Table 1 discusses the literature review on the responsible leadership and relational leadership theories.

The RSCL lens adopted for this paper aligns closely with the notion of ‘leadership as essentially a question of interpersonal influence’ (Clifton et al., 2020, p. 514). According to Cunliffe (2008, p. 131), the intersubjectivism inherent in the RSCL onto-epistemology encourages an open mind to research in order to capture leadership emergence. This is in line with Ospina and Foldy’s (2010, p. 294) assertion that RSCL could be used as ‘a way to characterise the [leadership] phenomenon in all its forms, whether hierarchical, shared or networked’ as long as attention is paid to the emerging processes and practices of leadership. Connelly (2007, p. 1245) adopts a similar position when he asserts that ‘our more historical person- and qualities-based leadership models are not to be discarded as wrong but rather understood in a broader context of possible descriptions of leadership’. Sánchez et al. (2020, p. 7) caution that, ‘while the theory of social constructionism is robust, a consolidated body of relational leadership knowledge (grounded in constructionism) is still in its early stages’. In the context of inter-organisational partnerships, and in line with Endres and Weibler (2020, p. 275), the RSCL perspective provides opportunities to experience this micro-level process of leading without judgement and to engage in a mutual dialogue with actors in the emerging socially constructed meaning-making process.

Relational social constructionist leadership onto-epistemology focuses on social relations where leadership is known from within as a micro-level process through which meaning-making is socially constructed through narration, dialogue and reflection in an intersubjective way, taking into consideration the impact of context in a relational manner (Cunliffe, 2011; Dachler & Hosking, 1995; Endres & Weibler, 2020; Uhl-Bien, 2006; Wolfram Cox & Hassard, 2018). Sánchez et al. (2020, p. 6) posit that the RSCL ‘epistemology is grounded on the ontological assumption that individuals are interdependent; hence, a sense of self and of each other is constructed through on-going interactions’. Likewise, according to Cunliffe (2008, p. 131), inherent in RSCL are the ‘dialectics of intersubjectivity’ (‘we are who we are because of others’) and the ‘dialectics of existence’, which imply that through our interactions we constitute our reality, which is already constituted. Therefore, ‘meaning emerges through the dialectical inter-relationships of speakers and listeners, body or language, speech or silence’ (Cunliffe, 2008, p. 131). This intersubjective meaning-making process plays a crucial role in the interpretation of the results of this study, as demonstrated later through applying the RSCL analytical model as shown in Figure 1.

According to Figure 1, firstly, the mechanism of leadership refers to ‘social construction’, which is about the continuous construction of ‘social realities through ongoing interpretation and interaction’. Secondly, the content of leadership refers to ‘high-quality relating and communicating’, which is about the explicit and implicit connections among people. Thirdly, the manifestation of leadership refers to influence that takes place at dyadic and collective leadership domains (Endres & Weibler, 2017, p. 214). The three elements of the RSCL model, namely leadership mechanism, content and manifestation, are used to discuss the findings of this research in the form of the identified relational leadership practices.

Ospina and Foldy (2010, p. 303) argue that the practice approach is a better way of operationalising ‘social construction of leadership since … it provides a way to break down the joint work they [leaders] engage in to accomplish their mission’. Furthermore, Nicolini and Monteiro (2017, p. 15) assert that a ‘practice-based study does not investigate practices as abstract entities but rather it “praxeologises” phenomena, turning the study of decision-making into the study of decision-making practices …’. Correspondingly, Raelin (2020) praxeologises leadership research in what he frames as ‘praxis-oriented research as a methodological basis for leadership-as-practice’ (L-A-P). This methodology operationalises ‘relationality’ (Feldman & Worline, 2016) as it focuses on how leadership is socially constructed in day-to-day practices (Ospina & Foldy, 2010, p. 303). Furthermore, Ospina and Foldy (2010, p. 295), as well as Feldman and Worline (2016, p. 308), concur that leading practice theorists contend that ‘practices represent the basic unit of analysis in the social world’; hence, relational leadership practices serve as the unit of analysis for this article.

Alpenberg and Scarbrough (2021, p. 417) distinguish between integrative practices and dispersed practices based on the work of Schatzki (1996). Dispersed practices occur without a clear purpose whereas integrative practices have a clear goal and ‘higher level of complexity’ (‘teleo-affective structure’). As such, in the context of this study, the construct of leadership is an integrative practice as it has ‘a goal structure’ and ‘higher level of complexity’ (Alpenberg & Scarbrough, 2021; Schatzki, 1996).

The dispersed practices ‘are shared patterns of how to carry out and perform an action, or how to explain something appropriately … such as describing, reporting and examining’ (Alpenberg & Scarbrough, 2021, p. 417). The emphasis here is on action or doing. Hence, some RSCL scholars who study leadership practices prefer to use the construct of ‘leading’ instead of the familiar constructs of ‘leadership’ or ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’ (Reitz, 2017, p. 517) in order to avoid being leader-centric or heroic and to demonstrate process-in-practice. For instance, Hersted and Gergen (2013) posit that:

As such, in this study, the notion of ‘relational leadership practices’ shares similar meaning to ‘relational leading’ (Hersted & Gergen, 2013), which is conceptualised as a ‘dispersive practice’ when contrasted with the construct of ‘leadership’ per se as an ‘integrative practice’ (Alpenberg & Scarbrough, 2021; Schatzki, 1996). Lastly, the paper presents the findings using the typology of ‘practice of interest’ (main theme) versus ‘intersecting practices’ (sub-themes) (Heidenstrøm, 2022).

Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2006, p. 17) argue that researchers normally adopt two different modes of enquiry, namely inductive logic and deductive logic. Sánchez et al. (2020) posit that entity relational leadership scholars tend to apply deductive logic, while RSCL scholars use inductive logic, which perpetuates a lack of complementarity between the two paradigms within the relational leadership theory. Sánchez et al. (2020, p. 7) propose ‘paradigm interplay’ to mediate the situation via the abductive logic of enquiry.

Cunliffe (2011, p. 664) reasons that abductive logic refers to a process whereby RSCL researchers ‘move between theory (neutralising, reframing, dialectics) and practice (participants’ accounts), each informing the other’. One of the benefits of using the abductive logic is that it ‘demands attention to cumulative knowledge’ (Sánchez et al., 2020, p. 6). For instance, Sklaveniti (2020, p. 552) used abductive logic to analyse leadership practices ‘abductively from the empirical material to the empirically grounded constructs’. Furthermore, Sánchez et al. (2020, p. 6) argue that abduction motivates RSCL researchers to begin from empirical data and discover surprising situations where data does not align to the theoretical expectations. Hence, in this research, the abductive logic was applied through iteratively starting from the data and then moving to the adaptation of the RSCL analytical framework to explain the observed axially-coded findings (Charmaz, 2006) while refining aspects of the RSCL model based on empirical analysis. Consequently, both the literature-based insights and empirical findings informed the reconceptualisation of the responsible leadership theory.

Relational leadership practices of identifying refer to those situations in which research participants talked about how leadership identities emerged and were formed in the context of TM as an inter-organisational partnership. The relational leadership practices of identifying had the following intersecting relational leadership practices: context identity, gender identity, government identity, language identity and champions identity.

The context identity of the partnership, Twende Mbele, which translates from Swahili to English as ‘moving forward together’, as a unique brand embodies the collective aspirations and relational ethos of the members within this inter-organisational partnership. Togetherness resonates with the stakeholder focus of responsible leadership theory (Maak & Pless, 2006), which incorporates interests and concerns of various stakeholders in how an organisation is run. In this regard, the concern is not merely for the internal partners, but for the entire continent of Africa, as denoted by ‘Africanness’, not in terms of skin colour but in an inclusive form, which is a responsible leadership aspiration.

The gender identity came more as a concern for lack of consideration for women leaders as most of the representatives from the member countries were males. While the examination of gender is not common in responsible leadership theory, it is implicit in the notion of consideration of multiple stakeholder interests (Doh & Quigley, 2014). In this regard, women are viewed as important stakeholders whose presence would enhance the diversity of views and inputs into leading the inter-organisational partnership. Madsen (2016) puts forward a responsible leadership model of a woman’s calling, against an observation that:

The recognition of the ‘masculine identities’ that are ‘very manly’ is a gendered view that seeks to challenge the often taken-for-granted lack of gender diversity in terms of representation of various partners in inter-organisational partnerships. One research participant’s free expression of such views could be enabled by the fact that ‘TM has done a lot of work on gender equity and has done some knowledge production around that subject’.

Government identity comes from the view that this inter-organisational partnership sought to ‘help governments step outside the bureaucracy and … try things and get going’, which is about innovation and exploration of new frontiers. The notion of the partnership being ‘country-driven’ was clearly a call for governmental stakeholders to prioritise how the partnership operates in the implicit sense that governments represent their countries in international relations terms. Most responsible leadership studies focus on business enterprises, and the issue of government identity is an unchartered terrain in so far as existing responsible leadership literature is concerned. The extent to which government identity is used to assert one stakeholder role above others is also something worth exploring in responsible leadership theory from the multiple levels of analysis perspective (Miska & Mendenhall, 2018).

Language identity was intentionally recognised as an important stakeholder management issue within the inter-organisational partnership. The fact that training is conducted in both Anglophone and Francophone African countries demonstrates proactive consideration of stakeholder interests. Similarly, the fact that the partnership also ‘operates bilingually as much [as possible]’ is a good indicator of moral values and ethics of inclusivity and care for others (Nicholson & Kurucz, 2019).

The idea of leaders-as-champions is clearly something that was socially constructed as an important issue in the context of this inter-organisational partnership as part of its ‘theory of change’ (Morra Imas & Rist, 2009). Such leaders-as-champions were believed to be prominent personalities in society who actively used their influence to support the common agenda of the inter-organisational partnership in terms of use of evidence for policy and decision-making. Partners intentionally cultivated champions as the TM members ‘[9:21, 20] took a deliberate decision to send champions to countries that were in a very progressive state’. The external stakeholder consideration aspect of responsible leadership theory could take on board this notion of cultivating champions. Responsible leadership scholarship sees platforms such as the United Nations Global Compact as presenting opportunities to identify ‘ethical role models’ who could champion the responsible leadership agenda (Voegtlin & Pless, 2014, p. 190).

Responsible leadership theory started by conceptualising ‘role identity’ of responsible leaders, as demonstrated in studies conducted by Maak and Pless (2006) and Pless (2007). While Maak and Pless’s (2006) ‘roles model of responsible leadership’ is cited extensively in responsible leadership literature, such studies have not yet examined the question of identity in inter-organisational partnership contexts.

Furthermore, in terms of the body of research known as identity theory, leadership researchers are beginning to appreciate the value of ‘identity-based processes for leadership-related outcomes’, as one study found that ‘individuals who see themselves as leaders are more likely to obtain central positions’ and consequently ‘emerge as leaders’ (Kwok et al., 2018, p. 660). As such, relational leadership practices of identifying signify the power of socially constructed identities such as government, uniqueness of the brand identity and champions identity. For example, one participant argued: ‘[4:53, 111] Even when we met in conferences there was this sense that we were the A-team’. The special or context identity of being the ‘A-team’ served as a motivational factor for the partners to assert themselves among their peers.

The three elements of the RSCL model (leadership mechanism, content and manifestation), as per Figure 1, were used to classify each of the sub-themes that are presented as research findings.

The relational leadership practice of champions identity was the only practice that was categorised as leadership content as it was about ‘high-quality relating and communicating’ by leaders (Endres & Weibler, 2017). The ‘decision to send champions’ denotes the intentionality to influence change in the targeted environments through the champions. The rest of the relational leadership practices of identifying were categorised as leadership mechanisms, as they are ‘social construction processes … through which potentially leadership is produced’ (Endres & Weibler, 2017, p. 225). None of the relational leadership practices of identifying were classified as leadership manifestation as none were explicitly about influencing. However, from the intersubjectivity point of view of the RSCL lens, it could be argued that influencing (leadership manifestation) and high-quality relating and communicating (leadership content) are intertwined as two sides of the same coin (mutually constituted dualities) (Feldman & Worline, 2016, p. 309).

The next sections present the conclusions and recommendations for future research.

Responsible leadership (Miska & Mendenhall, 2018) and relational leadership (Endres & Weibler, 2017) approaches emerged in the early 2000s as distinct leadership approaches and as parallel leadership scholarships that shared similar orientations in terms of viewing leadership as ethical and social-relational in nature. These approaches built on classical leadership research and added value through their different points of emphasis. On the one hand, responsible leadership drew from corporate social responsibility, sustainability and ethically oriented leadership constructs to pay attention to how connected leaders and stakeholders ‘raise one another to higher levels of motivation and commitment for achieving sustainable values creation and social change’ (Pless, 2007, p. 438). On the other hand, relational leadership developed two distinct scholarly traditions within itself, namely leader-centric (entity) and post-heroic (RSCL) perspectives (Uhl-Bien, 2006). The former is more aligned to classical leadership scholarship and the latter is an alternative paradigm based on the assumptions of relational social constructionism, whereby leadership is conceptualised as socially constructed via relational ‘processes of intersubjectively creating social realities through ongoing interpretation and interaction …’ (Endres & Weibler, 2020, p. 279). The RSCL lens formed the theoretical foundation of this paper and also informed formulation of empirically grounded ideas towards reconceptualising the responsible leadership theory. The RSCL onto-epistemology and the practice approach methodology provide conceptual tools that could be utilised to advance responsible leadership theory from a leader-centric focus to the collective domain of leadership research, by using leadership practices as the unit of analysis. The time has come for responsible leadership scholarship that pays attention to ‘emergence and sociality, and places analytical emphasis on the collective’ (Sánchez et al., 2020, p. 6).

This paper makes a number of theoretical and practical contributions. Firstly, the RSCL onto-epistemology is still developing as a theoretical framework and therefore, by applying this philosophical perspective to leadership studies, this paper helps to deepen the conversation in this regard. Secondly, the methodological choices made in terms of the application of the practice approach methodology have contributed to a limited number of studies that have incorporated such a methodology in leadership studies to operationalise RSCL. The practice approach as a methodology could be employed in responsible leadership research to strengthen its action-orientation by means of investigating ‘shared patterns of how to carry out and perform’ responsible leadership practices as ‘dispersed practices’ (Alpenberg & Scarbrough, 2021, p. 417). Responsible-leadership-as-practice (R-L-A-P) could emerge alongside L-A-P studies (Raelin, 2020). Thirdly, by comparing and contrasting relational and responsible leadership approaches, this research has given insights into the complementarity between the two approaches. The abductive logic could be employed to identify responsible leadership practices from literature that could be used to develop research instruments and analytics in the context of RSCL studies. In that way, the ‘relationality’ of relational leadership theory would be complemented by the ‘intentionality’ of the responsible leadership theory to achieve a ‘paradigm interplay’ (Sánchez et al., 2020, p. 7).

The findings of this research present an opportunity for more empirical research to be conducted at the intersection between (responsible and relational) leadership theories and identity theory, as the practice approach made the empirical findings on the relational leadership practices of ‘identifying’ to be intelligible and practical. Contextual and meaningful branding is an important consideration for inter-organisational partnerships to collectively drive a common agenda that stakeholders understand upfront. Gender and language are significant dimensions of diversity management in a multi-cultural global environment. In inter-organisational settings, it is important to be conscious of how various stakeholders perceive their role and how their importance could be recognised and leveraged better for the success of the common agenda. The social construction of leaders as role models in the form of cultivating leaders-as-champions beyond the internal positional leaders could be practiced by business leaders in other organisational settings to champion social-relationality and ethics orientation in society in line with responsible leadership theory.

Practical implications include the opportunity to translate the leadership mechanisms and relational leadership practices into practical guidelines for how leaders could be empowered via training and similar measures to strengthen the operation of their inter-organisational partnerships. Such a recommendation is made with the caveat that the RSCL perspective does not aim to generalise beyond the particular context of the research because of the understanding of social reality and meaning as fluid and in a constant process of emergence. The paper recommends empirical application of the RSCL perspective in future research in order to advance responsible leadership theorising.

The empirical aspect of this leadership research is based on a case study of an international inter-organisational partnership, which serves as a community of practice for monitoring and evaluation. This limits the extent to which its findings could be applied to strategic alliances in the for-profit-making business environments. The implications are that other professional communities of practice, public-private partnerships and not-for-profit business chambers might find its results useful.