TITLE:
Implicit Ideas of Leading Held by Village Chiefs in Laos
AUTHORS:
Richard Pratt, Somsouk Sananikone, Sekson Yongvanit
KEYWORDS:
Lao Village Chiefs, Leading and Leadership, Implicit Leadership Theory, Villages as Development Units, Leadership-as-Practice, Economic Development, Leading Versus Administering
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Leadership,
Vol.12 No.1,
March
20,
2023
ABSTRACT: Village Chiefs in Laos work at the community level
in urban and rural villages. Officially they “administer” rather than “govern”
in meeting their responsibilities to maintain peace and order and “lead the
people toward development.” This research explores ideas of leading held by 15
Village Chiefs and Vice Chiefs in rural areas outside of Vientiane. We argue
their work takes place within a system that creates an “entrenched ambiguity”
about their role and use implicit leadership theory as a framework for
understanding their everyday ideas of leadership. The research explores the
meaning they give to “leading” as well as a constellation of issues that fill
in their ideas about leading in this ambiguous context. These include how they
understand “success”; the motivation to take on responsibilities of Village
Chief; what they view as the primary challenges as well as the keys to
effectiveness; where their ideas about leader and leading originate; why
someone in this setting would want, or not want, to be in a leadership role;
how they view the performance of others filling roles similar to theirs; and
what advice they offer about leading. We maintain that how they see these
issues is consequential for poverty reduction and economic development if
villages move from being “implementation units” to “development units”.