Developing a professional leadership identity during organisational change in professional youth football

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the construction of a professional leadership identity of an outsider appointed to implement organisational change within the academy of a professional football club. Data were collected through field notes, informal observations and meetings, formal academy team meetings, in-depth interviews with three co-workers and four semi-structured in-depth participant interviews, which were subjected to an iterative analysis. Findings highlighted how the appraisal of others and their appraisal of the participant were affected by employment vulnerability, and that ‘identity work’ when leading organisational change was intertwined with micro-political literacy and micro-political action. This study furthers understanding of the development of a leadership identity as a fluid and fragmented struggle, by demonstrating that the process of identity construction is emotional work and is entwined in a complex interplay of micro-political literacy and action, and employment vulnerability.

KEYWORDS:

• Organisational change
• professional football
• micro-politics
• professional identity
• narrative analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luke Gibson

Luke Gibson is a Lecturer in Sport in the Department of Sport, Outdoor and Exercise Sciences at the University of Derby, UK. He also regularly contributes to the executive postgraduate education courses at the Business School at Manchester Metropolitan University, and supervises postgraduate research projects for the Masters in Sporting Directorship programme. Drawing upon qualitative methods, his work is based on understanding organisational change in professional football. Working within interpretive and interactionist ethnographic frameworks, his work explores micro-political activity, identity construction and change management.

Ryan Groom

Ryan Groom is a Senior Lecturer and Postgraduate Programme Director in the Department of Sport and Exercise Science at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He also regularly contributes to the Masters in Sporting Directorship executive education programme at the Business School in Manchester. Theoretically and methodologically, his work is based at the intersection of interactional sociology and psychology, predominately, working within interpretive applied naturalistic and ethnographic frameworks within elite sport. He has published widely in journals examining organisational change, mentoring, and learning. He has also co-edited Research Methods in Sports Coaching(2014, Routledge) and Learning in Sports Coaching(2016, Routledge) with Lee Nelson and Paul Potrac.