CONCEPTS ABOUT LEADERSHIP IN NORWAY - DOCTRINES, POWER AND PRACTICE

Leadership consists in a precarious balance between power and trust, and it always involves relations of faith In a certain sense the exercise of authority and the lines of command have a religious core. The modern concept of management is connected to the development of the business corporation in the USA after the Civil War. Management is essentially a moral and formal hierarchy of power based on the principle of personal accountability. The basic commitment evolves around the economic performance of the organization. During the Marshall Program Norwegian working life was introduced to this kind of economic and organizational regime. Even though there are some striking similarities between dominant patterns in North-American and Norwegian cultures, the doctrine of management tons seriously opposed, partly because it appeared incompatible with some important Norwegian cove values and partly because its mode of practice was not consonant with the established balance of power embedded in the corporate structure of Norway. Still, a very important elite of industrial top managers was influenced by the American style of leadership, mainly because this style is able to address some forceful internal dilemmas in the managing of power and authority in Norwegian society. A distinct style of Norwegian (or, rather, Scandinavian) industrial organization was developed in the Industrial Democracy Projects (Emery and Thorsrud). This was a socio-technical and participatory approach which emphasized the qualifications and responsibility of groups, whereas management emphasized the qualifications and responsibility of persons. In a rigorous, intellectual discourse about leadership these two approaches to power and organization may contradict each other. In the world of organizations an appropriate balance between power and trust depends on a practical complementarity between these logical opposites. Essentially, this is a complementarity based on faith and belief. Thus scientific Knowledge and critical discourse play an important but always limited role in even the most modem formal organizations.