Matzdorf, Fides

‘Leadership skills’ are on the person spec for almost any managerial job, from shift supervisor to chief executive. But most leadership courses a) focus on leaders; b) aim to enhance leadership through models, theories and rational behaviours; and c) forget the importance of followers.

Who would have thought that a kind of leadership and followership learning which dismantles traditional leadership theory (and teaching) could come from one of the most gendered (not to say sexist) sports - dancesport? In dancesport, leader and follower roles are pre-determined and (gender-)stereotyped… but are they really? A closer look at dancing throws a very different light on this. 

My PhD research explores how lessons derived from dancesport can help people in organisations to better understand the leader-follower relationships in work contexts, their own leadership style and qualities, as well as their own power as followers, through embodied practice by drawing on the medium of dancesport. Its empirical part is based on a study of participants’ interactions, perceptions and reflections in a workshop setting.

In a set of 3 interactive workshops the research participants experienced and explored both leading and following roles through partnering exercises and dance-movement-based activities, enhancing their awareness of how relationships are enacted and maintained through reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. This approach cuts across gender stereotypes and is FUN as well as enlightening! I would like to make this an interactive, experiential session, rather than a dry paper presentation - it is more exciting to’ listen with the body’ and ‘think on your feet’!

Fides Matzdorf is a researcher and facilitator with an eclectic background and various degrees (English Language and Literature, M.A. Applied Linguistics, M.A. Management Learning). After two decades of working with facilities managers in large organisations and over a decade on various directorships and a trusteeship, as well as competing in (and winning!) ballroom dance championships, he is now a third-year PhD student and Associate Lecturer at Sheffield Business School. He is interested in leader-follower-ship research, organisational learning and change, mindfulness, and I like scenario planning. Crossing boundaries is the story of his life. He has encountered leadership and followership in management as well as on the dancefloor and aim to bring some of the lessons learnt through dance into management and organisational learning. His research is qualitative and interpretive and is underpinned by theories of embodied cognition, intersubjectivity and constructionism.

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