Leadership-Interview-Transkript - Sozialpsychologie - Goethe ...

Michael A. West
Short biography
Professor West was born in Wales and has worked in the Welsh coal mines. He studied at the
Universities of Swansea and Cardiff, became Professor at Sheffield University and moved to
Aston University, Birmingham, in 1998. Michael West served as the dean of Aston Business
School for the last six years and in 2011 moved to Lancaster University. Professor West is
elected Fellow of almost every important society in his field including the American
Psychological Association, the British Academy and the Royal Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, to name but a few. He has published
numerous books, hundreds of academic papers and chapters.
Interview conducted in Frankfurt am Main on June 24 th , 2011
Rolf van Dick: Today we are talking to Michael West Professor at Lancaster School of
Management and Lancaster University. Thank you very much Michael for taking the time.
You have got your degrees from the welsh universities where you are from. Universities like
Swansea and Cardiff. Actually at Cardiff University you did your PhD. Very interesting is
also that you worked in the welsh Coalmines while being in the PhD Program. You became a
professor for Psychology at Sheffield University, then you moved to Aston Business-School
in 1998, then we met each other and worked together at Aston University. For the last six or
seven years you were Dean of Aston Business-School, and finally you moved to Lancaster
University. You have published numerous books on teamwork, cooperation, innovation and
creativity you published hundreds of articles and book chapters. You are fellow of almost
every association or society in our Area. And then, and that’s probably the most important
achievement, you have impact in the real World, with your studies on health service in Great
Britain. You are consulting secretaries of health or Downing Street and others officials.
Today we are not so interested in you scientifically, academic insights in leadership research
but your personal experiences. The first question is quite simple: Do you think leadership is
important? Do we need it, or can people be like you as an example self organized and self
motivated?
Michael West: My sense is that we do need to have Leadership, but I think your conception
of it should be a little more sophisticated. If you go back to the time where were out on the
Savanna 150.000 years ago and to survive you need o catch an Antelope in order you can feed
your group of people. And to catch an Antelope on the Savanna is a very complicated
exercise. It requires that you know which animal you are going to pursue who is going to play
what roles, and if you lose the animal in mid hunt you need to shift your focus of attention.
And that requires leadership. So moreover you know somebody who will coordinate,
somebody who enable people to communicate, somebody who will get people to terrify their
roles. So I think it is inevitable that we look for leadership in situations which are complex or
challenging. In my opinion this is very true in modern life and I think in many ways it is
becoming more true than ever. But where we make a mistake is when we think that leadership
is somehow a heroic figure it is somebody who is charismatic who is different from the rest of
the crowd. Actually in a way we need everybody in Organizations and everybody in society to
take responsibility for leadership. We all need to be leaders at particular points in time. I
might give you an example, you know it from the working social psychology around by
standing intervention, what we have there is people see an incident and because there are lots
of other people around nobody takes action or responsibility. So I think there is something for