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

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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