear to have been resolved since one group ceded control to the other, though the effects of the latter’s leadership have not yet been well tested. Considering what can be anticipated from the organisation’s entire history, however, there is still much to do. If they are accepted, the revised Objects and Rules should take significant steps to providing an acceptable sense of purpose that is concrete enough for everyone to grasp, and address all identified transparency and accessibility issues.
Beyond that, the group needs to articulate whether it leans towards educating non-atheists or creating atheist community internally; in a group so similar to a social movement, these distinctions are not obvious (West 2008). It will need to examine motivations for involvement and ensure enough people see benefits which are high enough to cancel out their costs of involvement, despite having just abolished yet another personal benefit – the power and status of gaining an office bearer position. As we cut the position of President, the lack of an hierarchical leader becomes even clearer. The group must become open to emergent leadership and shared leadership (Carte, Chidambaram & Becker 2006), and it has some access to common forms of leadership substitutes; subcommittees can work like teams in some respects, members are commonly highly educated and interested in self education, and a strong use of technology allows information to be shared and decisions made over a broader base (Howell et al. 1990).
My involvement in Sydney Atheists has been varied. I started the Action Group by cultivating members and setting up email groups, putting opinions and sharing visions, calling meetings, chairing them and setting their agendas. I stepped away when A. took over, I had no expertise in the style of organisation he was establishing and, as Oliver (Oliver 1984) would suggest, the benefits no longer balanced out the costs since my work was no longer essential. I stopped attending committee meetings in pubs unless I had been specifically requested to, and concentrated instead on the working groups in which I had a particular interest; the survey group was working on a project I’ve had in mind for many years and the education group concerns issues I work with and study. I also initiated the 2009 Sydney Atheists Mardi Gras Bus Campaign float, and found a partner to help me run it. Throughout, I kept in touch with other members who shared my views, waiting for an opportunity to make changes without tearing down any good things that the current leaders were doing.
I was overseas when internal conflict started getting severe, but I was in contact with several people about the situation and when I returned I resumed active involvement. I participated in email discussions, between attempting to mediate the conflict a little and more encouraging the dissenters to align and take action. I attended all committee meetings, the first of which dealt with the resignations. I had plenty to say and supported others but didn’t take on any specific tasks. A week before the AGM was set, I realised that the legal notice had not gone out and it was too late to call the meeting for the date we had agreed on, much less nominate for positions or give notice for an agenda item. There had been no word from the people who took responsibility for policy or notices, so I alerted the email list with all the details I could find, and sat down with the Objects and Rules to make my own draft revision, which I made available as soon as possible. While absolutely no discussion of the document appeared online, I kept prompting the correspondence until the timeslot that we planned to have the AGM became a committee meeting primarily for review of the document, and the AGM was bumped back to the first date that I understood would be legal if the notice went out on the day we met.
I consider revising the Objects and Rules to be an important instance of leadership as people have been trying hard to follow them, but their density was a barrier (Oliver 1984) to involvement for many people unfamiliar with legal documents. Doing the actual work of writing of the revision was also important, as it appears the job was a sticking point, preventing progress.
The new version is written in plain English in many important places, though not everywhere. I intend to adjust even more, and offer a third version if necessary, at next year’s AGM. I have changed the vision statement to something more directed to what I believe the current active members want, including references to atheism and activism, both of which were specifically omitted from the original. I have abolished all office bearer positions except for Secretary and Treasurer, leaving leadership of different projects in the hands of the relevant subcommittee. I have made it easier to join the organisation, and based committee membership on meeting attendance, like a collective. In short, I have made the organisation’s purpose more specific, and opened up the structure so people can participate more easily while discouraging those who seek to control power or gain personal prestige.
At the pre-AGM committee meeting on November 22, I chaired the meeting. Over four hours, about ten people went through the document step by step and ended up with a draft revision we were all pleased with. Thanks to wireless internet, we put also put out acceptable official notices immediately. When we were done I took the document home to check, edit, format and make non-substantive changes that no one had wanted to linger over. It is posted on the website with three weeks before the AGM for members to read it and suggest small amendments. One has already been made. Considering that ten people were happy with the revision, which is well above our quorum requirements, I expect the revision to be ratified on November 14.
Other than working with documents, I believe I can show leadership in discussing direction, cultivating ties and ensuring I am informed enough to be able to step in as needed. I expect to continue keeping in touch with active members so that I am in a position to check up on undertakings being kept; also with the people who have moved away from the organisation over its troubles, to try to encourage them back now there is more room for them, while monitoring the membership to ensure that the cohesion we have recently achieved is not actually reliant on exclusivity. I also wish to educate myself about association rules and the incorporation act so we do not need to rely on A.’s expertise as much as we did, while still taking him up on his offer to explain the formalities. I intend to encourage making ties to other communities and demographics, not just through cooperation with established groups, but starting UTS Atheists and a Queeredge movement, supporting the fledgling Australian University Atheists, establishing Sydney Queer Atheists which hasn’t done anything since Mardi Gras 2009, and restarting work on a public survey of atheist self-identification. Each project has its own timeline, but will all benefit Sydney Atheists, helping the organisation and the atheist community in general become a more diverse and political. A final issue on which I feel I will have to wait for the right opportunity to rectify, is the lack of distinction between Sydney Atheists and the Atheist Meetup in the eyes of many, members and strangers alike.
Carte, T.A., Chidambaram, L. & Becker, A. 2006, ‘Emergent leadership in self-managed virtual teams’, Group Decision and Negotiation, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 323-343.
Howell, J.P., Bowen, D.E., Dorfman, P.W., Kerr, S. & Podsakoff, P.M. 1990, ‘Substitutes for leadership: Effective alternatives to ineffective leadership’, Organizational Dynamics, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 20-39.
Oliver, P. 1984, ‘”If You Don’t Do it, Nobody Else Will”: Active and Token Contributors to Local Collective Action’, American Sociological Review, vol. 49, no. 5, pp. 601 – 610.
West, D. 2008, ‘Informal public leadership: the case of social movements’, in P. Hart & J. Uhr (eds), Public Leadership: Perspectives and Practices, ANU E Press, Canberra, pp. 133 – 144.
half way round the world by truck
i’ve been working on that essay for so long, and trying to restrain non-essential writing like this. i’ll have to write something else in short order, but i have a reprieve as i wait for an answer from my lecturer. meanwhile, the latest thing i feel the need to tell the world…
a week or two ago – time does not run regularly in essayland – i held down the fort for a badly attended stitch and bitch, and the two of us got treated to some wonderful, tasty and nostalgic spontaneous turkish hospitality. good food and conversation till way too late at night. between educating turkish boys about sexism and gender, i had a good hitchhiking conversation, with someone who has clocked up about 20,000km of hitchhiking, all in turkey.
when i got home that night, i naturally furthered my procrastination by counting up my kms on google maps. when you ask for directions from one place to another, it will tell you how far it is by road, thus giving about as accurate a reading as you could possibly get. of course, i’ll have to look up my notes one day to see exactly which routes i took in certain places, and just where we broke down and took a train on earlier trips with kat…
copenhagen to madrid via budapest, around southern finland, helsinki to istanbul, short trips round kapadokya, cold ash to edinburgh, around spain and its neighbours, melbourne to sydney, short trips round sydney and sofia to london via skopje, zagreb, bar and copenhagen… all come to about 20,000 km. i’m pleased to note also that about two thirds of that has been travelling alone.
twenty thousand kilometres. stretched out, that would get me half way round the world; from sydney to the waters outside morocco. quite something! but why leave it there? now i have a goal: to hitchhike 40,008km: the circumference of the earth. if i make it all the way back, will i finally be able to settle? i’ll wait and see.
emergent leadership
i’ve just put this in – on time!
well, that’s after about three extensions and five topic changes… but i’m still happy.
Eight articles around Emergent Leadership and substitutes for leadership
Examining studies of emergent leadership and substitutes for leadership with a view to informal leadership in minority communities produces no comprehensive research fitting the situation, but plenty of interesting points and directions to pursue.
Most work on emergent leadership studies the exercising of influence within an organisation where some leadership is still provided by a positional leader. In a hierarchy, emergent and shared leadership can be of great benefit but it must be supported by several other non-traditional structures and conditions.
Teamwork, training and low structure situations allow scope for emergent leadership and, at least in voluntary situations, pessimism about the likelihood of others doing the job is one reason that people are provoked to act. Yet acceptance by followers is also important; one determinant of people likely to be favoured as emergent leaders by teams is being moderate in their tendency to take control.
Supervisory and feedback behaviour can be substituted for, yet directive leadership behaviour seems to make a difference to the performance of a team. A single point of illumination in each of so many directions, are only starting to shed light on an obscure, yet important area of research. Much more study could be done on a wide range of topics from leadership in non-hierarchical, politically engaged and emerging contexts and different power distance settings, to what former experiences influence people to lead well, or to lead at all.
Many frameworks are drawn from various facets of scholarship to sketch the territory; levels of structure, power distance, categorisations of cultures and lists of tasks and considerations, behaviours and roles involved in leadership. Still, for most practical applications, the best prescription that can be offered so far is to be aware of all the pitfalls and opportunities that can be found.
1. Substitutes for Hierarchy considers emergent leadership as one of several changes that can be made in a hierarchical organisation, which can allow it to flatten its structure; broadening workers’ jobs and authority while reducing the various levels of supervisors; staff doing unnecessary jobs unrelated to its core products and services.
Leadership is contextualised, not as the peak of all processes but as one of many interdependent factors, all of which are important for making an organisation run well. The major tasks of various levels of supervisors are listed as motivation, record keeping, coordinating, assigning work, making personnel decisions, providing expertise, setting goals, planning, linking communications, training/coaching, controlling and leading. However, employing separate ranks of non-production staff is not the only way to fulfil these functions.
Several factors are listed as concerned in substituting for supervisors including systems, flexibility, ownership, access to information and control over decision making in many areas: work design, information systems technology, financial data, reward system practices, supplier/customer contact, training, vision/values and emergent leadership. The article suggests that emergent leadership, as with any other single factor, cannot be introduced alone into a hierarchical organisation and expected to make changes. Unsupported it will probably even cause problems, but new and viable possibilities arise when the right conditions are created, by encouraging it in conjunction many or all of the listed factors.
The one issue about emergent leadership which is addressed directly, is of the ‘key to the emergence of the right kind of leader’. The prescription is the same as for the wider purposes: if emergent leaders are sought in the context of all these other initiatives, they are likely to fit the environment and the goals of the organisation.
Though the article focuses on change within hierarchical organisations, these considerations appear applicable beyond situations with such an initial state, showing an image of a non hierarchical organisation and suggestions of what such an entity could viably involve.
Lawler, E.E. 1988, ‘Substitutes for Hierarchy’, Organization Dynamics, vol. 17, pp. 4-15.
2. “If You Don’t Do It, Nobody Else Will”: Active and Token Contributors to Local Collective Action examines leadership, activism and membership in the context of neighbourhood organisations.
In a study of data collected in Detroit in 1969, some interesting conclusions were made. Perhaps most strikingly, the people who do the most work in a voluntary organisation, were found to be the ones who were most pessimistic about the possibility of their neighbours doing such work. Though this will come as little surprise to those who do work in such conditions, it marks a significant difference from the characteristics of the more structured, less voluntary organisations which are more often studied in leadership literature. Other aspects of attitude and vision are not found to have the impact they do in such situations: while interest in the collective good is a significant factor in determining who will join an organisation, it is found to have very little impact on who does the work.
To understand why people are active, the article examines the various costs and benefits of various levels of involvement. While the success of community organisations involve huge benefits for the community in general, the people who do the work reap little more benefit than anyone else, while shouldering the vast bulk of the costs in terms of time, money and stress. Also considered as costs are more absolute barriers to involvement, such as lack of education or experience, which narrow the pool of people who would even consider participating.
Another interesting finding involves the relationship between activism and ties. While having many friends in the area was an indicator of membership, activists are more likely to have few strong ties and more weak ties, or acquaintances, which may possibly suggest that, while lack of acquaintances is a barrier to involvement, one of the few individual rewards that activism can offer is social interaction for those who don’t have many strong friendships in the area.
In terms of direct investigation of leadership, the study identifies some characteristics of former leaders and otherwise considers leadership as one aspect of activism. Past leaders are found to be interested in local issues and know more people than others do, however no causal relationship is established. Leadership positions are found to be widely available yet hard to fill, in distinct contrast to employing organisations; in voluntary cooperatives being a leader is associated with as bad a ratio of costs to compensating rewards as for any activist, if not worse.
Oliver, P. 1984, ‘”If You Don’t Do it, Nobody Else Will”: Active and Token Contributors to Local Collective Action’, American Sociological Review, vol. 49, no. 5, pp. 601 – 610.
3. Informal Public Leadership: The Case of Social Movements examines the conditions of leadership in politically engaged communities such as social movements, especially several differences between social movement leadership and other leadership literature.
Social movements tend to deal with emerging issues and identities. There tends to be, therefore, no established group of followers or employees for a leader to lead, which means a significant portion of leadership in social movements is concerned with creating and maintaining membership; persuading people to follow, and even just to identify as part of the movement.
Leadership in social movements is under-theorised, both in leadership literature which focuses on institutions and in social movements where there tends to be a suspicion of leadership along with a general opposition to hierarchy and authority.
Any leader in such a context must be informal. They can’t expect to control or predict the actions of the people, but must focus on inspiring, activating and empowering, both to those inclined to listen and those not. With no traditional authority to draw on, moral and social capital are the start of ways to exercise leadership within social movements, which themselves exercise leadership in the broader community.
West, D. 2008, ‘Informal public leadership: the case of social movements’, in P. Hart & J. Uhr (eds), Public Leadership: Perspectives and Practices, ANU E Press, Canberra, pp. 133 – 144.
4. Emergent Leadership in Self-Managed Virtual Teams: A Longitudinal Study of Concentrated and Shared Leadership Behaviors details a study of the messages passed between virtual teams working on a database project within an undergraduate course. Work needing to be done by a group of people in different places is becoming increasingly relevant. Dealing with actual language makes it interestingly specific, but that also means that generalising its findings to other contexts is questionable. This study claims to be unusual in that it deals with internal, emergent leadership instead of the role of an external leader. However, the context is still distinctly framed by the existence of such an external leader, a common but not universal situation for virtual groups.
Four hypotheses are proposed regarding differences in communication between high and low performing teams; that high performing teams display more leadership behaviours in general, and more each of directive, shared and concentrated leadership behaviours, and that leadership behaviours which are evident early are significant and those that develop later are not. The results supported, at least partially, each of these hypotheses.
Denison, Hooijberg and Quinn’s Leaderplex Framework is used, which lists eight leadership behaviours or roles; the innovator, broker, producer, director, coordinator, monitor, facilitator and mentor. They are divided between directive, participative and transformational leadership. Monitor and Producer behaviour, both associated with Directive leadership, were found to vary most between the high and low performance groups, suggesting that these are the areas critical to performance. However many details are not adequately explained, including how teams are designated as high or low performing.
Beyond the original research, many interesting ideas are brought up. Avolio’s E-leadership, Griffith, Sawyer and Neale’s degrees of virtualness and DeSanctis’ concerns about using student responses in studies.
Carte, T.A., Chidambaram, L. & Becker, A. 2006, ‘Emergent leadership in self-managed virtual teams’, Group Decision and Negotiation, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 323-343.
5. Tipping Points that Inspire Leadership: An Exploratory Study of Emergent Project Leaders considers leadership as a social construction, the development of which can be influenced in individuals at various stages of life, by significant individuals and significant experiences. The study investigates such triggers to leadership by surveying university project management students who have been already identified as having performed leadership, or having strong potential.
Teachers and family members, particularly fathers were cited as positively significant by respondents. Potential mentors and inspirations were listed far more often than potential followers.
A wide range of experiences were reported, largely from work and study. The results do not indicate what aspects of the experiences are formative of leadership potential, such as whether success, opportunity or frustration is key, however many possibilities for further research are discussed.
People and experiences having negative influence were surveyed too, but these responses may be of limited value with no control group of bad leaders or non leaders.
Toor, S. & Ofori, G. 2008, ‘Tipping points that inspire leadership: An exploratory study of emergent project leaders’, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 212-229.
6. Cross-Cultural Leadership Dynamics in Collectivism and High Power Distance Settings illustrates the importance of differences between expected and manifest culture. The example discussed is a North American manager trying to lead a Malaysian workforce; although the manager expects cultural differences, simplistic expectations can prove to produce even more misunderstandings by encouraging inattention to the actual, manifest culture.
Although this article discusses an individual entering the majority culture of a location, the frameworks used could illuminate other situations. Taken from Hofstede’s framework, cultures are distinguished as collectivist or individualist, accepting or not of unequal distribution of power (high or low power distance).
Collectivism is considered to usually be associated with high power distance and individualism with low power distance, but this is not universal. It would be interesting to apply these designations to a minority culture, for example a community or social movement with an (at least) expected culture of low power distance and collectivism, located within a majority culture which is declared to be individualist and low-moderate power distance, such as Australia.
In the example of Malaysia an extra complication is discussed, that of the miscommunications inherent in the clash of different varieties of English. The majority cultures of native English speaking countries tend to fall on the individualistic side of the framework, and many countries where English is a common second language are more collectivist. Considering even just the differences between the definition of collectivism between the article and its usage Australian social movements, the injunction to not ignore any of these differences is probably well applicable to the latter example as well.
Schermerhorn, J. & Bond, M. 1997, ‘Cross-cultural leadership dynamics in collectivism and high power distance settings’, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 187-193.
7. Substitutes for Leadership: Effective Alternatives to Ineffective Leadership explores a history of leadership literature; various theories of leadership have been popular at different times but a constant has been the premise that in any problem, better leadership is a solution. Several examples of substitutes are offered, including closely knit teams of highly trained individuals, intrinsic satisfaction, computer technology and extensive professional education. The aspects of leadership which are discussed as being substituted for mainly involve feedback and supervision.
Leadership neutralisers and enhancers are also discussed. Neutralisers such as physical distance, inappropriate reward systems and the bypassing or countermanding of the leader by a higher level, are considered to reduce the leader’s influence without filling the gap like a substitute should. Enhancers, on the other hand, augment the leader’s impact. The examples given of leadership enhancers include attributes such as cohesion and strong norms of performance or of cooperation with management .
Howell, J.P., Bowen, D.E., Dorfman, P.W., Kerr, S. & Podsakoff, P.M. 1990, ‘Substitutes for leadership: Effective alternatives to ineffective leadership’, Organizational Dynamics, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 20-39.
8. Emergent Leadership Processes as a Function of Task Structure and Machiavellianism considers an emergent view of leadership as a product of both personality and situation.
The study identified people as high, medium or low ‘machs’, indicating tendency to take over control in small groups, and situations as high or low structure; high structure involving the group being given explicit procedural instructions.
The hypotheses of the study were that people identified as high machs would exhibit more leadership behaviours and be recognised as leaders more in situations of low structure, and that low machs would do the same in high structure situations.
The results did not support the hypotheses at all; medium machs were markedly preferred as leaders in both situations.
Implications of structure difference included low structure having more scope for emergent leadership, but high structure leaving people more satisfied with the outcomes.
Gleason, J.M., Seaman, F.J. & Hollander, E.P. 1978, ‘Emergent leadership processes as a function of task structure and Machiavellianism’, Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 33-36.
kate's adventure 