ANZAM'13: Leadership & Governance interactive session

A new innovation that has been introduced to the ANZAM conference this year is the Interactive Session. Whereas the format in the main conference sessions emphasises the presentation (with 5 minutes for questions), the interactive session encourages conversation, with several quick-fire presentations followed by an extended discussion. Many of the papers I heard can best be described as research works-in-progress, rather than completed studies.

• Derek Man spoke about value of moving beyond "hero" leadership, towards an alliance model, not dissimilar to that employed by companies endeavouring to form strategic alliances. He asserted that the increasing complexity of business demanded a new approach, but stopped short of providing any robust theory or evidence of how such a model might work effectively in the anglosphere. Man's ideas are not dissimilar to those discussed by Dimovski at ECMLG several weeks ago.
• Clive Boddy provided a very revealing insight, by drawing a link between the descriptions of toxic and destructive leadership in the psychology literature, and the traits of leaders in company failure situations. Boddy's noted that the behaviours and excesses of leaders in many failure situations are remarkably similar to those of psychopaths. He introduced the term corporate psychopath, applied it to the triumvirates that held power in several high-profile failures (Enron, Worldcom), and   described some of the behavioural indicators that characterise such leaders.
• Kumudini Heenetigala questioned the shareholder primacy "value" that dominates governance practice, particularly in AngloAmerican jurisdictions, and noted that many "causes" of company failure can be traced back to factors commonly associated with the agency perspective of governance and the shareholder primacy value. These include a lack of accountability at the board level; unethical practices by board and management; duty of care breaches; and, acting in a reckless or irresponsible manner.

This session really caught my imagination. The three studies summarised above are a small sample of over 100 studies presented in thIn my view, sessions like this should be included in the programmes of all research-oriented conferences. The supportive, collegial style of engagement by other speakers and attendees provided a considerable amount of useful feedback, much of which should lead to more robust research outcomes as the various studies are finalised, I'm sure.