Ph.D., Antioch University, 2014, Leadership and Change

Organizational storytelling was used within Tri Fit, a Canadian health promotion and fitness company, to explore relational leadership practices. Through 27 confidential one-on-one interviews and an interview of the four-person leadership team, the research attempted to examine how relational agility, a new leadership construct, exists, how it is defined, and to describe its organizational impacts. Two hundred and forty unique stories were shared through this process, out of which nine storylines emerged. The distillation of these revealed three cultural themes: a culture of relational connection; a culture of nice and a culture that values positivity. Demonstrations of transformational leadership, authentic leadership, aesthetic leadership, emotional and social intelligence, servant leadership and stewardship were frequent amongst many of its members. Four leaders were described by their colleagues as being relationally agile, as demonstrated through the application of a unique collection of relational qualities. This research has also established evidence that relational agility can be learned, and when present, confers positive benefits to the organization including enhanced loyalty, commitment and productivity. Developing relationally agile leaders will therefore likely serve organizations as they navigate change. Furthermore, this may be the first empirical description of relational leadership as a triadic experience where the relationship is personified as a unique product of leader and follower co-development that ultimately serves the higher purposes of the organization. The electronic version of this dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd . This dissertation is accompanied by two mp4 video files

Committee: Elizabeth Holloway PhD (Committee Chair); Laurien Alexandre PhD (Committee Member); Ardra Cole EdD (Committee Member); Soosan Latham PhD (Other) Subjects: Business Administration; Business Education; Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior; Psychology