Lesley Prince
Trained in Graphic Design at Loughborough College of Art & Design, c 1972; read Psychology & Philosophy at Warwick University, 1979 - 1982; PhD in Group Dynamics & Leadership, Aston University, 1988; Chartered Psychologist (C.Psychol), 1988; Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (AFBPsS), 1988; Certificates and Diploma in Gestalt Counselling,sometime in 1990s.
Lecturer in leadership and organisational behaviour, School of Public Policy, 1990. Visiting lecturer at Warwick University; Aston University; Exeter University; Oxford University; The Wellcome Trust; The Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now CRUK). Lots of work in UK Local Government departments and for the Health & Safety Executive (HSE). I was engaged as a 'talking head' for over 30 historical documentaries. Now happily retired, doing lots of projects and doing storytelling with two colleagues.
I am a member of several scholarly bodies, including the British Psychological Society, the Aristotelian Society, and the Cromwell Association. I am also a member of the Roundhead Association, The RSPB, The RNLI, the Woodland Trust, the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and several other smaller societies.
I really should not have stayed with the School of Public Policy. It was a bad fit from the start; what I wanted to research, the department denigrated and ridiculed; what they wanted me to research was crushingly boring and of limited value as knowledge - that's policy wonks for you. What seriously annoyed me was the way the department systematically isolated me (and others) from my professional bodies, conferences and colleagues in order to lock me into a superficial 'policy' orientation that was alien to everything I had studied BUT, I had two kids and a mortgage to service, so …
Now I get to research what I like, and that includes symbolism, symbols and writing systems, philosophy, myth, and military history. I intend to write more on groups as well.
I am available to talk on historical subjects, symbolism, group dynamics and social psychology.
Supervisors: Prof. Dian Hosking and Dr. Ian Morley
Lecturer in leadership and organisational behaviour, School of Public Policy, 1990. Visiting lecturer at Warwick University; Aston University; Exeter University; Oxford University; The Wellcome Trust; The Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now CRUK). Lots of work in UK Local Government departments and for the Health & Safety Executive (HSE). I was engaged as a 'talking head' for over 30 historical documentaries. Now happily retired, doing lots of projects and doing storytelling with two colleagues.
I am a member of several scholarly bodies, including the British Psychological Society, the Aristotelian Society, and the Cromwell Association. I am also a member of the Roundhead Association, The RSPB, The RNLI, the Woodland Trust, the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and several other smaller societies.
I really should not have stayed with the School of Public Policy. It was a bad fit from the start; what I wanted to research, the department denigrated and ridiculed; what they wanted me to research was crushingly boring and of limited value as knowledge - that's policy wonks for you. What seriously annoyed me was the way the department systematically isolated me (and others) from my professional bodies, conferences and colleagues in order to lock me into a superficial 'policy' orientation that was alien to everything I had studied BUT, I had two kids and a mortgage to service, so …
Now I get to research what I like, and that includes symbolism, symbols and writing systems, philosophy, myth, and military history. I intend to write more on groups as well.
I am available to talk on historical subjects, symbolism, group dynamics and social psychology.
Supervisors: Prof. Dian Hosking and Dr. Ian Morley
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Papers by Lesley Prince
that so-called ‘followers’ have to play. Second, it is argued that there are fundamental rules applying to situations of leadership, based in trust, which are formulated not by ‘leaders’, but by ‘followers’.
In elaborating these arguments, the ‘structurist’ models of leadership are contrasted with models from a relational perspective. It is argued that the bulk of the traditional literature is actually about ‘leaders’ (people in charge) rather than ‘leadership’ (processes by which people are persuaded to co-operate), set within an entitative model of organisation - that is, a model emphasising an alleged unity of purpose, goals and values within an organisation. Such an approach ignores important considerations of process - specifically cognitive, social and political process - within a complex social context, portraying an unwarranted and unhelpful image of ‘followers’ as fully
dependent on ‘leaders’. Issues such as trust cannot properly be comprehended within such a formulation. By contrast the relational approach highlights process issues. Leadership from this point of view is understood as a negotiated social order in which influence is achieved through trust, reduction of uncertainty, and the achievement of
frameworks for action which are largely acceptable to followers. This perspective emphasises interdependencies between ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’, and sometimes even highlights situations where ‘leaders’ may be wholly dependent on ‘followers’.
Furthermore, while traditional models of leadership imply, or frankly describe, followers as if they were passively reactive to circumstances, ‘followership’ in this perspective is an active consequence of choice.
Teaching Documents by Lesley Prince
and team working, as it is to the more intimate ties that bind an old married couple sitting together on a park bench, or a parent soothing a child. In many ways it is what makes us human. Without it compassion, co-operation, understanding and society itself would not be possible. Yet of all the links that bind humans together, it is often the most poorly understood and it is frequently
given the least priority in human affairs. In recent history, despite rhetoric to the contrary, much of the time it takes a poor second place to what has recently been called ‘competitive advantage’, that drive to win at all costs that characterises others simply as rivals to be beaten at all costs but not communicated with. This
has created many of the problems that beset modern organisations both internally and externally as the scope of those to be beaten grows to include all others in the
environment.
Conference Presentations by Lesley Prince
Questions such as this have been brought into high relief as old certainties have been challenged and replaced, and people have started to assert identities and modes of being that were previously ‘not allowable’. This lays down challenges to organisational life which itself is posited on the basis of unchallenged categories and associated assumptions about what is or is not ‘normal’ for human beings. Moreover, with the advent of globalism there has
developed a new (and overdue) recognition of diversity as an important aspect of organisational functioning, forcing organisations to re-evaluate what is and is not important in matters of similarity and difference in the workplace. In this paper we examine some aspects
of diversity as it relates to identity, gender and sexuality.
When asked to record their sex on a form most people will respond to ‘M’ or ‘F’without much thought, on the basis that it is a clear and true reflection of natural distinction. However, the division of the human race into male and female turns out to be one of the ‘great assumptions’ that, upon closer examination is anything but straightforward. For many people not only does this simple dichotomy not reflect their felt and experienced reality, in many ways it effectively disbars them from full recognition socially, psychologically andlegally as members of the human family, acting as a simplistic Procrustean Bed that restricts human diversity and potential, often simply for the sake of bureaucratic convenience. As such it can represent a tyranny of normality that ultimately affects, and indeed effects, everyone. In this paper we examine some of the implications of the differentiation of the sexes
into male and female. We argue that the little boxes represent a potent statement about the
world not as it is, but as we think it ought to be, representing little more than a coercive bureaucratic dictum about what is ‘normal’. It is apparent, however, that there are real human experiences and identities that more readily find their expression located in the so-called
‘third space’ between the male-female categories, but which, on account of the assumed discreteness of the gender polarisation, are thus rendered invisible, accidental, mistaken, exotic, perverse, unnatural or simply morally ‘wrong’. We argue that the crude division of humanity into male and female is rooted in an
inappropriate digital model that too rigidly constrains people into apparently impermeable categories. In contrast we argue that for matters of gender, and indeed sex and sexuality, a better conceptualisation can be achieved by what Wilden (1980) calls an analogue model thatidentifies dynamic spectra of difference and similarity that do not easily lend themselves to
simple static categories of analysis, existence or experience.
Drafts by Lesley Prince
that so-called ‘followers’ have to play. Second, it is argued that there are fundamental rules applying to situations of leadership, based in trust, which are formulated not by ‘leaders’, but by ‘followers’.
In elaborating these arguments, the ‘structurist’ models of leadership are contrasted with models from a relational perspective. It is argued that the bulk of the traditional literature is actually about ‘leaders’ (people in charge) rather than ‘leadership’ (processes by which people are persuaded to co-operate), set within an entitative model of organisation - that is, a model emphasising an alleged unity of purpose, goals and values within an organisation. Such an approach ignores important considerations of process - specifically cognitive, social and political process - within a complex social context, portraying an unwarranted and unhelpful image of ‘followers’ as fully
dependent on ‘leaders’. Issues such as trust cannot properly be comprehended within such a formulation. By contrast the relational approach highlights process issues. Leadership from this point of view is understood as a negotiated social order in which influence is achieved through trust, reduction of uncertainty, and the achievement of
frameworks for action which are largely acceptable to followers. This perspective emphasises interdependencies between ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’, and sometimes even highlights situations where ‘leaders’ may be wholly dependent on ‘followers’.
Furthermore, while traditional models of leadership imply, or frankly describe, followers as if they were passively reactive to circumstances, ‘followership’ in this perspective is an active consequence of choice.
and team working, as it is to the more intimate ties that bind an old married couple sitting together on a park bench, or a parent soothing a child. In many ways it is what makes us human. Without it compassion, co-operation, understanding and society itself would not be possible. Yet of all the links that bind humans together, it is often the most poorly understood and it is frequently
given the least priority in human affairs. In recent history, despite rhetoric to the contrary, much of the time it takes a poor second place to what has recently been called ‘competitive advantage’, that drive to win at all costs that characterises others simply as rivals to be beaten at all costs but not communicated with. This
has created many of the problems that beset modern organisations both internally and externally as the scope of those to be beaten grows to include all others in the
environment.
Questions such as this have been brought into high relief as old certainties have been challenged and replaced, and people have started to assert identities and modes of being that were previously ‘not allowable’. This lays down challenges to organisational life which itself is posited on the basis of unchallenged categories and associated assumptions about what is or is not ‘normal’ for human beings. Moreover, with the advent of globalism there has
developed a new (and overdue) recognition of diversity as an important aspect of organisational functioning, forcing organisations to re-evaluate what is and is not important in matters of similarity and difference in the workplace. In this paper we examine some aspects
of diversity as it relates to identity, gender and sexuality.
When asked to record their sex on a form most people will respond to ‘M’ or ‘F’without much thought, on the basis that it is a clear and true reflection of natural distinction. However, the division of the human race into male and female turns out to be one of the ‘great assumptions’ that, upon closer examination is anything but straightforward. For many people not only does this simple dichotomy not reflect their felt and experienced reality, in many ways it effectively disbars them from full recognition socially, psychologically andlegally as members of the human family, acting as a simplistic Procrustean Bed that restricts human diversity and potential, often simply for the sake of bureaucratic convenience. As such it can represent a tyranny of normality that ultimately affects, and indeed effects, everyone. In this paper we examine some of the implications of the differentiation of the sexes
into male and female. We argue that the little boxes represent a potent statement about the
world not as it is, but as we think it ought to be, representing little more than a coercive bureaucratic dictum about what is ‘normal’. It is apparent, however, that there are real human experiences and identities that more readily find their expression located in the so-called
‘third space’ between the male-female categories, but which, on account of the assumed discreteness of the gender polarisation, are thus rendered invisible, accidental, mistaken, exotic, perverse, unnatural or simply morally ‘wrong’. We argue that the crude division of humanity into male and female is rooted in an
inappropriate digital model that too rigidly constrains people into apparently impermeable categories. In contrast we argue that for matters of gender, and indeed sex and sexuality, a better conceptualisation can be achieved by what Wilden (1980) calls an analogue model thatidentifies dynamic spectra of difference and similarity that do not easily lend themselves to
simple static categories of analysis, existence or experience.