developing organization leaders as change agents in the public services (the 'change agent project')
Purpose
The purpose of this research project was to examine how leaders and those who aspired to become leaders amongst senior staff in English education and health service organizations sought and experienced support for their development in their leadership role and learned to act as agents of change. It was a collaborative project, undertaken by an experienced multidisciplinary team from the Universities of Cardiff and Bristol. The study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Award No RES-000-23-1136), from May 2006 to April 2009.
Focus of the Investigation
We wished to determine how the support offered by national leadership development bodies and other agencies focused on developing present and aspiring organization leaders as ‘change agents’, responsible for managing change and improving the effectiveness of their organizations. Our study explored how far they were encouraged to - and actually did - perceive themselves as change agents: whether on behalf of central government’s public service modernisation and personalisation policies, on behalf of other stakeholder groups, or in pursuing independent improvement agendas.
The investigation covered four largely or partially public-funded service sectors (secondary schools, primary care trusts, hospitals and universities). The relevant national bodies were the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), the NHS Institute of Innovation and Improvement (NHSIII) and the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (LFHE). The three bodies vary in their degree of independence from government. The NSCL and NHSIII are closely associated with government departments, but the LFHE is formally autonomous from government but receives some government agency funding. The research compared how these different levels of association with government were perceived to affect the remit of national bodies and the training and other support that they offered.
Research Activities
We adopted a qualitative approach to explore the potentially diverse perceptions and discourses of informants in depth. First, we analysed relevant policy documents and websites of central government, national leadership development bodies and professional associations (Table 1).
Table 1: Documents analysed
Documentary Sources (1997-2008) |
No. Documents |
Government documents (central government, health and education departments) |
48 |
Government documents addressed to NLDBs |
7 |
NLDB documents |
56 |
Sectoral professional association and other stakeholder documents |
17 |
Total |
128 |
Second, we conducted individual interviews with present and aspiring organization leaders (senior staff who included headteachers and deputy heads, university vice chancellors, pro-vice chancellors and deans, primary care trust and hospital chief executives and executive directors). We also interviewed informants from the national bodies, professional associations and government (Table 2). In collecting evidence, we sought permission from all potential informants, conducted the interviews in confidence, and anonymised all interview data.
Table 2: Interviews analysed
Type of interviewee |
Timing of Round, No. Interviews |
|||
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
|
Summer 2007 |
Autumn 2007-Spring 2008 |
Spring-Summer 2008 |
Summer-Autumn 2008 |
Secondary schools (5), headteachers, senior staff |
25 |
|
|
11 |
Primary Care Trusts (5), chief executives, senior staff, PEC Chairs |
21 |
|
|
15 |
Hospitals (4), chief executives, senior staff |
20 |
|
|
10 |
HEIs (6), vice chancellors, senior staff |
30 |
|
|
19 |
NLDB senior staff, NLDB-associated trainers |
|
27 |
|
|
Other HE leadership development providers |
|
5 |
|
|
Professional association representatives |
|
18 |
|
|
Central government (politicians, civil servants) |
|
|
17 |
|
Total (218 interviews with 163 informants) |
96 |
50 |
17 |
55 |
Findings
The main findings for each of our four research aims are very briefly summarised below.
Aim A:
to track the evolution in England since 1997 (and up to 2008) of discourses of public service reform and change with special reference to leadership development, as reflected in public documentation and the personal accounts of different stakeholders:
Government and national body leadership and leadership development discourses were largely aligned. Leadership and its development were represented as core to the government’s project of public service reform, also entailing focuses on management processes, user choice and involvement, inter-service alliances, and improving service functioning. Leadership was portrayed as a key contributor to driving change, with leadership development represented as a means of improving the skills of leaders to do so. Senior staff discourses, however, deviated somewhat, implying that they were moderately distanced from seeing themselves primarily as reformers.
Aim B:
to determine the variety of externally provided leadership development support activities which current and aspiring leaders seek and experience, and why, with particular attention to the significance that is accorded to relevant national leadership development:
National bodies were the single largest providers that senior staff in all sectors had sought or experienced, though overall they had more experience of other providers. They sought this provision mainly for improving their general thinking or leadership approach, not their contribution towards reform. A substantial minority reported motivations for seeking provision as being selected for participation or promoting their career. For senior staff, national bodies were more significant as sources of generic leadership development for professional and career development than promoters of reform.
Aim C:
to examine the acculturation and capacity-building processes, networks and mechanisms employed by these national bodies to orchestrate the implementation of modernisation and other change agendas:
National bodies for the largely public-funded sectors (NCSL and NHSIII) were closely aligned to reform discourses, whereas the LFHE, for the part-public funded higher education sector, was more distanced. Each national body disseminated similar discourses of leadership and leadership development to government. The national bodies framed leaders as change agents but left unspecified whose agents they should be. Half of senior staff reported emphases on generic change agency in this provision, though reproducing elements of government discourse. The national bodies thus orchestrated change agency which was consistent with but not primarily in relation to reforms, whatever their association with government. They also operated independently, with minimal coordination and cross-fertilisation of ideas.
Aim D:
to determine the extent to which those being trained or seeking leadership development support perceive that activities offered by the appropriate national leadership development body are crucial to their careers and have potential to inform their own capacity-building as change agents, and how far they perceive that their leadership development needs are capable of being met in other ways:
A third of senior staff stressed the importance of national body provision for career development. But the commonest perceived impact of this provision was on thinking about change agency, with more modest impact on thinking about leadership. Direct impact on practice appeared to be small, a significant minority stressing the importance of job experience over external provision for their learning as leaders. National bodies are significant career enhancers, but their impact on practice is reportedly diffuse and indirect.
Feedback and Dissemination
Engaging with research users was integral to the study. A steering group was established, with organization leader, professional association and national body representatives, who advised us on key phases of the research. We held an interim dissemination conference for senior practitioners in January 2008. The final dissemination conference was held on Friday 6th of March 2009 at Woburn House, Tavistock Square, London, which representatives of all stakeholder groups attended. Interviewees from all the sites where we conducted our research were sent briefings of the findings and were offered feedback sessions. They were conducted in the Spring and Summer of 2009.
List of Outputs
Project Team
Project Director
Professor Mike Wallace
http://www.cf.ac.uk/carbs/faculty/wallaceam/index.html
Project Co-Directors
Professor Rosemary Deem
http://www.rhul.ac.uk/Departments/faculties.html
Professor Jonathan Morris
http://www.cf.ac.uk/carbs/faculty/morrisjl/index.html
Professor Mike Reed
http://www.cf.ac.uk/carbs/faculty/reedm/index.html
Senior Research Officer
Dr Dermot O'Reilly
Research Officers
Dr Mike Tomlinson
Dr Jenneth Parker
Project Administrator
Ms Paula Mullins