Leading Without Control: Posthumanist Arts-Based Approaches to Distributed Leadership in Higher Education

Abstract Book of the 12th International Conference on Social Sciences, Humanities and Education

Year: 2026

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Leading Without Control: Posthumanist Arts-Based Approaches to Distributed Leadership in Higher Education

Dr. Tanya Behrisch

ABSTRACT:

Situated within debates on academic leadership and institutional change in higher education, this presentation examines how posthumanist, arts-based research can inform distributed leadership practices. Drawing on the author’s role as Director of Co-operative Education at a large Canadian university, the study explores leadership across teams of 48-100 professional staff, roles typically organized through hierarchical logics that constrain participation and learning. The purpose of the presentation is to examine how intentionally decentering formal authority can generate alternative governance practices grounded in relational accountability and shared responsibility. Methodologically, the presentation employs a practice-informed, autoethnographic arts-based inquiry combining reflexive leadership narratives with visual analysis of an original oil painting created on found materials. These materials function as both data and methodological provocation, supporting an analysis of leadership as an emergent, relational practice involving human and more-than-human agencies. Grounded in posthumanist ontologies and queer theory’s refusal of binary logics, the analysis reframes governance away from certainty, efficiency, and control. The study documents observable organizational shifts, including redistributed decision-making authority across clerical, advising, and coaching roles, and the collective reshaping of curriculum, professional identity, and team culture. Rather than treating uncertainty, experimentation, and not-knowing as risks to be managed, these conditions became productive drivers of institutional learning. The main takeaway is that decentering leadership can materially reshape governance by legitimizing uncertainty, sharing authority, and enabling collective organizational becoming without reliance on control. The presentation contributes to conversations on governance, care, and innovation in higher education by offering a practice-informed account of leading without control.

Keywords: Distributed Leadership; Relational Accountability; Organizational Culture; Arts-Based Inquiry; Institutional Governance