| dc.description.abstract | Denne forskningen tar for seg det som kanskje er den største blinde "spot" i ledelsesteori og -praksis (By, 2021), ved å utforske rollen til "Purpose" når man utvikler en ledelseskultur. I denne forskningen er formålet å peke mot samordning og forpliktelse av langsiktige mål til støtte for det grønne skiftet.
Forskningsspørsmålet er: Hvordan kan ledelseskultur; – forklart av Drath et al. (2008) som; et system med kollektiv og individuell ledertro og kollektiv ledelsespraksis – videreutvikles til støtte for det grønne skiftet?
Følgende sitat med hensyn til ledelse setter retningen for temaet som skal diskuteres i denne oppgaven; Ledelse er en energiprosess, ikke struktur. På denne måten er management forskjellig fra ledelse – management streber etter stabilitet, mens ledelse handler om endring (Barker, 1997).
Intensjonen med "Formål" som både en kollektiv ledertro og som "P" i PAC-ontologien (By, 2021), har dukket opp som en viktig inngang, og som både ett primær (kvalitativ data) og sekundær funn (litteratur), når man utvikler en ledelseskultur til støtte for det grønne skiftet.
En kvalitativ metode, under et interpretivistisk paradigme, har blitt brukt for å samle og utforske perspektiver på ledelse og lederkultur til støtte for det grønne skiftet. Det ble utarbeidet spørsmål, og data ble samlet inn gjennom semistrukturerte dybdeintervjuer basert på en forhåndsdefinert intervjuguide.
Nøkkelfunn knyttet til kollektiv ledelsespraksis og kollektive lederskaps troen på "Purpose", er illustrert som temaer i figuren nedenfor:
Key findings related to collective leadership practices and collective leadership belief, are illustrated as themes in the figure below:
Formål: The Green Transition
Psykologisk sikkerhet og åpenhet
Holacracy (ledelse nedenfra og opp) | |
| dc.description.abstract | This research addresses what is perhaps the biggest blind spot in leadership theory and practice (By, 2021), by exploring the role of ‘Purpose’ when developing a leadership culture. In this research, the role of purpose is pointing towards the alignment and commitment of long-term goals in support of the green transition.
The research question is: How can leadership culture; – explained by Drath et al. (2008) as; a system of collective and individual leadership beliefs and collective leadership practices - be further developed in support of the green transition?
The following quote with respect to leadership set the direction for the topic to be discussed in this thesis; Leadership is a process of energy, not structure. In this way, leadership is different from management— managers pursue stability, while leadership is all about change (Barker, 1997).
The intention of ‘Purpose’ as both a collective leadership belief and as the “P” in the PAC-ontology (By, 2021), has emerged as an important entry, and as both a primary (qualitative data) and secondary finding (literature review), when developing a leadership culture in support of the green transition.
A qualitative method, under an interpretivist paradigm, has been applied to collect and explore perspectives on leadership and leadership culture in support of the green transition. Questions were prepared and data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews based on a predefined interview guide.
Key findings related to collective leadership practices and collective leadership belief, are illustrated as themes in the figure below:
Purpose: The Green Transition
Psychological safety and Transparency
Holacracy and “Bottoms-up leadership”
The recommendation is to start the development of a leadership culture in support of the green transition, if not already implemented, since the urgency of the future challenges of lack of climate action are well-known. The SDG index and dashboard for Norway in 2020 showed that we have stagnation with respect to UN Goal 13 “climate action” with respect to emissions (Holden, 2021), which could be explained by the new green business segments currently being low marginal businesses. In this context research do emphasize that leaders have an important role to embrace new thinking, gain and understand the new world view to be able to make future strategies managing sustainability and transition (Laloux, 2015).
The key findings are psychological safety and “Holacracy”, both promoting change readiness, continuous learning, creativity and innovativeness towards low carbon emission solutions, by allowing more peer-like, transparent and collaborative initiatives from “bottoms-up” in the work force.
Psychological safety is "a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes" (Edmondson, 1999). This is especially important for the green transition, which are containing a lot of complex challenges, emergent changes, risk of failing, continuous learning and innovations. Creating a working environment with high level of psychological safety present, researchers believe can help organisations and leadership with an entrepreneurial mindset to innovate and handle setbacks.
Holacracy is known as a “flat” hierarchy, with a working environment for fostering flexibility and engagement (Bernstein et al., 2016), and replaces hierarchical pyramids. Power and control are no longer tied to the specific positions of a few top leaders (Laloux, 2015). Holacracy is also supported by complexity leadership: where one sees order in a system as emerging from people, ideas, or behaviours, making leadership not only a top down, but also a bottom-up process (Drath et al., 2008). This is demanding a new generation of leaders – senior individuals with the vision to see where it is best to set aside hierarchy for another way of operating, but also with the courage to defend hierarchy where it serves the institutions fundamental goals (Bernstein et al., 2016).
A further recommendation will be the development of additional supporting leadership X-factors as; GRIT, optimism, onboarding of generation Z and ambidexterity as leadership subjects or themes to investigate further.
Secondary findings show that the PAC-ontology (By, 2021) with Purpose as the core of the leadership outcome is a beneficial model or ontology to use as a framework with respect to further development of a leadership culture in support of the green transition, hence pointing towards long-term goals. To quote Damon et al (2003, p. 121): Purpose is defined as ‘…a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at once meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self.
Future recommendations for academics, practitioners and government/research institutions will be covered in chapter 5.3. | |
