What lies beneath resilience: Analyzing the affective-relational basis of shared leadership in the Chilean miners’ catastrophe

Abstract

This article addresses how shared forms of leadership can activate resilient organizing to cope with catastrophic events by examining the case of the 33 Chilean miners’ rescue who survived confinement at 600 m below ground for 69 days. Qualitative analysis of interview and document data reveals how the miners as a group engaged in the sharing of agency vis-a-vis the task of absorbing strain and anxiety, thus enabling a sophisticated work capacity and a constructive relational dynamic. The miners’ resilient capabilities emerged from the activation of collective resources in three distinct yet complementary modes of interaction: self-organization, collaboration, and mutual caring. Our empirical findings indicate that the distribution of agency becomes essential for the promotion of both collective sensemaking and emotional containment in contexts of crisis. By accounting for such affective-relational underpinning of the sharing of leadership, this article contributes a more nuanced understanding of crisis management and the organization of positive, constructive responses to adversity, breakdown, and conflict.

Building-up resilience and being effective leaders in the workplace: a systematic review and synthesis model

“…obstacles (Howard and Irving, 2014); job loss (O'Connor and Batcheller, 2015); adversity (Elkington and Breen, 2015); performance pressure (Cooke et al. , 2019; Sanfuentes et al. , 2021); and, other work resistance (Tian and Bush, 2020).…”

“…In the reviewed articles, seven studies have found the positive effects of experiencing negative cases: e.g. obstacles (Howard and Irving, 2014); job loss (O'Connor and Batcheller, 2015); adversity (Elkington and Breen, 2015); performance pressure (Cooke et al, 2019;Sanfuentes et al, 2021); and, other work resistance (Tian and Bush, 2020).…”

Activating collective agency in disrupted contexts: The social-cognitive context of ad hoc organising in a small and medium-sized enterprise

“…These processes are enhanced if SMEs initiate compassion and communal coping (König et al, 2020). Additionally, this embeddedness allows agency sharing by alleviating strain and anxiety in the community and activating collective resources towards agency (Sanfuentes et al, 2021). However, research suggests that not all SMEs engage in community embeddedness and community-organisation interactions, which indicates an area of resilience building that would be beneficial for SMEs (Williams and Shepherd, 2020).…”

Collaborating Across Organizational Boundaries to Co-Create a More Just, Resilient, and Thriving Society

“…Its initial conceptualization referred to the psychological property of individual actors to bounce back from traumatic experiences and persist in efforts to coordinate and reorganize with others to overcome crisis (Hartmann et al, 2019; Williams et al, 2017). More recently, it has been also conceptualized as the ability of social groups, such as teams, organizations, or communities, to build and activate relational dispositions (e.g., emotional carrying capacity or distributed leadership) that lead to the absorption of adversity through the adaptive use of resources, active collective sense-making, empathic communication, and the containment of anxiety, among other things (Kahn et al, 2017; Sanfuentes et al, 2021; van der Vegt et al, 2015). Given that IOC is a risky (interpersonal) endeavor, we conceptualize resilience—from a normative standpoint—as an umbrella term for dealing with human vulnerability and how people construct their struggles when rooted in a broader set of social and political norms that usually undermine their capacity (especially oppressed groups) to deal effectively with adversity (Gilligan, 1982; Lawrence & Maitlis, 2012).…”