Concept of depersonalized leadership: A Critical Incident Analysis

Introduction

The concept of good working environment has been evolving with time from diverse literatures and
different disciplines. In the past, healthy working environment majorly focused on improvement of
occupational safety and physical environment to minimize fatalities and risks of injuries. Recently,
scholars have realized that psychological factors at the workplace have likelihood of affecting overall
performance of employees as well as organizational results. As a result of this, organizations and
institutions have been encouraged to incorporate different leadership styles, relationships as well as
other facets in creating working environments that are psychologically healthy (Day et al., 2014).
Therefore, it is important for leaders to focus much on their followers instead of concentrating on their
interests at the expense of employees.

Leadership styles differ a lot based on organizational followership, situations, and objectives. Therefore,
it is sometimes difficult to determine the most viable leadership concept that can suit the followers and
help in meeting the set objectives. Therefore, it is upon the leader to decide the best approach by
considering the current situation and organizational ethics. Sometimes the organization might be
performing poorly, in such a case, it is the responsibility of a leader to determine the most effective
leadership concept for resolving the issues without making employees feeling as if they are being
mistreated. If a leader has to be competent, then he/she should possess specific skills such as fair-
mindedness, courage, open-mindedness, intelligence, competence, and honesty. The purpose of this
paper is to explain the concept of depersonalized leadership using a critical incident analysis technique
and reflecting on personal context from socio-cultural perspective.

Critical incidents

Trip (2012) defines critical incidents as “some event or situation that meant a significant turning point or
change in the life of a person, an institution or in some social phenomenon” (Tripp, 2012, p. 24). It is not
something that happens on its own but it is created by someone or even a situation. They normally
happen frequently but they are categorized based on their impact and mode of interpretation. Critical
incidents occur in different settings and help individuals in understanding how their experiences,
attitudes, views and beliefs affect their daily operations. According to Sikes and colleagues, “critical
incidents are a useful area to study because they reveal like a flashbulb, the major choice and changing
times in people’s lives and usually occur during periods of strain which the authors term critical phases”
(Sikes, Measor and Woods, 1985, p.57), and can be personal, extrinsic or even intrinsic.

Teachers tend to face a lot of critical incidents in their career ranging from challenges of schools fees,
dealing with naughty students and parents as well as putting up with financial problems. Currently,
teachers are facing other critical incidents emanating from poor leadership exercised by some of the
school head. Some scholars such Day and Gu have studied the lives of teachers by adopting a CIT (Critical
Incident Technique) to determine some of the critical influences in their career. They focused on
determining some of the factors that make teachers view some incidents as critical. The explored
teachers’ perception on their sense of effectiveness and commitment and other parameters that
influenced their professional lives. The researchers interviewed over 179 teachers by asking them about
their turning points and how they view their leaders. According to this study, critical events such as
leadership by school heads had significant effect on their morale and level of commitment in their daily

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 activities. The researcher found that the most common factors influencing performance of teachers at
their respective areas of work are policies set by their leaders, practice settings, family issues and
behavior of the learners. According to this study, practice settings have a significant influence (either
positive or negative) on their daily operations, especially for the teachers who have been in the
profession for more than 15 years. These involve various parameters that are related to their workplace,
workload, promotions, responsibilities, support from their colleagues and management as well as
standard of professional development (Day and Gu, 2010).

These challenges faced by teachers interviewed during that time have become very common in the
contemporary society. Research shows that most of them are associated with poor management by
leaders at different levels. Some of the leaders want to humiliate teachers by assigning them excess
workload, refusing to promote and paying them poorly. Also, other school heads make decisions without
involving teachers and expect them to implement such policies responsibly. As a result of these actions
of poor leadership styles, teachers feel demotivated, something that affects their commitment, leading
to poor performance among the learners in the long run. Even after noting changes in attitude among
the teachers, some of the leaders don’t engage them to determine the root cause but instead decided to
terminate their contracts and recruit new workers without knowing that this compounds the problems.

A study conducted in 2008 showed that leadership play a significant role in influencing commitment
among the teachers. According to the views given by the interviewed teachers, strong leadership
characterized by clear vision helps in enhancing commitment. In cases where there effectiveness is at
stake, teachers highlighted negative pressure coming from poor support by the leaders at different
departments. According to the interviewed tutors, limited support from teachers tend to bring a feeling
of isolation. The researcher found that teacher want leaders who can be accessed easily in case of any
complains, ready to listen to their issues and appreciate their work instead of criticizing them for their
shortcomings. The researcher concluded that, if teachers have to be committed, effective, and resilient,
then there must be strong support structures in terms of leadership.

Institutional Depersonalized leadership

Research shows that effective leadership in the learning institutions helps in development of positive
culture among the teachers that foster trusting and mutual caring relationships among the teachers and
their leaders. Creating a positive culture helps in setting a context and tone of achieving organizational
objectives. Also, effective leaders have ability to influence human resource development through
provision of intellectual simulation, serving as examples and provision of individualized support to the
employees instead of ignoring their opinions (Leithwood and Riehl, 2003). All these define characteristics
of a depersonalized leader who separates him/herself from leadership and interacts with the employees
to get their opinions concerning what needs to be changed.

According to study, leaders who have ability to display positive attitudes such as skills, confidence and
passion are able to make their followers feel motivated and tend to improve their trust, welfare and
commitment. For instance, if a teacher complains about his/her health, workload, or even some issues
that need to be fixed, such a leader will be right on the ground to listen and address their issues. The
concepts can only be promoted through adopting a depersonalized leadership concept which is almost
similar to transformational leadership. This kind of leadership helps in reducing most of the critical
incidents experienced by teachers by making them feel motivated and elevating their level of

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 commitment. It is obvious that school heads who adopt this leadership concept have influence on
teachers’ well-being, commitment and motivation (Liu, Siu and Shi, 2009).

To determine the impact of leadership on organizational commitment and job commitment among the
teachers, three scholar conducted a meta-analysis study and noted positive effects of transformational
leadership on the performance of teachers. The scholars found that the level of commitment and job
satisfaction among the teachers increases the moment their leaders adopt transformational leadership
instead of transactional style (Aydin, Sarier and Uysal, 2013). In this case, the scholars are promoting the
concept of depersonalized leadership because a leader who does not engage in egocentric thinking will
definitely value his/her juniors, something that will make them feel valued, thus improving their level of
performance in the long run. Unlike transactional leadership which focuses much on achieving
organizational objectives through punishment and rewards, depersonalized leadership concept focus
much on improving employees’ welfare by engaging them in decisions that affect them directly, thus
making them feel motivated to work towards achieving organizational objectives.

There is a positive relationship between depersonalized leadership concept and well-being of the
workers. This is affirmed by a study that was conducted in China and found a positive connection
between level of trust and improved self-efficacy among employees and management style adopted by
leaders who don’t use egocentric thinking. Self-efficacy refers to “an individual’s beliefs in one’s
capabilities to organize and execute the course of action required to produce given attainments”
(Bandura, 1997, p. 3). Some of the influence sources applicable in developing self-efficacy like social
persuasion and role modelling are the most common element of depersonalized leadership concept.

Leadership and socio-cultural perspective

Studies conducted by different scholars show that sociocultural variables can have a lot of influence on
leadership process. Various prototypes of leadership tend to occur in societies which have differing
sociocultural orientations (Hofstede, 2001). Also, the meaning and evaluation of characteristics and
behaviors among the leaders may change depending on a social context. The leadership factors ought to
correspond to dominating sociocultural values of specific area if a leader as to relate with the workers
effectively. This is supported by the fact that people who have different cultural beliefs may be having
different expectations and ideas about how they want to be led. Secondly, different people are believed
to be effective leaders depending on how their conduct matches that of the expected depersonalized
leader. Lastly, leadership effectiveness can be achieved by meeting expectations of the followers
(Thomas and Ravlin, 1995). Generally, different cultural views on leadership posit that sociocultural
differences tend to influence who can be an effective leader and the kind of leadership behavior that is
effective.

Considering that leaders are bound to interact with people from diverse backgrounds, it is important for
them to embrace depersonalized concept in addressing all their issues to ensure that every one of them
feels appreciated. This is because the concept of depersonalized leadership can help in moving masses
towards achieving the set objectives by leading the followers in doing different activities. The moment a
leader learns about the sociocultural difference of his followers, then it becomes easy to lead them
because he/she will always avoid any form of conflict that may bring differences at the workplace.

Leadership can be personified because the verbs follow and lead are attributable to an individual who
involves himself in leading and following some behaviors of the pace setter. Leading and following

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 sometimes involves exchange of roles or sometimes working as a team whereby leaders work together
with their juniors within the same environmental settings so that they can serve as a role model and
experience what they have been going through. According to Layder (1994), “Leading and following must
be viewed as dynamically interchangeable behavioral functions toward reciprocal interpersonal
relationships between situational (non-static) leaders and followers in social group settings” (Layder,
1994). Therefore, leadership depersonalization encourages leaders to leave their static paradigm of
leadership roles and embrace exchangeable and dynamic nature of mutual leadship relational process
because it brings them close to the workers. According to Lord, “Followers may assume leadership roles
when necessary” (Lord and Emrich, 2000). For instance, as a way of reducing some of the critical
incidents experienced by the teachers, such as poor working environment and workload, school heads
should assign themselves some lessons and try to interact with teachers during the teaching process to
understand their feeling better. Also, leaders should respect the fact that employees have different
sociocultural beliefs. For instance, there are those who come from areas whereby interacting with their
seniors is a common thing and others who tend to loss focus whenever their leaders are around.
Therefore, in order to ensure effective leadership, it is the responsibility of a leader to understand
sociocultural beliefs of his/her followers.

Conclusion

The concept of depersonalizing leadership questions the role of conventional leaders in bringing change
to an organization. Days are gone when leaders used to stay at their offices and wait for their juniors to
report work progress at their comfort areas. The concept of leadership depersonalization involves
exchange of roles and working as a team at the workplace with leaders leading employees in achieving
organizational objectives. Depersonalization is not about a person who is leading but the act of leading
as an example. This helps in creating teamwork, improving well-being of employees, the level of
motivation and job satisfaction, thus improving their productivity and performance in the long run.

Bibliography
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part of the Taylor and Francis Group, p.24.

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