Collaborative Orchestration versus the Elusive Nature of Leadership

The authors have been closely engaged first hand with privileged access to a large local authority transformation project in Northern Ireland. They have played a role as ‘critical advisors’ to the process from inception to... [ view full abstract ]

The authors have been closely engaged first hand with privileged access to a large local authority transformation project in Northern Ireland. They have played a role as ‘critical advisors’ to the process from inception to the current period. Essentially this has meant an academic comparison between events and strategies on the ground to theoretical perspectives on change and leadership. Considerations have been fed back throughout the period and the authors have addressed participants through regular work in progress conventions. Early reflections on the process were given at the IRSPM conference in Ottawa 2014, where keen interest from other delegates was noted. Over the period of this work, the two conveners have been involved in a variety of direct practice and scholarly investigation. We have reached conclusions about the nature of this particular project and the academic support for, or justification of, leadership as a key rhetorical vehicle for public service improvement. Our contribution will thus be to contextualize the concrete experience and our analysis of events; and set out a critique of current thinking and writing on leadership particularly as a public service phenomenon. Our own experience of the synergy between a political economic perspective and an Organisational Behaviour approach has convinced us of the value of interdisciplinary approaches, and the degree of collaborative and cross-sectoral activity within the case in question we feel fits appropriately with the overall conference theme.