Leading questions: If ‘Total Place’, ‘Big Society’ and local leadership are the answers: What’s the question?

Abstract

This paper concerns the apparent decentralization of decision-making in the UK that has accompanied the new coalition government. In particular, we are interested in the rise of Prime Minister Cameron’s public services initiative: ‘Big Society’, and one of its antecedents, ‘Total Place’. We suggest that while these remain sites of political contest, they provide an opportunity for rethinking why the leadership of change might be linked to a change of leadership. In effect, if these approaches are the answer to the problem of providing public services in an age of austerity, then we need to start the analysis by asking what the questions to these answers are. To unravel this point we briefly explain the background to these developments and then consider six questions that might help explain why the local nature of leadership matters. These questions are: what kind of problem are we looking at? What is the purpose of this organization? How does power operate in this place? Why is the local nature of knowledge critical? Is time a problem or an opportunity? And, finally, what kind of local space is this? We conclude by suggesting that the nature of local leadership matters because it constitutes similar problems differently.

Citizens of the academic community? A societal perspective on leadership in UK higher education

“…It is important, however, not to romanticise the notion of citizenship, particularly within a context such as the UK where associated concepts such as the 'Big Society' and 'Distributed Leadership' have been employed in instrumental ways to drive public sector reform (see, for example, Grint andHolt, 2011, Hall, 2011). From our experience of the LPs within the current project, however, asking academics to consider their experiences from a position of citizenship surfaces a different kind of discourse.…”

Public leadership development facilitation and the crossroads blues

“…The rise of collaborative leadership can be witnessed in not only scholarly literature, but also in government policy. Despite ideological differences, both Labour and Conservative governments in the United Kingdom have attempted to embed collaborative leadership in local policy delivery, with the Total Place and Big Society initiatives, respectively (Grint and Holt, 2011). In New Zealand, the government's flagship Better Public Services initiative is rooted in ideals of collaboration across government agencies (Jackson and Smolović Jones, 2012).…”

“…Like many other western democracies, New Zealand policymakers are currently advocating a more collaborative form of leadership in the design and delivery of services. Similarly to other national contexts, New Zealand public servants are also discovering that implementing collaborative forms of leadership involves unsettling dominant paradigms of public organising, asking questions about the purpose and nature of public policy and services which may challenge existing means of conceptualising public problems, as well as the dominant leadership identities held by public managers (Grint and Holt, 2011;Jackson and Smolović Jones, 2012).…”

Context and the leadership experiences and perceptions of professionals

“…Clinical nurses may believe leaders make decisions based on financial or political expediency rather than concern for patients or staff; that is, leaders do not display the prototypical behaviour which would place them in the "in-group" to provide legitimacy in the exercise of the power of leadership (Hogg, 2001;Jepson, 2009a;Cicero et al, 2010). Leaders are seen as those who have some form of authority, power or control that they can draw upon to influence others, hence creating "followership" (Northouse, 2004;Sinclair, 2007;Grint and Holt, 2011). "Without influence leadership does not exist" (Northouse, 2004, p. 3).…”