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    Leadership in extreme contexts : when survival is not enough! : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Emergency Management, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2021) Pepperell, Bruce
    This research examines how people exercise authority during extreme contexts, establishes those capabilities and systems necessary to deliver effective outcomes during such situations, and investigates how, through effective leadership, society can leverage unfortunate events to thrive rather than merely survive. To achieve this, it was necessary to deconstruct the generic term leadership and examine the DNA of each of the various forms of exercising authority (including governance, leadership, management, and command). This revealed concepts that have become lost to contemporary leadership thought and a western theoretical spectrum that sometimes struggles to cope with the dynamism present in extreme contexts. Findings indicate that there is more to leadership than the characteristics and actions of a single individual and that it is not until the system, in its entirety is considered, that many of the opportunities for and challenges to successful mission completion are identified. Additionally, understanding the needs and aspirations of a broad spectrum of society is a necessary antecedent when compiling a list of those individual and collective capabilities required to generate successful outcomes. The study also highlights the importance of evolving perceptions of national security, arising from recent changes to sector definitions, and questions the current roles and utility, along with the fragmented nature, of standing national security assets. The conclusions are intended to complement the current body of scholarly leadership material by introducing the interactive Leadership Capstan to explain and shape the dynamic and complex forces at play during extreme contexts, breaking the leadership challenge into more manageable building blocks. The findings also identify those factors that are more likely to lead to thriving outcomes when the tendency is to address the presenting threats in a more transactional manner. This enhanced scholarly platform is then available to inform those development programmes charged with grooming future leaders and overcoming those deficiencies highlighted in the current policy instruments and structures that the nation employs during response operations.
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    ‘Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle and the Menace of the Authoring Audience’
    (Humanities Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, 2018) Angus W
    Francis Beaumont’s play, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607) stages a disjunction between interpretation and legitimate authority, centred around an audience which is empowered partly by the threat of informing. As a contrast, Ben Jonson’s onstage audiences are often allowed only ridiculous or overblown reactions, a kind of instructional dysfunction, while remaining entirely under the control of the author. In The Knight of the Burning Pestle however, the onstage audience are allowed a much more actively intrusive role, as they attempt to hold sway over the writing and production of the play they inhabit. Beaumont’s onstage citizens therefore stage an authorship which feels itself to be under siege by a far more unruly form of audience empowerment and signify the fear of of venal interpretation and misheld authority. The end result is a theatrical form which accurately reproduces the critical atmosphere of the drama and of the material context of its production. In offering this Beaumont reveals the precarious nature of his own authority in relation to that of a potentially informing audience. His metadrama therefore registers, in both form and content, the solid fear that ‘unseemly speeches . . . mistaking the Author’s intention’ by informers may lead not only to ‘unkind reports’, but also ultimately to the horrors of the early modern gaol.