The role model concept emerges within the overlapping fields of organisation theory and management studies (Bucher & Stelling, 1977; Dalton, 1989; Gibson, 1995; Gibson & Barron, 2003; Girona, 2002; Ibarra, 1999). Identification with role models is viewed, from career and organisational behaviour theorists’ perspectives, as critical to an individual’s growth (Gibson, 1995; Krumboltz, 1996). Leaders in organisations are encouraged to be role models (Gibson & Barron, 2003; Kouzes & Posner, 1993). The core premise of these studies is an uncritical assumption that relations between leaders and followers are symbiotic. Symbiotic relations are deemed a pre-condition for the successful functioning of any organisation or institution (Chaleff, 2003; Kelly, 1992). Rather than developmental relationships where leaders provide guidance, the pervasive view is one in which followers are actively selective and self-reliant (Dalton, 1989). The view is that an individual’s potential for career success or failure is partially dependent upon them having good role models, and through following, they can actualise and achieve their goals (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997). This view aligns with neo-liberal sensibilities as the responsibility is for followers to be entrepreneurial subjects who seek out and create their own network of relationships.
Proximity to and personal knowledge of a role model are relevant to this thesis. However, although one would assume proximity is a necessary pre-condition for role modelling, within the literature this is contested. A few studies explore access to good role models and draw the conclusion that proximity is a determinant of career success (Girona, 2002; Ross, 2002). However, Bell (1970) argues for distinctions to be made between interaction and identification. He argues that a follower may have a mutual, supportive relationship yet still choose not to identify with a leader. Conversely, in other studies, relative proximity is considered a negligible influence on a follower’s choice of role model (Ibarra, 1999). For example, Zagenczyk et al (2004) explore distance from role models to show that, rather than personal contact, it is a leader’s outward expression of status that others respect or emulate.
The field of organisation theory is dominated by studies that focus on established leader (or role model) and report on how their characteristics, attributes or performances impact on followers’ likelihood of emulating them (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Lockwood et al, 2004). The general consensus is that leadership is a contingent product of both personal and situational factors (Fielder, 1964; Fiedler & Garcia, 1987). A few studies investigate the differences between role models and followers, and how different attributes of leaders’ impact on followers’ selection of them. For example, Gibson and Barron (2003) found that mature followers select leaders who share similar values and attitudes. Other studies explore identity formation (Gibson, 1995; Ibarra 2004) predominantly focusing on how exemplary leaders maintain and/or negotiate their sphere of social influence. Generally, the findings point to the idea that leaders both directly and actively transform the attitude and behaviour of their followers. Some scholars argue that leaders may influence followers’ identities as an indirect means of increasing their commitment (Chemers, 2003). Leaders gain influence due to followers’ acceptance of their superior’s performance (Javidan et al, 1995). Charismatic leaders extend their sphere of influence and commitment in situations where they are able to redefine the norms and objectives of a group (Haslam & Platow, 2001).
Poststructural approaches to leadership in management studies reconfigure the notion of role model to a social construct and examine ‘identity’ operating in the work place. Kondo’s (1990, p24) study of Japanese work life concludes that ‘identity is not a fixed thing, it is negotiated, open, shifting, ambiguous – the results of
culturally available meanings and the open-ended, power laden enactment of those meaning’. She posits the impact of the social conditions on leaders’ identity formation should not be discounted. Her view concurs with Collinson (2006) who concludes that followers’ identities may be more differentiated than previously assumed asserting that, while it is often assumed that leaders and followers retain a shared sense of identity, poststructuralist analyses reveal that followers’ identities may be more differentiated and contested within the workplace. Followers might ‘enact resistant and dramaturgical selves producing outcomes that leaders may not anticipate, be aware of, or indeed even understand’ (Collinson, 2006, p4). Collinson’s (2006) term ‘dramaturgical’ refers to a performative identity, or types of performance that draw the attention of on-lookers. For example, in organisations where there is a culture of performance management and appraisal, there is a heightened awareness of visibility which produces a range of identities. Poststructural research into the workplace identifies how power productively produces disciplined identities, constructed as conformist identities, via the corporate culture or through the use of technologies introduced to improve an organisation’s efficiency (Casey, 1995; McKinlay & Starkey, 1998). Other studies emphasise different impacts of surveillance technologies and disciplinary working practices. For example, Hodson (2001) reports that resistant identities and dissent characterise many organisations contributing to the individuals’ self-esteem.
Other poststructural theorists highlight the diverse, and shifting nature of oppositional identities in organisations, which they argue, are often covert, temporal and unstable (Jernier et al, 1994). For example, Ashcroft and Mumby (2004) point to the potential for dissonance or isolation when there is a limited pool of minority or female staff available as role models in an organisation. Writing from a feminist perspective, their findings suggest that some women strategically outwardly express ‘masculine’ qualities as part of their repertoire of management skills in order to gain acceptance. Adkins (2002) argues that men acquire value from performing femininity in a workplace but women do not acquire value by performing masculinity or femininity, as the latter is perceived as natural to them. Manthia Diawara (1998) makes a similar argument in relation to race.
Taking a Foucauldian lens on Gleeson and Shain’s (1999) work on identity in organisations, we can gain relevant insights into regulatory and disciplinary forces.
Gleeson and Shain (1999) observed changes in leaders’ identities who are mediating organisational change and/or implementing intensified targets. They noted that, in their data, transitional processes gave rise to contradictory identities in middle management. The middle managers were caught between various imperatives as part of their working conditions that in turn created ambiguity or double identities. According to Gleeson and Shain (1999), transition experiences produced the ‘willing’, the ‘unwilling’ and ‘strategic’ compliance. Managers were either committed to the change process, sceptical and developing a limited range of defensive stances, or able to reconstruct the change process whilst maintaining their core values. In terms of identity formation, transitional processes within an organisation can have a range of impacts.
Thus identity construction in organisations is highly context dependent, since this provides the resources for leaders to define and represent their social identity (Haslam & Platow, 2001). In organisations that are highly stratified, or where structural inequalities are visible, identity construction is observed to impact the agency of leaders and followers. A case in point are Haslam and Reicher’s (2007) findings drawn from a BBC Prison Study to investigate two sides of a partnership. The investigation considered the constraints on a leader’s identity made by their social reality and oppositional positioning. The findings suggest leadership is possible when there is a shared sense of identity. They conclude that both followers and leaders are active interpreters of their social world (Haslam & Reicher, 2007). Furthermore, they argue that although leaders are entrepreneurs of identity, one cannot assume followers are passive consumers or recipients of role models.
Hogg (2001) proposes a social identity theory of leadership dependent on the production of a shared (group) social identity. He argues leadership is a group process generated by social categorisation and the appearance of influential ‘pro- type-based’ leaders. Leadership is dependent upon the production of a shared social identity. The promotion of a collective group identity is vital for the role model leadership to be maintained. Hogg (2001) posits that leadership is contingent upon the extent to which leaders are perceived as ‘prototypical’ of the group’s identity. Hogg’s (2001) description of leadership as a group process generated by social categorisation implies that the social (or cultural) group may choose to exclude a leader and/or monitor membership.
So what are the implications of this literature for understanding B.E.M. teachers as leaders (role models)? What findings would one expect to emerge from this thesis? First, the relational aspect of role modelling is crucial to transformational processes. Role modelling has an inherently consensual social attraction and influence, in addition to it being defined as inter- and intra-personal relationships between teachers and pupils. We need to consider B.E.M. teachers’ assumptions about pupils’ agency since their enactments are partially determined by interpersonal dynamics. Second, although relative proximity might be useful, I expect B.E.M. teachers’ outward expressions of status (including ‘masculine’ qualities) might be used to evoke mimicry by B.E.M. pupils. Third, the identity construction of both leaders and followers will be shaped by differentiation as much as identification (Collinson, 2006). A range of contextual and/or situational social factors are implicated in teachers’ and pupils’ identity construction. Fourth, leadership is dependent upon the existence of a shared social identity (Haslam & Reicher, 2007). If, as the findings suggest, the promotion of a shared group identity facilitates role model relations then consideration needs to be given to how cultural congruency between B.E.M. teachers and pupils functions. This notion of a collective group identity also has a bearing on the thesis as both leaders and followers are active interpreters of the social world (Reicher & Haslam, 2007). This view assumes that teachers are incited to adopt certain cultural practices, or display themselves as incumbents of certain categories of ‘masculinity’ or ‘femininity’ on particular occasions (Coleman, 1990). The final area in need of further attention is the leadership strategies that offset followers’ resistance to change, or how discipline or other regulatory techniques are applied in the context of a school. Every school has its own localised regimes of normalising practice. Inevitably these give rise to variable modes of resistance to managerial control, and to forms of self-governance adopted by individual teachers at the school. Thus one can expect contradictory and competing imperatives to affect teacher ‘role model’ identity construction processes and performances. Leadership is contingent on how a teacher constitutes him/herself and on the extent of their agency to engage in transformational processes.