The leader doesn't need to be authoritarian

In both elite sports and the arts, there has been a tradition of an authoritarian leadership style, with coaches shouting from the sidelines and instructors berating the performers. That's at least the cliché.

But both the women's national handball team and the National Ballet have been working for many years to change this leadership style.

Professor Sigrid Røyseng and Associate Professor Liv Hemmestad, the authors of the book "Wisdom and Leadership in High-Performance Environments," say this.

Røyseng is a Professor of cultural sociology at NMH and also leads the "Music Committee," which is tasked with preparing a public report (NOU) on the music sector in Norway.

In a longer interview with Dagens Perspektiv on 20 June, the authors discuss two exceptionally high-performing environments that have been early in challenging current leadership norms.

– In the arts, the celebration has been of the individual. The great artistic genius. The tradition has been to believe that authoritarian leaders are needed, Røyseng tells the newspaper.

She further explains that it's possible to push boundaries and be ambitious while practicing an inclusive leadership style where individuals' voices are heard.

– We advocate for a very clear human orientation. You should never reduce those you work with to mere pawns in your own game, she says.

Hemmestad explains that authoritarian leaders in elite sports have become less common, though they haven't entirely disappeared.

– We rarely see the shouting coach, but the notion of the coach as the all-knowing expert still lingers, she tells Dagens Perspektiv.

The fieldwork for the book was conducted during the periods of 2003–2005 and 2016–2017, with the collaboration of national team coaches Marit Breivik and Thorir Hergeirsson, and artistic director of the Norwegian National Ballet, Ingrid Lorenzen.