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Conceptualizing and
implementing the distributed
leadership practices in
Indian organizations
Preliminary findings
Ajay K. Jain
Department of Human Behavior and Organization Development,
Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, India, and
Hans Jeppe Jeppesen
School of Business and Social Sciences, Department of Psychology and
Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to measure employees’ attitude toward distributed leadership
(DL) practices and investigate the challenges involved in implementing DL practices in Indian
organizations.
Design/methodology/approach – This study is conducted within an exploratory research
framework. The data were collected from 180 young middle-level executives from a diverse group of
industry sectors belonging to private and multinational organization located in no rthern part of India.
Unstructured (personal interviews and focus group interviews) and structured interview schedule
(questionnaire) were administered to measure employees’ attitude and challenges of implementation.
Findings – The qualitative and quantitative analytic strategies were adopted to analyze the data.
Results of exploratory factors analysis showed the existence of five underlying dimensions about the
significance of DL practices, namely, self-initiatives, improved functioning, achieving organizational
goals, accountability and mutual respect. Furthermore, results showed the importance of contextual
factors in implementing DL practices namely horizontal structure, professionalism, work commitment
and power sharing. Also, the attitudinal dimensions were found to be positively correlated with the
dimensions of implementing DL practices in Indian work context.
Research limitations/implications – This study strengthens the importance of measuring
employees’ attitudes that can be a good predictor of implementing best practices in organizations. The
major limitation of this study is of the small sample size and has been limited to young managers.
Originality/value – This is an original paper based on the empirical data from Indian managers.
No study is conducted on the concept of distributing leadership in Indian wo rk context on a similar or
related theme.
Keywords Attitude towards and implementation of distributing leadership, Distributing leadership,
Indian organizations
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Distributed leadership (DL) has emerged as a new perspective on leadership and
received g reater attention from researchers in the field of management and education
since the beginning of twenty-first century. The underlying assumpti on behind the
development of DL in organizations is to promote employees’ participation in
leadership functions to improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness. The
concept of DL involves interaction of multiple actors to ac hieve organizational goals
The cur rent issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0262-1711.htm
Received 12 December 2012
Revised 21 February 2013
Accepted 18 April 2013
Jour nal of Management Development
Vol. 33 No. 3, 2014
pp. 258-278
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0262-1711
DOI 10.1108/JMD-12-2012-0154
258
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(Uhl-Bien, 2006) and has been conceived as a good substitute to person centric
approaches in traditional leadership theories (Avolio et al., 2009). Researchers have
argued that leadership is not the monopoly or responsibility of just one person, rather
there is a ne ed for collective and systematic understanding of lead ership as a social
process (Barker, 2001; Hosking, 1988) and to focus on distributed forms of leadership
(Bolden, 2011; Currie and Lockett, 2011; Fitzsimons et al., 2011).
A significant amount of research is conducted by the researchers in the field of
primary, secondary and higher education (e.g. Leithwood et al., 2009; Spillane, 2006;
Spillane and Diamond, 2007; Bolden et al., 2008). Furthermore, the conce pt of DL has
also been studied in health care and social care context to some extent (e.g. Buchanan
et al., 2007; Currie and Lockett, 2011). Other researchers have taken the concept of DL
in small and medium size organizational context and found the impor tance of blended
leadership (a mix of heroic individual leadership and distributed team leadership) for
building a successful entrepreneurial firms (Kempster et al., 2010).
Much research has examined the significance of DL practices in the context of
education and hospitals in a qualitative manner and little empirical evidences are
available to understand the employees’ attitude toward DL practices and the issues
and challenges which are involved in implementing the concept of DL in other
organizational contexts. Hence, this study is aiming at investigating the employees’
attitude toward DL practices in organization and the challenges involved in
implementing DL practices in organizations. This is an explorator y study, therefore,
findings are not conclusive about the role and importance of DL practices
in organizations.
Theoretical background
Gronn (2002) has more formally used the concept of DL as a unit of analysis in a more
formal manner. However, Gronn (2008) has opined that Gibb (1954) and Benne and
Sheats (1948) were the first authors who have used the concept of DL in their writings.
These writers have highlighted the idea that leadership is probably best conceived
as a group quality, as a set of functions which must be carried out by the group and
a group may operate with various degrees of diffusion of leadership functions. Thus
researchers believe that lead ership should not be regarded as an attribute of
individuals rather property of group processes. The concept of DL is built on com mon
tasks and shared values. It is not something “done” by an individual “to” others,
or a set of individual actions through which people contribute to a group or
organization. It is a group activity that works through and within relationships, rather
an individual action (Bennett et al., 2003). Thus, DL is about leadership practices rather
than related to leaders, leadership roles or leadership position. Leadership practices
take shape in the interactions of people and in their situations, rather than from the
actions of an individual leader. In this way, the idea of DL can be linked to Follett’s
(1942) work who has reprimanded the idea of bossism. She strongly advocated
the concept of “power with” rather “power over.” Thus, DL practices might involve the
opportunities for employees of their participation and involvement in organizational
decision-making processes and thereby get a share in power and authority.
Gronn (2002) has classified DL practices into numerical action and concertive
action. The numerical action refers to the overall numerical frequency of the acts
contributed by each group member that has the following characteristics: leadership is
dispersed among many, or all, members of an organization; chance that all members
may be leaders at some stage; and DL is seen as sum of all individuals’ activities.
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The concertive action refers to the multiplicity or pattern of group functions of leaders.
According to Gronn (2002), there are three are three fo rms of concertive action may be
attributed with leadership. First there are collaborative modes of engagement which
arises spontaneously in the work place. Second, there is the intuitive understan ding
that develops as part of close working relations among colleagues. Third there is
a variety of structural relations and institutionalized arrangements which constitute
attempt to regularize distributed action. In each of these cases, the agents constituting
the membership of the units act conjointly. Conjoint agency means that agents
synchronize their actions by having regard to their own plans, those of their peers,
and their sense of unit membership Furthermore, Gronn (2002) has conceptualized two
properties of DL. First is “interdependence” which is revealed in the forms of
overlapping responsibilities of organizational members and these responsibilities may
be complementary. Second is “coordination” which means managing dependencies
between activities through proper arrangements between task, people and resources.
Mayrowitz (2008) has described the following four common usages of the term DL
which have their own strengths and weakness:
(1) leadership activity is distributed;
(2) DL is practiced through the interaction of multiple individuals;
(3) DL improves the efficiency and effectiveness; and
(4) DL maximizes the human development process within the organization.
In a quan titative study, Hulpia et al. (2009) have developed Distributing Leadership
Inventory (DLI) to assess the concept of DL in large secondary sc hools. They found
“support (consisting of variables pertaining to setting a vision and developing people)
and super vision” (pertains more to instructional leadership) as two important functions
of DL. This empirical study confirmed the belief that leadership is not solely the
domain of one person and confir med the previous findings in this direction (Spillane
and Diamond, 2007).
Theories on DL. The conceptual foundation of DL is based on theory of distributed
cognition and activity theory (Spillane, 2004; Gronn, 2000). Distributed cognition
means the pattern of overall activity-based attention between socially positioned
actors, and their relations with various representational and computational objects,
tools or implements in the performance of tasks (Hutchins, 1995). Regarding
leadership, Gibb (1954) made this claim tha t leadership is probably best conceived
as a group quality as a set of functions which must be carried out by the group.
The necessary imperative of Gibb’s claim is that leadership either can be concentrated
or distributed. Later, Gibb (1958) claimed that leaders and followers are not mutually
exclusive categories rather it has transient status. This means that leaders and
followers frequently exchange their roles an d they could be thought of as collaborators
in accomplishing the group goals. In a way, DL becomes an influencing process
between g roup members.
Another theory to be followed regarding the understanding of the concept of DL is
activity theory (e.g. Vygotsky, 1978; Leonte
´
v, 1978; Engestro
¨
m, 1999). The unit of
analysis in activity theory is the concept of object oriented, collective, and culturally
mediated human activity, or activity system. It contains three interacting entities – the
individual, the object and the community. In a ways, activity theory bridges the gap
between the individual subject and the social reality and rejects the isolated
individuals as insufficient unit of analysis. Regarding leadership-outcome relationship,
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Kerr and Jermier (1978) did not find causal support for leadership phenomena to
explain the organizational outcomes. They found that personal attributes of
organization members (e.g. their self-motivation to perfo r m), organizational
processes (e.g. autonomous work group no rms) and characteristics inherent in the
work itself (e.g. its routine o r programmed nature) made the centralized leadership
redundant. Thus leadership activities are well spread over the people, task
and situations.
Perspectives on DL. Researchers have developed the following three perspectives to
understand the concept of DL in the context of school leadership:
(1) functionalist model (Firestone, 1996; Heller and Firestone, 1995);
(2) neo-institutional model (Ogawa and Bossert, 1995); and
(3) interactional model (Spillane, 2005; Spillane et al., 2001, 2004).
First approach focusses on specific leadership functions which had to be performed
regardless of who perform the tasks. This approach is in contradiction to earlier
approach which focusses on the need for strong leadership from the administrators
and outside experts to play a key role in the context of planned change. Firestone and
Corbett (1988) identified following six leadership functions namely:
(1) providing and selling a vision;
(2) obtaining resources;
(3) encouragement and recognition;
(4) adapting standard operating procedures;
(5) monitoring the improvement; and
(6) handling disturbances.
Second approach considers leadership as a quality of an organization rather the
province of few people in certain parts of the organization (Ogawa and Bossert, 1995).
The underlying assumption in this approach is that leadership is related to
organizational roles whic h lie in the system of relations among the incumbents of roles
and affects organizational legitimacy rather than embedded in particular roles. So
leadership flows through the networks of roles that comprise organizations and it can
be found throughout the o rganizations (Katz and Kahn, 1978).
Third perspective emphasizes leadership practices rather than leaders or their roles,
functions, routines and structures and based on cognitive distribution and activity
theor y. According to this perspective, leadership practice is viewed as a product of the
interaction of school leaders, followers and their situations (Spillane et al., 2001;
Spillane, 2005). T hus, it is assumed that there are strong p ossibilities of
interdependencies among leaders, followers and situations rather viewing le adership
practice as product of leader’s skills and knowledge. This approach combines
the formal structural arrangements and infor mal social networks. It emphasized on the
activity than position or role.
So these perspectives emphasize the possibilities of including or integrating
employees in leadership practices. However, all three perspectives are developed within
the broad context of school and education. These frameworks reflect a common search
for substitutes for traditional role-base d leadership initiated by Kerr and Jermier
(1978). These perspectives negate the leader’s ability to either improve or impair
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subordinate satisfaction and performance. These frameworks emphasize le adership
practices as a function of leaders, followers and their situations. In this study, the focus
is on understanding the importance and implementation of DL practices from an
organizational point of view in Indian work context.
Consequences of DL
The consequences of DL process are seen on the organizational transformation
process in schools, organizational commitment and job satisfaction of teachers and
students’ achievement.
Organizational change and learning outcomes. According to Leithwood et al. (2006),
DL is a potential contributor to positive change and transfo rmation in sc hool systems.
In a qualitative case study, Muijs and Harris (2006) have found the p ositive impact of
teacher leadership on school improvement. Teacher leadership was seen to empower
teachers, and contributed to school improvement through this empowerment and the
spreading of good practice and initiatives generated by teachers. In another study,
Harris (2011) has found the potential for DL to make a difference to organizational
change and improvement. This study suggests that principals need to relinquish
power and authority; that there is an inevitable shift away from leadership as position
to leadership as interaction and that principals will need to build a high degree of
reciprocal trust to negotiate successfully the fault lines of formal and informal
leadership practice.
Regarding the learning outcomes, McGuinness (2009) has found that a high level
of DL, strong sense of shared vision, much team working, collaboration and
organizational learning had a strong impact on school achievement and pupil
attainment. In a longitudinal study, Heck and Hallinge r (2010) have supported the
perspective on DL that aims at building the academic capacity of schools as a means of
improving student learning outcomes. In a study, Leithwood and Mascall (2008) have
found that collective or shared leadership explained a significant proportion of
variation in student achievement across schools. In another study in Taiwanese public
elementary school, Chang (2011) have showed that DL not only had a positive influence
on academic optimism but also indirectly affected student achievement.
Job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Hulpia and Devos (2009) have
examined the impact of school leaders’ perceptions concerning the cooperation of the
leadership team, the distribution of leadership functions and participative decision
making on school leaders’ job satisfaction. They found that that job satisfaction was
significantly related to the cooperation of the leadership team and the school type.
However, the amount of formal distribution of leadership functions and p articipative
decision making of teachers in the school policy did not have a significan t influence on
school leaders’ job satisfaction. Simila rly, scientists have also examined the
relationship betw een teachers’ organizational commitment and contextual variables
of teachers’ perceptions of the quality and the source of the supportive and supervisory
leadership fun ction, participative decision making and cooperation within the
leadership team. In this study, they found that teachers’ organizational commitment is
mainly related to quality of the supportive leadership, cooperation within the leadership
team, and participative decision making (Hulpia et al., 2011; Hulpia and Devos, 2010).
Implementation of DL
The concept of DL needs to be supported by right kind of cultural and structural
context of the organization for its effective implementation. As Muijs and Harris (2006)
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suggested that a range of conditions needed to be in place in schools for teacher
leadership to be successful, including a cultu re of trust and support, structures that
suppo rted teacher leadership but were clear and transp arent, strong leadership, with
the head usually being the originato r of teac her leadership, and engagement in
innovative forms of professional development. So we can find the role of culture of
trust and organizational structure in successfully implementing the concept of DL in
organizations. In a study Harris (2011) suggests that principals need to relinquish
power and authority str ucture to build a high degree of reciprocal trust in the
successful implementing the conce pt of DL in organizations.
Rutherford (2006) has examined the role of organizational restructuring in the
successful implementation of teacher leadership in case of an elementary school moving
toward becoming an Edison charter school. The new structure in school has enhanced
the nature and scope of teacher leadership. Further, Woods (2004) has found two main
characteristics which are associated with DL. First is the degree of control and autonomy
and within this the scope of dispersed initiative. Second is concerned with boundaries of
participation. The organizational structure needs to be aligned to create the opportunity
of participation in decision making by organizational members. Thus, leadership may be
distributed; however, it does not necessarily imply an absence of hierarchy. This is
evident from the fact that DL may comprise teams; informal work groups, committees,
and so on, operating within a hierarchical organization (Huxham and Vangen, 2000).
Therefore, professional hierarchy moderates the execution of DL within the professional
bureaucratic set up like hospitals (Currie and Lockett, 2011). In a study on urban middle
school in two mid-Atlantic states, Murphy et al. (2009) have illustrated the ways in which
the principal of Glence middle school worked to overcome cultural, structural and
professional barriers to create dense organization. Thus organizational structure may
mediate in the process of implementing DL practices in organizations.
Issues and challenges in implementing DL. The issues and challenges involved in
implementing the concept of DL in organizational context are related to the underlying
processes of distributing leadership itself. Scholars are not able to satisfactorily answer
the following ques tions: first, who is distributing (formal or informal leaders); second,
what is to be distributed (tangible or intangible resources and rewards); third, whom to
distribute (selecting the individual for distribution of task); and fourth, what motives
are present behind the distribution of leadership (altruistic or egoistic).
In the light of these questions, we can argue that DL practices can also be destructive
to organizational functioning. Though, most literature has focussed on the bright side of
DL for a social system, e.g., school, hospital, etc. From a negative perspective, we can
argue that DL will not be able to achieve its intended goal of improving employees’
participation if they do not have trust in organizational authorities and feel that their
participation will not be appreciated and recognized by the employer or supervisors.
Furthermore, organizations may face more challenges in implementing the concept of
DL due to a lack of motivation among employees to participate in leadership activities.
For employees, leadership functions, at times, can be secondary to their job profile or to
their personal goals. It may also be possible that employees do not have necessary skills
and competencies required to take over the leadership role.
In a recent commentary, Wegge et al. (2012) have commented that “We Leadership”
can be less romantic in response to Yammarino et al.’s (2012) paper on collective
leadership approaches. Also, Pearce and Sims (2002) have indicated the prevalence of
destructive fo rms of leadership such as aversive leadership, and so the idea of dark
side of DL is ignored by its proponents. DL is conceptualized and defined as a positive
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form of leadership processes. So the participation and involvement in itself is not
enough until employees have some influence over strategic and tactical decisions
which have direct or indirect impact on their well-being and productivity as an
employee. Thus it means that the concept of DL can be utopian in absence of the
required pre-conditions at individual and organizational level for its implementation
in organizational context.
The present study
The review of empirical and theoretical findings indicated that most work on the
concept of DL is carried out in the educational context, especially on teacher leadership.
Also, some amount of work is conducted in the context of hospitals and social unit.
The research findings suggest that contex t have significant impact on the successful
implementation of DL. In this way, organizational str ucture and culture may play
a significant role in implementation of DL. Before implementing the concept of DL,
organizational changes are required at design level.
Thus, there is a scope to study DL in different socio-cultural contexts because most
studies are conducted in the UK, the USA, Australia and in European context.
Therefore, Indian work context may be an interesting place to understand the
conceptualizat ion and implementation of DL practices because it has strong
co-existence of opposites. On the one hand, there is an emphasis on power,
hierarchy, closed and direct supervision in Indian ways of working. As Hofstede’s
(2001) study has ranked India relatively higher on masculine and power dimension
which indicates appreciation for hierarchy and a top-dow n structure in society and
organizations. Indian culture has been ranked high on collectivistic values on the
on the other hand. As India has received a score of 48 in Hofstede study and that
indicates clear collectivistic traits. This means that there is a high preference for
belonging to a larger social framework in which individuals are expected to act in
accordance to the greater good of one’s defined in-group(s) (http://geert-hofstede.com/
india.html). So it would be interesting to explore what employees think about the
concept of DL and its implementation in Indian work context. Since high-power
distance culture in India shows lower significance of DL practices, but collectivistic
values indicates the opportunity for its place in Indian organizations. Since DL
practices may need pluralistic orientation in the society. So it is a relevant research
idea to explore what employees think about the concept of DL and challenges of its
implementation across various industry sectors. Furthermore, theory of distributed
cognition and activity theory emphasize that single individual is an insufficient unit of
analysis in case of distributing leadership. However, these theories and existing
research findings do not measure employees’ attitude toward DL and role of contextual
factors in successfully implementing DL practices. Based on the above analysis, this
study investigates the following research questions:
RQ1. What is the perception of employees toward DL belonging to various industry
sectors?
RQ2. What are the issues and challenges involved in implementing DL practices in
Indian organizations?
RQ3. What is the strength of relationship between the attitude toward DL and
implementation of DL?
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Methods
The paper reports the preliminary findings from the work done as part of a larger
research project on the topic of “DL.” This research has been conducted in two stages.
Stage-I: qualitative phase
The importance and implementation of DL practices were explored by asking an
open-ended question to 60 middle-level executives in a personal interview and focussed
group interview situation. They were working in private sector and multinationals
corporations. Respondents were given the following two questions to provide their
free and frank opinion; “(1) what is the meaning of distributing leadership in your work
context? (2) Do you have any ideas concerning how distributing leadership could
be implemented in your organization?” Based on the qualitative analysis of these
responses, an expert group of five professionals from the academic world have identified
30-characteristics for attitude toward DL and 28-issues and challenges regarding its
implementation in Indian organizations. The results are presented in Tables I and II.
Stage – II
Participants and procedure. In total, 180 middle-level managers from the private,
public and multinational organizations located across the national capital region of
Conceptualizing DL Frequency
1. Decentralized decision making 58
2. Individual responsibility 27
3. Autonomy 10
4. Team spirit 10
5. Empowerment of functional decisions 10
6. Accountability 7
7. Tr ust and faith 7
8. Decision making is open for critique/consultation/inclusive process 6
9. Identifying potential leaders 6
10. Increasing efficiency 5
11. Flatter hierarchy 5
12. Motivating employees 5
13. Rewarding initiative and proactive value addition 5
14. Giving opportunities for people development 5
15. Independent thinking 5
16. Treating employee with dignity 4
17. Lesser work for senior management 4
18. Visioning the future growth of the organization 3
19. Employee involvement 3
20. Equality opportunities 2
21. Grooming young employees 2
22. Sense of security 2
23. Flexible approach 2
24. Goals are clearly defined to each stakeholder/concerned person 2
25. Progressive outlook 1
26. Empathy with others 1
27. Personal maturity 1
28. Hierarchy may still exist 1
29. Ownership lies at top 1
30. Delay in decision making 1
Table I.
Shows the meaning of
distribution of leadership
with frequency
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Delhi, India from various industrial sectors (automobile, software, media, oil
exploration, hotel, business process outsourcing, etc.) participated in this study.
Out of 180 participants, 64 percent of resp ondents were working in service
sector-related organizations while rests of them were working in manufacturing
companies. The average age of the sample is 26.01 years, ranging from a minimum
of 23 years to a maximum of 32 years. The sample comprised 90 percent males and 10
percent females. In all, 86 percent of the respondents were graduates with degree in
science and engineering, while 14 percent had degrees in other fields like management,
commerce, arts, etc. The mean value of work experience was 3.2 years ranging from
a minimum of 2.2 years to a maximum 5.5 years. Majority of the respondents
were unmarried.
The questionnaire related to the conceptualization and implementation of DL practices
(Distributed Leadership Practices Questionnaire) was administered to the respondents in
face-to-face condition. Items were rated on a five-point Likert-type scale where 1 indicates
“Strongly Disagree” and 5 indicates “Strongly Agree.”
Results
Qualitative analysis
The data collected from 60 respondents through personal interviews and focussed
group interviews were analyzed by using content analysis approach. Content analysis,
DL implementation Frequency
1. Flexible organizational structure 26
2. Trust and coop eration among employees 22
3. Impart training for competencies development 19
4. Promoting entrepreneurial spirit among employees 14
5. Brainstorming ideas among various functions 12
6. Clearly organizational goals 10
7. Higher degree of contextual fit 8
8. Receiving and discussing new ideas 8
9. Effective reward system 8
10. Equal power to all 8
11. Self-motivation 6
12. Empowering the he ads of each function 6
13. Risk taking attitude 5
14. Supportive organizational culture 4
15. Informal work atmosphere 3
16. More power at lower level to be given 2
17. Quality consciousness 2
18. Reducing levels of formality 2
19. Changing the power structure/demystification 2
20. High technical and managerial skills 1
21. Less emphasis on fo rmal positions 1
22. Horizontal career growth 1
23. Glocalization (global-local) of leadership 1
24. High moral values 1
25. Equal opportunity 1
26. Rotation of leadership role 1
27. Step by step implementation 1
28. Mentoring 1
Table II.
Issues concerning the
implementation of the DL
practices in Indian
organizations
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as a scientific research methodology in the social sciences, is used for studying the
content of communication. There are many definitions of content analysis. Content
analysis has been defined as a systematic, replicable technique for compressing many
words of text into fewer content categories based on explicit rules of coding (Berelson,
1952; GAO, 1996; Krippendorff, 1980; Stemler and Bebell, 1998). Kerlinger’s (1973)
offers a broad definition of content analysis as a method of studying and analyzing
communication in a systematic, objective and quantitative manner for the purpose
of measuring variables. When there is a need to delineate and identify trends and
patterns in the documents, as we had at our hand in this research project, qualitatively
content analysis was one of the best techniques based on the reliability and
effectiveness in front of us. It can involve any kind of analysis where communication
content (speech, written text, interviews, images) is categorized and classified (Stigler
et al., 1999). Based on content analysis, a list of non-overlapping attributes is developed
to measure employees’ attitude toward DL and challenges of its implementation in
Indian organization. The lists of attributes are presented in the Tables I and II.
Table I shows the meaning attributed by the respondents to conceptualize and
describe the characteristics of distributing leadership. Most participants have
described the concept of DL by labeling decentraliz ed decision making, empowerment,
involvement and participation of all employees, an environment of individual
autonomy, trust and team spirit. Furthermore, some respondents also believed that
hierarchy may still exist and ownership lies at the top. For others, concept of DL means
delay in decision-making process. The results from content analysis are supportive to
the Firestone and Corbett’s (1988) functionalist approach to DL.
Table II shows the means and ways of implementing DL practices. The analysis
shows the importance of flexible organizational structure, trust and cooperation
among employees, comp etencies development, entrepreneurial spirit and
institutionalization of leadership p ositions across functions, geog raphy and
products. There is also an emphasis on employees’ self-motivation and effective
reward systems to implement DL practices in Indian work context. These qualitative
results are supportive to the action research of Huxham and Vangen (2000) in a number
of public and community collaborations. The authors conceptualize leadership in
collaborations as stemming from three leadership media – structures, processes and
par ticipants.
Exploratory factor anal ysis. Based on the qualitative analysis of the personal and
focussed group interview data, two questionnaires were developed. First questionnaire
was developed to measure the attitude toward DL practices in organization and second
questionnaire was developed to measure the challenges involved in the implementation
of DL practices. Each questionnaire was consisting of 30 items. A principal component
analysis with varimax rotation was conducted to explore the underlying dimensions.
Per usal of the eigenvalues, scre e plot and factor loadings (Tables III and IV) reveal the
impo rtance of five factors for attitude toward DL practice and four factors regarding
the implementation of DL practices. The following criteria have been used to determine
whether an item to be loaded on its underlying factor: first, the item had to have
a minimum factor loading of 0.50 or better on one factor, second, the cross-loading
differential across the two factors had to be X0.20 (cf. Acquino and Reed, 2002).
Reliability analysis. Further, the reliability analysis was carried out to see interna l
consistency among the items of each sub-scale which were derived from exploratory
factor analysis. The criteria of 0.60 and above is adopted to select or drop the entire
sub-scale (Cortina, 1993) keeping in mind the number of items in each sub-scale and
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12 345
Eigenvalue 2.849 2.462 2.423 2.220 2.104
% of variance 9.496 8.206 8.076 7.401 7,.014
Cumulative % of variance 9.496 17.701 25.778 33.178 40.192
Number of items 4 4 3 3 2
Reliability coefficient 0.72 0.66 0.61 0.60 0.65
Factor naming Self-
initiatives
Improved
functioning
Achieving
organizational
goals
Accountability Mutual
respect
13. DL can promote an independent thinking among employees. 0.713
18. DL can make employees to adapt with the risky situations more
effectively. 0.713
22. DL can improve the firefighting ability of employees. 0.673
20. DL can make employee to be more responsive in conditions of urgency 0.537
26. DL can mitigate the conflicts betwe en departments 0.760
8. DL can improve the functioning of the organization 0.663
23. DL can make employee more creative and innovative at the work place 0.640
10. DL can help in enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the
organization 0.534
14. DL can add value to organizational products and services 0.768
24. DL can help in achieving the organizational goals 0.704
4. DL is important to create an atmosphere of team-work 0.535
11. DL can create a flatter organizational structure 0.803
5. DL can make employees accountable to their functional responsibilities 0.645
19. DL can reduce the level of formalization in the organization 0.585
17. DL can help in grooming of employees in organization 0.805
15. DL can make employees to be treated in a dignified manner 0.708
Table III.
Summary of factors,
number of items,
reliability, eigenvalues,
and percentage of
variance fo r Attitude
toward DL practices
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1234
Eigenvalue 2.873 2.562 2.405 2.312
% of variance 10.26 9.145 8.589 8.256
Cumulative % of variance 10.26 19.40 27.99 36.25
Reliability coefficient 0.66 0.65 0.63 0.62
Number of items 3343
Factor naming
Horizontal
structure Professionalism
Work
commitment
Power
sharing
18. The implementation of DL needs a system of appointment of the CEO on a rotational basis 0.759
11. The implementation of DL needs an informal organizational structure 0.718
12. The implementation of DL requires low power distance in boss-subordinate relationship 0.639
4. The implementation of DL needs employees to be more entrepreneurial in their functioning 0.777
29. The implementation of needs a system to differentiate between personal and professional
life 0.655
2. The implementation of DL needs a culture of mutual respect among organizational
members 0.598
9. The implementation of DL needs fear free atmosphere in the organization 0.764
20. The implementation of DL needs a trait of lead by example in top leadership 0.672
30. The implementation of DL needs an attitude of simplicity at every level in the organization 0.626
26. The implementation of DL needs a strong work commitment among people 0.551
21. The implementation of DL needs a system of empowering sub units head at every level of
organization 0.790
13. The implementation of DL needs to implement a flatter organizational structure 0.689
27. The implementation of DL needs a strong faith in developing long term relationship with
employees 0.658
Table IV.
Summary of factors,
number of items,
reliability, eigen values,
and % of variance fo r
implementation of DL
practices
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practices
sample size. A more desirable standard of reliability coefficient is 0.70 (Nunnally, 1978)
for established questionnaires. No sub-scale had more than four items in both the cases
whether attitude towa rd DL or implementation of DL practices. Further the
examination of Tables III and IV indicates that Cronbach’s a values ranging from 0.60
to 0.72 indicating statistical adequacy of the selected sub-scales.
Based on exploratory factor analysis and reliability testing, 16 items were found to
be significant for measuring the employees’ attitude toward DL whereas 14 items were
dropped owing to selection of criteria for items. Similarly, 13 items were selected for the
implementation of DL and 17 items were dropped because of low factor loadings.
Inspection of Table III shows the five significant factor upon factor analysis which
explained 40.12 percent of variance and had reliability ranging from 0.60 to 0.72. These
factors were named as follows:
(1) self-initiatives;
(2) improved functioning;
(3) achieving o rganizational goals;
(4) accountability; and
(5) mutual respect.
Inspection of Table IV shows the existence of four significant facto r upon factor
analysis which explained 36.25 percent of variance and had exhibited reliability
ranging from 0.62 to 0.66. The factors were named as follows: horizontal structure;
professionalism; work commitment; and power sharing.
Results of descriptiv e statistics and zero-order correlation are presented in T a ble V. Perusal
of the ta ble indicates that all the five-dimensions of attitude toward DL and four-dimensions
of implementation of DL practices had significant positive correlations with each other .
Discussion
This paper was aimed to investigate employees’ attitude toward DL practices and
challenges involved in implementing DL, and how attitude toward DL is related with
implementation issues. Thus Indian managers believed that DL practices can help in
developing the attribute of taking initiatives, accountability and mutual respect among
employees an d can promote organizational efficiency and effectiveness. These results
are supportive to existing findings regarding the positive outcomes of DL practices
(e.g. Mayrowitz, 2008; Hulpia and Devos, 2009, 2010; Hulpia et al., 2011).
Findings indicate the importance of following attitudinal dimensions toward DL:
(1) Self-initiative: this dimension refers to the employees initiatives at the
work place through DL practices. It means that DL can help in motivating
employees to take actions to improve the organizational functioning through
the independent thinking and responsiveness under risky situations rather
waiting to receive instructions from their superiors. So DL practices
may enhance the trait of self-initiative among employees. This attribute
may be of great significance to adapt with uncertain business environment.
It can further help in making them to raise their voice regarding the important
organizational matters and to be an effective whistle blower.
(2) Improved Functioning: the purp ose of any managerial system and practices
is to improve the overall organizational functioning. Results show that DL
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Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. Self-initiatives 3.61 0.629
2. Improved functioning 3.33 0.490 0.292**
3. Achieving organizational goals 3.40 0.566 0.266** 0.373**
4. Accountable 3.63 0.566 0.061 0.244** 0.081
5. Mutual respect 3.61 0.610 0.222* 0.144 0.197* 0.101
6. Horizontal structure 3.40 0.514 0.167 0.299** 0.137 0.130 0.156
7. Professionalism 3.59 0.715 0.564** 0.463** 0.442** 0.001 0.240** 0.079
8. Work commitment 3.67 0.554 0.138 0.190* 0.109 0.559** 0.118 0.226* 0.064
9. Power sharing 3.78 0.614 0.129 0.035 0.273** 0.126 0.190* 0.157 0.205* 0.059
10. Attitude towards DL 3.52 0.341 0.639** 0.650** 0.633** 0.487** 0.579** 0.201* 0.572** 0.369** 0.154
11. Implementing DL 4.26 0.344 0.468** 0.412** 0.344** 0.216* 0.315** 0.493** 0.606** 0.546** 0.634** 0.589**
Note: *,**Correlation significant at the 0.05, 0.01 levels, respectively
Table V.
Means, standard
deviations, inter
correlations among the
sub-scales of attitude
towards DL and
implementing DL
practices
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practices
practices will help in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the
organization by making employee more creative an d innovative and by
reducing the conflicts between employees and departments. In this way, DL
practice can lubricates the social machinery of the organization by developing
mutual coordination in different p arts of the organization.
(3) Achieving organizational goals: the ac hievement of organizational goals is an
important precondition for the existence of DL and its effective operation. Each
organization strives to achieve their predetermined goals linked with the
satisfaction of their employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholder s.
DL practices may help in improving employees’ satisfaction, inner har mony
and in adding value to the o rganizational products and services. Thus, DL
practices can promote work commitment among employees and loyalty at the
customers’ level.
(4) Accountability: accountability toward one’s job is an impor tant principle of
ethics and governance. The challenges lies how to make employees
accountable and responsible toward their work behavior. So DL practices are
perceived to be helpful in this direction. DL practices will help in developing
close cooperation among people by reducing formal distance between the
superior-subordinate.
(5) Mutual respect: D L practices will helpful in developing a sense of respect
toward each other through personal development and by treating others
employees in the dignified manner. DL practices may seem to play a major role
in earning respect and recognition for their contribution. In this way, DL
practices can be a great source of non-financial motivation that can make them
to be more productive and effective at the work place. This may fur ther reduce
the possibilities of employees’ turnover.
As stated above the DL practices are important for the overall organizational
development. However, there are issues and c hallenges involved in successfully
implementing DL practices. The implementation dimensions can be classified into
individual-level and organizational-level challenges. So there is a need to take
initiatives to improve the existing structure and culture on the one hand and to develop
a sense of work commitment among employees on the other hand, to successfully
implement DL practices in Indian work organizations. These results empirically
support som e of the existing studies done on DL practices in school and hospitals
(Muijs and Harris, 2006; Harris, 2011; Rutherford, 2006). Results indicate that DL
practices needs wide range of conditions, including a culture of professionalism,
horizontal structures, work commitment and share in power and authority to
successfully implement the DL practices in organizations.
This study indicates the need for the following pre-conditions to implement the
concept of DL in organizational context:
(1) Horizontal structure: the main requirement to implement the DL practices is
a supportive organizational structure. Organizational structure is responsible
in defining employees’ role and responsibilities in a broader organizational
context. So DL practices can be implemented when there is low-power distance
between superior and subordinate and prevalence of informal relationship s,
and CEOs position could be rotated. Horizontal organizational structure may
help in creating trust in managerial process and practices of top management.
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Thus high-power distance contex t may have a negative impact on DL practices
which needs to be changed before its implementation.
(2) Professionalism: to implement DL practices, employees’ need to appreciate
and understand their professional work behavior toward the organization and
other employees too. As it is found that employees tend to shift their focus
from the expected and desirable ways of working to manipulating and
exploiting others for their persona l selfish motives. In this way, they start
using their powe r positions to threaten others which may go against the spirit
of professional work culture and norms. DL practices needs suppor t from the
existing values and beliefs in the organization to develop healthy work culture.
Professionalism will facilitate the development of mutual respect and
interdependent work behavior and thereby implem entation of DL practices.
(3) Work commitment: people and work places are reciprocal to e ach other.
Results indicate that employees need to exhibit personal qualities like strong
work commitment, simple attitude, personal credibility, etc. to implement DL
practices. In this way, implementing DL practices becomes a matter of personal
challenges for employees. These findings, further, can be explained from
psychological ownership viewpoint (Furby, 1978). As Pearce et al. (2003) have
noted that a set of intra individual motives like efficacy and effectance,
self-identity, belongingness and accountability may facilitate in achieving
organizational goals and objectives. Psychological ownership will be helpful
in developing a bond between an employee and his/her work and organization
which will motivate them to participate in DL.
(4) Power sharing: the essence of DL practices lies in sharing power and authority
in organizational decision-making process. The basic belief and organizational
practices might be directed toward enhancing employees’ p articipation
and involvement in all important organizational activities which may have
significant impact on their life. Hence, DL practices depen d on diluting the
attraction to power positions among employees. Studies have shown that
employees desire an influence on organizational issues, most influence on
proximal and less influence on distal issues (IDE, 1993). Sometime they expect
their influence through teams ( Jeppesen et al., 2010).
Further, results showed that attitude toward DL practices and implementation of
DL is positively correlated. In this study, employees believed that DL practices are
impo rtant for the personal and organizational development. However, a conducive
work atmosphere needs to be created to facilitate and promote the concept of DL at
individual and organizational level. Organizations need to focus on developing flat
structure and professional work culture and employee need to believe more in sharing
power and delivering their work commitment in Indian work context.
Implications and limitations
As noted that employees have perceived benefits related to DL practices in
organizations. These findings are indicating the importance of developing positive
attitude toward DL practices among employee to successfully implement DL practices.
Indian managers reported that DL practices can help to promote organizational
efficiency and effectiveness. This study strengthens the impo rtance of measuring
attitudes in organizations which can be a good predictor to implement best practices in
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practices
organizations (Brief, 1998). Further, this study also supports three perspectives
on DL practices which focus on leadership functions, roles or practices in contradiction
to concentrated forms of leadership (Heller and Firestone, 1995; Ogawa and
Bossert, 1995; Spillane, 2005; Spillane et al., 2001, 2004). However, the results
are exploratory in nature and based on preliminary findings. Furthermore, as
highlighted in the dark side of DL and qualitative results, DL may produce negative
impact on organizational decision-making process because all kinds of task cannot
be distributed, and ownership for the successful completion of a job lies at the
top. Hierarchical system cannot be abolished completely; however, it can be modified to
utilize the benefits of employees’ participatory processes. Thus, managers need to
take some precautions while thinking about the implementation of DL with regard
to the nature of business, nature of task and other environmental factors, etc.
Future studies may focus on exploring the answers for what is to be distributed,
who distributes to whom and the role of intent and motives behind the distribution
of leadership functions.
The major limitation of this study is of a small sample size and limited to young
managers. So this research is continuing with a diverse g roup of respondents to
validate the findings of the present study. Nevertheless, the findings support the
current literature on the importance of DL practices in the field of education and
hospitals. Future research may be focussed on specific dispositional and other
contextual variables such as the role of leadership styles to understand the issues and
challenges of implementing the DL practices in professional work organizations.
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About the authors
Dr Ajay K. Jain is an Associate Professor of Organizational Design and Behavior at the
Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. He is a Visiting Professor to several international
universities including the Aarhus University, Denmark, the Lancaster University, the UK, the
IULM University, Italy, the University of Free State, South Africa, the Indian Institute
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Management, Lucknow, etc. He has received research fellowships from the School of Business
and Social Sciences, the Aarhus University and the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.
He has earned his PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpu r. His areas of research
interest are DL, organizational citizenship behaviour, emotional intelligence and volunteerism.
He has published and presented 70 research articles in pe er reviewed journals and conferences
and is a recipient of Best Paper Awards of National Academy of Psychology, India and serving
on the Editorial Board of several international journals. Dr Ajay K. Jain is the corresponding
author and can be contacted at: akjain@mdi.ac.in
Hans Jeppe Jeppesen is a Professor in Work and Organizational Psychology in the
Department of Psychology at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. He is also leader of LINOR
(Leadership and Involvement in Organizations) research unit. He is the Chief Coordinator of a
longitudinal interdisciplinary research program on DL in public services. At present, most of his
research activities are on employee influence and leadership processes and the interaction with
organizational participation and distribution of leadership. He is the author and co-author of
several articles in international journals, books and reports.
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