The leadership-powership organisational analysis enigma

Purpose This study aims to investigate the conditions when leadership ceases to be the most appropriate analytical construct for explaining organisational coordination and powership is developed to classify authority-centred organising beyond that boundary. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual theory-building approach using analytical synthesis and boundary specification was used to examine leadership alongside organisational theories of authority, power, bureaucracy, governance and control. Their explanatory boundaries were comparatively assessed to determine whether an unresolved analytical space remained. Findings Existing theories provided robust explanations of influence- and authority-centred coordination but did not explicitly establish when leadership becomes analytically inappropriate. The analysis identified influence-based engagement, relational legitimacy and follower agency as constitutive conditions of leadership. Their absence created a classificatory problem addressed by powership, an analytical construct for organisational coordination structured primarily through authority, compliance and constrained agency. Originality/value This study shifts attention from identifying varieties of leadership to determining whether leadership is analytically present. It advances a classification principle for organisational analysis: identify the primary organising mechanism before selecting the explanatory construct. Powership emerges from this process as a boundary construct rather than another leadership style.