This morning, after a nice 10 day PhD break, starting my new job and a week in Bali, I sat down to map out the next 8 months of work. That is one scary proposition. As I’m now working two weekdays, I have set myself weekly and monthly goals which I think are achievable but leaves little room for stuff like reading new articles or networking with other researchers.
Even with the strict schedule I still can’t see myself finishing a draft until mid-October. That seems dangerously late if I want to hand it in before year’s end. Knowing I will need time for rewriting, formatting and external editing. I’m hoping that all the writing I’ve already done (a draft methodology, a draft introduction to case studies, a start on my literature review) means I might actually be ahead of the schedule. Fingers crossed.
My challenge in March is to pull together my literature review. In someways I’ve been looking forward to this, as the big themes of my research (leadership, development and identity) have never wavered, so I have a pretty good understanding of at least two of those three. Identity needs to be worked on and expanded (not just in thesis world believe me) but I’m pretty comfortable.
One thing I hadn’t though much about was the structure. The work I’d done in me Stage 1 was pretty linear – chronological discussion of leadership theory, for example. But what I hadn’t really done was a) thought about how they all connect together, and b) relate them back to the research question in a systematic fashion (the fact I still don’t have a true research question is still out there too of course.) I’m struggling to define a question that doesn’t use ‘how’ in it. In a nutshell it’s a comparison of the development of leadership identity, understanding and capability in different sectors within the Australian creative industries.
That’s why I was happy to come across these series of posts that were shared by UTS’s Nick Hopwood. Today i’ve spent some time playing with the process to explain why I’m writing on what I will. If I take the key words in my research proposition, if not a question, above, you get development, leadership, identity and sectors within the creative industries (context). I know I need to explain the idea of understanding, capability and identity too, but I am choosing to bundle understanding and capability into the development of leadership capacity.
By starting with my themes I realised that something was missing – context. Context is an incredibly important part of what I am examining. In undertaking a comparison of the development of leadership identity, understanding and capability I am setting my study not only in the creative industries but within each examined sector. Does this mean that my writing on the creative industries needs to go in to the literature review? Not sure on that yet, but it is important.
Instead of writing on these four things, there need to be a relationship to between them and back to the research question. Wentzel describes this as identifying the assumptions. My assumptions are:
- Leadership is important or valuable.
- There is no one right definition of leadership.
- Leaders can be developed.
- The what is leadership and the development process differs depending on context.
- Part of becoming a leader is embracing leadership identity.
What writing this down does is removes me from my half baked findings and take a step back. My first (two, three) iterations of these were bogged down in the idea of the creative industries (not context) and I was trying to outline my argument, not what I needed to theorise.
The next step is to bring these all together into a flowing (maybe not) paragraph.
As leadership contributes to both organisational and individual success (1) so the development of leaders is seen to be of economic and societal value (3). Part of the leadership development process in creating successful future leaders is the construction of leadership identity (5), yet given the lack of a singular leadership definition of leadership (2) or a defined process in which it can be developed development actions vary contextually (4).
I’m not overly happy with that…..
But…to keep going, from here there is a grouping of assumptions:
- The concept of leadership and why it is important within the (creative industries) context
- How leadership development occurs with particular focus on social and contextual aspects
- How is identity impacted by leadership/leadership development, especially if development is contextualised. Would different environments means different development which creates different types of leaders?
Which in someways brings be back to the three themes – leadership, identity and development, but it highlights the importance of context at all levels.
Finally these is reduced to a ‘talk show script’ which highlights the need to investigate why each of these assumptions exist and their counterclaims as the literature review unfolds.
| Claim | Response (trigger question) |
| As leadership contributes to both organisational and individual success
|
How does it do that? Is it proven? |
| the development of leaders is seen to be of economic and societal value
|
Is it? How is that demonstrated? And how are they developed? |
| Part of the leadership development process in creating successful future leaders is the construction of leadership identity
|
What constitutes a successful leader?
Why is leadership identity important? What happens if leadership identity isn’t embraced? |
| given the socially constructed nature of leadership there is no singular definition of what leadership is
|
What are the definitions of leadership? How is leadership socially constructed? |
| defined process in which it can be developed development actions vary contextually.
|
How might environment or context change development? Is it a matter of resources? Is development a collective or singular activity? Is there no ‘right way’ to develop leaders? Is that even possible given there’s no definition? |
Next week it’s on to the writing.
PhD 2017 