Existential Humanistic Leadership (EHL) as a Dialogical Process: Equality of the Non-equality in Organizations

Abstract

The paper is a novel extension of the Dialogical Self Theory (DST) to organizational psychology. In organizations there are rich conflicts and ambiguous situations in which joint meaning making is indispensable for future trajectories of the follower, the leader and the organization itself. This negotiation process is influenced by power imbalances within the organization, mostly between leader and follower. In their multiple emerging fields and their interrelatedness these agents have to find a way of neutralizing the tension of highly ambiguous situations in order to account for the discovery of commonly adaptive, future trajectories. I introduce the concept of the Existential-Humanistic Leadership style (EHL) that through the emergence of existential I-positions and sign-manifolds neutralizes previous power imbalances. The Trajectory Equifinality Approach (TEA) of Tatsuya Sato is used for elaboration of the ongoing dialogical processes. The TEA-modelling shows that an existential-humanistic leader tries to unite opposite trajectories within one dynamically adaptive system through phenomenological/democratic attunement towards the follower and through the assessment of follower’s needs for development. These two conditions of EHL make it more likely that a leader externalizes existential I-positions which create local sign-worlds where leader and follower meet as human beings in absence of prior role asymmetry. Central concepts of existential psychology, DST and cultural semiosis are combined in a microgenetic and phenomenological research design. Based on the partnership model of Valsiner, Bibace, & LaPushin, a co-constructive interview guide has been created, in which a scenario-completion task is established and worked through with the participant. The Trajectory Equifinality Model of a football trainer is used for generalization of the generic structure of an existential-humanistic leader-system being a crucial condition for leading in and through curvilinearity.

Introduction

"Existence precedes essence"

(Jean-Paul Sartre in Kaufman 1956, p. 347).

"The I prevents the Me"

(Hermans 1999, p. 70).

These two philosophical/psychological principles are the meta-code for a new leadership-theory that unites the principle of polyphony with the one of dialogical problem solving. This makes the human Self, exemplified by different I-positions, autonomous in space and time for the ultimate human condition which is “to exist” (latin “existere” = to become, to step out/forward).

This work is about novelty in leadership theory and practice, and it is precisely at the intersection of self(ves) and other(s) that innovation emerges (Hermans 1999, 2001). So, the depth-analysis of dialogical principles- as it is possible with the Dialogical Self Theory (DST)- is the fundamental technique to analyze the conditions of how change in leadership is initiated or blocked (on details of conditional-genetics analysis see Lewin 1927). Conditional-genetic analysis tries to investigate “the varied structured conditions of the system, its potentials for transformation as well as conditions of its breakdown” (Valsiner 2017, p. 46). Existential Leadership is supposed to provide an answer to different conditional demand-settings (essence < > existence) while flip-flopping between multiple I-positions.

Dialogical Existentialism

Humans are dialogical beings (e.g. Polster and Polster 1973; Schneider and Krug 2010; Valsiner 2014; Yontef 1993), yet this does not make us different from animals. What is specific for human beings is that they are ontico-ontological beings (Heidegger, 1927/2001), so they not only exist but they are also reflecting upon their existence (Holzhey-Kunz 2019). This also accounts for human dialogue because humans are able to reflect upon what and how things have been said. The DST points in a similar direction; it does acknowledge embodied pre-existing structures offered by groups or other people (Hermans 1999, 2001). But how does this embodiment happen in real life? Let us consider an example:

• Person A: I want to lead you.

• Person B: I want you to lead me. However, I am a creative person and I need to be stimulated.

• Person A: I will try that even if this might be difficult from time to time.

• Person B: That’s okay. As long as you try, I want you to lead me.

In the example we see that leadership is always negotiation leading into a conditional contract between leader and follower. Person B only accepts being led if the leader is promoting him/her in his/her creativity. Here, the potential I-position emerges (I as a promoter) but it is not yet taken in by the leader. It can only become an I-position if the leader is accepting that particular demand that s/he can co-construct as we see in the example.

Before and during the embodiment of these specific structures, humans can reflect upon them. They are free to take an active stance towards these offered positions and might even block externalizing forms (Hermans 2001; Valsiner 2014). As a consequence, “the I fluctuates among different and even opposed positions” (Hermans 1999, p. 72). But what does follow from the autonomy of multiple I-positions being in dialogue and playing a crucial role for the person’s existence? The claim in this paper is that multiple I-positions have multiple (imagined) significant others which they relate to. In short, every I-position is supposed to have an experiential field (Lichtenberg 2012) or what I would call it in the present paper: a sign-manifold¹. What Hermans (1999, 2001) has shown in this dialogical context is that increasing novelty often happens within the process of self-opposition, self-contradiction which Valsiner elaborated in his reconstruction of the classic notion of Gegenstand (Valsiner 2014, 2019) where (I)positions and (I)-counterpositions are in a tensive relationship, struggling with each other trying to synthesize a new adjusted/actualized position that circumvents an initial conflict/tension (see Hermans 1999, p. 84; Valsiner 2002, 2005). But how do these abstract theories apply to leadership? The leadership context is highly ambivalent, thus rich in conflict. Every I-position, and here lies the catalyzing link with existential psychology, has its own life-patterns (Schneider 2019; Schneider and Krug 2010) or hyper-generalized sign fields (Valsiner 2014, 2019). These define the essence of a leader and create sign manifolds (a local sign-world with many thematically similar kinds of signs). The second claim in the paper is that the I-positions with their different sign-fields or life patterns are in tensive dialogue with each other when there is an important (existential) decision to make that might re-negotiate the status of several I-positions, independent from power imbalance in the leadership context.

Increasing novelty- a necessary pre-requisite when it comes to existential situations (Krug 2019; van Deurzen and Arnold-Baker 2019) that demands the abandonment of the status quo- is only possible when the leader allows the unconditional dialogue of I-positions that might change or challenge the power pattern within an organization. And here lies another important intersection with dialogical existentialism (Clarkson and Cavichhia, 2013; Jacobs 2012; Krug 2019; Yontef 1993) and the genuine polyphony of DST (Hermans 1999, 2001) which leads to the third central presumption of this paper: The leader must adopt a phenomenological attitude towards the different I-positions that are negotiating tensely; s/he has to put the life-patterns or hyper-generalized sign fields into brackets (on phenomenology see Adams 2019; Godina 2012; Krug 2019; Längle and Klaasen 2019). This is the first step to dissolve the essence of the status quo within an organization and allows novelty to emerge. Thus, the leader should function within himself/herself as a meta-organizer of several I-positions with the goal of reorganizing the structure of the dialogue to the benefit of the organization and its followers.

To organize the I-positions based on organizational relevance, a democratic, semiotic stance (Valsiner 2007 on semiotic demand setting, and Valsiner 2014 on internalization/ externalization processes) is needed. This means that the leader must be able to go to every group/person (Layer I) and engage with them in dialogue, attune to them trying to link their needs, wishes, opinions with their personal history as a worker/leader (Layer II) and integrate this linkage into a new life- or work pattern/hyper-generalized work field (Layer III). The adjusted or actualized intrapersonal organization reorganizes then the novelty to emerge (externalization process), so e.g. the solution to the existential question.

Existential-Humanistic Leadership: A Concrete Example

There is an interesting example illustrating the abstract elaboration of the intersection of DST and existential or Gestalt psychotherapy by Polster and Polster (1973, pp. 287–292):

Erving Polster- successor of Fritz Perls- refers to his experience when he worked with Fritz Perls in a Gestalt seminary with a group of trainees. At one moment Perls came to him, verbalizing his worries about his stagnation and no dynamics in the group, demanding him (Erving Polster) to question everything he might say. Indeed, the act of permanent questioning let novelty emerge because Polster and the trainees engaged with each other in a more dynamic and productive manner as well as with Perls as a leader. Meanwhile, Perls was getting upset and moaning about Polster’s behavior, so Polster asked why he (Perls) is complaining when he was asked to question him. Perls simply said that he asked him to do that but that would not automatically mean he likes it.

This is a good example of existential-humanistic leadership where I-positions are re-organized to stimulate novelty to the benefit of the group’s learning process. Still, the process of how Perls arrived at this specific type of leadership remains unclear and unknown. One of the possible answers is that he had to put his I-position into brackets (e.g. as a group-leader), putting it down in the hierarchy of multiple I-positions, to adopt another I-position (e.g. as a genuine teacher that is preoccupied with the learning process of his trainees) that could then unfold interpersonally more power to stimulate the act of teaching rather than leading. It was especially this phenomenological perspective towards different I-positions that made egalitarian discourse between participants and group-leader possible. The example shows that the I-positions do not vanish, they are only re-organized in the intrapersonal hierarchy, so that the teacher’s I-position unfolds more negotiation power over the leading I-position. This freedom is deeply existential because the leader accepts his/her current work-pattern or hyper-generalized work field, yet s/he can act upon these, change its hierarchy, its importance with all the democratic < > non-democratic implications for the sign-world of the participants.

But what is existential-humanistic leadership? The Perls illustration shows well the basic axioms of the leadership theory. First, it is existential, because leaders find themselves often in existential situations in which they do negotiate a future essence, a path to a new adaptive life-pattern (Bürgi et al. 2018) or hyper-generalized sign field that goes beyond the person and challenges the relations towards other persons and the organization itself. Humanistic refers the notion of potentiality in the process of becoming (Bugental 1965) and how to initiate it. But humanism is not only concerned with the human need for developing or realizing potentiality and putting it in a bigger context (Johner et al., 2018), yet it is a celebration of freedom; it is a freedom of choice between an existential pair of opposites. In existential therapeutic approaches the therapist or counselor triggers phenomenologically the patient (Adams 2019; Krug 2019; Schneider 2019; van Deurzen and Arnold-Baker 2019) insofar as he/she realizes his/her potential of becoming and the freedom/responsibility implied in that process.

Where does the theoretical elaboration on uniting DST with existential psychology leave the recipient? For the present study it is fruitful to analyze whether existential leadership nourishes itself from the intrapersonal re-organization of multiple I-positions in regard to the follower’s existential needs which should be a deeply phenomenological/democratic process leading into egalitarian discourse of previous non-egalitarian dialogical participants.

Beyond the Static: Analyzing the Emergence of EHL

Statistics are static, they fix human phenomena that are in its very core dynamic (Valsiner 2017). Yet, the quantitative imperative (Michell 2003, 2005) made that psychologists and other social scientists want to put complex human issues in a Gaussian Distribution (Valsiner 2017). This linearization is somehow arbitrary; nothing in nature is linear (Valsiner 2019). So, the translation of complex qualitative phenomena in quantitative forms works only under the principle of variability constriction (Maruyama 1963), hence reduced complexity. The consequence is that this arbitrary translation leaves out important parts of the investigated phenomena and how these interact in a complex manner with its multiple Vorgestalten or Gestaltkeime (on the term and its role in Aktualgenese see Sander 1928) to give birth to a new function or phenomena (as done with microgenetic methods proposed by Wagoner 2009 ). It is thus about the different parts (of leadership) being in a tensive relationship creating multiple, adaptive wholes. The methodological meta-code of this paper is that human beings are more complex than the Gaussian distribution claims. This paper has the objective to analyze the conditions of how the described existential-humanistic leadership with the specific notion of egalitarian discourse of non-egalitarian dialogical participants comes into being. In fact, existential leadership and quantitative forms would contradict each other. In statistics scientists are only analyzing essences, but this paper claims to analyze the multiple forms of existence that can flexibly lead to other forms of essences (elaborated in Valsiner 2017, pp. 13–16). The investigation of EHL functions only with persons as unique beings and their intrapsychological systems that create meaning in every moment they move through irreversible time (Valsiner 2014, 2017).

HSI (Historically Structured Invitation): Learning From the Participant

The Historically Structured Sampling (also called invitation) by Valsiner and Sato (2006) is therefore the most adequate tool to meet and to learn from a potential research subject: It does not leave out the history of specific psychological phenomena (Zittoun and Valsiner 2016). Valsiner and Sato (2006) want to account in their invitation for the fluidity and ever-changing nature of human phenomena that are not fixed but flexible. Hence, living systems are constantly in development, they are open systems (see Valsiner 2008, 2014, 2017, 2019). In an open system a state of temporary equilibrium (equifinality point) can be reached from different initial conditions (see Fig. 1) and through different ways (equipotentiality). The equifinality point (EFP) is then a place in time of temporarily similarity of different persons but it can also become a bifurcation point for further development in the future (Valsiner and Sato 2006).

Fig. 1

Trajectory Equifinality Model (TEM) (after Valsiner 2017, p. 54)

Hence, all phenomena- of open systemic nature- are historical and they move in irreversible time (Valsiner 2014, 2017) on their unique trajectories that might converge at an EFP where the trajectories of the future become renegotiated (Fig. 1). After that, it is possible with operationalization of the unique past to study the genesis of phenomena that move beyond the equifinality point towards a new one in infinite future.

HSI requires to define and locate the relevant EFP (Valsiner and Sato 2006). In short, HSI contrasts different trajectories that flow into the EFP and negotiate future trajectories on their way towards a new EFP. It therefore reconciles past, present and future development-analysis that cannot be accounted for in statistics. Practically, participants are chosen based on their theoretical meaningful past histories that bring them to the hypothesized EFP (Valsiner and Sato 2006). The single case of the present paper is chosen in this manner, but the location of the initial EFP is worked out together with him/her.

TEM (Trajectory Equifinality Model): Negotiating Existential Trajectories

The Historically Structured Invitation is based on the Trajectory Equifinality Model (Sato et al. 2009; Sato and Tanimura 2016). The TEM thus functions as an analysis-umbrella for the data. In the Equifinality point, future is going to be negotiated based on qualitative often opposing units belonging to both sides of the present (Fig. 1) taking both into account actual and potential trajectories (Valsiner 2017). Based on the premise that the units are often turned ambivalent (Valsiner 2017), there is tension in the intrapsychological system demanding a decision that dissolves the tension from the past towards the future (Sato et al. 2009). For a better understanding how the TEM analysis level can be combined with existential-humanistic leadership, the concrete example of Perls is linked to the past and future analysis-units: In the first half of the seminary Perls has been leading and not been teaching (he chose the I-position “I as a leader” rather than the I-position of “I as a teacher”). After a while he has seen the tensive consequences implied in this decision (remember: the group was functioning mechanically, and Polster was not participating). This tensive pair of opposites lead him to the EFP of how to structure the end of the seminary demanding a reaction to dissolve the tension. Every I-positions then has different consequences or potentials. Perls needed to analyze the consequences and potentials in the EFP, trying to develop an answer towards this tension. The re-arrangement of following the I-position of the teacher, rather than the cold-leader let democratic novelty emerge and dissolved the tension. Thus, the example illustrates how the re-organization of I-positions based on past tension renegotiates the intrapsychological hierarchy of I-positions based on learning relevance for the group which flows afterwards into future existential-humanistic actions to the benefit of the group. The TEM-model serves therefore as in-depth analysis of the I-positions’ organization including the neutralization of previous power imbalances.

Scenario-Completion Method in a Phenomenological Interview

As explained in the introduction of this section, the only way to investigate if someone’s leading in an existential-humanistic manner is allowing the participant to give birth to the existential-humanistic actions. Moreover, applying TEM in depth-analysis requires equally a microgenetic stance (Valsiner and Zittoun 2016). In the present paper the method points in the Bartlett-Wagoner direction (Valsiner 2017; Wagoner 2009) investigating the dialogical, conflictual Vorgestalten (Sander 1928) that allow the genesis of I-position’s (re)organization to give birth to EHL with its wide egalitarian consequences. The method should therefore come close to account for a “dialogic rupture-repair tactics” (Valsiner 2017, p. 79) that allows the researcher to capture I-positions theses, I-positions counter-theses and I-positions syntheses. As the title suggests, it is about a scenario-completion method, yet the scenario is not pre-established by the researcher. This would be an artificial, general scenario that does not account for the actual work (layer I) and historical, personal linkages (layer II) and the hyper-generalized sign fields (layer III) of leader and follower. The scenario-completion task is going to be worked out together with the participant and is based on the partnership model by Valsiner et al. (2005): The focus lies on the joint meaning making between researcher and participant and in which it is about the spiral movement in knowledge construction (question, answer, interpretation, answer, question). Researcher and participant are equal in this negotiation process of joint meaning construction (Valsiner et al. 2005). Thus, the scenario to complete is going to be born during the interview. An interview guide (see Appendix 1) has been prepared in order to propose a frame in which the existential-humanistic leadership might come into being. It is important to rely on the notion of frame and the relativity of the interview guide. The reason why is that existential psychologists as well as qualitative researchers such as Valsiner (2017) or Musa et al. (2016) are cautious when it comes to technique because “an action becomes a technique […] when we are doing something without full attention or personal commitment” (Adams 2019, p. 167). Hence, the interview guide needs to be seen in the light of skill or attunement towards the research participant. Skills are embodied (Adams 2019) and prevent researchers from being binary machines. Natural science asks rapidly for the “Why” but phenomenological psychology needs to stick to the principle of a good author of describing and showing rather than explaining because psychology remains experience-near (Adams 2019). Therefore “What and How” questions build the focus of existential psychology (Adams 2019) and hence of the given interview guide. Existential psychotherapists could describe this part of the interview as receptive phenomenological listening as it can be seen in Adams (2019) or van Deurzen and Arnold-Baker (2019). However, the interview guide, especially the existential dilemmas as EFP(s)- requires another technique offered by daseins-analytical psychologists/psychotherapists summed up in the term of “active hermeneutic listening” (Craig and Kastrinidis 2019, p. 78) in order to assess the existential meaning between the lines (see also Holzhey-Kunz 2019). In terms of DST, it might be possible to speak of an ontic and existential I, and the interview guide tries to assess both. In short, the goal of the phenomenological triggering during the interview is to investigate the bracketing process of the leader/participant and the related (re)-organization of different I-positions that might be crucial for the genesis of EHL.

The TEM of a Young Football Trainer

Before showing the major results of the interview, it is indispensable to give some anamnestic information about the leader being interviewed. The leader is 21 years old, works as a football-trainer for a youth-club in Cologne for more than two years now. Meanwhile he is doing sports studies, also taking place in Cologne. He played for more than 17 years football, having been scouted by the professional club of VFL Bochum in his youth but needed to resign from any (contractual) duties due to a heavy injury. Figure 2 shows his specific Trajectory-Equifinality Model with multiple bifurcation points. The scenario that has been worked out phenomenologically with the leader as co-constructor is how to manage a long-term injury of a player (see Appendix 2 for the interview transcript). It is necessary to add at this point that the presented “TEM is non normative […] not like a stage model, a blueprint for ideal life courses or a grid to pinpoint to bad options” (Zittoun and Valsiner 2016 p. 17). However, the meta-code of this paper is that the conditions under which the trajectories get actualized are normative in a phenomenological < > ideological and democratic < > non-democratic way.

Fig. 2

Existential-humanistic trajectory equifinality model of a young football trainer

The Leader as Former Player and Emotional Healer (EFP I and EFP II)

The first equifinality point of the leader is constituted by the discussion/conversation between the trainer and player about the injury. But how does the leader/trainer get there? Basically, the leader has two possible trajectories by taking the injury seriously and therefore taking the player to the side and open up a conversation or by taking the injury lightly not establishing a personal conversation or only a superficial one. However, not talking to the player at all, is also a sign (on zero-signifiers see Ohnuki-Tierney 1994), denying the necessity of mutual-meaning making of the injury. Yet, this first bifurcation point is already a negotiation between democratic < > non-democratic leading. The personal discussion gives the player the opportunity to explain his/her feelings about the injury, details about the medical aspects and potential fears about the future. On the contrary, when the leader takes the injury not seriously enough, he² might not enter the mutuality of joint meaning making. The interviewed leader knows that and decides to begin a personal non-superficial conversation with the player, so that the player is able to find one’s voice that gives shape to his/her existential feelings and can therefore contribute to the meaning-making process of the injury towards the future. The trainer is therefore acknowledging the deeper level of the injury, he sees the existential layer beyond the ontic. But how does he do that? He is doing that by knowing how it feels to be injured, because he has been a player, too. He realizes the role football can play in the life of a player as one can see in the hyper-generalized sign field of “football as a shaping sculpture” (N.T.³). The specific I-position I as (former) player with the above mentioned hyper-generalized meaning, creates a sign manifold through which the player himself/herself can rely on the seriousness that football has played and still plays in the life of the trainer.

The implications that follow with that specific I-position are wide: The trainer is more likely to feel into the player and to attune to his/her situation which is simultaneously an important condition in order to reach the next bifurcation point (EFP II = giving the player the feeling of belonging). Again, the leader verbalized two potential trajectories in order to reach that temporary equilibrium state, either by working with short and trivial onsets (which can last a few seconds up to a few minutes in a non-formal setting) or by formal and long ones. The leader/trainer goes with the more informal onsets; he does not want to take the injury too seriously, because the danger is high that the formal and long conversation can be frightening for the player. The trainer must therefore embrace the next I-position “I as an emotional healer” with the hyper-generalized sign-field of being attuned towards the fragility of dreams/wishes. This creates again a(n) (existential) sign manifold in which the player gets invited to feel belonging/important despite the injury. The injury is accepted as a real event of negative kind- but overcoming it in a positive affectively supportive frame is the human concern by the leader.

This mechanism is of equal interest for democratic < > non-democratic dialogue. The process of attunement and empathy is here established through a non-formal setting in which role asymmetry is clearly out of sight e.g. in short conversations next to the pitch (e.g. when player watches other play). In contrast, if the trainer was to attempt being an emotional healer for the player through setting up a long, artificial conversation the trainer would hinder the development of a belonging sign manifold. Clearly, role asymmetries would become more visible in a formal setting where the feeling of belonging might be more difficult to accomplish. Thus, temporary suspension of role asymmetries is crucial for co-feeling into a situation.

The Leader as Guiding and Developing Trainer and Physical Regulator (EFP III to EFP IV)

Now the leader (with the help of the player) established a sign-manifold where the player is able to feel that his/her injury is taken seriously as well as that s/he is still a part of the team. But the interviewed leader does not stop here. He is more concerned about the player’s development. The transmitted message that the player is still an important part of the team implies several consequences that the trainer needs to confront. Therefore, he defines a new player’s position (EFP III) in the team. But how does he do that despite the emotional supportive sign-manifold he created through the previous I-positions. Again, the leader’s assumptions can be summed up in terms of two fuzzy opposite pairs such as the player’s integration in the trainer team or the stimulation of the player’s adaption to the status quo of the situation such as waiting for the player to recover. The interviewed leader proceeds along the integration trajectory that has wide democratic implications for the player: The player is becoming temporarily a trainer with the tasks of guiding several physical exercises. The leader as a guiding and developing trainer is pre-occupied with the further development of the player. He must find ways in order to assure that the player does not stagnate even if he is injured. On a physical level the player is caught up in an essence but on a psychological/mental level, the player can still make progresses or in existential terms, he can come into new forms of being. The leader as guiding trainer does know that the integration of the player in the trainer team satisfies a deep personal need of the player which is a meaningful development. The I-position of I as guiding and developing trainer is potentially the most democratic one because it reverses any role asymmetries temporarily, and player and trainer are not meeting caught up in their asymmetric positions but they do meet as human beings. This human-meeting independent from role asymmetries frames strongly the next present moment of leader and follower.⁴

The Leader as Physical Regulator (EFP IV)

After having clarified the new position of the player and after having established the mutual feeling-in between human beings, the relation between trainer and player has gained ground of trust: The leader with the benefits of the previous I-positions and sign manifolds can enter the tensive decision to make, that is the preparation of the recovery phase (EFP IV). The leader is therefore temporarily a physical regulator. Together with the player he needs to negotiate if the player can engage in alternative physical exercises. He himself, and the previous I-positions play an important role in that negotiation, exercised in a fitness center while being injured and the sharing of this curvilinear experience- you are injured and nonetheless you can exercise- is deeply necessary to re-initiate the training-program. However, the leader and the player need to find the best alternative physical training program together, stimulating the player but not overstimulating him in regard to the injury. Even, if the trainer must again initiate this phase, it is indispensable that the player needs to co-construct the meaning-making of the trainer’s I position as physical regulator. It is important to note that the trainer does not expect the player to repeat his own alternative physical exercise program but that s/he internalizes the message that comes with the trainer’s story, so that the player finds his/her own way for an alternative exercise program. This is a deeply phenomenological leading of the player by putting personal experience or work-patterns into brackets and by assuming that the player between initiation of physical exercises and taking alternative exercise programs slowly, must find his/her own way. The acceptance of the personal reality of the player is therefore a necessary condition which catalyzes the move from EFP IV to EFP V- defining the concrete comeback of the player once the injury got better. The hyper-generalized sign-field “finding a compromise” (N.T.) is helping the leader to externalize this I-position and be open for co-constructive propositions by the player.

The Leader as Resocializator (EFP V)

The leader in the next phase needs to plan the concrete comeback once the player can rejoin the official training. The interviewed leader drew two possible trajectories to reach that state either by pushing the player to old performance or by giving him the necessary time to recover. And the leader prefers the latter mentioning that he wants to offer him even more time than necessary. For example, when the team might play against the adversary against which the player got injured, the trainer explains that he and the player must have a conversation if s/he (the player) should be part of the team for that match. A second opportunity for the trainer is negotiating with the player a certain period of time in which the player is part of the second team with the goal of regaining trust. “Regaining trust without running into the wall ahead” (N.T.) is a hyper-generalized sign-field of the leader as a resocializator that when getting externalized shows the player that the leader still cares and wants the player to reach his/her old level of performance but not at the price of getting re-injured. It is especially this curvilinear meaning-making of the resocialization phase that shows the complexity of humans leading other humans. And the existential meaning-making in that phase is far-reaching: The player can take something out of the highly tense experience, s/he can not only learn to be emotionally held and supported by the trainer, s/he can not only learn how to make progress physically and mentally despite the injury, s/he can also learn something about his/her body in an existential way. The player might accept the fragility of his/her body and that regaining the control of his/her physical condition takes time the player needs to face when not wanting to get re-injured again. The leader can democratically initiate this existential reflection. It is like a statement such as: I guide you to guide yourself and to make you your football-life better.

The Trainer as Full Leader (EFP VI)

All these experiences, highly tensive decisions to take between different wide-ranging opposites within the multiple I-positions, constitute the whole range of leadership (Fig. 2). Every I-position, as visible in Fig. 2 has a specific hyper-generalized sign-field that the leader externalizes. By these multiple I-positions, the leader creates specific I-positions’ sign manifolds. The player gets invited to step over the threshold of the specific sign-manifold and to internalize/externalize the hyper-generalized sign-field. The leader acts highly democratic if he phenomenologically let the player internalize and externalize the message in his/her way and co-construct the negotiation of each decision to make. The leader does not force the player to follow his instructions because he does know that those might not be valid for the player. What he can do, is offering his experience in a way to guide the player to guide himself. It is important to note (from personal communication with the interviewed leader) that this only accounts for existential situations. When it comes, e.g. to structural points of the training program such as being on time, it might be impossible to account for the reality of the player in the whole of the reality of the team. If the leader accepts each and everybody’s personal reality for that particular issue, the training is rendered impossible because all the players would act in the team as they would want at the moment. Democratic phenomenological leading might only be possible when it comes to existential situations where the player is directly concerned with his/her future development/progress and when the injury endangers the becoming of a better player. Accepting the personal reality of the player also introduces that all bifurcation points or preferred trajectories are relative for the leader. There might be some players working better when taking the injury more lightly, working with more official conversations, not searching for alternative training programs or pushing them fast to their old level of performance. Each pair of opposites is therefore relative and can be reversed if (conditional-genetic analysis by Lewin 1927) this benefits the player’s development, recovery, his/her needs or more general his/her being. The determination of these trajectories or better the leading towards one of these is constantly elaborated with the player together. This leading is deeply democratic and established the condition for a symmetrical dialogue between trainer and player: It is all for the player and all through the player. This helps the leader to guide the player not to become stuck in his/her essence, that is the injury, but to develop. The intra-TEMs are thus complementary in regard to different players and their different needs. This insight helps the leader to become a full leader (EFP VI). A leader must be able to praise the opposites and to unit them into one dynamic whole.

Inter-TEM-Tension as Birth-Giver for Existential-Humanistic Leadership

The TEM Sequence emerges because of inter-TEM tension (see Fig. 3). The previous I position can to some extent not account for the next decision to make. Therefore, a new I-position must be born. Yet, the new I-position must incorporate some aspects of the latter in order to be trusted. First of all, a guiding and developing trainer needs to commiserate with the player and assess his/her ultimate human concerns before giving him/her new tasks. Thereby the leader fosters trust that is needed for other tasks such as leading a physical exercise. But the leader does know that being a trainer is not serving the player enough, s/he needs to work on his/her physical condition to come back faster and healthier. The established trust together with the deep appreciation for further development on the player‘s sight helps the leader to regulate the physical exercising of the player as well as a genuine negotiation of the concrete comeback.

Fig. 3

Emergence of existential-humanistic leadership for the interviewed leader

Once the existential-humanistic leadership emerges (Fig. 3), it is no longer sequence-dependent. The leader can directly act as a physical regulator or as a resocializator if the player still shows some signs of being physically or psychologically hurt. He does not necessarily need to enter into the above-mentioned sequence again because the physical regulator and resocializator I position nourish themselves from the previous I-positions. This is the advantage of TEM, the present negotiation of future trajectories is framed by past ones. When the trainer- in a regulating way- suggests several training programs, the player knows that it is in his/her best interest of development (becoming). S/he can co-construct that particular negotiation as wanted by the leader, but the player doesn’t need to doubt the intention of the trainer. This preserves a lot of energy, and smooth negotiation processes are facilitated between trainer and player. Once trainer and player meet as humans and have seen, shared and talked about their fragility, once they have been developing some exercises together with a common goal of making the team better, mutual and genuine understanding as well as trust are created through which the recovery and comeback tensions- where role asymmetries might become more obvious again- are made more acceptable and transparent. Trainer and player then do construct the statement together: All for the players and all through the players.

Generalization: EHL Beyond Football

The goal of research is generalization, and this is possible even if only one person is interviewed. It is about the generic structure of a personal system signifying the next present moment (Valsiner 20142017), internalizing and externalizing hyper-generalized sign fields in irreversible time to anticipate the next present moment (Valsiner 2019). It is enough to study a single case (e.g. Pavlov did generalize from a single dog’s salvia) if the research is targeting a wide known mechanism of a general kind (Valsiner 2014). Zittoun (2016) did generalize from analyzing personal life trajectories- of one couple- to the mechanism of reflexive loops which frame the anticipation of future life trajectories. Wagoner (2009) found general mechanisms in people’s remembering processes by microgenetic analyses. Something similar is possible for existential-humanistic leadership in the present paper. The I-positions found throughout the interview are not hypothesized to be exclusive nor to be generalizable across different contexts. And this is not a weak spot. On the contrary, every leader in sports such as football or in more formal business contexts needs to find out his/her adaptive I-positions when being confronted with an existential situation. This can be in business context when an employee wants to dismiss, gets a bore-out, asks for a promotion, in short when employees are concerned with their being or becoming (development). What has been shown throughout this paper, is that equality of non-equality in organizations such as in a football team is possible when trainer and player are meeting as human beings, and when dialogue builds upon the leader’s assessment of the follower’s needs for growth or becoming. This phenomenological-democratic assessment- democratic because the leader always offers space and time for negotiation or co-construction of the specific tensive situation- must nourish itself from the leader’s Einfühlung and trust. This specific assessment pattern is not possible without Einfühlung and Trust, and Einfühlung and trust would not catalyze the follower’s becoming or development if there is no phenomenological democratic assessment of the deeply personal needs (see Fig. 4). This is something similarly pointed out in existential-humanistic therapy (Schneider and Krug 2010; Schneider 2019).

Fig. 4

General frame for existential-humanistic leadership

Moreover, what is important for the leader’s integrity is that the to be developed I positions should not violate these two important conditions facilitating leader and follower to be meeting as human beings. Otherwise the deep priorly established integrity is going to be questioned by the follower. These two conditions for existential-humanistic leadership frame equally the intra-TEM (or intra I position) tension because a trustable Einfühlung for the phenomenological assessment of the player’s needs, paired with democratic co-construction by the player reverses the initial polarization of any trajectories, thus the anticipated future in regard to the specific existential need of the player.

Therefore, as a second generalization, it is to note, that when leaders have to deal with ambiguous situations that concern the becoming of the person (development), the I-positions clearly have an existential flavor. For example, the I as former player and the I as emotional healer do not only have support function but they do signalize the acceptance and consequences of the follower (in that paper the player) being afraid of personal stagnation and make ground to find alternative ways as well as recovery plans that do include development in stagnation. This is a curvilinear pattern (Valsiner 2014) and overcomes the notion of simple opposites in psychology and leadership. Stagnation is not to be interpreted as a sign for the leader to be passive and waiting for the follower to simply overcome it. For an existential-humanistic leader it is a request to find the complementary part which adds becoming to non-becoming and to make the player democratically accept that where non-becoming in actual becoming takes place, s/he (the player) needs to accept that temporarily. If not, the player would be more likely to enter the pitch with the injury or coming back too fast. Stagnation is also adaptive and not to be judged negatively from the very beginning. But in the same breath, the player is able to make progresses in new areas of development. Figure 5 proposes a second possible generalization mechanism.

Fig. 5

EHL as catalytic condition for curvilinearity

Conclusion: A new Democratic Leadership-Research Frame

Therefore, the following leadership models offer a frame of existential-humanistic leadership to become applicable across different settings accounting for the experiential field or unity of the manifold of the respective leader and player. This frame is one of a counter-research approach because it does not take a pre-defined theory put upon the participant (Valsiner 2017) such as the leadership community did in the past decades with transformational and transactional leadership. They deny democratic co-construction of the Gegenstand or negotiation of any kind and are choking the actual phenomenon. If researchers do want to investigate existential-humanistic leadership, democratic leadership or leadership of any kind claiming to be facilitative for egalitarian discourse, the leadership research community cannot have a non-democratic research stance. The present paper is a starting point for an alternative, more phenomenological research approach as suggested by Valsiner (201420172019).

The study proposes two models of how existential-humanistic leadership- with its specific focus on the emerging egalitarian discourse despite prior role asymmetries- comes into being: It is by meeting as human beings catalyzed by existential I positions with their different hyper-generalized sign-fields feeding into different/complementary sign-manifolds. A leader dealing with existential ambiguity should create many different adaptive sign-worlds concerning different player’s needs that change in irreversible time. These sign manifolds are mostly free of previous power imbalances which would hinder the adaptive dissolvement of existential ambiguity. The constant and smooth re-organization of specific I-positions- as seen in the Perls analogy and elaborated throughout this paper creates a unity of the manifold with democratic/phenomenological signs at every bifurcation point. For Andersch (2006, p. 64), a famous German post-war writer, the curvilinear attitude is the most important because the value of a person constitutes itself when realizing that courage and fear, reason and passion are not hostile opposites that a person needs to destroy but rather poles of one tension field which s/he is himself/herself.

Limitations and Future Research

Nonetheless, there are some limits: The leader does make statements about the player and his/her feelings and reactions on which he adapts his leadership conduct. Yet, the player having been in mind of the interviewee has not been invited to the interview. Future research of leadership should therefore not only concentrate itself on studying microgenetically existential-humanistic as well as other leadership styles but also on investigating microgenetically the follower’s conduct in reaction towards leadership. With that specific focus, one cannot only make generalizable statements about the leadership coming into being under specific conditions but also on the to be developed relationship between leader and follower. Thus, the study can easily be enlarged by meso-genetic designs that can potentially clarify some mechanisms about the leader’s and follower’s relationship as well as on the microgenetic acceptance of the existential-humanistic leadership style by the follower.

Another important point is that future leadership research should also focus on aggregate outcomes of microgenetic ones. Therefore, future studies must investigate equally the coming-into-being of existential-humanistic leadership across different contexts, business settings, teaching settings, public settings etc., not to put a pre-defined phenomenon on the participants but to analyze the specific emergence mechanisms with every leader. When having done multiple singe-case (microgenetic) studies, one is able to compare the mechanisms of qualitative transformations of EHL and to study potentially general trends. “Working between single cases and the aggregates can provide invaluable resources for both interpreting single cases and understanding the variation found at the aggregate level” (Wagoner 2009, p. 118). General trends are also necessary to provide legitimation of efficiency and effectiveness of leadership interventions (as done with psychotherapy, Seligman 1995). The outlook is wide-ranging: Diverse leadership theories including EHL as pointed out in this paper, should become generalizable on the systemic emergence mechanisms while leaving space and time for participants to co-construct and negotiate their specific leadership pattern (as proposed by Figs. 4 and 5) and in the same time non-generalizable by not choking or hiding the actual phenomenon. This would be a first step towards process-oriented methods (Valsiner 2017) and manuals to become generally usable and adaptable for leadership practitioners. The present study is the starting point.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 1 Interview guide for EHL interrogation

Appendix 2 Translated Transcript

• Interviewer: I would like you to present yourself briefly, where you are coming from, what you have experienced with leading people and how these experiences made you the leader you are today. You have gained your experience in football, multiple ones not only as a trainer but also as an active player or later as a video-analyst. I do think these are interesting things about which we can talk today.

• Leader: Thank you for interviewing me. Well, I am 21 years old, studying sports and exercise in Cologne. I am coming from the football area which brought me equally to my studies in Cologne where I have also found myself continuing to be connected towards football (Anschluss finden) or to stay in my sport. I had to interrupt my active career because of a heavy injury and afterwards I had to quit completely. Yet, football has always been shaping me (Fußball war immer eine tragende Figur) in my development together with my search for other passions (Leidenschaften) and my other competencies. I do think this influenced me leading others be it as trainer, as player or in my last internship in a youth club. They changed the way how I interact with people in the long run (literally prägen).

• I: The injury you just mentioned is very interesting; how does the injury help you for better understanding your players. Does it affect the way you treat people?

• L: I do think that my experience made me understand how fragile and how energetic dreams can be and how much energy, imagination and wishes players actually have and how these get regulated from coincidental events that are out of your control. These injuries impact the players. It is clear that this is something that you as a trainer, as a parent or as a friend must manage. Players need to be guided through these crises

• I: If a player concretely approaches you because he is injured, how do you deal with him? What is important for you?

• L: I do think one must show the player that you take him seriously without frighten him. A lot of players take injuries too seriously or take these too lightly. And then I do have to realize how close is the person to the realm of things even if I can not determine that. But I can have an idea: I have to feel into him and see how I can help him guiding his feelings in the right direction (in die richtige Bahn lenken).

• I: In which concrete actions do you show that? After the training? Do you talk to him? Is he close to the pitch and observes the others playing? How do you approach him?

• L: I as a trainer have two possibilities: I can establish a forced conversation by setting face-to-face to the player maybe in one room. This must also be applied and has its methodology because it makes the whole situation special, it does leave an exclamation mark at the end. But I do work more with these short and trivial conversations: These can be short and small onsets (Einsetzer, literally).

• I: How can I imagine these onsets?

• L: The player is close to the football pitch and you do tell him: “The boys are not playing well, today.” And then you show him his utility even when he feels useless. There are players who really feel badly because they observe the others playing well, and they do get the impression that they are not missed by the team. And here you have to suggest: “You actually miss.” I do have to assess what does the player need and grant him that (more in the sense of giving).

• I: If I got it right, you do show the player that the fragility is only temporary and that he is nonetheless a part of the team and there might be a phase in the future where the fragility is to be overcome.

• L: You must always show (with emphasis) that he belongs even if he might be distanced from the team due to an injury, so that he won’t be able to replay: But you have to hold him close to the team because he is benefiting from that as well as the team.

• I: Does he develop further even if he is injured the whole season.

• L: (needs a few more seconds): You can try by giving him exercises. I cannot say this always works out. I can try by letting him propose or lead an exercise by integrating him to the training preparation. I can take him with me inside the dressing room. He will notice the emotional address and the tactics. You do have to switch to the brain coaching. But of course, I can also look what might be doable in the physical area. I also went with my crutches in a gym. You have to see here who is standing in front of you. Some players might need a break if they are injured. This is extremely individual.

• I: I do want to understand how you are dealing with that positivity. What does happen when the player recovers. There may also be some conflicts. Is he able to perform as good as before the injury? Is he going to get injured again?

• L: Then, we do talk about stopping (literally, bremsen) or pushing. A lot of players are still fragile because it has been a long time for them. You do have to know who this player is. It is always helpful when you do find a compromise. I can tell a player like him: “You play in the second team today because there you get your playing practice.” Often, players find it easier there because there is less pression, because they do feel they might have more time or the whole game is much more slowly. Thus, I have to find opportunities for the player in which he can regain trust without running into the wall ahead.

• I: This is extremely important because you do have different voices in your head: How do you deal with these voices: How do you decide that one voices dominated the other?

• L: Thinking…Thinking…

• I: Or is it more a matter of feeling.

• L: It is more a matter of feeling. You do know these guys. And in these injured situations they are similar to what they are when not being injured. An emotional player is also more likely to be emotional in an injured situation. It is overlapping. Thereby, you can balance how the player is dealing with the situation. Of course, you do have to know if the player was injured before, maybe one year ago. Do I have to let my player play against the team where he got injured the last time? Or might be the next match to be more adequate for a comeback? He might have a negative feedback in his mind.

• I: Exciting. I do think of how I can come closer to that…

• L: One thought: In my time as a trainer I have learnt that with exception towards tactics, it is not important what you do think or what your attitude towards something is. It is always the personal reality of the player. What does he think? What does he feel? You do have to understand him and direct him towards the most adequate direction for him as a player and for the team.

• I: You do have to feel completely in that player and blend out or bracket all of the other things?

• L: While never loosing your credibility. In front of the team you need a stringent behavior (better presentation).

• I: You are then talking about the system, thus the team: You must sell a decision. Are there some conflicts, too?

• L: You have 11 players who can play. And as a trainer you do know that one of them is always unhappy. You do have to decide whether you put a team together on the basis of performance or moral. You do have to know if you and your principles can tolerate that or if you are that performance-focused guy. And then, players can guide themselves with these principles. But, I do always need to know in the end that the boys are cleaned up and do not break apart (wegknicken) so that they are motivated every weekend. How do I manage to stimulate performance while in the meantime leading them towards working for their own development and help them coming closer to the team, again?

• I: Interesting. I do think that other branches like the enterprises could benefit from that: I am responsible for the performance but equally I am responsible of how the team is doing and what happens with the general moral. If these two voices clash, is there a possibility that they can be united or co-exist?

• L: I do think that this is only possible when they are engaged/occupied. You do have to take care that every player is occupied. Times, when player do not receive any input, are times where the player can only get upset that he is not playing. But if you accomplish that with every training the players have the impression that they are learning and learning and then develop themselves, then you accomplish that they replace these thoughts even if you cannot get rid of these all the time. He can blend it out when he gets the feeling that every day there is something new.

• I: You would say by establishing the mutual trust: “We can develop yourself so that you realize your potential”, so that he might accept temporary deceptions for his own development process and for the team: I think this is something what makes us human: We experience pain and deception but these are just part of a bigger process

• L: What I do find important is that you cannot feed everyone when you are in your weekend-play. You won’t be able to talk to everyone how you do have intended: But the training afterwards is the most crucial one: You go there knowing, therefore you must watch closely in their faces, who is upset and rankled interiorly by that (literally wurmen). With these players you have to engage in a dialogue not in the heat of the moment (Eifer des Gefechts) but in the training afterwards during the warm-up. You do tell the player: I see you here and there in your development and that is why you have not played. But I also see here and there your progress. If you are working more on that, you may play. You do have to clarify with him where he does stand (wo steht er) and where he could stand.

• I: This was an interesting first part. And a positive one. And I do think it came to an end here. I want to thank you for sharing these ideas with me.

• L: Thank for your interest.