Works
- The professional partnership: relic or exemplary form of governance?, Organization Studies 24(6), 909 to 933, 2003
- Leading Professionals: Power, Politics, and Prima Donnas, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017
- Collective leadership dynamics among professional peers: co-constructing an unstable equilibrium, Organization Studies 41(9), 1234 to 1256 (online 2019, in print 2020), 2019
- Ambiguous authority and hidden hierarchy: collective leadership in an elite professional service firm, Leadership 16(1), 62 to 86 (online 2019, in print 2020), 2019
In Organizational Structures
Known for
Leadership and governance in professional service firms
Ideas
Leadership without hierarchy. In professional organizations leaders lead without traditional hierarchy: their authority is contingent, and they must renegotiate their relationships with autonomous peers; the book also asks why leaders so often fail. Caveat: Based on interviews with over 500 senior professionals in sixteen countries; a synthesis rather than a test.
Collective leadership as an unstable equilibrium. Professional peers co-construct leadership by legitimizing, negotiating, and maneuvering, and may grant peers leadership identities without granting them authority. Caveat: Interview data.
The hidden hierarchy. A collective leadership group amplified ambiguity about its membership and authority, and in crisis a hidden hierarchy appeared that let it act decisively. Caveat: One firm.