Unpacking the narrative of non-positional leadership in academia: Hero and/or victim?

This article, based on narrative inquiry, explores how academics with/out formal leadership positions experience and understand themselves as leaders in their everyday working contexts. A single case of a fixed-term academic was chosen to illustrate how different analytical lenses - 'plot analy...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Higher education research and development 2013-04, Vol.32 (2), p.201-213
Main Authors: Juntrasook, Adisorn, Nairn, Karen, Bond, Carol, Spronken-Smith, Rachel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
academic leadership
Academic staff
Case studies
College Faculty
Discourse Analysis
Educational leadership
Foreign Countries
Higher Education
Inquiry
Leadership
Leadership Qualities
Masculinity
narrative inquiry
New Zealand
Personal Autonomy
plot analysis
Postsecondary education
Self concept
Teacher Role
Victims
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Summary:This article, based on narrative inquiry, explores how academics with/out formal leadership positions experience and understand themselves as leaders in their everyday working contexts. A single case of a fixed-term academic was chosen to illustrate how different analytical lenses - 'plot analysis' and 'discourse analysis' - can unpack the complexities of experience associated with non-positional leadership, a topic scarcely represented in studies of leadership in higher education. Two interdependent plots - the heroic plot and the victimised plot - were found to recur throughout the participant's narrative. These plots signified the conflictual dynamics and the unique subjectivity in which this person made sense of himself as a leader. The analytical lens was then shifted to pay greater attention to the ways in which broader networks of discourses were at play within this participant's narrative. Using discourse analysis, the discourses of autonomy and masculinity, among others, were present in constituting the unique subject positions the participant took up. The article concludes with a summary of methodological contributions this study offers to the field of leadership in higher education.
ISSN:0729-4360
1469-8366
DOI:10.1080/07294360.2011.643858