Abstract
‘Distance’ is increasingly becoming one of the top concerns of contemporary society with the global spread of Covid-19. Phrases such as ‘physical distancing’, ‘social distancing’, ‘self-quarantine’ and ‘national lockdown’ constantly remind us of the importance of reconsidering our ‘distance’ from others. However, living in a digital age, we sometimes hear that distance is dead and reports of distance are greatly exaggerated (Olson and Olson, 2000), as digital technology development offers new means to improve the connection and proximity between people. Hence, we may find ourselves situated in a far-and-close paradox situation (Wilson et al., 2008) and be confused about how to define our relationships with others.
Hence, it is particularly pertinent to introduce this collected volume, edited by Michelle C. Bligh and Ronald E. Riggio, on the topic of leader-follower distance. In this book, all the authors seek to rekindle our enthusiasm for leadership distance as a way of opening up powerful new possibilities for rethinking important leadership issues, including leadership relationships and leadership contexts. It does not just describe how leadership distance can be explored and how it is related to leadership issues, but also engages with building a strong connection between these ideas of leader-follower distance and contemporary concerns regarding the follower aspect of leadership. As I will show later, the book establishes a new distance lens that illuminates the active and proactive role of follower in a changing global context, and in light of current concerns. At the same time, I argue that the book may focus on the positive aspects of leadership distance only and offer too many answers to leaders’ practices of creating and managing distance; this makes it readers difficult to move away from the romanticized and heroic assumptions adopted in the traditional leadership literature.
The two editors in the introduction set out the foundations of distance, i.e. ‘at the most basic level, distance shapes how and to what degree we can and do interact with others’ (p. 1). That is, distance is basic to an understanding of human agency and relationships. The value of the introduction lies in the editors’ invitation to think more critically about our conventional ways of viewing leadership. They seek to establish the topic of distance ‘as both a new approach to leadership and an important context for leadership that will essentially require a retesting and revaluation of much of what we now know or think we know’ (p. 2). This provides an enhanced understanding, in that rather than treating an individual leader as a self-contained and powerful figure who is distinguished from a ‘passive’ or ‘powerless’ follower, the notion of distance suggests the transmission and movement between entities, based on which the reader will begin to see leadership as a dynamic construct driven by the actions of individuals.
Following the insightful introduction, Chapter 1 in the first section of this book unpacks the very nature of distance in terms of two important aspects, ‘the type of active discontinuities between two entities’ and ‘the magnitude of each disconnect’ (p. 17), i.e. degrees and dimensions of distance. The authors Lewandowski and Lisk illustrate degrees as mainly related to proximity and detachment, while dimensions refer to physical, psychological, organizational, social, functional and social dimensions. By illuminating the many forms of leadership distance, they single out the central distinguishing features of distance, which may have subtle but important distinctions from other concepts. It would be useful for the reader to consider these aspects as the fundamental constitution of distance, through which to develop a more nuanced appreciation of how the complex constructions of leader-follower distance arise.
In Chapter 2, of particular importance is Shamir’s extended argument that leader-follower distance is a characteristic of both the leadership relationship and the leadership context. This builds new foundations for the study of leadership and it is undoubtedly an important issue for critical leadership scholars. To his mind, ‘distance can be viewed as something which is not an external condition given by the leadership context but, at least partially, as something which is created by the participants in the leadership relationship’ (p. 40). Regarding distance as a feature of leadership relationships, he provides rich examples of how leaders reduce their distance from followers, i.e. by having a personal presence, sharing personal information, inviting followers to participate in discussions and decisions. He also points out that followers can construct their distance from leaders in an internal and psychological manner. This represents an important sign to open up the study of leadership distance in a more dynamic way, which is discussed further in the second section of this book. More importantly, he resonates with the editors’ viewpoint in the introduction that distance is not merely an attribute of one particular type of relationship but is ‘inherent in all contexts to a greater or lesser degree’ (p. 2). Especially, he calls for paying closer attention to ‘two environmental developments’ that offer leaders new challenges (p. 39): one is globalization that makes leaders and followers geographically dispersed, the other is the widespread use of digital telecommunications that may stimulate the emergence of hierarchical, cultural and social separation that impacts on leaders’ and followers’ perceptions and behaviors. In this way of theorizing, the reader may be encouraged to develop more fine-grained analyses of unpredictable contextual opportunities and challenges that influence distance in the digital age.
The theoretical framing is followed by detailed discussions of how diverse dimensions and degrees of distance may emerge in different situations in the remaining book. I find some useful insights into follower aspects of distance, which further unpack the arguments made in the introductory essays. For example, in Chapter 4, Rebecca et al. pay close attention to the impact of employee engagement and involvement on leader-follower distance and identify various ways in which followers are likely to be influenced by leaders’ policies and strategies on engagement. Likewise, Birigit Schyns’ Chapter 5 addresses the relationship between distance and Leader–Member Exchange theory and provides insights into the micro-processes concerning how different types of leaders and different levels of follower needs can expand or reduce the distance between them. In my view, the authors’ ideas are related to functional distance, which has been defined as the ‘degrees of closeness and quality of the functional working relationship between the supervisor and the subordinate’ (Napier and Ferris, 1993: 337). Up to this point, the reader can see the authors’ efforts to try and make sense of the dynamics of leadership distance processes and, in the meantime, such accounts reveal an ongoing concern — how to learn more about how followers play an equally crucial role in creating and recreating distance from their followers.
However, while various ways in which followers contribute to the constitution of the distance with leaders have been proposed, I wonder whether they can serve as evidence to illuminate the dynamic and complex features of leader-follower distance. In the first piece of Leading Questions, ‘Questions of Distance’, Collinson (2005) warns us that the existing leadership distance studies ‘seem largely to preclude a concern with followers as active agents in the leadership relations… such approaches seem to take for granted that charismatic leaders are effective in manipulating followers’ identifies’ identities and that followers are largely passive and conformist to charismatic leaders’ (p. 241). As distance assumes ‘directionality’ (Lewandowski and Lisk: 18), it is not surprising to assume that many readers may be more interested in the direction of distance from leaders to followers, rather than from followers to leaders. I would argue that the detailed examples I show above indicate a static, durable and dominant relationship between leaders and followers through a follower-centric viewpoint of leadership. Although someone may argue that followers will react differently to different leadership practices on distance, which is an important sign for describing a dynamic and open leader–follower relationship, most of the authors there are not engaged to move this step further. Informed by a Critical Leadership Studies perspective that examines complex dynamics between leaders and followers and the significance of follower agency (Collinson, 2011), I am keen to see to what extent a follower is interested in and willing to be influenced by a leader’s value, vision and strategies, which potentially shapes richer and more relational meanings of leader–follower relationship and contexts they are deeply embedded as well.
So, what has the book to offer beyond this follower-centric viewpoint of leadership? I think that Chapter 3 offers one possibility of developing and expanding the argument that followers may construct alternative and oppositional distance from their leaders and challenge leader-dominant distance. The value of the chapter lies in the author’s interest in the exploration of leader-follower distance in the digital age. As he notes, ‘in fact, leaders themselves may be misrepresented when someone doctors an electronic record of their communication … leaders have an additional task on their hands today—the task of scanning the internet and monitoring how they are presented online (p. 75). Changes in the digital context may bring new challenges to leaders who lead from a geographical distance and use digital technology tools to facilitate communication with followers. Kahai highlights the new possibilities of the greater incidence of electronic communication, the greater transparency, openness and manipulation of communication, as these bring additional opportunities for followers to facilitate ‘dramaturgical claims’ about ‘where they are, what they are doing, and even who they are’ (Collinson, 2006). Here, the digital context, in the author’s sense, can act as a powerful vehicle for both leaders and followers to challenge and transform their distance relationships with each other. While the chapter does not explicitly focus on the active follower role, it offers many important insights to leadership and followership scholars who can approach leader-follower distance from the other direction, i.e. from the perspective of seemingly ‘powerless’ followers, and add conceptual diversity and empirical grounding to the research in this changing and unpredictable digital context.
Considered together, does this collected volume represent an excellent reader on leader-follower distance? My answer is yes. Although some outstanding earlier works on leadership distance have reflected on leaders’ practices in building distance (Antonakis and Atwater, 2002; Napier and Ferris, 1993), a significant contribution of this book is its heuristic value, since it frames issues conceptually and suggests new avenues for future research. The book explores different notions of distance and different leadership perspectives on distance (e.g. leader-member exchange theory, social identity theory, follower-centric leadership theories), which build new foundations for studying leadership and followership relationships and contexts. Indeed, the multiple cases in the book are intended as illustrations, not extended empirical investigations of leadership distance, but these cases can be viewed as an important basis for those who want to seek lessons on leadership distance research and stimulate them to examine this phenomenon in depth in the real world.
Nevertheless, one limitation of the book I want to point out is that the book tried to provide a more balanced viewpoint on leader-follower distance, but it is inadequate. Indeed, it presents us with clues for reconsidering the role of the follower in the construction of distance. Most chapters appear to claim the importance of effective leadership and the ways followers contribute to effective leadership is clearly not reflective of a thorough conception of the tension of leader-follower distance, even if the introductory essays have pointed out the potential. In my view, it would be more valuable not to just talk about how leaders improve followers’ commitments to their practices and strategies on distance and fall into the trap of old questionable leader-centric assumptions, but to shift the part of the attention to the complex nature of follower-leader distance and the side of the follower. As Cooper (2010) argues, ‘distance is the double stance or di-stance that characterizes human movement between things’ (p. 306). All leadership and followership relationships may occur as the movements between individuals, either moving closer to or moving away from each other. We could foreground the term follower in follower-leader distance to appreciate that followers are equally essential to leaders in the distance constitution processes. By adding more discussions of how person-followers create, maintain, reinforce, challenge and transform the distance with their leaders to the concept of leader-follower distance or follower-leader distance, we would fit into a wider recognition of Critical Leadership Studies. Distance, in this sense, is a means of both expressing consent and dissent, control and resistance, opening an innovative way of understanding followership relationship and context as well.
Concerning the ongoing problem in the followership domain, in my opinion, while the reversing the lens approach — shifting the gaze from leaders to followers — presents a reconsideration of followers as equally important as leaders (Carsten et al., 2010; Sy, 2010), the approach is still confined within an effective followership paradigm where followers’ contributions are made to organizational and leadership objectives (Collinson, 2011). This makes it hard to distinguish followership from leadership, followers from leaders, since followership has tended to be viewed as a particular style or context of leadership. On this point, I suggest that this book has the potential to provide a new explanation lens, i.e. distance, to help make a subtle but important distinction between followership and leadership, between followers and leaders. Particularly, many readers, and I assume the authors as well, would agree that many chapters attempt to stress that there is certain distance or separation created, indicating constructions of (un-)asymmetrical and (un-)equal relationships between followers and leaders. Followers’ practices of constructing distance mean that a certain distinction and separation from leaders cannot be simply assumed or eradicated. In this way, the distance lens here advocates that followership scholarship should learn from and not perpetuate old questionable debates on leadership, by carefully asking what the implications of building on this lens are.
Therefore, to certain extent, I believe the book advances the self-awareness of a practicing manager-leader. It clearly has much to offer him or her as regards practical guidance and makes suggestions as to how to lead physically detached employees. But I wonder whether the real purpose of the book is about the legitimation of leader status or worth of doing so. The discussions in the book point to a leadership dilemma in that psychological, organizational, cultural and social distance in contemporary society are constantly creating challenges for exercising effective leadership relationships. Even if they may use distance as a vehicle for achieving organizational ends to some extent, there is another possibility that followers may damage and transform distance based on their own interests and concerns in the organization. Hence, providing too many practical answers to ‘how to lead from the distance’ may not stimulate the manager-leaders to think of the complexities of the issue but simply convince them of the benefits and opportunities of doing so. One possible solution to this problem is to develop more nuanced understandings of the nature of leader-follower distance and critically reflect on important questions to what extent leaders’ practices and new technologies can overcome physical or other types of distance and whether we are underestimating the follower agency potential (Collinson, 2005).
Moreover, the book would also suit the reader with a broad interest in organizational studies and management: see in particular Lewandowski and Lisk’s use of ‘organizational distance’ in dyads and teams, and ‘cultural distance’. Issues like these are increasingly recognized as important to organizational and inter-organizational levels of organizing. As McCabe (2015) addresses in his paper, the problem of distance is not new to bureaucratic organizations, and we need more sustained analyses of the conditions and outcomes of distance in organizational lives. As I finished reading the book, I was left pondering something of a distance paradox mentioned at the beginning and became more sensitive to any empirical phenomenon in relation to distance. In short, this volume brings key leadership and organization studies questions to the fore, which still require more in-depth and critical studies in the future.
