Exploring the Realization of Moments of Leadership: A methodological approach

Abstract

Post-heroic perspectives on leadership, which approach leadership as process, practice and a relational phenomenon, have shifted the theoretical understanding from individual characteristics to significant so-called moments of leadership, where direction emerges, and actions are re-oriented and organized. However, despite considerable theoretical development, research struggles to explore these processes in detail. Utilizing video and audio recordings, in this article we present a systematic approach for analysing the production and realization of moments of leadership as they happen. We propose a four-step procedure which combines an interpretative stance, guided by a sensitizing concept, with an ethnomethodologically inspired inductive analysis of the subtle moves and mechanisms of the construction of social order in interaction. We illustrate the procedure using data from a study of high-risk military leadership, showing how deliberate shifts of analytical stance between the steps – from reliance on researcher sensemaking to a close focus on participants’ own sensemaking, and finally to theoretical interpretation – enable both a unique assessment of the phenomenological nature of sequences selected for close analysis and support the development of theoretical contributions. The approach presented in this article enables a deep exploration of the realization of moments of leadership, complementing the existing emphasis on consequences of such moments of leadership. Such a detailed analysis of the realization of leadership offers new possibilities for empirically well-grounded theoretical developments of relational and processual perspectives.