This paper focuses on an empirically grounded insight into the experience of leading an educational organisation in complexity. A case study of executive leadership in an English Multi Academy Trust (MAT) is used to illustrate the nature of the complexity leaders experience in that context. Qualitative and Social Network data are combined to characterise the experience of complexity and significant features of leaders’ responses and some conceptual tools are introduced.

Drawing on a complexity perspective that starts with the experiences of people in organisations, the implications of the perspective for conceptualising leadership and designing an empirical study are presented. The methodological approach is explained followed by presentation and discussion of data to illuminate the experience of complexity and relevance of the perspective adopted.

The argument is made initially for a complexity perspective drawing on the principles of complex responsive processes of relating (Stacey, Griffin & Shaw, 2000), recognising that starting with leaders’ experiences in organisations means understanding them to be participants in processes rather than actors on systems (ibid).  The experience of complexity thus involves paradox, ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty, which are all also features of a social process of sensemaking (Weick, 2005).

The complexity perspective adopted leads to a conceptualization of leadership that is understood as influence (Northouse, 2021), but is relational  (Eacott, 2018) arising in human relationships whether they are direct, indirect or mediated. Leadership is also considered as plural (Denis et al 2012), having multiple loci which may be dyadic, group, collective or contextual (Hernandez, 2011). It follows that to explore leadership of, for example, educational improvement in a MAT, it is necessary to study the enactment of practices and the processes of relating taking place.

A case study of an English MAT comprising seven schools led by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is introduced and the methodological approach to the single embedded case study (Yin, 2017) is described. Qualitative data is presented revealing practices and underlying thinking frames on which leaders drew as they talked about enacting educational improvement. The qualitative data is combined with social network data that reveals the socially constructed networks of relationships relevant to leadership in which a core group of people, identified by the CEO, perceived themselves to be embedded.

The empirical data is discussed in terms of the sensemaking processes taking place, their dynamic patterning, what is revealed about the emergent nature of executive leadership in the trust and the experience of complexity. The paper concludes by highlighting some significant conclusions and the value of embracing a complexity perspective to fully understand current realities and future possibilities.

The case study adopted mixed methods. The conceptualisation of leadership focused on both the nature and patterning of relationships. The Social network data that revealed perceived relationships in a defined group of leaders, Cognitive Social Structures (Krackhardt, 1987), was collected by interview. The group (n=15) was defined by the CEO of which 11 were interviewed. The 11 sets of perceptions revealed socially constructed networks of relevant leadership relationships and the structuring of those networks. Qualitative data collected through interview with the 11 members of the revealed the thinking underlying perceptions of patterns of relationships; leadership practices enacted, and underlying frames on which leaders drew. The combination of methods to construct Qualitative Networks (Bellotti, 2014) enables an analysis of leading and organising in the MAT which gives insight into both emergent patterns and the generative processes underlying them.

Analysis of the networks and leadership practices in the MAT reveal a dynamic, constantly reconfiguring flow of leadership relationships as different practices are enacted simultaneously. There is multiplexity within relationships in the type and substance of interactions. The actions of the executive team are analysed in the context of the networks of relationships and the data show how in practice ambiguity and paradox arise as leadership is enacted. Significant conclusions are that the actions of the CEO and executive cannot be understood in isolation from the complex networks of relationships and flow of interaction and relating that constitute the organisation. The actions of the CEO and executive team can both be seen as attempts to reduce complexity and as also creating paradox and ambiguity The case is a distinctive empirical demonstration of the nature of the ‘teeming complexity’ (Constantinides, 2021) in the executive leadership space of a MAT and offers some conceptual tools with which to make sense of that complexity.

Bellotti, E. (2014). Qualitative Networks. Abingdon: Routledge. Constantinides, M. (2021), "Understanding the complexity of system-level leadership in the English schooling landscape", Journal of Educational Administration, 59 No. 6, pp. 688-701. Eacott, S. (2018) Beyond Leadership: A Relational Approach to Organizational Theory in Education, Singapore: Springer Krackhardt, D. (1987). 'Cognitive social structures'. Social Networks, 9 (2), pp.109–134. Stacey, R.D., Griffin, D.S. and Shaw, P. (2000). Complexity and Management. London: Routledge Weick, K.E. (2005). 'Managing the Unexpected: Complexity as Distributed Sensemaking'. In R. R. McDaniel and D. J. Driebe (Eds.), Uncertainty and Surprise in Complex Systems: Questions on Working with the Unexpected. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer pp.51–65. Northouse, P. G. 2021. Leadership: Theory and practice, Sage Publications. Yin, R.K. (2017). Case Study Research and Applications. 6 ed. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications US.