Papers by JO CHAFFER
International journal of disaster risk reduction, Jul 1, 2023
This thesis is my own work and not published in any other place I confirm I am happy for Lancaste... more This thesis is my own work and not published in any other place I confirm I am happy for Lancaster University to store and provide access to this thesis in line with their data security, data protection and access policies Word count excluding bibliographies: 75,904
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
How can we do leadership better, for any place, for whatever we need leadership to do there? In t... more How can we do leadership better, for any place, for whatever we need leadership to do there? In this thesis I propose that the ongoing ability to perceive, reflex on, choose and act to get safe-enough, problematized-enough to make confident-enough decisions on the leadership practice needed is a key practice to practise. This is doing containment. Practising involves paying critical attention to place, practices, power, pace, position, performance, processes, purpose for our people (the Ps). It involves getting comfortable-enough sitting into discomfort. Practise, as explored in the Development section, necessitates seeking guides, resources, models and other 'stuff' and making critical agentic choices to purpose this 'for' doing development (of self, of others). Enough is key to this. I draw on voices from multiple academic fields and also from other philosophical, cultural, practice-based ways of knowing, being and becoming, particularly the work of Nagarjuna. Thes...
Containment, problematisation in a psychologically safe space, is proposed as a practice of leade... more Containment, problematisation in a psychologically safe space, is proposed as a practice of leadership and its development. I work from multiple perspectives, Western and non-Western to develop the concept of containment and better understand what, how and why it may be in practice. The aim is to draw on philosophies, practice and understanding from many cultures, an ‘and/both’ approach, to avoid being limited by the hegemony of Western epistemologies. It’s a reflexive journey. I explore the array of assumptions held in the practice and study of leadership, suggesting that the most helpful approach is to keep the question of what it is alight and energised. I use a P-Model, developed from Critical Leadership Studies scholars, to facilitate this. Development, specifically leadership development is critiqued, noting the paradox of spending vast sums on ‘transformative’ competency based programs that fail to create ‘supermen’ whilst showing a deep unwillingness to spend on inner growth...
Many Development Trainers and other organisational consultants now work across cultures. There is... more Many Development Trainers and other organisational consultants now work across cultures. There is much discussion and advice on specific cultural traits and on organisational culture but little on the process of different cultures meeting within the organisation and the impacts this can have, particularly on change. This case study uses a critical ethnographic approach to understand the change process on people in a Nepali organisation facilitated by a Western Development Trainer. It specifically looks at agency, its relation to culture and how the meeting of cultures affects its development. The study finds that in this instance the state of cultural release and the ability to make explicit and make meaning from noticings on the emergence of cultural traits is critical to the process. Additionally that specific interventions are less effective than long term exposure and relationship building.
In this assignment I have described a situation where I as facilitator struggled to change my rol... more In this assignment I have described a situation where I as facilitator struggled to change my role from one ascribed to me by the course participants to one I could be authentic in and which aligned with my beliefs about the purpose and practice of development training. Notions of learning (what it is), how to learn, what to learn and from whom are central to this situation hence I have related this to Paulo Freire's passage on Banking Education (Freire, P (1986) from Pedagogy of the Oppressed) in the critical readings (Little, R (2001)) and critiqued the application of his ideas in this description. Issues of power and authority, my internal struggle to know and be myself and to feel the ground beneath my feet were also very important and I have referenced these against other authors' voices. Being based on my experiences and those of the women participating the critique may be said to be from a constructivist feminist paradigm.
Thesis Chapters by JO CHAFFER
Emptying Leadership Into Place, 2020
PhD Thesis Chapter This Section starts with a philosophical perspective on the conundrum of the i... more PhD Thesis Chapter This Section starts with a philosophical perspective on the conundrum of the intoxicating uselessness/powerfulness of ‘leadership’ and suggests the answer is the conundrum itself.
There’s a dip into possible sources of the leadership intoxication, specifically where the hero-leader attachment may have originated and how this may influence the discourse and practice of leadership for the better.
An exploration of further questions around doing leadership follows focused on a mesh of interdependent question sets for interrogating leadership usefully.
The final words refocus the picture around leadership, locating containment in practice.
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Papers by JO CHAFFER
Thesis Chapters by JO CHAFFER
There’s a dip into possible sources of the leadership intoxication, specifically where the hero-leader attachment may have originated and how this may influence the discourse and practice of leadership for the better.
An exploration of further questions around doing leadership follows focused on a mesh of interdependent question sets for interrogating leadership usefully.
The final words refocus the picture around leadership, locating containment in practice.
There’s a dip into possible sources of the leadership intoxication, specifically where the hero-leader attachment may have originated and how this may influence the discourse and practice of leadership for the better.
An exploration of further questions around doing leadership follows focused on a mesh of interdependent question sets for interrogating leadership usefully.
The final words refocus the picture around leadership, locating containment in practice.