Phronetic Transformational Leadership: Moral Rebel Trust-Creating Unknowing-Admitting Outsiders

Abstract

Outsider executives lacking industry insiders’ tacit know-how, phronesis, and premises of decisions learned and developed on the job and in practitioner communities are common. Phronetic transformational leadership research missed the question of how outsider executives solve the major problem of sharing these subordinates’ exclusive experiential knowledge essential for wise leadership. Research has noted insiders’ trust required for sharing these essential resources but rarely addressed and explained those few incomers who by vulnerable involvement in deliberations with subordinates exposed their knowledge gaps to them, initiating trustful dialogs, and close these gaps. Such admission of ignorance requires psychological safety that most outsiders lacked, but its avoidance prevented the full trust necessary to close knowledge gaps by subordinates’ knowledge sharing. Who and why chose otherwise, practiced trust-creating exposure of their knowledge gaps, shared subordinates’ knowledge, and became wise phronetic transformational leaders? Ethnographies of Israeli inter-kibbutz cooperatives found that these were high-moral humble constructive deviants; moved by servant and self-determination motives consistent with kibbutz communal culture, they exposed their local knowledge gaps by vulnerable involvement in deliberations with subordinates, built trust, shared employees’ experiential knowledge, and wisely transformed inter-kibbutz cooperatives. Suggestions for further study of moral rebel phronetic leaders are offered.

1. Introduction

Phronetic transformational leadership research missed the question of how outsider executives solve the major problem of sharing subordinates’ exclusive tacit know-how, phronesis (Greek for practical wisdom), and other local knowledge such as premises of decisions learned and developed on the job and in practitioner communities. These intangible resources are essential for wise leading [1, 2, 3]. However, without the leader’s exposure of own gaps of these intangibles by vulnerable involvement in subordinates’ deliberations, s/he can hardly generate the full trust required for them to share these essential intangible resources [4, 5, 6, 7]. Outsider executives inexperienced in the industry, lacking many of the firm’s expertise and its employees’ exclusive tacit know-how, phronesis, and premises of decisions, are common [8, 9]. Gouldner [10] already depicted a failure by an outsider plant manager due to detachment from subordinates, which caused mistrust and concealment of managing-essential knowledge, as found by others [11, 12, 13]. Many studies sought to clarify which type of CEOs are preferable, outsiders or insiders, but findings remained contradictory [14] as they missed the outsider’s prime dilemma: Shall I dare vulnerable involvement in deliberations with subordinates, exposing my gaps of their exclusive tacit know-how, phronesis, and premises of decisions in order to build full trust and share these intangibles, or by distancing from them, should I conceal my gaps of local experiential knowledge and defend and augment my authority [15, 16]?

Outsider executives often defend their authority by low-moral concealment of their own gaps of subordinates’ exclusive tacit know-how, phronesis, and premises of decisions, avoiding trust-creating vulnerable involvement (T-CVI for short) in deliberations with subordinates rather than high-morally admitting gaps, building subordinates’ full trust, and encouraging sharing of these intangibles [6, 7, 16]. Research rarely alluded to outsiders’ dilemma concerning practicing T-CVI that is decisive for creating the full trust required for subordinates’ sharing of tacit know-how and phronesis developed and learned in “the unceasing flow of activities in which practitioners are inextricably immersed” ([2], p. 377). However, unlike practitioners, managers choose if, when, where, and how to immerse in the flow of activities. Immersion makes their authority vulnerable by exposing gaps of subordinates’ experiential knowledge; exposing the lack of this knowledge endangers their authority, requiring psychological safety that outsiders often lack [6, 7]. However, without practicing T-CVI, they miss their own gaps of subordinates’ exclusive knowledge, essential for wise leadership [8]. Subordinates have acquired their exclusive experiential knowledge by their work and learning from their own and others’ successes, mistakes, and failures [17]; they share these nadir intangible resources only with fully trusted high-moral superiors who proved their honesty, competence, integrity, and benevolence [18], those who communicate their own vulnerability by exposing knowledge gaps through open dialog [19, 20]. A manager’s vulnerable involvement in deliberations with subordinates by dialog is essential for initiating ascending mutual trust spirals that encourage subordinates’ sharing of their exclusive intangibles [5, 6, 7, 8].

Generations of sociologists studied Gouldner’s book [10] on the failure of a detached autocratic distrusted outsider plant manager and thousands cited Zand’s [4] finding that managerial problem-solving success requires full interpersonal trust created by managers’ vulnerable involvement in deliberations with subordinates, which leads to sharing knowledge essential for problem-solving, but reviews of literature on outsider managers disregard these works [14, 21]. Thus, was missed that practicing T-CVI in deliberations with subordinates is critical for outsiders’ sharing of the latter’s experiential knowledge essential for phronetic leadership, for “bringing people together,” “creating contexts for learning,” “communicate effectively,” “grasping the essence of situations,” and “encouraging the development of practical wisdom” ([22], p. 5). Detached outsiders conceal their gaps of subordinates’ experiential knowledge but fail proving benevolence, humility, trustworthiness, and integrity, barring the trustful sharing of subordinates’ tacit know-how, phronesis, and premises of decisions and remaining ignorant of what they have missed [7, 9, 11]. Worse still, such outsiders advance careers by using immoral distrustful practices such as bluffs, lies, camouflages, scapegoating, and autocratic voice repression, all of which deter subordinates’ sharing of exclusive knowledge and harm detached outsider managers’ judgment and decisions [23, 24, 25].

Outsider managers’ dilemma concerning practicing T-CVI has barely been studied, while I have exposed and explained it repeatedly ever since 1987 [7, 13, 16, 26, 27]. Research noticed the decisiveness of leaders’ becoming phronetic by creating contexts that encourage phronesis and tacit know-how sharing in open trustful dialogs [20, 28] though often missed outsiders’ failures to create such contexts [1, 8, 16]. I have studied a social field that discouraged managers’ T-CVI by promising career advancement without it, Israel’s Kibbutz Regional Cooperatives (KRCs for short)¹, a type of inter-kibbutz organization in which all managers were kibbutz member outsiders; their managerial careers commenced inside kibbutzim (pl. of kibbutz) and continued in KRCs and/or other inter-kibbutz and kibbutz-related organizations. I studied five KRCs ethnographically for five years, enjoying an interactive perspective due to a bidirectional dyadic framework [29], that is, both as a participant observer and as an interviewer of all ranks. In the five KRCs studied, 27 of the 32 executives (i.e., 84%) were found to be avoiders of T-CVI and mostly users of low-moral practices, while only 5 (16%) practiced it. An opposite majority was found among 25 mid-managers who mostly lacked such career prospects, of whom 18 (72%) practiced T-CVI [7]. Executives’ superior power, prestige, and status largely explain their tendency to avoid T-CVI, enabling the majority of them successful “jumping” careers, climbing the rungs by switching managerial jobs despite ignorance, mistakes, and failures, which they concealed as dark secrets [30] or/and low-morally camouflaged. The incompetence of these executives often facilitated mid-managers’ T-CVI: their proximity to subordinates’ workplace and status discouraged distancing; by practicing T-CVI, they created mutual trust with subordinates and enjoyed their tacit know-how, phronesis, and premises of decisions [2, 3, 7, 13]. Consequently, despite of mismanaging detached outsider executives, mid-managers’ phronetic dialogic job-functioning enhanced plants’ functioning and often prevented major failures [7, 20].

Outsider executives are often “jumpers,” but formal leadership research missed how “jumping” careers and deficient experiential know-how and phronesis encouraged low-moral risk-avoider careerism by detachment and/or autocratic rule [23, 24]. Both strategies prevent “jumpers” from knowing their own gaps of subordinates’ exclusive experiential knowledge, which hinder their job-functioning though not their career advance [7, 9, 10]. “Jumpers’” common gaps of job-pertinent knowledge resources was explained by their lack of psychological safety [6], but their preservation of knowledge gaps by avoiding of T-CVI and preferring managerial career advancement by lower moral practices was rarely noticed. I have found that only a few “jumper” executives courageously practiced high-moral T-CVI in subordinates’ deliberations and exposed their own gaps of the latter exclusive experiential phrenesis, modeling trustworthy benevolence, transparency, integrity, and humility that generate wise transforming dialogs [20, 31, 32]. Their high-moral T-CVI led to employees’ reciprocal sharing of their experiential knowledge [33] unachievable by detached or autocratic outsiders [10], and they shaped high-trust innovation-prone cultures called “organic” by Burns and Stalker [26, 34, 35]. Then, managers’ and staff’s partnership generated transforming innovations, thus better called phronetic transformative leaders (hereafter PTLrs [7, 36, 37]). By practicing T-CVI, PTLrs also signal humility that reduces the threat to subordinates’ self-image, while their phronetic use of subordinates’ experiential knowledge elevates the latter’s self-image as valued contributors of rare resources that lead to successes [38]. Practicing T-CVI also enables PTLrs to discern subordinates’ needs from wishes, to trustfully care for these, and to discern, suppress, and oust impostors, bluffers, ingratiators, and the like [7, 39].

My previous works mainly depicted and explained KRCs’ detached and/or autocratic “jumpers,” much less their few opposites, high-moral T-CVI-practicing PTLrs, although this minority of executives largely explains the kibbutz field’s successes. This article is devoted to an explanation of the latter.

It has three parts:

1. Field and method: Bidirectional seminative longitudinal study.

2. High-moral practicing T-CVI by PTLrs at Northern KRC.

   1. CEO Arko’s moral rebel leadership from inception.

   2. Plant manager Gabi’s exceptional success as a moral rebel constructive deviant.

   3. CEO Dan’s transformative visions encouraged daring T-CVI.

   4. Plant manager Niv repeated the high-trust egalitarian kibbutz branch leadership.

   5. Plant manager Shafi’s practicing T-CVI was less risky due to insider experience.

3. Discussion and conclusion

2. Field and method: Bidirectional seminative longitudinal study

The article is based on ethnographic longitudinal study of the kibbutz field [16, 27, 40, 41]. This field is unique, comprising two hemispheres, kibbutzim and Inter-Kibbutz Organizations (I-KOs for short), while the 11 KRCs are one kind of I-KOs managed by 1200 kibbutz members called pe’ilim (activists) and operated by 8–9.000 hired employees. The canonical kibbutz research evaded bureaucratic hierarchic I-KOs in order to defend the egalitarian and democratic image of the kibbutz, ignoring pe’ilim’s stratification resembling corporate staff (e.g., [42, 43]). By 1985, the population of the 269 kibbutzim had reached some 129,000. Up to 1980, they were organized in four federations called “The Movements” as well as in some 250 I-KOs managed by some 4500 pe’ilim and operated by 15–18,000 hired employees [40]; numbers are inexact due to researchers’ evasion of I-KOs [44]. Entrenched Movement heads dominated some 45 years; beneath them were decades-tenured senior pe’ilim who served as Movement department heads and later as cabinet ministers and CEOs of the largest IKOs such as KRCs, and then came other stratified pe’ilim whose power, privileges, and tenures were largely graded according to hierarchic ranks [43].

Pe’ilim were ex-kibbutz managers who advanced to manage I-KOs; large I-KOs became oligarchic, and their heads concealed/camouflaged violations of kibbutz egalitarianism and democracy to enhance their own power, privileges, and other capitals [44] (e.g., [45]). Critics of these violations were suppressed, sidetracked, and mostly left. The rotatzia norm, which limited kibbutz managers’ office terms to a few years, disempowered them vis-à-vis entrenched I-KO heads who controlled their promotion to privileged I-KO jobs [43] (e.g., [46]). Their weakness resembled Japan’s weak rotated prime ministers who failed to overcome the decades-corrupt rule of ex-prime minister Tanaka and then Shin Kanemaru [47]. Rotatzia deprived kibbutz officers and also junior pe’ilim of a long time horizon for creative problem-solving [48], suppressing talented phronetic transformational leaders who then left or “left inside,” avoiding managerial jobs in favor of other careers [49].

My bidirectional longitudinal anthropological studies commenced after 15 years of kibbutz managerial jobs; they included 17 years of observations, participant observations, some 550 open interviews, and conversations with past and present pe’ilim executives, managers, experts, hired foremen, and workers of 5 KRCs and 4 kibbutzim, plus 28 years of archival search, analysis, and reanalysis of these materials, as detailed in my Hebrew and English publications referenced hereby. My findings emphasize contextual impacts on executives’ moral leadership [50, 51]. As mentioned, only five of the 32 KRC executives studied risked their managerial authority and succeeded by high-morally practicing T-CVI. All kibbutz member KRC managers called pe’ilim (activists) earned equal salaries that were paid to their kibbutzim; thus, seeking better remuneration cannot explain their behavior, while the kibbutz managerial rotatzia (rotation) norm limited job tenures to a few years, often too short a period for successful leadership by outsiders, as they all were. Thus, how can these five executives who risked their authority by T-CVI contrary to 27 avoider peers be explained? The latter majority suggests that the context of kibbutz high-moral goals and its societal pioneering was not enough to explain this risky choice. Thus, the first question is how much risk did they take by opting for T-CVI? Secondly, can intrinsic servant and self-determination motivations explain their choices [52] and/or these combined with dialogic practices according to the communal context [20]? Did their moral humility encourage constructive deviation from their low-moral majority peers [53]? Were they high-moral rebels who objected to the low morality of most KRCs’ executives [54]? Which personal histories and behaviors prove these explanations? Did their practice of T-CVI lead to shaping high-trust innovation-prone successful cultures as much literature proposes?

Anthropologists rarely studied executives [55], incapable of “entering their shoes” as participant observer executives; unique circumstances allowed me to “enter” these and to bidirectionally assess managerial leadership [56]: like many pe’ilim, I served in various kibbutz managerial jobs, while for my second and third academic degrees, I conducted a longitudinal ethnographic study of KRCs and kibbutzim as an insider-outsider [1, 57]. I enjoyed free sharing of managers’ experiential knowledge as a seminative ethnographer: Native ethnographers study their own people and, being too close to them, often adopt the views of their subjects, while outsider ethnographers suffer from naivety and, lacking insider knowledge, miss/misunderstand locals’ views and actions (e.g., [57], p. 19). I avoided both by studying my home social field in other kibbutzim and in KRCs. Managerial experience at my kibbutz’s automatic processing plant endowed me with referred expertise for studying KRCs’ automatic plants [58]. I was also personally familiar with some pe’ilim and suffered only little managerial secrecy [25]; I learned local languages and gained interactional expertise and the capacity to assess managers’ expertise and their managerial effectiveness [58, 59, 60].

At first, I studied the Merkaz KRC (a pseudonym, as are all names hereafter) for five years; it handled much of the agricultural input and output of its some 40 kibbutzim owners in six plants and commercial firms, with some US $350 million sales as of the early 1980s (over billion in current prices). I approached pe’ilim as their peer; we discussed common problems, and I accessed their documents. For years, I repeatedly observed Merkaz’s industrial park and its high-capacity automatic cotton gin plant and held mini-seminars with renowned Israeli ginning experts. I made participant observations as a registrar, working shifts in the 3.5-month high season from September to December when the plant operated 24/7 and writing a 791-page observation journal. I then toured four other gin plants, observed their premises, and interviewed 63 acting and former executives and staff members (331-page protocol). My ethnographying facilitated a reliable review of managers’ and subordinates’ information, assertions, whether their trust/distrust of others was mutual, as well as how much phronesis and tacit know-how were shared (e.g., [61, 62]). My reanalysis of data backtracked from aggregate dimensions to first-order concepts [57]; I discerned a few pe’ilim executives who were PTLrs, high-moral T-CVI-practicing leaders who generated ascending mutual trust spirals and innovation-prone high-trust cultures [63]. Only a few I-KO heads and executives risked their authority by T-CVI and became PTLrs; they remained prolonged effective transformative leaders [40].

3. High-moral practicing T-CVI by PTLrs at northern KRC

Canonical kibbutz research ignored stratified KRCs to preserve the egalitarian image of the kibbutz. Each of the five KRCs studied and their automatic cotton gin plants were owned by dozens of kibbutzim; each KRC had several plants and processed raw agricultural products for its kibbutzim. KRCs followed bureaucratic capitalist norms aside from three:

1. All executives were pe’ilim, formally to ensure that KRCs served the needs of kibbutzim but informally to justify pe’ilim’s privileges that helped recruit talented kibbutz members for managerial jobs.

2. Pe’ilim’s equal humble salaries were paid to their kibbutzim, but perks were granted by rank, and executives enjoyed better company cars, business trips abroad, large offices, and other high-status signals.

3. The rotatzia of pe’ilim every 3–5 years was formally valid, but many executive pe’ilim violated it, boosting their power by autocratic conservatism; they “rotated” out critical employees and innovators and stayed for long periods themselves, often backed by Movement heads [43].

PTLrs were rare in the KRCs studied; as outsiders, many executive pe’ilim lacked the psychological safety [15] to expose their own gaps of phronesis and tacit know-how to hired employees in order to close these gaps; they had good prospects for prolonged managerial careers by “jumping” and/or by conservative autocracy and/or detachment that concealed their job-ignorance as a dark secret [30]. Contrary practices were utilized by two Northern KRC CEOs and three Northern cotton gin plant managers; they jeopardized authority by T-CVI in deliberations with subordinates, initiated ascending mutual trust spirals [14], and shaped a high-trust innovation-prone “organic” culture in which intangible resources were freely shared, employees’ ingenuity was encouraged, and phronetic dialogs led Northern KRC and its gin plant to excel in the industry [16, 20, 64].

3.1 CEO Arko’s servant moral rebel leadership from inception

Northern KRC was established in the late 1950s and was led unsuccessfully by a detached low-moral pa’il CEO, who left his office before the term’s end. Then, pa’il Arko, aged 40, took the CEO helm and succeeded by practicing T-CVI as a moral rebel servant leader, recruiting his kind to manage Northern plants. Arko was a moral rebel from inception, high-morally risking his leadership authority since the age of 19 as the head of the largest branch of his Movement’s youth organization in a metropolitan city. At the age of 15, he defined his life motto as a servant leader, “caring for my country and its people before caring for self and family” (Arco’s memorial booklet, p. 3). Aged 21, he high-morally practiced this calling (e.g., [65]): He was summoned with other youth leaders to Ben-Gurion, leader of the pre-Israel Jewish Palestine community. Ben-Gurion asked them to use high-school students in their organizations as informers on members of the Etzel clandestine terrorist movement to facilitate their suppression by British rulers. Such collaboration with detested colonial rulers was morally problematic; hence, Arko stood up against the leader, who was triple his age, and outrightly rejected his demand, although as a branch head, he should have consulted his Movement’s leaders before making such a bold move. This was quite risky: these Movement leaders could have fired him; they did not, as he was extremely popular due to successful branch leadership.

Arko continued his high-moral transformational leadership in subsequent kibbutz and Movement executive jobs. From his youth movement upbringing, he was familiar with the Movement’s principles and goals; as a branch leader, members followed his lead in various social and economic matters as he displayed on-the-job learning of problems, phronesis, and plausible solutions by trustful dialog, trusting followers as partners in his endeavors [20, 66]. His dialogic partnership minimized the risk to his authority by exposing his own knowledge gaps: he enjoyed followers’ reciprocal sharing of exclusive tacit know-how and phronesis, which minimized mistakes and failures. Staff’s trust enhanced his humility [67], exhibited by driving the humblest car in the market, a French Citroen Deux Chevaux (2 HP), at a time when parallel KRC CEOs and Movement leaders had large American cars ([40], p. 57). Arko never sought status symbols nor did he need them; his name as a successful PTLr preceded him whenever assuming a new leadership office. At the age of 23, he headed a group of young pioneers who led thousands of demonstrators to defeat the British army’s eviction of a settlement built on Jewish-owned land. Then, with other pioneers, he established a new kibbutz in the remote inhospitable north. For the next 16 years, he succeeded intermittently as kibbutz economic manager, the Movement’s chief economist, and in between as the organizer of the Movement’s national youth conventions; youth summer camps, one of which had a thousand participants; and others. At the age of 40, he became CEO of Northern KRC, which he had founded a few years earlier with others, marking his recognition by the region’s kibbutzim as the leader of his kibbutz’s exceptional economic and social success.

Recognition by promotion added to Arko’s psychological safety to jeopardize his authority by T-CVI in deliberations with Northern’s staff, which enhanced problem-solving and innovation, while an open-door policy furthered mutual trust and open dialog with the staff. During his four-year term, all unprofitable plants became profitable and three new ones were launched. He personally sought in kibbutzim potential high-moral prospective PTLrs to manage plants and risked his authority by recruiting “troublemaker” Gabi as the potato sorting and packaging plant manager. Gabi arrived at the KRC after being dismissed from the job of deputy to a kibbutz member charged with establishing and managing a new plant. This member adopted a blueprint for the new plant, offered by consultants who were supposedly experts in such plants; Gabi was not an expert on such plants, but as an educated and experienced practical engineer, he analyzed the proposal details, reviewed the solutions the blueprint offered to known technical problems, and found that it was fraudulent and bound to fail; these “experts” had tried to profit from his boss’s lack of pertinent expertize (e.g., [4]) like the swindlers in Andersen’s legend “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” He failed to convince his boss and kibbutz managers of this, and he whistle-blew his findings among kibbutz members. The managers grasped him as a troublemaker, urged him to leave for a job in Northern KRC. Gabi turned to Arko, asking for a managerial job; Arko confirmed the above and nominated him the potato sorting and packaging plant manager; for Arko, Gabi’s whistle-blowing signaled a strong leader who just needed a strong CEO above him to excel in his job, as Gabi indeed did: success in the potato plant led Arko to accept Gabi’s idea to amalgamate the potato and gin plants under his leadership. As Gabi succeeded in the amalgamated plant, Arko accepted his proposal that his plant’s technical manager Arbiv and his technicians rebuild the potato plant’s production lines to double its capacity at half the price of known contractors’ offers. Arko risked his authority, as neither Arbiv nor his technicians had ever built such lines. His trust in them obliged reciprocation, which they did by finishing the project ahead of schedule at the planned half price.

Arko’s choice to risk his authority by T-CVI contrary to most of the studied pe’ilim was integral to his above-cited high-moral life-motto and moral rebel deviant practices. Practicing T-CVI in various leader offices before and after the CEO office produced many successes, repeatedly proving the suitability of his authority-risking choices and modeling a high-moral leader who required himself to cope with hardships before demanding this of others. The many obituaries that they and many others wrote in a specially published commemoration notebook noted that his second name was “the trustworthy,” gaining the full trust of interlocutors in all ranks of various organizations by openness to criticism, speaking directly, and proving integrity, transparency, benevolence, and humility [67]. Followers’ open sharing of tacit know-how and phronesis ensured that they were up to the task, enabling Arco to discern and remove those who were not [7]. These high-trust culture characteristics that he infused in his executive jobs minimized the risk to his authority by exposing his knowledge gaps, which encouraged increasing risk-taking from one leadership job to another over six decades, according to many accounts of his functioning in major national offices.²

3.2 Plant manager Gabi’s exceptional success as a moral rebel constructive deviant PTLr

A conspicuous successful moral rebel constructive deviant PTLr was Northern Gin plant manager Gabi, who for 7.5 years led the plant to industry leadership, as the best Israeli gin plant with both high cotton fiber quality, which decided its commercial value, and minimal downtime, only 3–5% versus 10–12% at most other plants and Merkaz’s 32% in my participant observation season [7]. Minimal downtime in these 24/7 plants was critical, enabling farmers maximum cotton picking before the harmful autumn rains; storage of picked cotton was quite expensive at the time. All gin plants were similarly regional cooperative-owned and marketed produce cooperatively; the quality grading of their produce was published weekly by the newsletter of the fiber-grading laboratory at the National Cotton Marketing Council. Noncompeting plant managers and technical managers frequently visited each other’s plants, seeking spare parts or advice concerning technical problems and innovations, and were well-informed of each other’s successes and failures; Israel’s nine other cotton gin plant managers acknowledged Gabi’s excelling and chose him as their association head and representative vis- à -vis the authorities.

Practicing T-CVI required psychological safety to jeopardize one’s authority [6], which in Gabi’s case was a problem at first as he came to the job without the usual blessing of one’s kibbutz managers for such a nomination. However, his moral rebel whistle-blowing fit moral rebel Arko who explained this nomination thus:

“I recruited Gabi to manage the potato packaging plant and then he also took on the cotton gin plant. For me it was clear that one considered a troublemaker [manager] in his kibbutz would be okay under me [in the KRC], unlike a weaker boss whose authority would have been threatened” (Arko’s booklet, p. 31).

Leaders often nominate their own kind as mid-levelers [68]; moral rebel Arko felt strong, as his leadership had already succeeded many times since the age of 21 by high-moral risking T-CVI; rather than appointing a weak conformist mid-leveler who would play it safe by autocracy and/or detachment and cause mistakes and failures due to phronesis and tacit know-how gaps [7], he chose a moral rebel whistle-blower, certain that the latter would be a constructive deviant [53] mid-leveler unafraid of risking authority by T-CVI by which he would acquire intangible resources for transformational leadership, as Gabi did. I found seven explanations for Gabi’s choice, all related to his moral rebel motivation that explained his early whistle-blowing (e.g., [69]):

1. An egalitarian habitus of kibbutz culture (e.g., [45]): Gabi, as a certified practical engineer, had previously managed his kibbutz’s agricultural machinery garage and other branches; his only rewards were intangible [70]; branch teams were small, and he partially worked manually with members; thus, he suffered only few knowledge gaps, and practicing T-CVI in deliberations with members entailed little risk to his managerial authority. He habituated dialogical solving of problems, leading by referent and expert power and modeling high-moral practices that enhanced group identification [71]. He repeated all this when managing Northern Gin, shaping a high-trust culture of group identification, as clearly indicated by all gin plant interviewees who used “we” language when depicting their own work.

2. Having pertinent referred expertize for the task: As a practical engineer with ample experience coping with agricultural machinery, including cotton pickers, Gabi had referred expertise [58] for learning the gin plant’s phronesis and tacit know-how; thus, exposure of knowledge gaps entailed little risk. Moreover, similar to Merkaz gin plant’s technical manager Thomas ([16], p. 23), he found that the gin’s machinery was mostly relatively simple, further encouraging practicing T-CVI in deliberations with employees.

3. Renewed self-confidence encouraged risk-taking: Gabi’s immediate finding of a new executive job after his kibbutz’s dismissal due to CEO Arko’s positive grasp of his “trouble-making” enhanced his self-confidence. PTLr Arko sought a new leader to enhance the potato plant’s productivity, one who would use unconventional solutions. Gabi could have done this only by acquiring pertinent interactional and contributory expertise [58] through gaining local tacit know-how and phronesis by practicing authority-jeopardizing T-CVI. Moreover, his previous crucible leadership experience (e.g., [72]) of exposing the plant’s “planning experts” as swindlers by delving into details of their proposals encouraged practicing T-CVI.

4. Employees expected him to demonstrate partnership, which required practicing T-CVI: Gabi’s predecessor, plant manager Niv, habituated employees to a vulnerably involved plant manager (below; [73]). Niv lacked Gabi’s engineering education and mechanic experience and was less involved in solving technical problems, but being high-moral, he was determined to improve the fiber quality; he erected a billboard on which employees read the weekly reports of the cotton grading lab, discussed with them the reports and ways of improving the results, and implemented most of their suggestions, and employees expected a similar partnership of Gabi [66] (e.g., [74]); this required him to practice T-CVI.

5. Interest in proving his previous dismissal was wrong: Gabi’s dismissal harmed his prestige among fellow kibbutz members and others; this required him to risk his authority by T-CVI in order to gain employees’ trust; share their phronesis, tacit know-how, and ingenuity; succeed in his job; and reestablish his prestige in his kibbutz.

6. Interest in proving his promotion was justified: Gabi’s promotion after his dismissal encouraged him to prove that his promotion was justified, while referred expertizes encouraged risking his authority by practicing T-CVI in order to gain locals’ trust and share their phronesis, tacit know-how, and ingenuity [7, 75].

7. Interest in high-moral local culture: As a demoted whistle-blower, Gabi sought a high-trust high-moral culture; practicing T-CVI made him best informed for suppressing immorality. Privy to staff knowledge, he discerned and fired bums, fools, impostors, and troublemakers [76]. For instance, he got rid of a best ginner who was pimping on weekends; employees informed Gabi, who then caught him having sex with a 13 year-old girl in the boiler room on a weekend night, aimed at making her a prostitute.

The KRC context helped Gabi’s career by limiting Arko’s nomination alternatives: only pe’ilim were KRC executives; owner kibbutzim stipulated this to ensure the best care of their crops. This stipulation prevented Arko from hiring a non-kibbutz member plant manager, but it also prevented the promotion of the gin plant’s hired technical manager Arbiv to plant manager when Gabi left, although Arbiv had excelled at his job and for a dozen years proved his utmost care for the kibbutzim’s cotton. Due to this policy in the five gin plants studied, low-moral T-CVI-avoider pe’ilim plant managers mostly cared little about the kibbutzim’s cotton, defending their authority by concealing tacit know-how and phronesis gaps, and adopted conservative laissez-faire policy or even a destructive toxic one [23, 24].

Gabi’s choice of practicing T-CVI was also explained by his practical engineering education, acquired due to servant and self-determination motivation [52]. At the time, kibbutzim provided higher education only to would-be teachers in their schools and to economic managers [77]; Gabi as a kibbutz garage manager kept requesting engineering education for years, pointing to teachers’ and economic managers’ higher education, and it was finally approved. This seemingly pointed to self-serving careerism, but if Gabi was a careerist, he avoided whistle-blowing to defend his executive job; his high morality did not allow him to remain silent when he uncovered bluffing swindlers, apparently believing that “ethics is the heart of leadership” [50]. He joined the kibbutz for the moral cause of Zionism and was astonished when his boss and kibbutz managers immorally silenced him instead of dismissing the swindlers. High-morally, he reacted once more 7.5 years later to a new “jumper” KRC’s CEO boss lacking any experience in industrial management who immorally replaced effective high-moral plant managers with his unqualified yes-men loyalists, added privileges to pe’ilim, and did not care about hired employees’ plight. Gabi quit his job and then also the kibbutz with his family when he found this CEO’s immorality supported by other pe’ilim, contrary to the high morality of his previous CEOs, Arko and Dan (below). An additional sign that this was a moral deed was that Gabi left with no clear prospect of another executive job or its equivalent, meaning that he was bound to a drop in his and his family’s standard of living.

Thus, Gabi’s T-CVI risked his authority as an integral part of his high-moral choice of kibbutz pioneering, settling a remote inhospitable region near a hostile border. Risking his authority by exposing tacit know-how and phronesis gaps seemed marginal versus the great dangers of his pioneering life choice, particularly because his ample engineering know-how and phronesis as an experienced mechanic and mechanics’ manager promised successful coping with the management of complex industrial systems [16]. In addition, his practicing T-CVI followed CEO Arko’s choice, that of predecessor Niv, and that of CEO Dan (below). Niv’s practicing T-CVI achieved only mediocre success and was not sufficient to explain Gabi’s choice of T-CVI, but explained the plant staff’s expectation for a T-CVI-practicing plant manager to succeed Niv, as Gabi indeed did, enhancing subordinates’ trust and cooperative sharing of intangible resources.

3.3 CEO Dan’s transformative visions encouraged practicing T-CVI

CEO Dan’s practicing T-CVI resembled Arko’s and Gabi’s in its courageous risking of authority aimed at phronetic transformations; his autobiography’s name included both the words “vision” and “daring,” which he practiced as Arko’s successor from the age of 32, the youngest of all KRC CEOs I studied. He was Arko’s friend from the years they were parallel economic managers of their respective kibbutzim. Arko chose Dan as his successor though younger than all the other candidates; much like his choice of Gabi, he chose Dan less for his record as a successful kibbutz treasurer, economic manager, and flower bulb branch manager and more for Dan’s phronetic transformational leadership in each of these jobs, radically innovating after practicing T-CVI and thorough learning of entrenched debilitating routines, offering new visions to be achieved by risky transformation through new practices.

Most conspicuous among these was the transformation of the flower bulb branch from a small exporter to the niche of US Jewish women, selling through local women’s clubs, into a large business that marketed by distributing printed brochures in major US chain stores. He led this transformation after a three-month tour of the US with his predecessor, who due to health reasons could not continue his biyearly three-month bulb-selling tours in US cities. This tour was courageous, since Dan knew no English, but he was encouraged by his American-born wife: she promised him he would learn the language during the tour, as indeed happened. In the tour, Dan met some major bulb marketers with whom his predecessor had canceled relations; Dan gained their trust by exposing his ignorance of their business and learned their marketing phronesis, which he then used to radically change bulb marketing in the US, making the branch a major success.

When Dan was nominated CEO, he knew that retaining all KRC executive jobs for pe’ilim was a problematic norm, but not how much it impeded hired employees’ trust in pe’ilim. As a member of Gabi’s kibbutz, he heard from Gabi about pe’ilim’s negative reactions to Gabi’s elevating of talented committed hired technician Arbiv to technical manager and his nurturing of Arbiv by taking him to national professional meetings and on business tours abroad. For Dan as a high-moral socialized humble leader [67], pe’ilim’s negativity was unacceptable; he aimed to treat hired employees equally, as had predecessors Niv, Arko, and Gabi, contrary to most KRC executives [16]. For example, the Fiat firm invited a technician to visit its plants in Italy; the car garage manager pa’il hesitated, as garage pe’ilim thought one of them would go; Dan learned from him that a young hired technician maintained Fiat cars and decided that he would go. Another example: On a visit to the garage, Dan noticed that its teenage workers were not receiving the education mandated by law since the nearby town had no technical high school. With the garage manager, Dan opened an afternoon technical high school for them on the KRC’s premises and also provided lunch. By practicing T-CVI, Dan knew employees’ needs and interests, discerned them from wishes, and met them [39].

Dan often visited the plants’ shop floor to hear employees’ complaints and rectify what he could; in one plant, maintenance technicians complained about the new major imported machine, asserting that they could build a better machine at a lower cost. Dan consulted pertinent engineers and agreed, after the technicians promised that they would ensure that their machine would never stop the line and be repaired immediately whenever needed. Then, when it succeeded, he put a plaque beside the plant’s entrance announcing this success and posted a photo of the proud team by the machine on his office wall. Dan also authorized Gabi’s initiative to give technical manager Arbiv and his team the job of renewing the potato plant production lines once more, this time tripling their capacity. Dan loved this team; he often visited them during the two high seasons, for potatoes and cotton, and was happily notified of their exceptional ginning results.

Dan’s most important transformation of the KRC entailed establishing a food factory that processed local yields into frozen ready-to-eat foods unknown in Israel. Ethical reasons prevent further details, but the economic results were clear: a higher income for grower kibbutzim and more employment for the adjacent town. Dan was involved in every major stage, from the choice of plant manager and his expert team to a learning tour abroad and many other decisions, in each of which his mastering of experts’ phronesis and tacit know-how was closely scrutinized and his authority sometimes challenged by them. Dan’s practicing T-CVI was a major reason for the project’s success; his T-CVI practice contrasted, for instance, with plant manager Shavit’s detachment ([16], p. 19-21). Dan also used the referred phronesis gained in marketing flower bulbs, which were consumer goods like the new plant’s frozen foods.

For PTLr Dan, transformative “visions” were achieved by “daring” high-moral T-CVI. The two had gone hand in hand in his leadership; apparently, for him, daring authority-risking T-CVI was integral to phronetic transformational leadership that served the common good, not a special deed worth notice in his book. At first, as manager of the flower bulbs branch, he managed kibbutz members with whom he partially worked shoulder-to-shoulder and had breakfast and lunch, where they freely shared their phronesis and tacit know-how, unafraid of possible managerial domineering [7]. Then, Dan’s open admission of his ignorance of the flower bulb trade enabled him to learn its phronesis and tacit know-how from prospective competitors. Then, as CEO, he continued the high-moral T-CVI practice, which seemed natural after similarly practiced by Niv, Arko, and Gabi; explanations 1, 2, 4, and 6 for Gabi’s choice of T-CVI were pertinent for Dan as well.

3.4 Plant manager Niv repeated the high-trust egalitarian kibbutz branch leadership

Plant manager pa’il Niv preceded the above three PTLrs, pioneering practicing high-moral T-CVI contrary to his detached short-term boss, the Northern KRC’s first CEO. Niv and a technical manager pa’il led the establishment of Northern Gin in the late 1950s. Arbiv, a young technician and former army tank mechanic, was one of the building team and then became a ginner. He remembered Niv’s T-CVI practice and high-moral efforts at educating the new plant’s staff:

“Northern was at first a small plant and Niv worked as one of us in its establishment, never kept a distance. Even his wife brought us evening and night meals and made coffee for us as we hurried to set up the new plant ahead of the [cotton] picking season. He then for years infused into our blood that our plant would thrive and we with it, provided we took outmost care of cotton growers’ interests [by best ginning raw cotton].”

Niv as plant manager continued the high-trust egalitarian participative socialized leadership (e.g., [74, 78]), which he had habituated as a field crops branch manager at his kibbutz, as led in other kibbutzim some high-moral PTLrs [40]. For him, T-CVI was not a major risk as all the staff were new to ginning; no one expected him to know ginning, and exposing ignorance was natural. Moreover, knowing the importance of cotton fiber quality, he traveled with the plant’s staff to the national sorting lab to learn the subject and then publicized the labs’ weekly reports on a billboard and discussed reports with the staff, seeking to improve ginning results. They also traveled to other plants to learn from them, while boasting Northern’s better results among themselves, enhancing group cohesion and performance [71]. Lacking mechanic expertise, Niv trusted his technical manager and deputies to solve technical problems, encouraging creative problem-solving by shaping a high-trust “organic” culture [18, 34], and by open-door policy and dialogic decision-making, he encouraged dialogic ginning learning [7, 20].

The plant’s employees were young, with minimal technical education; Niv high-morally organized evening technical courses for them and also organized a car driving course and licensing. He helped them find affordable accommodations in the adjacent town through connections with acquaintances in the Mapai ruling party. Gin plant work was seasonal, and for some 7 months, there was almost no work. Niv retained the plant’s specializing staff by finding them seasonal and contract jobs in other KRC plants that used their technical skills, achieving a committed team spirit (e.g., [71]). He depicted this:

“Their teamwork was like a family, with my nurturing of camaraderie among them. They gave the plant all they could; highly dedicated, they did not hesitate to take high risks in cases of fire and hazardous machine repairs.”

Niv’s nurturing created trustful teamwork and a high-trust culture of admitting mistakes and failures, learning from experience, and sharing acquired tacit know-how and phronesis. However, his own learning of these intangibles was partial, lacking a mechanic’s expertise; unlike Gabi, he was unqualified to analyze details of staff’s coping with troubled machines, and he trusted his technical manager and staff. In Flyvbjerg’s terms ([79], p. 13), Gabi achieved the highest 5th grade of ginning expertize versus Niv’s only 3rd–4th grade. This deficiency limited his ability to discern, prevent, and overcome many of the mistakes made by the ginning-inexperienced technical manager and staff. The plant’s results were a little above the industry average, good enough for the detached CEO to retain Niv like similar retentions by other detached KRC CEOs [7].

Niv’s choice of T-CVI continued practices by which he successfully managed his kibbutz’s cotton branch in accord with the kibbutz egalitarian participative ethos and practices [40, 80]. His promotion to plant manager enhanced his confidence to risk his authority by practicing T-CVI, while lacking mechanic expertise, he was not expected nor was he involved in many technical decisions; this prevented full exposure of his mechanical know-how gaps but barely harmed his authority, in view of his open admission of them and efforts to learn. He high-morally shaped a high-trust culture by practicing T-CVI in accord with insisting on best ginning results for success of cotton growing in the region and adopting an open-door policy and trustful caring for the staff’s personal needs and interests, which by T-CVI he discerned from wishes [39]. The ginning phronesis, tacit know-how, and ingenuity that trusting staff shared with him enabled him to build from scratch a functioning plant with teamwork committed to best ginning.

3.5 Plant manager Shafi’s practicing T-CVI was less risky due to insider experience

Northern’s last PTLr studied was plant manager Shafi, who needed minimal courage to practice T-CVI as he knew much about ginning and had been familiar with local experts and their expertise for years since he with other kibbutz member cotton growers operated the plant on weekends. The law forbade hired workers to operate it on the holy Sabbath, but as the plant’s owners, kibbutz members could operate it; Shafi as a cotton grower and then branch manager did this under the supervision of Arbiv and other senior hired staff. Thus, Shafi was acquainted with both ginning and senior staff before becoming plant manager; he had already proved himself a competent ginner, and exposing a few knowledge gaps by practicing T-CVI as plant manager did not harm his authority and was grasped as a trustworthy effort to learn, enhancing his authority rather than hurting it. As plant manager, Shafi enjoyed idiosyncrasy credit as an almost-insider who could make bona fide mistakes as even trusted experts sometimes did (Ch. 2, [14]).

Secondly, Shafi was Gabi’s close friend; whenever necessary he received Gabi’s help in recovering/fixing mistakes/getting out of trouble. Moreover, he had witnessed Gabi’s T-CVI practicing when he was a cotton grower and Sabbath worker while Gabi was plant manager, and this probably encouraged his T-CVI in order to be a PTLr like Gabi.

Third, explanations 1, 2, 4, and 6 for Gabi’s vulnerable involvement choice were pertinent to his nomination plant manager as well, especially no. 4: Shafi did not succeed Gabi directly, but took the helm after the total failure and early dismissal of Gabi’s successor pa’il, an outsider to the cotton industry who was detached and autocratic while the staff kept him ginning-ignorant. Plant staff expected a Gabi- and Niv-like socialized leader successor [74] but instead got a distrusted ignorance-concealing autocrat resembling other plant managers [7]. Shafi, on the other hand, matched staff expectations as he emulated Gabi’s practices and was familiar with the staff and ginning.

Shafi’s choice of practicing T-CVI was natural due to all the above; the risk to his authority was minimal; the familiar staff was aware of his trustworthiness; he openly admitted unknowns, mistakes, and failures; and their trust helped reduce his know-how and phronesis gaps by sharing these. Additional help concerning recalcitrant problems was provided by Gabi, and he continued Gabi’s nurturing of the staff’s professionalism by taking senior hired staff to professional meetings, encouraging innovativeness and achieving high fiber quality. When technical manager Arbiv left for the US, he proved his trust in his hired deputy by elevating him to technical manager, contrary to other gin plants’ import of ginning-ignorant “jumper” pe’ilim to this job [16]. Shafi’s PTL kept ginning results at the top of the national list, much as in Gabi’s time.

4. Conclusion and discussion

The five cases clearly suggest the decisive role of outsider executives’ choice to risk their authority by practicing T-CVI. This choice testified to their high-moral admission of their own gaps of job-pertinent experiential knowledge, initiating ascending mutual trust spirals and achieving subordinates’ sharing of requisite exclusive phronesis, tacit know-how, and premises of decisions learned on the job and in practitioner communities. In accord with self-determination theory, they opted for risky T-CVI to gain these resources and achieve competence, autonomy, and relatedness. As high-moral servant leaders of a radical social movement aimed at innovative transformation of the fate of Jewish people, their risky T-CVI was chosen as it was essential for learning practitioners’ working language, closing gaps in local intangible resources, and partnering with subordinates in effecting transformative changes and innovations by open trustful dialog. These few courageously morally rebelled by constructive deviation from most KRC managers’ low-moral avoidance of T-CVI. Through practicing T-CVI and dialogic problem-solving, they became wise PTLrs, shaping high-trust innovation-prone local cultures; in accord with the trust literature, by modeling benevolence, competence, and integrity, they initiated ascending trust spirals. Their partnership with subordinates encouraged the latter’s ingenious problem-solving and innovativeness, and their practice of T-CVI also signaled humility, enhancing subordinates’ self-worth and self-image as valued knowledge contributors. The high-trust cultures they shaped diminished the risk to their authority by enhancing effectiveness and innovation while helping discerning, suppressing, and ousting self-serving distrustful subordinates.

Both phronetic and moral leadership studies largely missed risky practicing T-CVI as a prime strategy for leaders’ sharing and using subordinates’ exclusive intangible resources. As outsiders with large gaps of job-pertinent expertise, the executives studied faced major hazards of mistakes and failures unless gaining subordinates’ trustful supply of premises of decisions and tacit know-how and phronesis. Moreover, acquiring interactional expertise by dialogic problem-solving afforded them essential interactional expertise and the capacity to assess employees’ expertise and job-effectiveness; thus, in staff deliberations, they avoided mistakes by considering only the views and suggestions of the trustworthy knowledgeable employees. Previous experience had probably taught them that without practicing T-CVI, they were bound to partial/unreliable acquiring of local intangible resources and to missing subordinates’ ingenuity in problem-solving and innovation. Worse still, without practicing T-CVI, swindlers, ingratiators, and other self-servers could mislead them by immoral use of their knowledge gaps for their own ends.

In accord with Burns’ [36] emphasis on transformative leaders’ high-morality, the five PTLrs opted for T-CVI integrally with their high-moral life-career choice of Zionist pioneering, building a new Jewish society in desolate Palestine by communal kibbutzim. As pioneer leaders, they had already risked their authority by managing kibbutzim without a blueprint for navigating responsibilities, coping with a heavy workload with no tangible rewards [40, 70]. Only with the success of the kibbutz field were they minimally tangibly rewarded by job requisites (e.g., company cars), but these rewards/requisites were unrelated to their success on the job and thus could not explain the choice of risky T-CVI, as proven by T-CVI avoidance by most pe’ilim. The five took T-CVI risks also because trust building required conformity with the kibbutz field rotatzia (rotation) norm. Thus, they had only a limited time to gain subordinates’ trust, discern the trustworthy ones on whom to rely, share their intangible resources, and dialogically design and implement changes and innovations; this was impossible without practicing T-CVI. T-CVI-avoider pe’ilim, on the other hand, were less or not interested in trustful phronetic dialog and innovation, rather sought to prolong their tenure by various low-moral means [7].

A major finding helpful for executives’ decisions regarding managers’ promotion is that the five executives who opted for T-CVI were also high-moral rebel constructive deviants in their previous managerial jobs, so their moral rebelling was expected: Arko rejected Ben-Gurion’s morally problematic demand as a young youth leader; Dan practiced T-CVI as a young kibbutz bulb branch manager; Gabi blew the whistle on low-moral kibbutz veteran superiors; Niv’s egalitarian participative management of the cotton branch differed from that of other kibbutz managers; as a kibbutz cotton branch manager, Shafi was a humble gin plant operator on weekends during picking season. Those who nominated them for their jobs were probably aware of their previous high-moral practices and expected them to repeat these, which they did by practicing T-CVI. Their T-CVI accorded the kibbutz ethos, contrary to low-moral autocracy and/or detachment by most other KRC pe’ilim, rebelling against the latter’s violation of the kibbutz high-moral ethos [40, 49].

Many T-CVI-avoiding autocratic detached pe’ilim previously used egalitarian practices as kibbutz managers who they did not repeat as KRC managers; thus by itself, executives’ previous egalitarian participative management in kibbutzim could barely foresee their choice whether to practice T-CVI in the KRC. Avoiding pe’ilim seemingly assumed that hierarchic autocratic KRC norms and culture did not demand egalitarian T-CVI practicing, as one pa’il retorted to a critique of his autocracy: “here it is not a kibbutz.” Thus, KRC’s pe’ilim were mostly conformists rather than moral leaders; their previous inside egalitarianism conformed to the kibbutzim’s local cultures, while in the low-trust hierarchic context of the KRC, they avoided egalitarian T-CVI due to both this context and the authority risks involved. In contrast, as far as I could gather, in all their other social roles, the five executives exhibited high-moral trustful integrity, competence, benevolence, and humility. Thus, their T-CVI practicing was not simply habitual, devoid of moral meaning, but rather a high-moral risky choice in accord with kibbutz ethos, contrary to the dominant low-trust KRC culture.

Moreover, by practicing T-CVI, the five executives lessened the risk to their authority by shaping high-moral high-trust participative cultures (e.g., [80, 81]); these cultures minimized T-CVI’s risks, making everyone’s contribution of intangible resources responsible for the success of decision-making and problem-solving and a part of common interest in preventing mistakes and failures; it discouraged subordinates’ self-serving taking advantage of superiors’ vulnerability, rather enhancing trustful sharing of pertinent intangible resources. The T-CVI practice achieved the sharing of intangible resources by momentarily leveling managers’ and subordinates’ statuses and deferred for a while managerial status prerogatives that encouraged dialog [20]. By this leveling, executives demonstrated trust that subordinates would not use their enhanced status to damage executives’ vital interests, for instance, avoid harming their authority by not articulating their tacit know-how and phronesis gaps.

As outsiders, the five leaders faced a graver dilemma concerning T-CVI than in previous kibbutz offices; they added other practices to the above trusting practices in order to minimize the risk of failing at their job:

1. They encouraged subordinates’ creative innovation by long time horizon practices, such as educating them both generally and in mechanics and ginning-related topics.

2. They signaled trust in hired employees by egalitarian practices that signaled equal status to that of pe’ilim (e.g., tours abroad, participation in professional meetings).

3. They ensured subordinates’ trustworthy use of job discretion by T-CVI-enabled discerning, suppressing, and removing of unfaithful self-servers.

4. The two CEOs trusted technical manager Arbiv and his team twice to renovate and enlarge the potato plant rather than importing contractors.

5. Arko trusted Gabi as plant manager due to his courageous whistle-blowing, indicating a moral rebel and promising an innovative transformative plant manager.

6. Due to his involvement, CEO Dan was well acquainted with potato plant technicians’ expertise, trusting them to build the plant’s prime machine, which was a major success.

7. The five PTLrs used knowledge gained by T-CVI for trust-gaining caring for the personal and other major needs and interests of employees.

8. They used other high-moral trustworthy practices such as using a humble car, firing a best ginner after catching him “pimping,” and more.

The five opted for T-CVI despite its hazards for additional reasons. One was enjoying pertinent referred and interactional expertise from previous jobs, which minimized the risk of failure. Thus, Gabi’s experience as agricultural machinery garage manager, plus his practical engineering education, encouraged practicing T-CVI. Other executives also benefited from previous pertinent managerial experience plus other types of referred expertizes, which enhanced their chances of successful learning and use of subordinates’ shared phronesis and know-how. Secondly, three of the five leaders opted for T-CVI following successful predecessors and superiors. Last but not least, the PTLrs studied risked their authority by practicing T-CVI as this risk was minor vis- à -vis the high-moral pioneering risks they had taken by joining kibbutzim and overcoming hurdles involved in building a commune despite the harsh conditions. This further emphasizes the role of contexts and circumstances in the emergence of practicing T-CVI and phronetic leadership.

5. Future research

The morality of contexts is only one factor in the choice of practicing T-CVI; social fields are complex with many contradictory impacts. The ethos of the kibbutz field is high-moral, aimed at serving national aims by egalitarian communes, but the KRC culture was low-moral hierarchic and pe’ilim were often recruited from kibbutzim by offering privileges unknown in kibbutzim; accordingly, they mostly avoided T-CVI. The corporate world is similar, dominated by low-moral cultures, and only when plants/firms fail do T-CVI-practicing rescuers appear [64]. The five pe’ilim studied were high-moral T-CVI-practicing from the early stages of their managerial careers; this begs the question that merits future research of whether the same was true for such rescuers elsewhere, suggesting that future rescuers be sought among such high-moral T-CVI practicing managers.

A related question concerns courage: courageous executives practiced T-CVI; courage is a most elusive factor called the pinnacle of all virtues, required for other human virtues to exist; a lifetime process shapes it, while only combined with other drives do leaders act courageously [82]. In the cases studied, these other drives were high-moral servant and self-determination motives; other studies found additional drives but did not measure their relative impact on opting for T-CVI (e.g., [83]). Such measurements are a major task that awaits future research, aimed at helping executives’ choice of whom to promote or import into managerial jobs who would practice T-CVI.

A major problem is the ceasing of high-trust organizational cultures with some successions [26]. One reason is the size problem: trustful dialogic leadership is easier to practice in small/medium-sized enterprises than in large/huge corporations that enjoy advantageous scale that de-incentivizes leaders to risk their authority by practicing T-CVI. Federative structures keep smallness within an advantageous scale, but often due to federation leaders’ low-moral oligarchization, this solution fails to attract high-moral T-CVI-practicing officers [16]. One solution proposed was a supermajority-dependent succession mechanism, but as yet, it has not been adopted [84, 85]. This calls for its adoption and/or seeking alternative solutions.

Further study is also necessary concerning types of indirectly referred expertise and general knowledge that encourage outsider managers to opt for practicing T-CVI. There is no question about the positive effect of directly pertinent expertizes, but often, indirectly referred expertise and general knowledge also have a positive impact on psychological safety and engender T-CVI practicing [86]. This also calls for further research.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Joseph Raelin, Bryan Poulin, Davydd Greenwood, Rachel Kessel, and some anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts and articles that helped develop the current article.

Conflict of interest

None.