The visibility/invisibility paradox of trust: Developing distributed educational leadership for online communities
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Jameson, Jill 
ORCID: 0000-0002-9545-8078
(2009)
The visibility/invisibility paradox of trust: Developing distributed educational leadership for online communities.
In: BELMAS International Conference 2009: Educational Leadership - Where do we go from here?, 3-5 July 2009, Sheffield, UK.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
A visibility/invisibility paradox of trust operates in the development of distributed educational leadership for online communities. If trust is to be established, the team-based informal ethos of online collaborative networked communities requires a different kind of leadership from that observed in more formal face-to-face positional hierarchies. Such leadership is more flexible and sophisticated, being capable of encompassing both ambiguity and agile response to change. Online educational leaders need to be partially invisible, delegating discretionary powers, to facilitate the effective distribution of leadership tasks in a highly trusting team-based culture. Yet, simultaneously, online communities are facilitated by the visibility and subtle control effected by expert leaders. This paradox: that leaders need to be both highly visible and invisible when appropriate, was derived during research on 'Trust and Leadership' and tested in the analysis of online community case study discussions using a pattern-matching process to measure conversational interactions. This paper argues that both leader visibility and invisibility are important for effective trusting collaboration in online distributed leadership. Advanced leadership responses to complex situations in online communities foster positive group interaction, mutual trust and effective decision-making, facilitated through the active distribution of tasks.
| Item Type: | Conference or Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | BELMAS is the British Educational Leadership Management and Administration Society. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | educational leadership research, educational management and administration research, leadership, education research, educational research |
| Subjects: | L Education > L Education (General) |
| Pre-2014 Departments: | School of Education |
| Related URLs: | |
| Last Modified: | 07 Feb 2020 12:02 |
| URI: | http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/1855 |
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