“Dialogue – possible between leader and follower?” - Ashridge

“Dialogue – possible between leader and follower?”
Doctoral Masterclass, CASS, April 19 th 2012
Megan Reitz
Cranfield University and Ashridge Business School
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1. Introduction
In this paper I seek to convey the background to my doctoral research, the
inquiry questions I am exploring and the some of the emerging thoughts from
my data so far. I am keen to make the utmost use of the panel of academics at
this masterclass! To this end I pose some specific questions that I would
appreciate some feedback on at the end of this document.
This paper is not written in the style of a journal article. Although academic in
nature I have chosen to write some of it in a more personal manner. Given the
nature of the masterclass, and the still relatively early stage of my studies, I felt
this would be more appropriate and it gives me the ability to be very open and
clear about areas which I am unsure about and need advice on. It also happens
to be a style that I enjoy using the most.
This paper explores the following:
• A brief background and explanation of why I am studying in this area.
What is it about dialogue that feels so important to me?
• A summary of the reviews of the literature that I have undertaken in the
areas of dialogue and relational leadership.
• My research inquiry questions, my ontological perspective and how this
informs my methodological choices to date.
• My experiences in co-operative inquiry.
• Some emerging themes.
• Where I go next.
• Some questions for the panel.
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2. Background
It is difficult for me to identify a moment where my interest in dialogue began.
Possibly it started after I graduated from University and I went travelling for a
couple of years. Having read absolutely nothing in relation to dialogue or
leadership I nevertheless noticed that I had moments when meeting the eclectic
mix of people I encountered around the world where I felt truly connected,
present and as Csikszentmihalyi would say “in flow”, (2002). I knew that for
some reason, sometimes I felt quite detached, and judgemental, and self-
absorbed, and other times I was able to simply be with another person, very
very present. The difference in the way conversation flowed as a result was clear
to me.
On returning from travel I embarked on working life, first as a strategy
consultant and then in the madness of the internet frenzy towards the end of the
1990s. Questions of connection and presence took a backseat – I was too busy
and too focused on myself.
However at the turn of the millennium I joined Deloitte in their London office in
the People and Organisational Change consulting practice. Now I became
engaged in figuring out how leadership teams communicated during times of
change. Through coaching ‘leaders’ and seeing them in action I could see that
some seemed to be able to have more open, honest conversations with those in
their organisations. They came across as caring, open to learning and generally
were regarded more successful in leading change. As my curiosity increased I
undertook a Masters degree at the University of Surrey in Change Agent Skills
and Strategies. More than learning about theories of change, I probably learnt
most about myself and how I am with others. I became aware of how unaware I
often was in my interactions with others. I dared to open myself up more to
others and I began to be genuinely interested in the creativity that was possible
when people are able to be present in their relationship as opposed to caught up
in self-absorbed thinking. I coined this deep connection ‘empathic resonance’
and in my dissertation started to explore what might enable such a relationship
and what might get in the way, (Reitz 2007).
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In 2006 I began working as a faculty member at Ashridge Business School. I
became specifically engaged with ‘leadership’ as an interest area, designing and
delivering leadership development programmes. I began a PhD with Cranfield
University in 2009 knowing I wanted to explore these two areas; leadership and
empathic resonance. It was when I began to look into the academic literature for
concepts similar to my understanding of empathic resonance that I discovered
the field of dialogue and became particularly inspired by the work of Martin
Buber.
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3. Literature Review
a. Dialogue
The array of definitions given in relation to the word ‘dialogue’ can be quite
overwhelming. It apparently means “simply a conversation between two or more
persons” (Gergen et al., 2001:681), and yet the lack of it is “not only the most
acute symptom of the pathology of our time, it is also that which most urgently
makes a demand of us” (Buber, cited in Kramer, 2003:viii). It refers to “a joint
activity between at least two speech partners in which a turn taking sequence of
verbal messages is exchanged between them, aiming to fulfil a collective goal”
(Tsoukas, 2009:943), and yet it awakens the hope of reaching a situation
“where people might soften or drop the barriers between them, perhaps even
transcend them and so find non-objectified, genuine meeting” (Isaacs,
2001:713). Amidst all of this Deetz and Simpson (2004) warn that as “dialogue
foregrounds specific normative hopes” (p141), “the coupling of high expectations
with an ill-defined and murky concept increases likelihood of disappointment”
(p152).
To make sense of this ‘murky concept’, and to explicate where Buber’s work is
positioned, it helps to firstly see the range of contexts in which dialogue is
employed and then the historical lineage of the term which illuminates some of
the key elements of definitional difference that exist between authors.
With regards to context, to illustrate the breadth of application the list below
shows just some examples of circumstances where dialogue scholarship is of
importance and some authors in those areas (see Anderson et al., 2004a for a
more comprehensive overview of these and other contexts). Buber’s original
work, (1958), is classified within the philosophical arena, however his work has
then subsequently been used extensively by others within the therapeutic and
educational fields.
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• Organisation, (e.g. Bohm, 1996; Deetz and Simpson, 2004; Isaacs,
1999; Karlsen and Villadsen, 2008; Oswick et al., 2000; Senge, 2006;
Tsoukas, 2009)
• Political process and community dialogue, (e.g. Heath, 2007;
Heidlebaugh, 2008; Kim and Kim, 2008)
• Therapeutic, (e.g. Ventimiglia, 2008)
• Race relations, (e.g. McPhail, 2004; Simpson, 2008; Strine, 2004;
Tsutsumibayashi, 2005)
• Education, (e.g. Morrell, 2004)
• Philosophy, (e.g. Buber, 1958; Gadamer, 1989; Habermas, 1984)
• Media and technology, (e.g. Pauly, 2004)
These contexts of course overlap and there are a number of authors who write
about dialogue more generally and as applicable to any interpersonal
communication event in everyday life (e.g. Friedman, 1983).
Figure 1 illustrates five philosophers fundamental to the dialogue literature who
are “among the most frequently referenced philosophers of communication
whose works foreground the term dialogue” (Stewart et al., 2004:22) and
summarises the different perspective each brought to the field. Buber was the
first to coin the term ‘dialogue’ specifically and his influence can be explicitly
observed in the writing of Gadamer (1989), Bakhtin (1981) and Freire (1990),
(Gadamer refers frequently to I and Thou although he makes no
acknowledgement of Buber, whilst Bakhtin, and Freire openly recognise Buber’s
influence on their own work. Bohm (1996), given his background in physics,
drew predominantly on very different sources of inspiration such as Einstein).
More recent prominent authors are also mentioned in Figure 1 (see Anderson et
al. 2004a and 2004b; Stewart et al., 2004) connected to the authors who appear
to have influenced them most. The diagram is highly simplistic since the network
of influences is complex and authors have been influenced by a plethora of
others. Nevertheless the diagram illustrates how wide the field is and how the
current writing is influenced still very significantly by the ‘original’ authors last
century and in particular Buber whose “appropriation of [the term dialogue] has
been most influential” (Stewart et al., 2004:32).
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Figure 1: the historical development of 'dialogue' literature
Perhaps surprisingly there have been very few attempts to classify some of the
differences in the dialogue literature; as Anderson et al. exclaim (2004b:259),
“we are simply not aware of tidy or definitive ways to summarise the sprawling
dialogue research in communication studies”. Some of these ‘sprawling’
differences and tensions are illustrated in Figure 2 below. Buber’s ideas on
dialogue, along with various other authors indicated, are positioned on the right
hand side.
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Figure 2: definitional tensions of ‘dialogue’
Two attempts to classify the field more concisely have been provided by Deetz
and Simpson (2004) and Stewart and Zediker (2000) as illustrated in Figure 3
below.
Figure 3: Classifications of the literature on dialogue
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Both sets of authors have in common a recognition that some researchers write
about dialogue as a way of being, i.e. an ontological perspective that sees
dialogic interaction as the locus of meaning and knowledge, whilst others apply
normative values by referring to a particular quality of conversation that they
term ‘dialogic’.
Deetz and Simpson (2004) do not classify Buber specifically. However from
personal communication with Deetz (2010) perhaps they would place Buber in
the postmodern arena alongside Levinas. I am not convinced however that
Buber’s work sits neatly in their model; in fact to me it would appear that Buber
might sit in both the critical hermeneutic and postmodern categories and
arguably even in the liberal humanism group.
Stewart and Zediker (2000) clearly advise Buber’s work sits in the prescriptive
category within the dialogue literature. Again I am somewhat sceptical about
their classification here because undoubtedly Buber also proposed an ontology
based on the pervasiveness of dialogue; “all real living is meeting”, (Buber,
1958:25).
The current attempts at classification of the dialogue literature are therefore
admirable, making sense of an extremely diverse field. However the difficulty in
neatly placing Buber’s work, perhaps considered to be the founder of the field,
within these classifications indicates they are best used as rough guides rather
than exhaustive, exclusive structures.
Given this it is perhaps also helpful to look at ways in which concepts of dialogue
appear similar and Anderson et al. (2004b) draw together a number of common
themes in the broader dialogue literature and Buber’s work certainly
encompassed these elements:
• Dialogue as creation; characterised by mystery and surprise
• Dialogue as a conversation of voices in tension; voices are different
with different opinions and perspectives creating conflict, (see Deetz,
2003)
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• Dialogue as a relation of self-and-other; the ‘Other’ is celebrated and
regarded as fundamental to dialogue
• Dialogue as difference; difference is fêted through the voice of the
other.
The literature on dialogue is therefore eclectic and wide but nevertheless holds
some key ideas broadly in common. Where in a sense it struggles, is precisely
where thinking on dialogue struggles in the everyday usage of the term; people
are meaning different things when they use the term. ‘Dialogue’ is socially
constructed and a surprising amount of the time there is little clarification by the
author, or by the speaker respectively on what they are meaning.
Within the dialogue literature, relatively little is applied to organisational life, and
application to issues of leadership is virtually non-existent. In practice, dialogue
risks being a light-hearted, trendy word which is bandied around in leadership
development programmes as something ‘leaders should do’ and the academic
literature appears to be failing in its job of lending a hand to such ‘leaders’ to
understand the concept by aiding them to figure out what it might mean for
them in organisational life. To what extent it is helpful in tightly defining the
term as opposed to offering a picture of the field, as I have done above, for the
reader to choose, in a more informed way, what their own perspective is and the
implications this might hold, is debatable. My relativist ontological viewpoint
here is shining through!
It is also worth noting the lack of empirical study in this area. Theory has been
developed on the back of the ideas of the great philosophers which is of course
interesting but when it comes to a classroom of leaders, some practical studies
based on ‘real life’ in organisations, with all the power and politics inherent in
that, would I imagine be welcome.
Nevertheless, as Martin Buber’s work is essentially where much of the literature
on dialogue takes its starting point, presenting his work in a clear way and
applying it to leadership appears to be a worthwhile activity, particularly if it
informs an empirical study. However as I explain below, this presentation is
hindered by the rather opaque language used by Buber, the sparseness of
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academic work linking the two areas of dialogue and leadership, and the even
greater dearth of any extant empirical work in this area.
b. I-Thou dialogue
As the key inspiration of my work to date, it is worth describing Buber’s work in
slightly more detail. Buber can be described as a philosophical anthropologist
(Anderson et al., 2004a; Arnett, 2004). His book I and Thou, (1958) is his best
known work with Friedman (writing in the forward of Kramer, 2003:ix) claiming
that he “can think of no work of more lasting importance for our times”. It is
clear from Figure 1 above that he has been extremely influential and is perhaps
“the most widely known 20 th -century philosopher of dialogue”, (Stewart et al.,
2004:24).
Buber’s particular interest area is in the nature of our relationships with others in
the world around us, (including inanimate objects, animals and God as well as
other human beings). As referred to above this relationship can be either ‘I-
Thou’ in nature or ‘I-It’. Buber says:
“To man the world is twofold, in accordance with his twofold attitude.
The attitude of man is twofold, in accordance with the twofold nature of the
primary words which he speaks.
The primary words are not isolated words, but combined words.
The one primary word is the combination I-Thou.
The other primary word is the combination I-It
…..the I of the primary word I-Thou is a different I from that of the primary word
I-It”.
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(Buber, 1958:15)
One can see from these words why Buber is acclaimed for his poetic language,
but at the same time sometimes criticised for being vague with his concepts (see
Isaacs, 2001). Kramer (2003:15) clarifies somewhat by explaining that “rather
than serving as an object of experience, ‘Thou’ points to the quality of genuine
relationship in which partners are mutually unique and whole…this deep bonding

is contained neither in one, nor the other, nor in the sum of both – but becomes
really present between them”. The critical elements to draw out here are that ‘I-
Thou’ relations can be identified in terms of the quality of intersubjective
partnership present. In contrast, in ‘I-It’ relations, the other is viewed as a
separate object, perhaps as something which can be used to serve our own
purposes, and thus has the nature of one-sidedness. The former can be
described as true meeting, whereas the latter implies mismeeting.
Fundamentally Buber argues that indeed “all real living is meeting” (1958:25), in
other words we are always relating; it is the nature of being human to be in
relationship, and it is when one glimpses the very nature and depth of this
relationship that one encounters the ‘I-Thou’. Buber’s ontology focused on
knowledge forming only in relation to the otherness encountered in the world.
Thus he offered a very different ontology to that which was popular at the time
that he was writing, i.e. the Cartesian view of the world which focused attention
on individuals as the source of knowledge and meaning.
Buber did not mention the word ‘dialogue’ in I-Thou, however in later works
(Buber, 2002) he identified three realms of dialogue in relation to ‘I-It’ and ‘I-
Thou’:
• genuine dialogue when the participants meet each other as ‘Thou’;
technical dialogue when there is simply a need for objective understanding
between participants;
• monological events where a participant speaks “with himself in strangely
tortuous and circuitous ways and yet imagine[s] they have escaped the
torment of being thrown back on their own resources” (Buber, 2002:19).
All these forms of dialogue are appropriate at times however Buber claimed that
fundamentally one is not fully human unless one experiences others, the world
around them and God as ‘Thou’ in genuine dialogue. Unfortunately “the exalted
melancholy of our fate [is] that every Thou in our world must become an It”
(Buber, 1958:31).
Buber has been enormously influential in the exploration of dialogue, the fields
of education and psychotherapy and of course in theology with his background in
Haidism. His writing is evocative and poetic, but as a result might not be at all
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accessible to a pragmatic individual who seeks any clear ‘how to’ advice. Most of
the leaders I have encountered in the development programmes run at Ashridge
fit into this category and so assuming Buber’s work is deemed of some
relevance, there is work to be done in making it more accessible to this
audience. Even Kramer’s excellent explanation of I and Thou is at times
circuitous and unstructured in part because it follows the flow of the original I
and Thou book.
Buber has also been criticised for demeaning the ‘I-It’ relation into the position
of a “cripple” according to Rosenzweig (Stanford University, 2007) and even
more damningly Kaufmann complained that Buber enlisted the “oracle tones of
false prophets” (see Stanford University, 2007), implying that he evangelises ‘I-
Thou’ and falsely persuades others that there is a pinnacle of relating that one
can strive for, (see also Stevenson, 1963). However these critics appear from
the literature I have engaged with to be very much in the minority. One can
understand how one might, on a superficial reading of Buber, feel he was
advocating an attachment or grasping for the ‘I-Thou’ but a more in depth study
of Buber’s ideas indicates he is very explicit on the value of I-It alongside I-
Thou. He would not therefore be advocating to my room full of leaders that they
should be permanently encountering their employees, customers and suppliers
as Thou, (which is just as well as I am sure this would raise some eyebrows),
but he would advocate I believe that moments of realising our essential
connection with these people and holding a deep appreciation for the difference
they offer is fundamental to our being in the world.
Undoubtedly in the literature examined Buber continues overwhelmingly to be
held in high regard and is called upon time and time again by scholars to
describe most ably the experience of very high quality relating. Given this
apparent importance it is perhaps very surprising that there appears to be such
a lack of literature which has sought to bring Buber’s work into organisational life
in an empirical way, despite the fact that some of his concepts such as his
description of monologue, technical dialogue and genuine dialogue, from my
experience, would seem very relevant. Although I have felt Buber’s work to be
an inspiration, the question that this literature review has sparked for me is
whether, given the increasing focus in the leadership literature on relationships,
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his ideas are lived in practice in the minds of leaders; whether, even though they
may not be familiar with Buber himself, they experientially understand and
appreciate what he was saying.
Below I now examine the literature on relational leadership. I am interested in
whether this burgeoning field mentions Buber’s work or alternatively, explores
more generally the experience of dialogue between leader and follower. Surely if
any part of the huge domain of leadership literature would explore this it would
be relational leadership given the essentially relational nature of dialogue and
Buber’s focus on the ‘in between’.
c. Relational leadership
Relational leadership shares with dialogue the difficulty in confining itself to a
definition which accomplishes wide agreement. Uhl-Bien (2006:654) paves the
way for clarification in her Leadership Quarterly article which outlines two main
perspectives of relational leadership: an entity approach “that focuses on
identifying attributes of individuals as they engage in interpersonal
relationships”, and a relational perspective “that views leadership as a process of
social construction through which certain understandings of leadership come
about and are given privileged ontology”. Relational Leadership Theory (RLT) is
then offered by Uhl-Bien as “an overarching framework for the study of
leadership as a social influence process through which emergent
coordination….and change…are constructed and produced” (2006:654).
In other words, according to Uhl-Bien, who builds on the work of Dachler and
Hosking (Dachler and Hosking, 1995; Hosking, 1988, 2007), the leadership
literature domain can be divided into two. Firstly, there are those views that
perceive leaders as possessing certain qualities with relationship as an exchange
between such a person and an other, i.e. a follower. These views focus on the
attributes of the leader, the follower and the relationship as ‘things’ that can be
studied and to a certain extent objectified. Well known examples of this
perspective are the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, (for example Graen
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and Uhl-Bien, 1995) and charismatic leadership theory, (for example Shamir et
al., 1993).
This is in contrast to a more recent focus in the leadership literature on the
process of leadership; examining how, when people are in relationship, the
phenomenon of leadership arises and how each person in that relationship is
changed as a result of that meeting. Additionally, in such a process orientated
view, the spotlight falls on how individuals make meaning from the interaction;
how they understand leadership and how this understanding forms as a result of
socio-historical factors. In this sense leadership and indeed followership are
clearly phenomena of interpretation and subjective assessment. Barrett et al.
(1995), Bligh et al. (2007) and Ladkin (2010) are examples of authors writing
from this point of view.
Relational leadership initiates possibilities for leaders and leadership which are
fundamentally different from previous views:
• It “recognises leadership wherever it occurs”, (Hunt and Dodge, cited in
Uhl-Bien, 2006:654). In other words it does not restrict leadership to
those in hierarchical positions; leadership does not only happen in a
manager-subordinate situation, where leadership is equated to ‘headship’.
• It shifts focus onto the processes rather than the persons, “Relational
perspectives”, therefore, “identify the basic unit of analysis in leadership
research as relationships, not individuals” (Uhl-Bien, 2006:662) and as
such “processes such as dialogue and multilogue become the focus” (Uhl-
Bien, 2006:663).
• Knowledge in relational leadership is viewed as socially constructed, i.e.
our meaning making is influenced by our socio-historical position and the
opinions, thinking and actions of those around us. Uhl-Bien (2006:655)
reminds us that “meaning can never be finalized…it is always in the
process of making”; our predominant understanding of the term ‘leader’
appears to be undergoing a change in its meaning, away from ‘special and
superior’ and perhaps towards something which allows more space for
equal sharing of views and influence from followers.
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Uhl-Bien and her peers Dachler and Hosking (Dachler and Hosking, 1995;
Hosking, 1988, 2007) have paved the way for further research in this area and
the infancy of theoretical development mean that there are unsurprisingly some
clear areas which require further exploration. Ladkin (2010) points out and
develops a number of these, namely the importance of accounting more fully for
the context and purpose in determining whether ‘leadership’ results from the
relationship; the critical role perception plays in the emergence of leadership;
and finally the distinction between hierarchical ‘headship’ and leadership.
In addition to these gaps, Uhl-Bien (2006) herself points to the need to further
research in the processes of relational leadership with one such process being
dialogue. I suggest that Buber’s work might be regarded as complementary to
the relational approach described by Uhl-Bien above because he approaches our
world focused on the ‘between’ and holds the view that our reality is constant
relations. If dialogue is understood in such terms then further research into
dialogue might therefore serve to build the theoretical underpinnings of RLT.
Journal papers focus overwhelmingly on the entity approach, unsurprisingly as
the perspective upon which this is based has predominated views over the past
few decades. From my understanding of the relational leadership literature, and
from my practitioner experience in leadership development, I can see that
opinions on leadership being about process, about perspective and construction,
and occurring in between ‘leader’ and ‘follower’ do however seem to be
gathering pace both in the academic literature and the classroom. Unfortunately
though there is still a real dearth of empirical work to add richness to the
debate.
Cunliffe and Eriksen would appear to agree in their 2011 Leadership Quarterly
article where they conceptualise leadership as “embedded in the everyday
relationally-responsive dialogical practices of leaders” and requiring leaders to
engage in “relational dialogue”, (2011:1425). They seek to contribute empirical
work to the area. Excited by reading this I wondered whether Buber’s ideas
would feature in their work. Their inspiration however comes from Bakhtin.
Nevertheless, given Bakhtin’s work is inspired by Buber it is unsurprising that
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many of their propositions are certainly complementary to Buber’s work; in
particular the rejection of thinking of leadership as a discrete individualistic
activity in favour of focusing on the essentialness of relations in everyday
leading.
Following on from Uhl-Bien, Cunliffe and Eriksen (2011) describe the relational
leadership domain in three categories; network theories, social construction
theories focusing on linguistics and post-heroic theories focusing more on
distributed, collaborative forms of leading. Their criticism is that all of these are
still essentially entitative in approach and they argue, in words which I believe
resoundingly echo Buber’s, “that relational leadership requires a relational
ontology, which means going back to the fundamental philosophical issue of
understanding social experience as intersubjective…..and leadership as a way of
being-in-relation-to-others” (p1431). Furthermore they note “a relational leader
sees people not as objects to be manipulated but as human beings-in-relation
with themselves” (2011:1431). It is therefore a morally inspired practice and
therefore requires leaders to encounter others not only as ‘Its’ but also as
‘Thous’.
Dialogue, Cunliffe and Eriksen suggest, involves a move away from the leader as
traditionally heroically capable in rhetoric and monologue. Enabling spaces for
dialogue to emerge, without a predetermined outcome driven by the ‘leader’,
and valuing real understanding, empathy and learning between leader and
follower underscores relational leadership. Interestingly though, in my opinion
Cunliffe and Eriksen get very close to describing the leaders they studied in a
decidedly heroic manner, for example “relational leaders are open to the present
moment and to future possibilities” (2011:1437) and “relational leaders under-
stand the polyphonic, unfinalizable and creative nature of dialogue and the
always-emerging nature of leading” (2011:1438). Some of the quotations used
from the Federal Security Directors, seem to me to illustrate how these leaders
rather independently enabled a moral, caring attitude to emerge! I wondered
when reading the article at the way in which the two authors have read the data
through a particular lens that was important to them and in this sense made the
data fit their theory. This of course could be an observation of many empirical
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studies into leadership. I wonder also - is it ever possible to make leadership
sound ‘unheroic’ when the phrase leader and leadership features in the article?
I concur with Cunliffe and Eriksen’s work in their proposition that what is needed
in the field of relational leadership “is a way of ‘theorizing’ and ‘doing’ leadership
differently, not in terms of applying models or recipes, but as embedded in the
everyday interactions and conversations – the relational practices – of leaders”
(2011:1428). This in turn implies work should focus in on leading-in-the-
moment in all its mundaneness and complexity. Although Cunliffe and Eriksen
get closer to such leading in the moment through their method, I would argue
that the ethnographic approach still works in a somewhat detached manner. I
doubt whether the very real and incredibly influential processes of power and
status and in-the-moment assumptions and judgements made of others are
really explored through this method and I will refer to this again when I
introduce my research methodology below.
Before I do this however, there is just one other literature area I would like to
mention and that is the work that brings Buber’s work to the leadership domain.
In some cases this work acknowledges the effect that power has on
encountering dialogue in a leadership context and as such adds an important
element to the relational leadership domain.
d. Literature relating Buber’s work to leadership
I have only been able to locate one peer reviewed paper, by Ashman and Lawler
(2008), that directly addresses how Buber’s work might apply to the leader-
follower context, posing the question “whether it is possible for [I-Thou]
dialogue to occur between leader and follower” (263). As it is such a
fundamental source in this literature review it is worth pausing to consider it in
more detail.
Although the majority of the paper relates to Buber’s ideas and their application
to leadership, this is not its stated main purpose. The authors’ primary aim is
rather broader; “to introduce and explain a number of important existential
philosophers and concepts that we believe can contribute to a critical approach
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to leadership theory” (2008:253). Their emphasis is to build a claim relating to
the important role the existentialist perspective can play in understanding
communication and to argue that rather than communication being regarded as
‘part’ of leadership, leadership “might be considered as an aspect or subset of
communication” (253). Because their aim is therefore wider than just application
of Buber’s work, it is unsurprising that his concepts, although forming a
significant proportion of the paper, are not explored very extensively. Some
claims such as the appropriateness of examining the therapeutic relationship as
analogous to the leader-follower relationship are not accompanied by strong
warrants. Notwithstanding this, in their discussion they highlight the following
points of interest:
• Leader-follower relations are, they claim, largely based on I-It experiences
rather than I-Thou encounters due to the traditional superior-inferior,
active-passive assumption upon which they are based
• The therapeutic relationship can be seen as analogous to the leader-
follower relationship. Going on Buber’s famous discussion with the
American psychotherapist Carl Rogers (Anderson and Cissna, 1997), the
authors believe Buber may have thought I-Thou dialogue was impossible
in the leader-follower relationship. This they claim is mainly due to the
lack of mutuality and reciprocal acceptance in a relationship characterised
by differing power, status and purposes and which, due to its instrumental
nature, focuses on technical dialogue
• The challenge to leadership researchers is “to search for incidents where
such acceptance is manifest and then to look for the consequences”,
(Ashman and Lawler, 2008:264). They add enticingly “just one occurrence
of the sort of leader / follower acceptance Buber describes will enlighten
us as to the possibilities of genuine dialogue between leader and follower”
(2008:264).
The research questions I am currently exploring directly address Ashman and
Lawler’s clear challenge.
Five further peer reviewed papers, although focused on different purposes, make
at least some mention of the implications of Buber’s work on leadership; they
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are Caldwell and Dixon (2010), Fletcher and Kaufer (2003), Hammond et al.
(2003), Lichtenstein et al. (2006) and Slotte (2006). It is interesting to note that
all are theoretical rather than empirical studies.
Taken together these six papers present a number of implications regarding the
feasibility of realising I-Thou dialogue between leader and follower. I have
summarised these into two areas shown in Figure 4 for clarity. The first set of
issues relating to the perception of leader and follower and the communication
between them represent hindrances to I-Thou encounters. They are based very
much on an entitative perspective of leadership and acknowledge the
predominant view of the difference in power between leader and follower. In
contrast the second set of ideas relating to the possibilities opened by different
definitions of leadership indicate how I-Thou might be encountered in the leader-
follower relationship.
Figure 4: Buber's ideas related to leadership
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i. Inhibitions to leader-follower dialogue
In relation to the first area, traditionally, leader and follower are seen to possess
differing status and along with that power. Leadership is therefore often
regarded as a synonym for positional hierarchical authority, (see Ashman and
Lawler, 2008; Hammond et al., 2003). This in turn leads to followers, at least
implicitly, being regarded as passive and needing a leader in order to motivate
or empower them to do something. Caldwell and Dixon (2010:97-98) state the
consequence; “traditional thinking…suggests that leaders ought to be distant and
aloof from employees and avoid connecting with employees at the emotional
level. Leaders who put employees at arms-length and who view employees as
commodities, means, or as “its” still exist in many organisations today”.
Additionally the leader is often expected to live up to heroic expectations and
any possibility of the leader exhibiting vulnerability or humility is disregarded
(Ashman and Lawler 2008). Coupled with this the level of trust in business
leaders by followers is relatively low (Caldwell and Dixon 2010) and given Buber
wrote about the importance of openness and authenticity this can be regarded
as a challenge to leaders and followers wishing to encounter each other in
dialogue.
The stage is clearly set for a very imbalanced relationship between leader and
follower which has further significant implications for the way in which they are
traditionally perceived to interact and communicate, as the second area in Figure
4 illustrates. Communication is assumed to be essentially one-directional and
Slotte (2006:797) refers to this as the ‘conduit metaphor’ which portrays
communication as a pipeline flowing in one direction. In Buberian terms, it is
also characterised as primarily technical dialogue; i.e. the communication has a
specific purpose to transmit information rather than any overriding purpose to
build relationship. In this form of communication followers risk being
commoditised or objectified and regarded as a unified homogenous group of
people. Any potential that communication might have beyond these purposes is
stifled. Even when ‘open communication’ and ‘dialogue’ are espoused by the
leader, the reality is that the forums provided for these ‘open’ discussions are
often designed by the leader, with the leader’s agenda in mind, (Hammond et
al., 2003). The one-sided nature of the communication is thus still present.
21

Fletcher and Kaufer (2003:36) additionally warn that leaders rarely get to hear
what people really think; “talking nice….[is] a mode of conversation common in
organisations. No one shares with the CEO what is discussed in the hallways”.
Numerous obstacles in the leader-follower relationship as it is traditionally
perceived impact dialogue. However the literature does see cause for hope in
relation to developing dialogical relations as shown in the second section of
Figure 4.
ii. Enablers to leader-follower dialogue
Whereas previously the traditional view of leadership left little scope for leader-
follower dialogue, as we have seen above recent changes in theory open up
more possibilities. A relational perspective as Lichtenstein et al. (2006) in
particular describes implies an openness to Buber’s thoughts which has not
existed previously. Leadership can and is being reconsidered as a process by
which both leader and follower learn, “the results of effective communication
thus might not be demonstrated in, for example, improved results, but in
changes for both parties” (Ashman and Lawler, 2008:260). Taken even further
Ashman and Lawler argue that dialogue allows the possibility that the fixed
nature of roles which is implied in much of the leadership literature could be
replaced with a more fluid understanding of ‘leader’ and ‘follower’. The ‘Other’ in
terms of the follower is now being focused on increasingly with the elevated role
of the leader diminishing. Other theories such as transformational leadership
which were conceptualised as relatively one-sided might, claim Ashman and
Lawler, develop further to incorporate the possibility of all parties, including the
leader, learning and transforming and thereby allow potentially more scope for a
dialogic encounter.
Finally, dialogue as Buber has conceptualised it necessitates openness to
change, and embracing of uncertainty and a consequent loosening of agendas as
well as ‘leader’ and ‘follower’ roles. Relatively recently leadership theory has
begun to accept such possibilities (for example Bathurst and Ladkin, 2012, and
Cunliffe and Eriksen 2011 discussed above), although there might be still further
to go to persuade leaders themselves; “to engage in a dialogue with no agenda
22

can easily grow into a feeling that it is a waste of time especially if it is a conflict
situation and in times of pressing problems” (Slotte, 2006:799).
The papers covered in this section, although discussing implications on theory of
Buber’s thoughts, do not go into the detail of how dialogue comes about, or
could come about, between leader and follower. In fact I can see no peer
reviewed article that does so. Cunliffe and Eriksen (2011) begin to explore this
area as discussed above in relation to Bakhtin’s work however they focus rather
more on their claims relating to the nature of relational leadership and their
advice to leaders centres on being present and noticing dialogue moment by
moment which I’m not sure helps a great deal practically. There is one doctoral
thesis (Boogaard 2000) which specifically aims to identify the ‘capacities’
required to encourage leader-follower dialogue. This interesting work is also the
only empirical study, apart from Cunliffe and Eriksen’s that I have found of
relevance. Through shadowing two leaders within an American organisation
Boogaard identifies five capacities for ‘dialogic leadership’; receptive
engagement, responsive authenticity, compassionate connection, centred
responsibility and respectful wholeness. By the very nature of its methodology
the study is restricted in terms of its ability to offer generalised findings and the
study is more focused on the method employed than it is on positioning the work
within the extant theory on dialogue. In addition to the brief treatment of
theory, Buber is only one of a number of authors studied and thus is not
explored in extensive detail.
e. Literature review summary
I have explored the literature relating to dialogue, Buberian dialogue and
relational leadership and the overlaps in these areas.
A great deal has been written about dialogue generally but surprisingly little in
relation to leadership. Buberian dialogue has been hardly applied to leadership at
all. Given the preponderance of the term dialogue in leadership development
contexts I am surprised both these areas are explored so scantly in the
academic literature. There are signs however that the subject is becoming more
popular particularly with the relatively new perspective of relational leadership
as described by Uhl-Bien (2006) and Cunliffe and Eriksen (2011).
23

Of relevance to leaders might be some further understanding, generated through
empirical study, of the benefits of dialogue and how traditional roles of leader
and follower might impact such encounters. Then, challenging such an entitative
view of leader and follower as independent operators in a system of exchange
might serve to suggest that dialogue is in fact more realisable within the remit of
the emerging relational leadership view.
24

Research questions, methodology and ontological perspective
Having undertaken an initial literature review as described above, I was then
naturally asked by the University to state my research questions. Having stated
these I would then propose a methodology that would fittingly ‘answer’ the
questions. At first I willingly applied this process and proposed the following
research questions based on the gaps I perceived within the literature:
• Is the phenomenon of I-Thou dialogue possible within a leadership
context, and if it is, what is the experience like?
• What are the implications for the way in which a leader consequently sees
his / her role and the process of leadership?
Sub-questions would include:
• What do the different forms of dialogue feel like for a leader?
• What aides the realisation of I-Thou dialogue in a leadership context?
• What gets in the way of realising I-Thou dialogue in a leadership context?
• What does an experience of I-Thou dialogue bring to leaders?
I then put my mind to considering the most appropriate methodology.
It was at this point that I realised that in order to be congruent to my subject
matter I wanted to aim towards a research method that embraced the qualities
inherent in the subject matter I was exploring. I was also pressed into rigorously
considering my own beliefs around ontology and epistemology. I noticed then an
uncomfortable mismatch between my beliefs and the standard accepted process
described above.
To explain, the phenomena I wish to explore, leadership and dialogue, are
subjectively determined and socially constructed. As such I am interested in
finding out how others encounter the concepts and make meaning regarding
them. I am interested in the way people experience dialogue in a leadership
context and conversely how they experience leadership whilst in dialogue; and
the construction of these phenomena in relation to each other. Using Bradbury
and Lichtenstein’s words, who draw inspiration from Martin Buber (1958), I am
interested in ‘the space between people and phenomena in organisational life’,
(2000:551), and indeed the relation between myself as researcher and the
25

phenomena and the interaction between myself and others involved in the
research.
Dialogue is typically characterised by mutuality, encountering ‘otherness’ and
presence. I wish to choose a method of research congruent with these
characteristics.
Additionally one ambition I have for this research is that it stimulates action;
mine and others’. In other words rather than ‘simply’ making a contribution to
theory, I would hope my work prompts positive difference in both my own way
of engaging with others and in others’.
Given the nature of the research and my values described above I suggested
that my chosen method should be:
• Phenomenological
• Participatory
• Mutual, inclusive and confirming of others
• Reflexive
• Leading to action
Co-operative inquiry refers to “interpersonal research….[where]….research
subjects willingly participate in designing the study, supporting the analysis, and
framing how the research can positively impact these subject’s social (and
personal) conditions. [It] engages the skills of the research subjects as well as
the researcher, since the locus of inquiry is on the nexus of relationships
between the researcher and subject / phenomenon as well as the interaction
between the two” (Bradbury & Lichtenstein 2000:555). It involves four phases
(see Reason, 1999); phase one agrees the issues to be explored, phase two sees
the group apply their agreed actions in their everyday lives, phase three sees
the researchers become fully immersed in their experience and finally phase four
sees them consider the original research questions in the light of their
experience and possibly change their questions before restarting the cycle again.
26

A methodology which has grown in use, co-operative inquiry has the benefits of
being an approach which clearly aspires to all the characteristics I mention as
important to me above. The main criticisms voiced against it are that it is
unstructured, with research questions emerging over time and through the
inquiry cycling, and that it is susceptible to the influence and bias of the
researchers who have to negotiate differences in power and collaboration
through their time together. The counter argument to these criticisms is that
these issues are present in all research efforts and co-operative inquiry does at
least attempt to be as transparent as possible about these effects. With my
particular inquiry interest area the group provides the opportunity for
transparency by inquiring into the moment by moment dialogue (or lack of it)
within the group in real-time. In this way, co-operative inquiry encourages the
research cycling process involving action outside the group in everyday life and
reflection upon this back in the group, as well as a parallel process opportunity
to study dialogue in the moment. Described as “an alive process of engaging in
the world” (Reason 1988:8), and one which can lead to “genuine dialogue”
(Reason 1988:9), I believe co-operative inquiry is the most congruent approach
for this particular research topic.
Having arrived at this belief I then realised that although I would enter into the
process naturally with the questions posed above in my mind, I would be willing
to flex my formal research questions with the group, as we all began to explore
the issues in more detail. So rather than a linear process of literature review,
followed by research questions, followed by methodology I see the process as
more fluid with methodology also influencing the questions and indeed the
literature areas explored.
I began the co-operative inquiry process with the following much broader
questions in mind:
• How is dialogue experienced and constructed by ‘leaders’?
• How is the concept of ‘leadership’ understood through dialogue?
27

Thus far, co-operative inquiry has generated some interesting emerging themes
in relation to these questions. It has also facilitated some fascinating learning in
relation to research methodology as described below.
28

My experiences of co-operative inquiry
On October 30 th 2011 I initiated the first co-operative inquiry meeting with seven
other individuals. We were three women and five men, three CEOs and five
occupying other senior leadership roles. For the purposes of this document I
won’t go into great detail relating to the commencement of the meetings
however it might be interesting to state that I knew two members of the group
well and invited them and the other members were all suggested by other
members or in one instance introduced to me via my supervisor. We have now
held four meetings, roughly six weeks apart. Not all members have been present
at all meetings but there has been an average of 6.
To reiterate the main features of co-operative inquiry are that:
• A group comes together as co-researchers to examine issues that are of
shared concern, it thus aims to be a shared process; ‘research with rather
than on others’
• It aims to be facilitate research which leads to action, it is therefore
practical and seeks to enable change in people’s lives which is important
to them
• It involves a number of cycles whereby questions are posed explored
collectively and / or individually and then re-examined. New questions are
then posed.
• It can encompass at least four ways of knowing and thus represents an
extended epistemology; experiential, presentational, propositional and
practical ways of knowing (see Heron and Reason, 1997). Knowing is then
said to be more congruent if all four ways of knowing are aligned, in other
words “if our knowing is grounded in our experience, expressed through
our stories and images, understood through theories which make sense to
us, and expressed in worthwhile action in our lives” (Reason and Heron,
1997)
I am sure I will speak further about this fascinating experience at the
masterclass. Some highlights relating to the method though include:
29

• The very rich parallel process that exists; we are a group talking about
dialogue and our experiences of it, however we are at the same time
exploring dialogue as experienced in the moment within the group. I think
this is enormously important methodologically as I hinted at when
discussing Cunliffe and Eriksen’s (2011) ethnographic approach above. For
example we have discussed what we think ‘leadership’ is but I find that
this tends to generate standard cognitive answers which reflect classic
teaching in leadership. However, the quality of response, engagement and
thoughtfulness which has come from defining what leadership means now,
in this group, at this moment, however has been richer.
• The challenges involved in ‘co-researching’ with others and how this can
work in practice whilst holding a facilitator role. I have found co-
researching to be a useful ambition and intention to hold but it is
unavoidable and without doubt that I have more ‘skin in the game’ than
the others. Because ‘I am the one doing the PhD’, I could potentially
influence the direction of conversation more however I notice that
because I am so aware of this I have shied away from taking such a
powerful role to the extent that perhaps I have not been assertive enough
and other members of the group have wished me to direct the
conversation more.
• How the method enables very clear examination of personal bias and
assumptions which shine a light on how such issues must affect more
traditional research methods. For example, the group has helped me to
realise that I tended towards a negative view of power which I had not
previously recognised. I would filter people’s comments on power
accordingly. I have also explored my own power; in fact I could be seen
as belonging to many ‘powerful’ categories such as being white, well
educated, reasonably well-off financially; the only category really which
might be seen as less powerful is that of being a woman and perhaps, in
some contexts in business being relatively young (although still nearly
40!). It has been interesting talking through this with the group and the
effect it might have.
30

• The very ambiguous and uncertain nature of co-operative inquiry and the
unpredictability of group dynamics. Many traditional research methods
aim to test clear hypotheses and have a defined process and timing
attached to them. With co-operative inquiry the questions which will end
up being most important are even ambiguous. The dynamics of the group
and whether it will stay together are unpredictable. This has encouraged
me to explore my need for control and comfort with ambiguity as a
researcher.
• The question of how change happens through co-operative inquiry. I am
exploring with the other members of the group how formal decisions to
change need to be. The paradoxical theory of change in gestalt therapy
suggests that "change does not take place by trying coercion, or
persuasion, or by insight, interpretation, or any other such means. Rather,
change can occur when the [client] abandons, at least for the moment,
what he [or she] would like to become and attempts to be what he [or
she] is" (Beisser, 1970, p. 77). The group has been exploring how change
is inevitable as a result of being part of the group; perhaps as they
understand themselves more they cannot help but alter their views and
perspectives and therefore their actions as a consequence of being part of
the process. This is not to give up at all on planning actions, but is an
interesting examination around what change means.
• The process has led me to question what the purpose of my research is. It
is not to determine a universal truth as a positivist paradigm might
attempt. Speaking in this group it is wildly obvious that there is no
universal truth on the construction of leadership and dialogue separately,
let alone together! What I wish for would be to describe my truth, and
even then, my momentary truth because it will change with further
experiences, in the hope that it might inspire others to inquire, to sense
where their views differ and why and perhaps to change how they interact
with others in a way they perceive, and others perceive, to be better.
Some emerging themes specific to the inquiry questions on leadership and
dialogue from the co-operative inquiry to date are listed in the next section.
31

Some emerging themes
It is still very early on in the process of gathering data through co-operative
inquiry. Below is a list of emerging themes in relation to the inquiry question
around the construction of leadership and dialogue, and then some points on
how dialogue might be enabled and disabled particularly in a leadership context.
At the moment they seem to be relevant and important and have surfaced
through the group discussion:
Constructions of leadership and dialogue:
• Leadership during the moments we are together as a group is seen as
shared. This is seen to mean the ‘implicit permission to change
something which is the implicit permission to lead something”. So
leadership when discussed explicitly has been most commonly seen as
occurring when a change is instigated in topic but also in energy in the
group. This kind of shared leadership is rarely experienced outside the
group; one participant has reflected on a number of occasions that the
group managed to have more meaningful dialogue in its first meeting than
his management team have had in five years and this in part is down to
the predominantly shared model of leadership being held in the group;
• In connection with this, dialogue both in the group and outside of it is
seen as involving risk; involving a person taking a risk to challenge
someone with care or by disclosing something important to themselves.
Dialogue is recognised as such if conversation occurs at a number of
different levels involving the heart and emotion as well as cognition. In
addition it seems that dialogue requires speaking with ‘right intention’; but
the question of what is ‘right’ is still being explored;
• Power has been reflected upon very frequently and is regarded as an
enabler and disabler of dialogue. When considering experience outside the
group, it is often in the first instance understood negatively rather than
positively, in other words power over rather than power with. Within the
group there is perhaps a more complementary understanding of it. Power
is defined as the ability to make something happen;
32

• As the above points indicate, in general the links between power,
leadership and dialogue in relation to change have been very apparent
and worthy of further exploration.
Enablers and disablers of dialogue:
• When members felt comfortable to state it, they all agreed they had a
shared yearning for ‘true contact’ within the group and this facilitates the
dialogue which occurs.
• The inquiry group provides a real and current experience of dialogue to
members and they are as a result potentially more able to practice
dialogue in their organisations. This space gives them a chance to practice
a way of being and speaking. This makes me think that a leader in an
organisation who wishes to promote dialogue might be helped by trying in
the first instance to initiate or encourage moments of dialogic experience
for people in groups which they can then use as a kind of prototype for
the way in which to engage in the wider organisation. Simply propounding
the benefits of dialogue without people having an experience to connect to
and strive towards might be problematic.
• The presence of a charismatic leader can hinder dialogue. The dependence
and deference which can come with following a charismatic leader is not
helpful for dialogue to emerge.
• Roles, for example ‘facilitator’ or ‘leader’, and categorisation of people,
such as ‘expert’ or ‘woman’ go hand in hand with assessment. This
assessment of others is something we do all the time and in itself might
not hinder dialogue if one were self-aware to notice that it was happening
and able to bracket those judgements.
• Within the group issues of inclusion and exclusion, particularly when
people have missed meetings, have been figural and important in relation
to building trust between people, which in turn is seen as crucial for
dialogue.
33

• All members of the group seem remarkably busy and our busyness means
we face many competing commitments. This has led to the question ‘is
this time in together worthwhile’….’I could be doing x’. This can lead away
from dialogue however the voicing of it has paradoxically aided dialogue
indicating the importance of openness and honesty in relation to dialogue.
• We have reflected on the need to ‘seem’ rather than ‘be’ as Buber puts it.
In the case of this group we have mainly recognised ‘the need to seem
clever’. We have wanted others in the group to admire us. Again, this
could certainly get in the way of dialogue, but in disclosing this need has
brought us closer together. I have experienced this need in particular in
my role as facilitator; wanting others to see me as a good facilitator, or
actually even more so - an expert facilitator. This inevitably takes me
away from being present; I am too focused on what I might say next,
what I should be doing, or what others might think of me.
• Finally we have had a few occasions where we have misrepresented
others, misunderstood what others have said and misconstrued meaning
of actions taken. Argyris’ ladder of inference (1982) comes to mind here
and the way in which we ‘fill in the gaps’ of our understanding, often in
ways which we don’t realise and therefore don’t question and as a result
we are taken further away from meeting each other in dialogue
34

Where next?
The process of co-operative inquiry may lead me to use further methods to
explore the area of dialogue and leadership, for example ethnography. It has
occurred to me that I might want to observe and question a ‘leader’ in action in
their organisation and inquire as to their experience of dialogue. Alternatively it
could lead to more extensive use of co-operative inquiry, perhaps with an intact
team (and therefore facing issues of hierarchy). This will be determined over the
next few months.
35

Questions for the panel
I have the following questions I wish to pose to the panel:
• What do you particularly like and what are you interested in in this paper?
• What key questions and challenges came up when reading this paper?
• What would you think are the unmissable literature domains that must be
explored as I continue with my studies?
• Are you aware of any other authors, not mentioned in this paper, that are
focused in this area whose work I really need to look at?
• What other methods for exploring the construction of leadership and
dialogue would you recommend?
I look forward to your comments and feedback on the 19 th April.
36

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