The (non)distribution of leadership roles: Considering leadership practices and configurations

Leadership in acquisition contexts

It is surprising that the topic of leadership in acquisition situations – although deemed important for the success of the acquisition (Haspeslagh and Jemison, 1991; Schuler and Jackson, 2001) and potentially problematic and conflictual – has not received the attention it deserves in the scholarly literature. Waldman and Javidan (2009: 131) declared that ‘leadership issues have taken a back seat in scholarly efforts’ when it comes to acquisitions. In fact, there appears to be a divide between the academic and the practitioner literature on leadership in acquisitions. Whereas the academic literature has shown limited interest in leadership in acquisition situations, practitioner literature places substantial emphasis on the importance of leadership. For example, in a three-stage model of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) that Schuler and Jackson (2001) proposed – and for which they provided evidence from a long list of publicized cases of M&As – leadership is said to play a central role in each of the stages. Successful leaders’ attributes such as open-mindedness, flexibility and vision, and tasks such as providing strategy, managing change and motivating employees, are addressed. This is a normative model that attends to traits and behaviors of leaders in acquisitions.

Although the academic literature has not shown the same enthusiasm for leadership in M&A situations (Sitkin and Pablo, 2005; Waldman and Javidan, 2009), some research has surfaced on the topic. For example, a study by Kavanagh and Ashkanasy (2006) looked at the impact of leadership and change management on the culture of the organization and on individual acceptance of change during a merger. The results showed that leaders’ change management approach results in shifts in organizational culture, thus providing more or less autonomy to individuals, which in turn results in individual acceptance or rejection of the change.

There is a tendency for the literature on leadership during acquisitions to attend to transformational or charismatic leadership in particular. This leadership approach is often associated with situations of organizational transformation or major change (Yukl, 1989). Thus, Nemanich and Vera (2009), for example, studied transformational leadership in teams involved in acquisition integration. They found that transformational leadership during acquisitions supports ambidexterity or ‘the ability to explore new capabilities while exploiting existing ones’ (Nemanich and Vera, 2009: 19). Sitkin and Pablo (2005) offered a model that includes six dimensions to effective leadership of M&A: personal, relational, contextual, inspirational, supportive leadership and stewardship. Specifically, in relation to inspirational leadership, the authors indicate that it has the effect of ‘engendering greater aspirations’ among followers, and articulating ‘persuasively how the seemingly unrealistic and unattainable … is worth pursuing’ (Sitkin and Pablo, 2005: 217). In a conceptual study, Waldman and Javidan (2009) indicated that integration of acquisitions is affected by leadership, and proposed a model that shows how two different forms of charismatic leadership influence integration. They made a distinction between personalized (PCL) and socialized charismatic leadership (SCL), indicating that whereas PCL emphasizes the ‘righteousness of the leader’s own vision’ and shows less concern for diversity,’ SCL stresses the development of a shared vision and shows ‘confidence to include diverse and different perspectives’ (Waldman and Javidan, 2009: 135). The authors proposed that personalized charisma results in an absorption mode of integration and that socialized charisma results in collaborative visioning and decision-making.

Overall, the scholarly research on leadership in acquisitions has been limited and has tended to focus on change and transformational leadership, attending to leaders’ skills and approach, and to how these affect followers and the integration process. This research does not attend to the activities of members coming from different organizations or their interactions and practices as they construct the leadership space. Much more can be learned from other segments of the leadership literature that may be pertinent to acquisition contexts.

Leadership-as-practice and distributed leadership

In comparison with the paucity of research on leadership in acquisition situations, there is an abundance of research on various aspects of leadership that include traits and attributes, behaviors, relationships and contextual factors associated with leadership. Several reviews of the literature offer an extensive look at these topics (e.g. Avolio et al., 2009; Bligh et al., 2011; DeChurch et al., 2010; Hernandez et al., 2011; Yukl, 1989). A common theme in some of these reviews and in more recent writings on leadership is the tendency of the literature to focus on individual leaders – their traits and approaches – and to pay less attention to other equally important aspects of leadership. Two of these aspects are identified here. The first refers to the practices and relationships that underlie the construction of leadership, making leadership an emergent, socially constructed phenomenon (Bolden et al., 2008; Carroll et al., 2008; Crevani et al., 2010; Raelin, 2011), and the second refers to the distribution of leadership roles that gives expression to leadership as a collective phenomenon (Denis et al., 2001; Gronn, 2002; Spillane et al., 2001).

In terms of the need to attend to practices, Carroll et al. (2008) distinguish between the competency and the practice perspectives, indicating that the competency perspective tends to focus on individuals acting in isolation of other individuals and of context, and tends to give attention to measurable, technical and tangible elements of leadership. The authors propose instead the practice perspective that focuses on constructionism and views leadership as relational, collective, situated and socially defined. In this perspective, actors’ talk and frames occupy an important place in the analysis of how leadership is constructed ‘among relational beings’ (Fairhurst and Uhl-Bien, 2012: 1043). Similarly, Crevani et al. (2010) suggest an approach to the study of leadership that involves moving away from a focus on individual leaders to a focus on process and practices of people in interaction. They point out that studies of leadership tend to emphasize direction as accomplished in a linear way through successful, converging, common practices; they suggest instead the study of leadership practices and interactions that ‘include possibly diverging processes and instances of unresolved conflicts, ambiguities and debates’ (Crevani et al., 2010: 81). Building on the practice perspective, Denis et al. (2010) argue for the need to study ‘doing leadership.’ Their empirical study focuses on micro-level activities that are situated in an organizational context and that are relational and collective but not necessarily convergent in nature. Embedded in the leadership-as-practice approach is a view of leadership and agency as relational, which is different from the leader–member exchange (LMX) model (Raelin, 2011). The latter is ‘a model of individual perception that is initiated in the minds of actors rather than as capturing of the social interactions among the parties without a privileging of any one single actor and his/her singular interpretation’ (Raelin, 2011: 201). A relational approach to leadership may thus interrogate how leadership relationships are produced and how they may constitute a context for action (Uhl-Bien, 2006).

The second aspect of leadership that has been documented as important to study is the distribution of leadership roles, which calls into question the relevance of individualized models of leadership (Bolden, 2011; Buchanan et al., 2007; Cunliffe and Eriksen, 2011; Denis et al., 2012; Gronn, 2002). Distributed leadership draws attention to the collective nature of leadership – including leadership which is exercised cross-hierarchically (Denis et al., 2010; Gronn, 2002; Spillane et al., 2001). This notion was the focus of early writings, as Denis et al. (2012) and Gronn (2002) indicate, but attention to this notion has been revived more recently, as it is considered to be a newer research area in leadership literature (DeChurch et al., 2010). I adopt a view of distributed leadership consistent with Denis et al.’s (2012) definition that refers to leadership roles that are spread across individuals who are at the same or different hierarchical levels. The notion of distributed leadership shifts the level of analysis from the individual to a group of individuals who enact leadership roles (Denis et al., 2001, 2012; Gronn, 2002; Spillane et al., 2001). Distributed leadership, as Gronn points out, is a phenomenon to be studied and understood empirically. He states that:

[A] program of qualitative research into distributed work arrangements … should either confirm or invalidate a range of potential co-performed … synergies evident in forms of distributed leadership … Moreover research should advance understanding of the circumstances and factors which facilitate or impede participants’ perceptions, acceptance, and expectations of distributed arrangements. (Gronn, 2002: 447)

Later, noticing that studies that referred to ‘distributed leadership’ often used this aggregate term indiscriminately to describe a variety of practices which included solo leaders working in tandem with holistic leadership units, Gronn (2009) argued for a revised unit of analysis in leadership studies: the leadership configuration. Focus on this unit of analysis would help uncover a variety of leadership arrangements that are constructed in organizations.

Further, researchers have pointed to a limitation in the literature on leadership in general, and distributed leadership in particular, which involves an overemphasis on the positive side of leadership. Lindgren et al. (2011: 14) state that ‘the negative and descriptive aspects of leadership research seem just as under-theorized in the literature as they are conspicuous in everyday life.’ In what relates to distributed leadership, Denis et al. (2012: 238) indicate that research seems to attend mainly to cases of success, although ‘a focus only on successes can be somewhat limitative.’ They further add:

There is an implicit assumption in almost all of the literature on plural leadership that plurality … implies convergence around common goals … But why could plural leadership not also be conflictual? … [T]here has been surprisingly little explicit study of the rivalries that may emerge when different individuals claim leadership within the same domain. (Denis et al., 2012: 269)

In summary, as this overview shows, research on leadership in M&A contexts is sparse, and so is research on leadership configurations that are conflictual. The overview also pointed to the importance of studying models of leadership distribution empirically, and attending to the activities and relational practices that underlie the construction of leadership spaces. The present study addresses these concerns in the leadership literature by asking the following research questions: ‘What leadership configurations emerge when interactants share a newly formed leadership space?’ and ‘What relational practices underlie these configurations?’

The cases

The acquirer, Alpha, was a multinational, multidisciplinary engineering and architecture publicly-owned corporation. (All names have been disguised in this article.) This firm followed a strategy of growth mainly by acquisition. It was an active acquirer with an interest in successful firms operating in engineering and architecture. Its acquisitions were friendly and involved smaller firms, which it integrated within its operations in an attempt to achieve synergies and to grow in terms of markets and practice areas. Once acquired, a firm (or each unit in the acquired firm) became a profit center within a bigger division of Alpha. There was an expectation that owners (typically principals) in the acquired firms would stay on with Alpha for a certain period of time and that the leaders in the acquired firm would collaborate with Alpha leaders in the integration and management of the acquired unit. The four units that are the subject of analysis consisted of two divisions (Beta 1 and 2) of an employee-owned corporation, and two firms organized as partnerships (Gamma and Omega). Table 1 provides a brief overview of the firms in the study.

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Table 1.

The firms.

Firm	Ownership structure	Discipline	Extent of operations
Alpha(acquirer)	Publicly-owned corporation	Multidisciplinary engineering and architecture firm	Multinational
Beta 1 and 2	Employee owned corporation with two separate divisions	Two distinct engineering disciplines	Regional
Gamma	Partnership	Architecture	Local
Omega	Partnership	Industrial engineering	Local

Data sources and analysis

The choice of the acquisition cases to study was based on discussions with Alpha senior managers regarding acquired firms that had integrated well and poorly in Alpha. The firms had been acquired between one and three years prior to the time of the study. Beta 1 and Gamma were considered cases of successful acquisition and integration, whereas Beta 2 and Omega were considered unsuccessful acquisitions, given that they had generated losses and were not expected to add much value corporately.

Primary data for the study consisted of interviews with 46 participants in Alpha and the acquired firms. Interviewees included the CEOs of the acquiring and acquired firms, senior managers (or partners) who were responsible for practice or operational areas, senior staff members involved in the acquisition, and middle- and lower-level managers in the acquired firms who held project management responsibilities. Initial interviewees who held senior positions were identified with the help of the Human Resources Department. A snowball approach (Patton, 2002) was then used to identify additional participants, as initial interviewees were asked to suggest the names of other participants involved in the integration.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants. These interviews lasted from one to two hours, during which there was extensive probing of participants’ views. Questions revolved around the motives behind the acquisition, the role of the interviewee in the acquisition integration, how roles of acquired managers were practiced before and after the acquisition, how leadership for the acquired firm was provided before and after the acquisition, relationships between acquiring and acquired members, enablers and obstacles to the integration, and evaluation of the acquisition outcomes. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Additional data for the study consisted of internal documents (acquisition agreements, due diligence check lists) and external documents (annual reports, press releases) for each of the acquisitions. These data sources provided contextual information that was used to supplement interview data. Table 2 provides information on the data sources.

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Table 2.

Data sources.

Firm	Main source – interviews	Secondary sources – documents
Alpha	15	Annual reports
Beta 1 and 2	11	Acquisition agreements
Gamma	10	Due diligence checklists
Omega	10	External announcements of the acquisitions

Data analysis for this study consisted of, first, mapping the leadership model prevalent at Alpha. This was followed by identifying the leadership configuration that had emerged in each of the acquired units, and analyzing the practices associated with each configuration. I undertook mainly an inductive analysis, although I had also been sensitized to concepts and ideas through a reading of the literature on leadership. Labelling the four leadership configurations was mainly an inductive exercise as the literature offered little guidance in this respect. Because the expectation at Alpha and the acquired firms was that a distributed leadership model would be in place following the acquisition, I labeled the leadership models in such a way as to indicate the form of (non)distribution that had emerged in each acquired firm.

The next step in the analysis consisted of understanding the practices in each case. Thus, I attended to the frames, activities and relationships of participants – as narrated by participants. Interview data allow an analysis of the frames that participants use. Attention to framing and discourse is important in the practice perspective (Carroll et al., 2008; Vaara and Whittington, 2012). Interview data also provide insight into practices and ‘relational realities’ of interactants (Crevani et al., 2010: 82). As Fairhurst and Uhl-Bien (2012: 1053) state, ‘(interview data) contribute to our understanding of leadership as relational because the relationship is narrated and explained by at least one of the participants.’ My analysis was grounded in the data and I was guided by the views of participants. As Alvesson and Sveningsson (2003) indicate, in studies of leadership, it is important to understand how ‘natives’ or organizational members view leadership in their local sites.

Consistent with this approach, I analyzed the themes that participants engaged with in their accounts of leadership. It became quickly clear that the language of competencies and individual intentions had a central place in members’ views of leadership. For example, such statements as, ‘We understand our market best and should be given autonomy to make decisions,’ ‘Tom is committed and motivated to make this work,’ and ‘Greg is not a credible leader’ are indications of (lack of) competencies and agency that participants attribute to themselves and other individuals with whom they interact. Competencies and agency are socially constructed and attributed to individuals or groups by actors in interactions. Drawing on Ybema et al. (2009), it can be said that organizational members may depict themselves and others in terms of fixed traits. As the authors indicate, ‘(w)hile certainly not disputing the situated legitimacy of the actors’ voice’, these claims may be understood by researchers as ‘stabilized moments’ in ongoing processes (Ybema et al., 2009: 305). In the case of this study, these are processes of leadership construction and framing by actors interrelating to each other. Thus, I designated these themes as members’ framing.

My analysis also involved attending to whether there was convergence or divergence in the frames of acquiring and acquired unit managers and, more specifically, whether or not they agreed on visioning and strategizing for the acquired unit. Another category in the analysis consisted of relational practices, denoting how the managers in the acquiring and acquired firms related to or acted towards each other. It was important to understand how managers oriented towards and interacted with each other given that distributed leadership (and any leadership) is relational. For example, in two cases it became clear that acquiring managers oriented towards the acquired firm managers with control practices, and that the acquired managers responded with either contestation of or submission to controls. I also qualified the relations between the managers of the acquiring and acquired firms as well as the agency of the acquired managers. Understanding how the agency of the acquired managers had evolved since the acquisition was an important element in understanding the construction of the leadership configuration. The analysis also included attention to the historical context within which the configuration was constructed. These categories are shown in Table 3.

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Table 3.

Practices, relationships and emergent leadership configurations.

	Beta 1	Beta 2	Gamma	Omega
Acquiring firm members’ framing	Acquired leaders are competent	Acquired managers lack leadership skills	Acquired leaders are competentControlling the acquired unit will allow it to flourish	Acquired managers should be controlled
	Acquired leaders are engaged in making the integration successful
Acquired firm members’ framing	Acquiring leaders are competent	Corporate leadership is absent	We are competentSome acquiring managers exercise undue control	Acquiring managers lack competence in our area
	Acquiring leaders will help us integrate and flourish			Some acquiring managers work intentionally to sink our unit because it poses high risk and offers low return
Visioning and strategizing for acquired unit convergent between corporate and acquired leaders	Yes	Lack of vision and strategy	Some convergence and some divergence	No
Relationship between corporate and acquired leaders	Highly positive	Weak	Varies from positive to tense	Highly negative
Relational practices	Mutual accommodation	Non-interaction	Some mutual accommodation; some control and contestation	Control and submission
History/characteristics of pre-acquisition leadership team as described by participants	Strong leadership skills	Weak leadership skills	Strong, shared leadership	Divided leadership
Acquired leaders’ agency	Successively stronger	Weak	Strong	Successively weaker
Constructed leadership space in post-acquisition unit	Space of complementary leadership roles	Vacant leadership space	Overcrowded leadership space	Space of control and subordination
Emergent leadership configuration	Distributed leadership;conjoint agency with successive devolution of authority to acquired leaders	Distributed leaderlessness; lack of leadership practices	Overlapping leadership; duplication of role and agency of acquiring and acquired leaders; continual efforts by acquired leaders to expand their own roles and reduce corporate leaders’ control; tractable tension	Non-distributed leadership; corporate leader control; hierarchical authority; atrophy of professional expertise; intractable conflict

The analysis consisted of moving across the interviews for each case, looking for patterns in the answers of interviewees. I moved from an intra-case (a detailed analysis for each case separately) to an inter-case analysis involving comparison of the findings across cases (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). I used tabular arrangements (Miles et al., 2014) to compare the cases. I sought feedback on my analysis from Alpha and the acquired managers by sending them a report on the findings. I also sought feedback from peers by presenting extensive data in various research seminars. The feedback I received allowed me to refine my analysis, and provided a check on the credibility of the findings (Creswell, 2013; Miles et al., 2014).

The Alpha leadership model

Interviewees indicated that Alpha followed ‘a balanced leadership model’ corporately, whereby a practice area leader was assigned to each of the engineering and architecture disciplines, and an operational leader was assigned to each geographic location. The practice area leader had major responsibility for growing revenues (prospecting for clients, for example), whereas the operational leader had major responsibility for ‘minding the business’ (managing the budget, for example). The expectation was that each profit center manager (and there were tens of such centers in the corporation) would report through a matrix structure to both the practice area leader and the operational leader. There was also an expectation that the practice area and the operational leaders would work closely together to manage growth and profitability in each of the profit centers reporting to them. However, it was possible – and likely – that one of these two leaders exercised more power on reports (or profit centers) than did the other leader.

Acquisition negotiations were typically undertaken by senior leaders in Alpha with senior principals in the acquired firms. Due diligence by Alpha was undertaken by an acquisition team that included lawyers, accountants, IT specialists and others. Upon closing of the acquisition, joint press releases would be published, and the integration of the acquired unit would commence. At this time, it became the responsibility of the corporate practice and operational senior leaders to collaborate with acquired firm leaders in the integration and management of the acquired unit. Joint leadership – between corporate and acquired managers – in the acquired firm was expected to start at an early stage, and to involve crafting a plan for the unit’s viability as part of Alpha. Thus, in terms of leading the acquisition integration process, in principle, Alpha followed a distributed leadership model. However, an Alpha senior manager indicated that the integration plan is generally ‘not well laid out for the firm being acquired.’ Another Alpha senior manager described the leadership of integration as follows:

Part of the role of each of our leaders is to make sure that everybody in the company now is part of the team. So we put that responsibility on a few people, not just one … And we also put the onus on the leadership of the acquired company, not just on our people. So the integration responsibility is you take the principals from our firm that they’re going to be directly involved with and then they get together and say here’s what we have to do … But it’s never the same. No two integrations are exactly the same … How you execute it is going to vary by each particular acquisition.

Interviews with other participants confirmed what senior managers in Alpha described: responsibility for integration tends to be diffused, and the integration as well as the leadership model that emerge in the acquired firm varies by acquisition.

In the following sections, I present how leadership was constructed in each of the acquired units. Table 3 summarizes the practices and the configuration that emerged in each of the four units.

Beta

Beta was an employee-owned corporation composed of two major divisions, Beta 1 and Beta 2. Participants indicated that Beta 1 was ‘a strong division’ that had helped the corporation survive, whereas Beta 2 was ‘a weak, underperforming division.’ Beta had experienced financial difficulties, and the sale of the firm was seen as a way to provide financial strength and viability. During the acquisition negotiations, Beta managers who had held senior administrative positions, but who were not responsible for professional staff or professional activities of the two divisions, provided stewardship of the sale of the organization. Once the sale was concluded, the two practice area divisions (Beta 1 and Beta 2) came under the supervision of different Alpha corporate managers, who were unanimous about Beta 1 coming into Alpha with ‘strong leadership’ and Beta 2 coming in with ‘weak leadership.’ Integration of the practice areas of Beta 1 and Beta 2 was left to the respective acquired managers who had been heading these divisions before the acquisition to coordinate with Alpha managers. The following two sections pursue the case of each of these two divisions.

Gamma: Overlapping leadership

In Gamma, there was a tractable tension owing to overlapping leadership roles of acquiring and acquired leaders. Acquired leaders in Gamma engaged in practices aimed at expanding their own roles and authority, and contracting the control exercised by the corporate leaders.

Alpha managers framed Gamma managers as highly capable and successful. They pointed out that Gamma was a successful partnership that had earned several design awards, and that the partners were highly regarded professionals and leaders in their discipline and their market:

Gamma is a very high performing firm … They have high profile projects. They have a high level of employee satisfaction and enthusiasm. They’re proud of what they do. And where Beta would see Alpha as coming in and lifting them up, I think Gamma would say they’re going to lift us up. (Alpha senior manager)

Historically, despite the large number of partners, Gamma leaders had practiced decision-making by consensus. The decision to sell the firm to Alpha had been endorsed by all partners after extensive internal discussions. Within Gamma, there was strong belief that the unit’s leaders understood their market best and that they were in the best position to make strategic decisions for their unit, albeit with input and support from the corporate leaders. Senior leaders in Gamma pointed out that with respect to strategic direction for Gamma as part of Alpha, they were in agreement with some – and not all – Alpha senior managers. In interviews, Gamma participants continuously affirmed: ‘we are a successful firm,’ and indicated that they should be given ‘leeway to manage the firm’ successfully as they had done before Gamma was acquired.

Gamma came under the supervision of corporate senior managers, some of whom had maintained a tight reign over profit centers in their divisions. These Alpha managers attempted to exert strong control over the acquired unit and to significantly influence Gamma’s strategic decisions. An Alpha leader stated:

I think mainly because of the personalities involved at Gamma, there appeared to be a fair amount of resistance to some of the systems and changes that we were looking to impose on Gamma. They had and continue to have some strong will and leadership there, and they’re looking out for the best interests of their offices and their people … These challenges are not unique to Gamma, but they seem to be more pronounced with them than certainly they were with Beta. (Alpha senior manager)

Gamma leaders engaged in resistance practices by refusing to conform, as a senior manager in Gamma pointed out:

We tell [the corporate leaders] when things need to be considered that they might not be considering … Like they tend to have a certain way of thinking about things and it takes a little bit to, kind of push them in a new direction. (Gamma senior manager)

The Gamma partners who had been chosen to lead the acquisition negotiations and the post-acquisition integration remained intimately involved in decisions that affected their unit. They exerted a high level of agency throughout. A corporate communications staff member in Alpha pointed out:

Gamma is probably the best example of an acquisition that worked extremely well because their leadership was there every step of the way … Had a point person that we went to who was really respected by his group. He looked at probably every word and communication that we put out. Rewrote it if he felt it would be better received by his employee group from a different perspective. (Alpha staff member)

Thus, in early stages of the acquisition, Gamma leaders had engaged in action aimed to limit corporate control, and re-writing corporate messages intended for Gamma employees is a small example. However, they also acted collaboratively with a variety of corporate managers and staff members who had some responsibility for integration of Gamma into Alpha, as an Alpha leader involved in the integration stated:

I think the integration went relatively well. It had a lot to do with the person that was chosen to be the operations lead inside of Gamma, Gary. To my mind we could not have had a better guy in that position. He truly understands, appreciates what we’re trying to achieve and has been … willing to listen. We’ve put in the effort to make sure he has the support. And I think the integration has gone really well. (Alpha senior manager)

Despite differences in points of view of Gamma and some Alpha managers, Gamma leaders had cultivated good relationships with some individuals in authority positions in Alpha. A Gamma leader pointed out that ‘If we make a case for an issue and request Sam’s assistance in helping us to promote it, I think he would.’ Sam was a corporate leader who indicated that ‘We’re less likely to object to things or change things or cause them to rethink things if they’re making money with what they’re doing.’ Gamma leaders engaged simultaneously in networking practices and resistance practices within Alpha, directing these different activities towards different leaders in the corporation. Thus relational practices showed pockets of mutual accommodation between some corporate managers and the Gamma managers, and other pockets of attempts to exert control by corporate managers with resistance practices by the Gamma managers.

In brief, leadership distribution in this unit showed a high level of collaboration between acquired and acquiring managers, with continued practices on the part of acquired managers to limit corporate controls that did not meet Gamma’s interests. Gamma managers sought to appropriate more leadership responsibilities by calling on the hierarchical authority of some corporate managers to limit the hierarchical authority of other corporate managers. There was a tractable tension characterized by overlap in the agency of acquiring and acquired leaders.

Omega: Non-distributed leadership

The configuration that emerged in Omega was non-distributed leadership whereby corporate control was exercised over the acquired firm. Omega operated in the area of industrial engineering – a practice area that was new to Alpha, which had envisioned expanding into this discipline in its aim to become a highly diversified firm in the field of engineering, as some Alpha managers pointed out. Participants indicated that Omega had been a successful firm in its past, but in the few years preceding the acquisition it had become a ‘dysfunctional partnership,’ where the different partners had disagreements about the direction the firm should take. It had also become expensive for partners to buy each other out, should some of them desire to retire. Thus, after considerable disagreement and debates, the partners decided to sell to Alpha. One Omega partner stated:

We had the main leader and originator of Omega [Alan], who we relied on … to set the vision and goals. He had no vision and goals to bring to the table … It was time for somebody else to take it to the next level. He wasn’t willing to do that. He had a lack of knowledge of the people in the organization and the role they played in making the organization successful. And a lack of knowledge of his own partnership that was going to complicate how we remained successful … Rather than getting rid of the leader, it was easier for the partners to be acquired by Alpha and get their money out of it. (Omega manager)

Acquisition negotiations took place between three partners (including the CEO) representing Omega, and representatives from Alpha who did not include a corporate manager, John, who would have major responsibility for Omega as a profit center. Interviewees indicated that John was opposed to expansion into industrial engineering. Acquired managers in Omega spoke about how, soon after the acquisition, they had to interact with John, who lacked understanding of their market and operations. They framed John’s motive as allowing the industrial unit to flounder because it required taking relatively high levels of risk and would net relatively low profit margins. In the following quotation, an Omega manager talks about the Omega leader, Alan, and about Alan’s view of Alpha’s senior executives:

Alan was a good negotiator. He was good at convincing clients to give us work. But as Omega grew, he seemed to do less and less … And then, as Alpha, he seemed to do even less … Basically his comment was Alpha doesn’t understand Industrial. And because the people that are making the decisions don’t understand it, they’ll never succeed. And he had certain ideas to make it succeed, but he couldn’t convince anybody in Alpha because we were losing money … But we didn’t know how hard it would be to succeed. We didn’t know how badly our hands would be tied at the time. (Omega manager)

As this quote indicates, relational practices in Omega consisted of control by corporate managers and submission by acquired managers.

There was a belief among Omega participants that because Alpha managers did not understand the business model in the industrial market segment, they set ‘unrealistically high’ profit targets for Omega to achieve. Acquiring and acquired leaders disagreed about the strategic direction that the unit should have taken as part of Alpha. It was believed that the conflict quickly escalated into a personal conflict between Alan and John:

Conflict goes from the top … There were conflicts between Alan and John … The two of them, very strong personalities, and never, never saw eye to eye. So I think that that was where the major conflict was, and just sort of cascaded down from there. (Alpha senior manager)

Within Omega, there were also divisions and disagreements among senior managers. Some of these managers did not support Alan’s leadership of the industrial unit as part of Alpha, and disagreed with what they saw as his ‘inactivity’ and allowing the unit to deteriorate. The divisions and mistrust amongst the Omega partners had trickled down to the level of other professional staff. In the first quote below, an Alpha executive compares Omega with Gamma (which was discussed above). In the second quote, a professional staff member from Omega provides his point of view of the Omega leaders’ inaction after the acquisition:

Gamma employees trusted their leaders. And so when their leaders said that this [acquisition of Gamma] is good for you, the employees followed … And coming back to Omega, that may have been an issue … that the employees didn’t feel that same level of affinity for their leaders. So they weren’t as inclined to follow. (Alpha senior manager)

It didn’t seem like the people that we dealt with when they were our bosses at Omega and they’re still our bosses here, really have much say. So everybody kind of shrugged their shoulders. And so you started losing more senior people. And as you lose more senior people, as soon as you start to make up proposals, you don’t have people on staff to build a decent team. So your chances of winning work are miniscule. (Omega professional staff member)

As the above indicates, Omega experienced major difficulties in the integration. By the time the study was conducted, about half of the professional staff and half of the partners originally associated with Omega (including the CEO) had left Alpha.

In brief, there were divergent frames within Alpha about the value of the industrial unit, divergent frames within Omega about Alan’s role, and divergent frames between Alpha and Omega’s managers about the vision and strategy for the industrial unit. Sour relationships between the most senior Alpha and Omega managers led to an intractable conflict that lasted for an extended period during which Omega received fewer resources. As the conflict persisted, the unit lost professional staff and revenue-generating opportunities, which prompted stronger corporate controls over the Omega operations. This was a situation of persistent non-distributed leadership whereby both corporate managers exerted control and acquired firm managers did not exert agency to attempt to reverse this control. These practices culminated in the atrophy of professional leadership and expertise.

To distribute or not to distribute leadership roles

The process of distributing leadership roles tends to be controlled by those in superior positions. In the context of acquisitions these individuals tend to be acquiring managers. Thus, as we saw that in the case of Beta 1, the corporate leader, who was confident about the acquired leader’s experience and capacities, devolved more responsibility to the acquired leader and his team. In the case of Omega, corporate leaders took control of the acquired unit, stripping away authority and contracting the role of the acquired managers. We see corporate managers engage in practices of distribution and ‘undistribution’ of leadership roles in Beta 1 and Omega, respectively.

Gamma’s case, however, shows that the distribution of roles in cross-hierarchical leadership teams is not exclusively the domain of those in superior positions. Managers in subordinate positions may engage in resistance and influence practices, which limit the authority of those in superior positions, leading to a re-distribution of roles. Gamma leaders practiced agency in pushing back corporate controls, and in connecting with specific corporate managers who were sympathetic to them and favorable to their exerting their authority. As Yukl (1989: 256) indicates, upward influence can lead to increased position power and allow managers to bypass the constraints of formal authority. Similarly, Denis et al. (2012: 271), calling for more research on the structuring of leadership roles, state that:

In hierarchical organizations characterized by a concentration of power, leadership is at first sight confounded with formal authority. In such contexts, plurality in leadership, at least in a superficial way, will be the result of acts of delegation by formal leaders in control of organizational processes. However, in a less visible way, plurality in the context of hierarchy may develop around situations of resistance by followers. Here, plural leadership may actually emerge as a response to structural constraints, as those with limited structural power develop leadership capacities within the process of getting organized to oppose authority or domination.

Further, in considering what might limit the agency of members in joint leadership, it is important to attend not only to situations where formal authority is exercised by some over others – limiting the latter’s ability to act – but also cases where members of the configuration remain inactive despite the absence of limiting authority. The case of Beta 2 is instructive in this regard. It is possible that the managers of Beta 2 lacked the capacities required to take charge or that they chose not to take charge in order to avoid making difficult, antagonizing decisions for their unit. Whatever the case, it remains that the non-exercise of agency is a form of practice that should be considered in understanding the distribution of leadership roles. As Uhl-Bien (2006) points out, non-interactions among managers can help structure leadership.

Another element to consider in the (non)distribution of leadership roles is the extent to which such practices are framed as conflictual by those we study. In the case of Gamma, the conflict was seen as tractable, and acquired managers found ways to counteract hierarchical power. In contrast, in the case of Omega, managers framed the leadership conflict as intractable. These two cases remind us that leadership and agency are socially constructed and situated, as Iszatt-White (2010: 411) points out:

When we talk, for example, of ‘delegating’ or ‘participating’ leadership behaviours … we need to step outside the mere technical definitions of these terms to understand … what these kinds of leadership really look like in a given setting. And it takes situated knowledge of individual leaders, their settings and followers, to determine whether a specific behaviour will be received as participating leadership or something else entirely (interference, for example, or inability to delegate) … [The meaning of an act of leadership] is inseparable from its situated occurrence, rather than being a property of the act itself … [L]eadership is ‘brought off’ as leadership … as members of the setting orient to particular leadership practices in a manner which recognizes them as such.

In sum, as the discussion in this section indicates, research on distributed leadership would benefit from attending to the intensity and the direction of agency (downward or upward) practiced to (re)distribute leadership roles. It would also benefit from attention to a variety of situations framed as conflictual and non-conflictual. As Denis et al. (2012: 271) state, ‘leadership studies have paid insufficient attention to phenomena associated with conflict.’

Leadership spaces in configurations

The findings point to ambiguous leadership spaces that emerge when different people come together to share in leadership roles and practices. ‘Shared role spaces,’ as Gronn (2002) addressed them, entail ambiguous responsibilities (Buchanan et al., 2007), allowing one or more leaders to expand their own authority. Jarzabkowski et al. (2010: 220) indicated that ‘authority ambiguity refers to the diffuse sources of power held by different constituents,’ and Weick (1985), following McCaskey (1982), reported on several sources of ambiguity which include unclear responsibilities and vague roles, as well as fluid participation in decision-making. Eisenberg (1984: 236) stated that ‘ambiguity is defined relationally’ and that the more ambiguous the space the greater the room for actors to ‘fill in’. Ambiguous leadership spaces are undetermined spaces that offer opportunities for multiple framings, relational practices and role definitions. Members can see these spaces as areas of collaboration, negotiation, contestation, domination or withdrawal. As interactants enter these spaces, their practices help structure the emergent leadership configuration.

The four cases provide insights on how these ambiguous leadership spaces may get structured. In Beta 1, managers from both acquiring and acquired firms engaged in positive framings of each other. Their relational practices involved mutual accommodation whereby the roles of the managers of both firms were defined and structured as complementary. The corporate leader and the acquired leader worked closely in integrating the unit. The former opened opportunities for the latter to join in strategy sessions and to connect with other managers throughout the organization. The acquired manager took the opportunity and actively engaged in making decisions for his unit. There was an ambiguous space that could have been filled by either the acquiring or the acquired manager. In early interactions, managers from both sides co-elaborated the space as one of support by the acquiring manager and decision-making activity by the acquired manager. The leadership space was structured through mutual adaptation (Gronn, 2002), whereby acquiring and acquired managers engaged in complementary practices that helped close the leadership deficiencies initially seen to characterize Beta as a whole.

An initially ambiguous leadership space can also emerge as a vacant space or as a crowded space depending on the practices of the interactants. It is possible to conceive of these two spaces as involving leadership deficits and surpluses. I use these terms to denote situations of lack and situations of overlap, respectively, of leadership practices and roles. In the case of Beta 2, the ambiguous leadership space could have been filled by either manager or could have been shared by both. This space was left vacant, as neither party exercised agency, and non-interactions between the parties persisted. In principle, several leaders should have been in charge, but in effect none took responsibility. Omega also demonstrates a case where practices left a leadership deficit. The relational practices here consisted of exercise of control by Alpha managers coupled with resignation by acquired managers. These practices resulted in a leadership space of domination of hierarchical authority and contraction of professional authority. The elimination of professional leadership roles and capacities from the configuration eventually weakened the unit and threatened its viability.

Sharing leadership roles may be seen as advantageous, as in the case of Beta 1, but it may also be seen as disadvantageous when the acquired firm has sufficient leadership depth on its own and its members will assume a wide range of leadership roles, as in the case of Gamma. In this case, the addition of corporate managers to the acquired firm’s configuration generated a leadership surplus that was seen as hindering the work of the acquired managers, who had to invest more time in managing relationships with an expanded leadership team whose contribution overlapped with their own. This became an overcrowded leadership space. Denis et al. (2001, 2010, 2012) point to earlier research (Hodgson et al., 1965) that emphasized the need for specialized, differentiated and complementary roles in leadership groups, which allow avoidance of role overlap. Gronn (2002) indicated that, although role overlap can provide mutual reinforcement, it may also result in redundant effort. This, and the findings from the present study, indicate that, in some situations, sharing leadership roles can lead to overcrowding and therefore becomes dysfunctional, and in other situations the presence of more leaders may still manifest in lack of requisite leadership practices. These dynamics deserve more attention in future research, not only in situations of acquisitions but also in a variety of contexts where distributed leadership may be in place or desired.

It is possible to conceive of joint leadership spaces as ranging on a continuum from a vacant space (e.g. Beta 2) to an overcrowded space (e.g. Gamma), with these two points corresponding to leadership deficits and surpluses, respectively. On this continuum, collaborative practices coupled with complementary roles of leaders will fall in the midpoint (e.g. Beta 1). The notion of a continuum of leadership spaces allows researchers to conceive of joint leadership as lending itself to multiple variations or configurations. It also allows researchers to consider situations where too little and too much leadership is practiced.

The above shows that distributed leadership models might present ambiguous spaces that can be negotiated and shared, appropriated, or vacated by the interactants. It also supports the view espoused by Jarzabkowski et al. (2010), that ‘much existing research is conducted from the perspective of one group of key actors who are trying to manage ambiguity’ and that a richer understanding is achieved by ‘examining how multiple constituents respond to the ambiguity that they encounter’ (Jarzabkowski et al., 2010: 221).