Toward a New “Normal”: An Analysis of Emerging Leadership Practices in a Changing Child and Youth Protection Organization

Abstract

Many child and youth protection organizations are changing from being bureaucratic to becoming more learning-oriented. In the course of this radical change, many tensions and challenges are experienced. This article addresses the challenges and strategies in normalizing a radical new way of working in a child and youth protection organization in Amsterdam. It focuses specifically on the work of team leaders (middle management) in reflexive team meetings. A qualitative approach was used to understand middle-management strategies employed in team meetings to support the process of normalizing a new method called Intensive Family Case Management (IFCM). Normalization Process Theory (NPT) was used to guide the study. By using the action learning and action research approach, using peer-leader video-reflection during team meetings in a child and youth protection organization in Amsterdam, the processes leading toward normalization were observed and analyzed in depth. Peer team leaders reviewed the videos in focus group discussions (FGDs) to help interpret the data. The results show the various ways in which reflexive team meetings support the normalization process—sense-making, appraisal and engagement—and shed light on the tensions experienced by team leaders, such as shared responsibility versus dominance/control and efficiency versus learning. Some of these tensions concern defaulting to old ways of working, while others reflect the complex nature of change processes in a dynamic system. Ultimately, this study shows the importance of leaders being aware of tensions within teams in a change process and employing a “both/and” strategy to deal with these tensions.

Keywords:

• Child and youth protection
• middle management
• normalization practices
• organizational change
• video-reflection

Introduction

Over the last decade, in response to social, economic and cultural changes, many child and youth protection organizations initiated a transformation from being more bureaucratic to becoming focused on learning. In the field of public service in particular, organizations have been increasingly urged to adopt approaches that can “account for complex system dynamics when tackling public challenges” (OECD, 2017, p. 3). Learning organizations, or organizations that facilitate employees to continuously create, acquire, and transfer knowledge, are expected to respond better to such challenges. However, transforming the ways in which things are done, thereby creating a “new normal”, is hard, and there has been a growing interest in understanding the challenges and strategies that support a transformation process.

In the literature that focuses on shifting compliance-oriented bureaucratic organizations toward being more responsive and based on learning, scholars report on the importance of supportive factors and investing in processes that stimulate new practices and continuous improvement (e.g., Douglass et al., 2021; Douglass & Klerman, 2012). Effective leadership is critical for such processes, particularly in the way leaders can stimulate the development of shared goals, opportunities for challenging and reflective dialogue, and continuous feedback (Douglass et al., 2021). Among scholars, there is a growing interest in the role of middle management and/or “first-level” leaders in change processes (see, for example, O’Keeffe & Harington, 2001). Middle-management leaders can be seen as critical stakeholders, because they are positioned—caught in the middle—between senior management, and the professionals who are expected to change the way in which they provide services (De Nobile, 2018). The position of middle managers is critical as they facilitate work processes, manage employees, enable change in the way things are conducted, and monitor the overall quality and workability of teams in solving problems (Harrington & Williams, 2004). Performing this pivotal role is, however, quite complex, as while middle-management leaders “are responsible for translating strategic change initiatives to daily operations …they also have to attend to problems prevailing on the shop floor on a daily basis” (Hermkens, 2020, p. 34).

With regard to what form of leadership middle-management leaders need to guide change, the literature is still ambiguous, and suggests, for instance, transactional leadership (Vaskinn et al., 2021; Yukl, 2012), transformational leadership (Atmojo, 2012; Nielsen & Cleal, 2011) or a combination of both (Bryant, 2003). Transactional leadership is seen as a managerial style that works with clear expectations, rewards and (avoidance of) punishment (Bass et al., 2003). To exhibit such a leadership style is to ensure that employees are clear about—and agree/comply with—the parameters a leader sets out, in order to receive praise or to avoid criticism. It has been connected in the literature to increased satisfaction and commitment among employees. Transformational leadership focuses on the connection employees feel with the overall mission of an organization, and building confidence among staff to deal with challenges in relation to this mission (Williams et al., 2020). It expects employees to perform more independently (self-guiding rather than following), while at the same time stressing processes of group reflection and cooperation. Scholars like Aarons et al. (2014) and Williams et al. (2020), use the term “implementation leadership” to explain that a combination of transformational leadership with more strategical leadership styles can be an effective way to ensure transformation in organizations. Strategic leadership is complementary to transformational leadership in the sense that it offers specific commitment to support and persevere a particular practice, by (a) proactively planning for and removing obstacles to implementation; (b) demonstrating and applying knowledge regarding the specific practice; (c) supporting and appreciating people’s efforts to exhibit evidence-based practices; and (d) responding effectively in times when implementing the new practices becomes difficult (Aarons et al., 2014; Williams et al., 2020).

Discussions on leadership in public service organizations are highly relevant, as they support the exploration of effective practices in guiding transformation processes, the challenges leaders encounter, and how these might be addressed. In child and youth services specifically, questions regarding what type of leadership might be useful in the context of (future) such work were brought up by Gharabaghi and Anderson-Nathe (2016), addressing issues of traditional hierarchy, power structures and cultures of authority, as well as bringing into question the dichotomy between “knowledge and skills” as reflected in one leader, and leadership that facilitates and promotes leadership competencies in others. Many of these questions remain unanswered, as organizational structures have changed little over the decades; and most efforts to improve and evaluate the effectiveness of what organizations essentially do continue to be focused on particularly “limited and static” outcome variables, which “from the perspective of young people, …have not had much of an effect” (Gharabaghi & Anderson-Nathe, 2016, p. 211).

In the Netherlands, organizations have been orienting their transformational efforts toward services that are more system- and client-oriented (Busschers et al., 2015; MacArthur et al., 2011; Packard et al., 2017). The literature shows that implementing such new, solution-oriented, client- and strength-based approaches in the public sector often faces various challenges, some of which include short-term delivery pressures, practitioners returning to previous approaches, resistance to change, siloed ways of working, traditional ways of looking at power dimensions, and so on. All too often, individuals and groups tend to do something different to what they believe is right, either out of misalignment, lack of understanding, or competing priorities. For example, van Veelen et al. (2018) show in their study on child- and family-centered practices in the post-bureaucratic era that various internal conflicts may arise when organizations adopt new ways of working. Some of these include relapsing into old routines, or misinterpreting the purpose and principles of the new working method, and suggest that systemic organizational support is required to facilitate a successful transition.

In this study we aim to explore the challenges and strategies that emerge for team leaders (middle management) who are normalizing a radical new working method. We focus on a child and youth protection organization in Amsterdam, which has undergone a transformation process and introduced a radically different service model. The standardized and protocol-based approach that had been increasingly applied over the years to reduce costs and meet targets was seriously criticized for not helping children and families effectively (Van Veelen et al., 2018). This critique coincided with problems encountered in the broader public welfare field, raising questions about how to respond more adaptively to the multitude of inter-related problems experienced by the people whom they aimed to assist. The pressures led, over the 2008–2010 period, to the evolution of child-centered and family-centered methodologies, referred to as Intensive Family Case Management (IFCM) at the Child and Youth Protection Services Amsterdam (CYPSA). IFCM was based on the US-based Functional Family Parole and Probation (FFP) model for case management, which in turn was based on Functional Family Therapy (FFT) and entailed “…tailor-made support, strength-based and purpose-driven care, and aims to provide long-term value for the children and families under CYPSA’s supervision”. FFP and FFT have been shown to be more effective in sustainable behavioral change in families than traditional methods that focus only on supervision and referring to other social services (Darnell & Schuler, 2015; Sexton & Turner, 2010).

Theoretical framework

As a theoretical framework to explore the challenges and strategies as part of a transformation process, we turned to the Normalization Process Theory (NPT), which has been applied in various settings to support implementation design, evaluation and optimization of a change of institutional practice, or retrospectively understand why implementation processes have failed. NPT has been used in the whole spectrum of research from relatively small interventions to radical transformation processes, as it allows for the study of micro- and macro-contextual processes (i.e., what people do exactly and how they work) that contribute to embedded change. May and Finch (2009) explain that “…how practices become routinely embedded and integrated into their social contexts – how they become normalized, or not – needs to be understood as a matter of more than external direction” (p. 542).

NPT provides a set of tools for researchers and practitioners, as well as leaders and organizational teams, to explain how an implementation process of material practices can be prompted. The work suggests four generative systems that can be followed either sequentially (Alharbi et al., 2014; Blickem et al., 2014) or in parallel, but generally entail the following.

• Coherence, or sense-making, which is concerned with creating an understanding of what the practice (an ensemble of beliefs, behaviors and acts that manipulate others or objects) actually entails; what it means and how it is made useable by what people attribute to the practice, individually and as a group. This sense-making work is often achieved through differentiation (e.g., from other types of practice) individual and communal specification of the practice in different contexts. The meaning of a particular practice (such as the work of IFCM) cannot be handed over, but is “learned, shared and experienced…” “…. collectively invested in and finally internalized” (May & Finch, 2009, p. 543).

• Cognitive participation concerns the engagement of individuals with a practice, within the structure and networks of interaction and role division within an organization. It focuses on processes of initiation (those actors that take a practice into account), enrollment (those who are inspired to join and work together in the new practice), legitimation (work that embeds the new practice as legitimate in relation to the shared organizational beliefs and values, and thus validates “continuous buy-in and commitment”).

• Collective action involves observable, goal-oriented work that is done to organize and actively (re)-shape the practice. May et al. (2009, p. 544) explain that collective action always requires an investment of effort to enact a practice within the “operant conditions of encounters between actors, and the conditions that organize this”. This enactment requires contribution of confidence and accountability between actors and the allocation of resources and tasks between them to normalize a practice.

• Reflexive monitoring is focused on continuously stimulating learning through evaluation and feedback loops. Reflexive monitoring is helpful in making explicit what values, beliefs, and ideas (which are often tacit) drive individuals. As a rule, people are often motivated by a wide range of rationales that require some sort of appraisal or judgment work to make them known and adaptable. Such appraisal work, rather than more formalized ways of quantitative evaluation studies, involve ongoing monitoring on the value and impact of a practice. One way to ensure reflexive monitoring at an organizational level is, for example, to organize multi-disciplinary team meetings (Galanes, 2009). They can be experienced as a crisis between desirable action A versus desirable action B, which seem to oppose each other, and thus present an “unsolvable puzzle”, especially because any choice between the two will only be a temporary solution, as tensions will resurface (Smith & Lewis, 2011, p. 385). Tensions largely emerge in complex change processes as a tradeoff between efficiency (more focused on short-term achievements and meeting targets) and effectiveness (focused on the core values of a way of working and desired outcomes in the long run).

Lastly, the literature on change management consistently shows that sustainable performance is derived by embracing tensions, or opposing forces, at the time they emerge (Lewis & Smith, 2014). Unfortunately, “individuals’ reactions to paradoxical tensions are oftentimes defensive because individuals feel anxious, uncertain and threatened” (Sparr, 2018, p. 2). For middle managers, dealing with tensions is difficult, as they are often assigned to implement change, but have not necessarily initiated it, nor internalized it themselves. More research is needed to understand what strategies team leaders can use to deal with tensions successfully, and to normalize new practices as part of a transformation process. In the next section we will describe the methods and the research setting of this study.

Methods

For this qualitative case study, an action learning and action research (ALAR) approach was used (Coghlan, 2019). ALAR can be used to study a phenomenon real time in its real-life setting, while simultaneously facilitating learning in and among actors in that setting. This reflective approach results in co-creation of knowledge. A peer video-reflection method was used in team meetings to identify challenges and strategies to work from the old to the new method. Team meetings were videotaped and evaluated to understand team leaders’ practices, and to stimulate reflection among them on their practices.

Research setting

Since we studied the leadership practices of middle managers to support the normalization of these new practices, we describe below the direction and content of the changes made in CYPSA and what the new working approach entails.

Old working method and new working method at CYPSA

Table 1 illustrates the ways in which the new method and vision differ from the old approach in CYPSA. These categories are derived from earlier research (Busschers et al., 2015; Van Veelen et al., 2017, 2018) and from the internal CYPSA working method website.

Table 1. Dimensions of the new versus old working method in CYPSA^a.

Dimensions	Old CYPSA	New CYPSA
Philosophy and culture	- Problem driven (prescribed protocols) - Standardized solutions - Process oriented - Professionals accountable for own cases	- Purpose driven (every child safe) - Pattern oriented - Tailor-made care - Strength based - Shared responsibility
Technical and organizational structures	- Vertical four-layered organization - Teams working in 10 different buildings - Weekly team briefings (reporting)	- Horizontal three-layered organization - Teams working from one building - Reflexive weekly team meetings
Professional practice and routines	- Apply the rules - Greater efficiency in applying the rules - Efficient transfer - Experts intervene whether or not they feel it is necessary - Efficient work execution - Act as an expert or executor of procedures or legal guardian	- Continuous improvement of rules - 100% clean transfer - Only do work that supports the child - Expertise at the right time and the right place - One family, one plan, one family manager - Being a facilitator of change
Leadership	- Top-down management - Command and control - Checking targets	- Transformational and transactional leadership simultaneously - Focus on empowering staff members - Stimulating learning - Shared responsibility

^a https://bs-ggwiki.saasweb.cloud/wiki/Uitleg_Wik.

The child-centered orientation as part of the IFCM method requires child and youth protection professionals to always consider the best interest of the child (“every child safe”). This means that, regardless of the ecological environment (including legislative, political, economic, organizational, and social preconditions), innovative solutions are sought that first address children’s safety. The IFCM method thus asks professionals to adopt a very different role, with new practices, skills, mindset, and routines, focused on providing tailored care. They are expected to have a reflexive attitude (e.g., seeking to resolve complex issues by learning from action), rather than presenting themselves as an expert, legal guardian, or operational executor (see Table 1). Since IFCM is focused on providing tailor-made care in a dynamic environment (and as such the approach itself is constantly evolving), more than simplistic “packaging” of activities and training, it requires a continuous process of normalizing (embedding in practice) the new way of working. A process in which, within the evolution of new structures and routines, there is a focus on learning and creating shared meanings. Box 1 briefly describes the development of ICFM and the first implementation activities.

Box 1. Development and training of ICFM.

ICFM was created by employing the novel “check–plan–do” method developed by John Seddon (Jackson et al., 2008; Seddon, 2003). A selected group of professionals and two team leaders were assigned to “check” or analyze the work processes of CYPSA. They reflected on the question of whether the work activities could be characterized as “value work”. In other words, they questioned whether a certain activity contributed to the organizational mission (i.e., “every child safe”) or was a “waste” of time. The results from this activity were eye-opening for most professionals and leaders, as it turned out that only 40% of their work was considered “value-based work”. This realization was distressing but also led to a motivation to do it better, leading up to the “plan” phase. The group eliminated everything that was considered “wasteful work” and started redesigning the work processes with the organization’s purpose in mind. Essential to realizing this purpose was the understanding that the system around the child should willingly change to ensure safety. The FFP method was thus seen as a validated method that could be used as a basis for new practices. FFP provided a phase-based approach and gave tools to facilitate change in families to ensure child safety. In the subsequent “do” phase the team experimented with the new design and through reflection made adaptations. Eventually, this continuous reflection became part of ICFM.

Following the new work process, the organizational structure changed. The three-function child and youth protection officer, juvenile probation officer, and child and youth worker were merged into the family manager function. Multidisciplinary teams were formed of eight family managers, a psychologist or a behavioral expert, and a senior family manager (expert in FFP and conversation techniques) led by a team manager. These teams hold weekly meetings to reflect on cases. Lastly, reporting and information technology (IT) were restructured to facilitate the new work method and to facilitate more reflection in place of accountability.

After designing ICFM and finalizing the “plan” and “do” phases, ICFM needed to be implemented at a broader organizational level. The implementation strategy was “rolling in” as opposed to “rolling out”. This means that other teams (in total 300 staff members) would complete the same process of “checking” their own work. However, instead of redesigning the work process themselves, they were also immediately trained in ICFM. Each team needed three months to complete the training and after one year, all 40 teams had been “rolled in”. Team leaders were an essential guide during this period of facilitating change and learning. The current article focuses on the period after the “rolling in” implementation.

Weekly team meetings to support normalization

Table 2 illustrates the differences between the old team meeting and the new, more “reflexive”, team meeting. In the old team meeting, team members were required to give an account of the problems that families were facing, and how procedures were followed. Decisions were often taken by the team leader and not by the team or the responsible family manager. However, working according to the new method implies that the team meetings have to be oriented toward facilitating reflexive learning.

Table 2. Old and new team-meeting routines in CYPSA.

Dimensions	Old	New
Role allocation of the team members	Team of: - Team leader (role controlling and taking final decisions, push) - 8 specialists (accountable for the process of the work method, bringing in cases) - 1 psychologist (advises on child safety, push)	Team of: - Team leader (facilitating reflection and monitoring time and process, pull) - 8 family managers (working with the new method, responsible for decisions, participating in discussions) - 1 psychologist (facilitating understanding behavior in relation to child safety, pull), - 1 senior family manager (participating in discussion and facilitating reflection about conversation techniques, pull)
Routines of the team meeting	- Giving updates and anecdotes about cases and making decisions - Focus on the parents and their problems. - Team members are accountable for their own cases - Prioritizing application of rules and following procedures rather than child safety	- Reflecting together on cases about the purpose and principles of the organization and taking decisions - Focus and integration of principles and practice by using core questions - Focus on what parents’ behavior means for the safety of the child - Work as one team with shared responsibility - Case-note discussion (how to use the work methods) - Continuous improvement

To integrate the IFCM practice, CYPSA started organizing multi-disciplinary team meetings involving:

• Seven case managers, now called family managers, who undertake the child and youth protection work with families and children;

• A behavioral expert or psychologist who can be consulted for their specific expertise and knowledge on the development of children and families as a whole;

• A senior family manager, an expert in FFP conversation techniques who guides discussions (called case notes) in the team meetings and coaches family managers on how to employ FFP conversation techniques; and

• A team leader, who is the formal supervisor of the individual team members and responsible for guiding the team and supporting the different roles.

The essential value of the team meetings is the idea that the work of family managers is discussed by the whole team, in so-called “case discussions”. Through open and reflexive discussion, team members jointly navigate how IFCM is and should be operationalized in the dynamic context of CYPSA. The purpose is to introduce value-driven questions in the meetings, such as, “What does safety mean for this child in this particular context?”, “What should the role of CYPSA ideally be in promoting safety for this child?”, “What do we need to support the safety of this child in a sustainable manner?”. This is different from the old method, as previously family managers’ work would be focused on administrative duties and following procedures and standardized protocols.

During the team meetings, every member of the team contributes to discussing the family’s development in a particular case. Final decisions regarding the protection of the family are made by the responsible family manager, but only after receiving the advice and considerations of the team, including the behavioral expert, senior family manager, and the team leader. Furthermore, the team discussion is a means for all team members to gain more insights into their own practices and how these affect the family and, ultimately, the child.

Family managers bring in new families or families that require a specific decision from child and youth protection (e.g., moving toward a new phase in the process). Cases that involve a concrete complaint or issue can also be presented. The family manager makes sure the information on the family is up to date in the “family plan” for the rest of the team to read before the meeting. Furthermore, family managers are encouraged to formulate “how” questions regarding the basic attitude, methodological goals, or communication techniques that might be used in the new method. The case is then scheduled for the team meeting to be discussed, either to reach a decision (case discussion) or to discuss the FPP methodology and conversation techniques guided by the senior family manager (case notes).

Sometimes the team finds that a case needs to be escalated for discussion by a team of experts. This might be for various reasons, for instance if a case is taking longer than 900 days, and cannot be closed for some reason, or if there are important differences among team members on how to approach the case. Implementing the new work method and team meeting results in resistance, tensions, and sometimes a return from new to old routines, which need to be managed by the team leader by stimulating reflection and facilitating the different roles in the team. The team leaders themselves also needed to adjust their leadership practices. A peer video-reflection method was developed to facilitate the team leaders in this learning process (action learning). We will discuss this in the next section under data collection, as this was also the research method.

Data collection (Video-reflection method)

The peer video-reflection method was set up to facilitate learning (action learning) to support the change process at CYPSA by facilitating team leaders to (action) learn, as well as to acquire an in-depth understanding of leadership practices (action research). This is also called reflexive monitoring in action (RMA). RMA often consists of a cycle from observing, analysis, and reflection to adjusting activities (Van Mierlo et al., 2010). In this case video recordings were used to monitor the practice and different steps were created to facilitate analysis and reflection. In this section, we describe the study population, and the steps of the video-reflection method and the data that was collected.

Every team leader at CYPSA was invited to participate voluntarily, and 16 of the 18 team leaders agreed to do so. The average age of the team leaders was 46 years, and they all had at least a university degree. Two of the team leaders were junior, four had mid-level experience, and nine were seniors. Twelve of the participants were women and two were men. Half of the team leaders were first senior professionals and in light of good performance had been promoted to (junior) team leader. The other half came from other social organizations where they also led teams. We videotaped 16 team meetings. Each team meeting lasted for around 2.5 hours. One team meeting for each participant was recorded (total of approximately 2.5 × 16 = 40 hours). The video-reflection method involved three steps:

Step 1. Team leaders watched the videos of themselves and of their peers, and provided feedback. The team leaders were divided into four groups of four team leaders. One team leader evaluated the recorded team meeting of a peer by making comments on three categories listed on an evaluation sheet. These categories are based on the RMA eye-opener workshop used in innovation projects. This broad evaluation was used, so there was room to evaluate not only verbal interaction, but also non-verbal gestures and emotions. The first category is “eye-opener”. When the peer had an observation in which they thought the team leader did something good and helpful for the team’s process, it was placed under this category. The second category is the “question”, which contains observations where the peer had a question about why the team leader was doing something. The last category is “remark”, where the team leader could add something to an observed interaction, such as an example of their own experience. The comments (as dialogue boxes) set out under the three categories were edited in the team-meeting videos. Step 1 was finalized for each group within three months.

Step 2. The comments were discussed in four video-reflection sessions (in a focus group discussion (FGD) format) with peer leaders, to explore the underling motives of certain leadership difficulties and strategies, and to confront these with diverse leadership contexts. The video-reflection sessions were facilitated by the first author, who watched all the videos and read all the evaluations. Common themes in the evaluations were inductively derived by the first author (research and junior policy advisor). These themes were discussed with and validated by the fourth author (senior policy advisor). Videoclips of these themes and the peers’ comments were edited into videos. On average, a videoclip of about 10 minutes on each theme was shown, and about four themes were discussed in each 2.5-hour FGD. Themes reflected concrete issues encountered by team leaders during the meetings. Challenges related, for instance, to structuring a meeting, stimulating learning and reflection, and dealing with tough cases, were discussed among the team leaders. Before these discussions, a selection of eye-openers of the specific group of team leaders was shown, in order to create a relaxed and positive learning atmosphere and tips and tricks for team leaders. During these video-reflection sessions tensions experienced by team leaders emerged and were discussed in depth. Occasionally, members from the board of CYPSA, researchers, or advisors joined the session if the participating team leaders agreed, and were put in a virtual second ring, so the focus remained on the team managers. Step 2 took about two months for each group to prepare, schedule, and conduct the session.

Step 3. The main challenges and strategies discussed by the team leaders were anonymized and written up in a report. This report was first sent to all team leaders for feedback and to validate the findings. After validation the report was also sent to the board of CYPSA.

The video-reflection method took about 2.5 years to complete. The method was first piloted with a small group of team leaders in 2014. After being approved by the board of CYPSA the method was made available for all team leaders and was implemented over the 2015–2016 period.

Data analysis

The data analysis took place on multiple levels. First the video of the team meeting (n = 16) was analyzed by a peer team leader. Second, the first author watched all the videos and inductively derived common themes from the peer analysis. These themes were discussed and validated by the fourth author. These common themes were discussed in four FGDs, which were subsequently transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were thematically coded by the first author, using the NPT concepts described in Table 3. The second and fifth author checked the codes and if differences were found, the authors discussed these and came to a consensus on how to interpret the analyses. These themes revealed tensions as well as leadership strategies on how to deal with those specific tensions, so that the normalization process could be better facilitated. After the coding, we checked if we could identify and validate these tensions and strategies in the team-meeting videos. This also allowed for a close investigation of the dynamic and context of these tensions and team leaders’ strategies in guiding their team meetings, and how these aspects of guiding the team meeting hampered or facilitated the ICFM normalization process.

Table 3. NPT Operationalization.

NPT Concept	Operationalized practice of a leader in a team meeting
Coherence	Leadership practices that facilitate or hamper the process and work of sense-making and understanding of ICFM that teams have to go through in order to promote or inhibit the routine embedding of IFCM.
Cognitive participation	Leadership practices that facilitate or hamper the process and relational work that teams have to go through in order to enroll individuals to engage with the new practice of ICFM.
Collective action	Leadership practices that facilitate or hamper the operational work that teams have to do to enact IFCM by realizing integration and workability of new roles, relations, and collaborative problem-solving processes in the new practice.
Reflexive monitoring	Leadership practices that facilitate or hamper the appraisal work of ICFM once it is in use, in order to assess its advantages and disadvantages, and which develops users’ comprehension of the effects of a practice.

Research team

The first and second authors were directly involved with the video-reflection method. The first author worked at CYPSA as a policy advisor (2011–2016), and managed the video-reflection method. Since 2016 he has researched transformation processes at CYPSA as part of his PhD at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. The fourth author is a knowledge ambassador at CYPSA (2010–present). The fifth author is a senior researcher at the VU Amsterdam and contributed to designing the method and participated in one reflection session. The second and third authors work at the VU Amsterdam as researchers and have no affiliation with CYPSA.

Ethical considerations

No formal ethical approval was needed according to Dutch law because only the perspectives of professionals were requested. We adhered to the Dutch scientific code of conduct and the privacy rules and norms of CYPSA. The interviews were transcribed and were anonymized. After transcription, the recordings were destroyed. Team leaders and their team members could stop the video recording of a team meeting at any time. During the FGDs, the team leaders could leave whenever they wanted without providing a reason. They all agreed to being recorded.

The cases discussed in the videos about family patterns and child safety are very sensitive and confidential. Therefore, the videos were stored on the CYPSA-protected network and made accessible only to the first author and the team leaders. The team leaders recognized the importance of confidentiality of the videos, which were destroyed after use. The evaluation sheets and FGD transcripts were anonymized, so only the participants would know the respondents. Furthermore, ensured that no comments could be traced back to a child or family.

Results

The following sections describe the challenges that arose in facilitating a transformation process in the specific case of CYPSA. First, we present the findings that emerged as practices in guiding the transformation process in the team meetings. These emerging themes are summarized in Table 4. Finally, two tensions that emerged for team leaders are described to illustrate what might emerge in a transformation process.

Table 4. Emerging leadership themes.

NPT Concept	Emerging themes
Coherence	Differentiation between old/other and the new practice Clarifying conditions and principles of ICFM for practice Different sensemaking paces Integrating individual and collective sense-making
Cognitive participation	Commitment to shared responsibility Clarifying roles and how they relate Supportive environment Trust
Collective action	Reinforcement of the central line (integrating SMART objective related to pedagogical principles) Escalation to different levels of management for the removal of barriers
Reflexive monitoring	Learning from stagnant cases Individual appraisal Positive assessment

NPT process: Challenges and strategies

In this section, we describe what challenges came up in normalizing the new working method. The NPT framework is used to explore how team managers dealt with these challenges.

Coherence

In NPT, it is understood that coherence is established through various means, involving for instance “differentiation,” “communal” and “individual specification”. It is through these means that a new practice is operationalized. From the data analysis, it became clear that team meetings have been actively used to differentiate the new practice from other practices and continue to be used to sharpen the nuances. Team leaders are most active in reinforcing the new practice as opposed to old or alternative ways of working. Team members are also encouraged to clarify the conditions and principles involved in IFCM. An example regarding differentiation from one of the team meetings involved a family manager who asked a question regarding a father who had continued to live in a garden shed at his family home, even though he and his wife were supposed to have been separated. The family manager was concerned with the mediation that was required to help the father find a new home, because, as he explained, “he can’t seem to do it by himself”. In previous discussions, CYPSA would have spent much time on understanding and supporting the parents’ context, but, as the team leader explained: “Youth protection is not social work”. She continued to explain that:

Youth protection is essentially focused on safeguarding the children. Of course, having a father who is homeless is not positively contributing to the safety of the child in this family, but the father will need to learn how to take care of these things himself. We can give him a few directions to social services, but mediation for parents is not part of our practice. (TL 14)

Team members supported the differentiation process to establish a coherent sense of what the new practice means. Questions such as “But what does this mean for the child?”, or “How can we formulate this differently?” were posed to help bring the focus on the child and what is best for the individual child. This differentiation process, as part of the team meetings, is important in understanding that although the context around the child (including the wellbeing of the parents) is a concern, CYPSA should be focused on safeguarding the child, not necessarily (in this case) the father. If the father is unable to transition and create a safe space for the children, the family manager should think about steps that will help safeguard each child.

During the video-reflection, sometimes the peer leaders expressed some frustration regarding the pace at which the differentiation process was going. One peer leader mentioned, for instance:

During the team meetings, you notice that people have no clue how to look at something from a new perspective rather than their own habitual way of looking. I mean, all of them have good intentions. Yet, they tend to remain in their old thinking, even when people are bringing forward a new perspective. (TL 11)

Furthermore, the team meeting is used to stimulate the process of individual and communal specification, as it asks family managers to bring in individual case studies, which are then collectively discussed and reflected upon. During the team meetings, the other team members are expected to feel equally responsible for the children presented in these case discussions and help find solutions to the specific issues raised. As such, a direct thread is woven between the work that happens at an individual level with specific responsibilities and tasks that involve the new practice, and the understanding of how child and youth protection aims to work as a whole, thus building some sense of consensus on the aims, objectives, and benefits of the new practice. As one team leader added:

I think it’s mainly about getting people back their professionalism. Above all, people should feel that they are the professional and not us. (TL 10)

However, there was some confusion about the new working method when the practice was expressed differently at these two distinct levels, as illustrated in the example shown in Box 2. The example shows that the case manager was confused about how she could employ a strengths-based approach (as articulated within IFCM) while, particularly during the meetings, feeling forced to defend her case from the perspective of risks and potential concerns. The example illuminates the importance of the team meetings in specifying what the new practice entails, as there are often areas in which this might be unclear.

Box 2. Confusion about the new approach.

Case manager Petra has been confused for some time, which she shares with the team during one meeting. She wonders why she sometimes reacts in a defensive manner (defending the family) when her cases are discussed in the team meetings. She has realized that there might be some inconsistency between the work that she tries to do with the families according to the IFCM approach, and the work that is done when discussing the case in the team meetings. While IFCM asks her to employ a strength-based approach, which emphasizes the positive elements in the family as a whole, she feels that the team meetings focus too much on the concerns and the risks for the child. While she regularly leaves a family in good spirits, not because things are going perfectly (they are not), but because she managed to create a shared understanding with the parents on their objectives and plan, she feels a sense of negativity when receiving feedback from her team leader and other team members. She wonders if she can be better supported in understanding which approach is valid, and whether there can be greater coherence between what she does on the ground, and what they do collectively to understand what needs to be done.

The team leader in this team responded by saying that the contradictions Petra was experiencing were understandable and valid:

I understand the difficulty because both are true. We are emphasizing a strength-based approach and a sense of optimism, while at the same time we are deeply concerned with the safety of the child, sometimes responding to urgent matters that need to be solved within the context of the family to create that safety. (TL 13)

Cognitive participation

Cognitive participation is described as following the process of initiation, enrollment, legitimation, and activation, which are all focused on relational work to ensure “buy-in” and that those who are responsible for introducing a new practice are truly motivated and committed to contributing to it. An important example of such cognitive participation work in CYPSA takes place at the level of the team meeting itself, which is at one level a tool to normalize the new practice, but, importantly, also part and parcel of the new working method (ensuring that people take shared responsibility).

Before the new working method was introduced, the team members were used to feeling especially accountable for their own cases. With the new method, the emphasis is placed on joint responsibility to bring cases to a close, which is supported by the weekly team meetings. Although team meetings were traditionally conducted to provide updates on each individual work, the new team meetings are focused on creating shared responsibility. This means that all team members should be motivated to listen, reflect, and co-create solutions during these meetings. As one team leader added:

In the team, it’s not just about the family manager himself, but about the whole team being aware of the strengths that are present in the team. (TL-13)

The study data show, however, that there were many challenges involved in clarifying the roles of each professional in the multi-disciplinary teams (including a senior family manager, a psychologist or behavioral expert, and the team leader). Team leaders were therefore particularly critical of each other for not sufficiently stimulating commitment and buy-in as a means to establish shared responsibility, by either playing a dominant role themselves, as a team leader explained, or allowing others to do the same.

I try as much as possible to let the senior family manager and the psychologist and just the other team members actually speak about the content and not take over. But it took me a long time to do that. (TL-3)

Everyone has dominant figures that leave a negative mark. The moment you see that and be aware of it and ensure that others who have less to say, have more to say. (TL-9)

Their comments often alluded to the idea that shared responsibility is normalized among family managers only if the team leader creates a supportive environment for an equally shared discussion process in the meetings.

The psychologist and senior in the teams commonly have a consultancy role, but should not be taking over the discussion. Naturally, this leads to a challenge for team leaders who are struggling to guide the team in understanding their position in relation to each other, which is referred to as “relational work”. An example is drawn from one of the team meetings in which a senior family manager guided a case note where a family manager shared a case and asked the team to help him find ways to set appropriate boundaries for a highly inquisitive mother. The mother in question was not mentally stable and her child had been taken into custody for his own safety. The mother neither understood nor accepted the situation and placed considerable pressure on the family manager. After sharing his concerns, the team leader allowed for an open discussion guided by the senior family manager, which was rather long and ultimately not effective. Although team meeting discussions are supposed to focus on “how” questions (such as the senior family manager intended), the discussion revolved around “what” questions (e.g., Have you done this? What did you do then?). In this case, the team would ideally realize the deviation from the new practice themselves, but the team leader had to intervene, which, as it turns out, had the effect of belittling the senior family manager (who from then on followed the discussion with a hurt expression, arms folded and looking down). A peer leader remarked that the leader of this team took too long to intervene and did so without enrolling the senior family manager:

Why do you not intervene earlier? The role of the senior becomes very unclear now. What could you have done differently? (TL 2)

During the FGDs, these questions stimulated the discussion on the underlying tension between intervening and leaving the responsibility with the senior.

Other challenges which came up in relation to cognitive participation involved the leader’s task of displaying enough trust in the team to actively engage in their shared responsibility. Peer leaders regularly commented that the team leaders were dominating the team discussions (“working too hard”) instead of enabling the team members to work, discuss, and decide—preferably among themselves. One peer leader reflected on another leader who was not sharing the responsibility correctly.

Who is the senior? Now the team leader asks many questions, instead of the senior or psychologists, and family managers ask the team leader questions, but do not discuss among each other. (TL 11)

Collective action

Collective action is described as operational work that helps people enact a set of practices, such as through new technologies, artifacts, and symbols, or systems of accountability that reinforce a new practice. It also includes the necessary skill development and contextual integration to ensure that work is supported by appropriate resource management, allocation of roles, following certain standard procedures, etc. Some of this exceeds the work that is conducted at the team-meeting level, but we will expand on how some of this collective action work that is conducted at an organizational level continues to be reinforced during the team meetings.

One example of reinforcement has been established at an organizational level, and is referred to as the central line. In brief, the central line entails a plan that a family manager develops with the family, in which clear objectives of the child and family situation are described so that a sufficient level of safety for the child can be maintained (the measurement provided in the central line is a minimum grade of 6 on a scale of 1–10). The goals are meant to be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound (SMART), and should relate to nine basic pedagogical principles. Furthermore, the central line involves themes that help to relate the goals to the specific patterns observed in the family dynamic (e.g., violent behavior, transgenerational issues).

The central line is helpful in the normalization of the new working method, and also for the team meetings and the work of team leaders. It helps to gain more efficient perspectives on how the principles of the new approach are integrated into practice but also makes it easier to immediately embed the work in specific actions and procedures of different roles within the team that guarantee the new practice. For instance, a team leader, or any other team member, could at any moment bring a discussion back to the essence of the new approach by asking about the central line. During the discussions in the team meetings, this happened at various times where team leaders would ask: “But how is the case developing according to the central line?” Such reiteration helps to avoid confusion, as the central line is essentially focused on formulating ultimate goals and not (for instance) understanding why the parents can’t follow the plan. For instance, in one family, the central line was formulated as followed:

Frederik [the child] needs a calm environment with parents who are sensitive and attentive to the needs of the child. There can be no question of domestic violence. (TL8)

The family manager of Frederik encountered challenges with his mother, who seemed incapable of keeping the (violent) father out of the house, because she would regress into taking care of him. The family manager wanted to help her, but was not capable of enabling the mother to draw clear boundaries. To this, the team leader responded as follows:

The central line is clear. There can be no question of domestic violence. If the parents can’t safeguard the principles of the central line and the steps that are drawn up, then this is a reality that needs to be taken seriously. The mother should understand the choice: ‘Either the father goes, or the child has to leave’. (TL8)

In the FGDs, these types of comments were discussed as eye-openers and generally applauded by all the team leaders. In the above quote, the team leader referred to the central line, while also using this to clarify certain measures or actions that would support the new working principles. The central line is a type of glue that holds the practice together, although it is still flexible enough to be reflected upon as necessary. This is what also happens during the team meetings. Similarly, the team meetings are used to decide whether sometimes a case should be escalated to a different level of management and that specific budgets need to be drawn up to create the network that supports the new working method. For example, a family manager was not getting the mental health service she needed for a child. The mental health organization told her they only have standard treatments (paid by the municipality) and would like to help but cannot tailor a mental service for the child. This family manager discussed this issue in the team meeting with her team leader. The team leader escalated this to the senior management, who addressed this issue with senior policy advisors at the municipality. The result was that funding was arranged, and care could be provided for what the child needed. Team leaders should be supportive here and intervene swiftly when a case requires more authority to create a breakthrough and should thus be escalated.

Reflexive monitoring

The fourth element of the NPT approach is reflexive monitoring, defined as the appraisal work that the team leader has to do to guide to assess and understand how a new set of practices are working out. The work is done individually and collectively and further specified as systemization, communal appraisal, individual appraisal and reconfiguration. A successful team leader guides individual and collective assessment of the intervention so that team practices can be modified or procedures redefined. This process of reflexive monitoring that was observed in this study will be explained by looking at two specific issues that often come up in child and youth protection, which are so-called “gum cases” (a case which is open for more than 900 days), and cases that return to child and youth protection after having being closed. According to the new method, cases should not remain open for too long (900+ days), and should not be re-opened once they have been closed. This is different from the old approach, where family managers were not encouraged to question their cases from this perspective.

During the team meetings, stagnant cases (900+ days) were often specifically addressed. In one meeting, a family manager was asked to explore why three of her cases returned to child and youth protection after being formally closed. In this case, the family manager was not really open to discussing these cases in the team. A peer reviewer commented that the family manager, in this case, seemed unwilling to look at her own role, or in other words, do “individual appraisal”, and instead referred to causes beyond her control (“she puts the responsibility outside of herself” (TL 10)). In this case, the psychologist in the team emphasized the importance of understanding what had happened in the years the family was cared for and how they could have achieved more. The team leader chose not to confront the family manager further and suggested another route by escalating the case to a team of specialists. This approach might have been useful to deal with the case in question, but also precluded an opportunity to learn from previous practices.

There is a need for much reflexive monitoring to bring both families (especially those who have been with CYPSA for quite some time before the change happened) and staff members to adapt to the new working method. What often used to happen, especially in stagnant cases, is that the family and family manager became used to and dependent on strategies of threat and intimidation (e.g., dragging out eviction measures). A team leader explained:

Yes, and it costs the family manager extra energy to change that pattern because the family is used to it. They are used to being treated like that and it also creates a certain dependency, to rely on somebody taking care of you. To some extent, it works for the family manager and the family. (TL 3)

What seemed to work better was when these negative cycles of interaction were interrupted and positive assessment was presented in the team meetings. Sometimes, team meetings started with a round of sharing “success stories”, and clarifying why cases progressed well. For instance, one team member positively reinforced another team member by saying:

You address this case well, you empowered the mother to listen to her children, and to follow the central line. By listening and being patient, yet firm, the case develops well. (TL 7)

Similarly, after one family manager had a breakthrough in which she acknowledged some of her own patterns, and had stated clear intentions to change, she was complimented by the team members and leader on her courage for taking a new perspective on an ongoing case.

In these forms of reflexive monitoring, both on stagnant and other complex cases, positive cycles of reconfiguration can be triggered that help to capture the value of the new working method.

Transforming leadership practices

So far, we described how team leaders can use various mechanisms to help normalize the new practices of family managers. To some degree, as this normalization process is new for most team managers, who are also themselves involved in a process of normalization, in which their leadership style is transforming. In adapting their leadership style, the leaders were confronted with various tensions of which two key aspects are further illustrated, including: (1) shared responsibility versus dominance/control and (2) efficiency versus taking time to learn.

With regard to the first tension, leaders faced the tension between stimulating shared responsibility and retaining control. While the vision was to normalize the principle of shared responsibility, in which team members should be empowered to be actively involved in discussing the various cases, it sometimes required leaders to intervene and actively steer the team toward contributing equally. However, these interventions could go too far, as described by a team leader:

I know that the team is a bit crippled. And I immediately notice what I'm doing, I'm going to compensate for others, so I'm going to try to exercise a certain control over the discussion…And that’s where I go wrong because it makes it very difficult for myself because I'm taking on all the roles. (TL 10)

What emerged from this process was that leaders often questioned how they could actually achieve shared responsibility, when their instinctive behavior and habitual patterns were focused on gaining and maintaining control, or when they lacked the capacity to confront team members who were too dominant. It seems that the leaders are requested here to be both calm and firm, or as described by one leader exude “confident calmness”. Team leaders, during the FGDs, also talked about the ability to facilitate trust in the team, while at the same time maintain their role as a leader. After more elaboration, it seems that leaders regarded their main role as being able to gauge when there is a need to step in, question, and to clarify what is happening. During the sessions in which peer leaders discussed their leadership strategies in dealing with tensions, one suggested that it is necessary to go beyond the tension between shared responsibility and exerting control:

Everyone has to deal with a dominant team member on a regular basis. It might be the psychologist, a senior or a family manager, but it’s important to understand what might underlie the issue. (TL 9)

Furthermore, the discussion showed that leaders felt that they were often challenged to choose between actively controlling the division of roles and allowing the team to “figure this out on its own”. For instance, if the issue of a dominating team member taking attention and time from other team members is not actively addressed, it can lead to an awkward and uncomfortable atmosphere during the meetings. Alternatively, when the team leader decides to address the dominant person, it might lead to disputes and negative attitudes in the team, particularly if it is not done effectively. One leader during the FGD suggests that a more creative solution is possible:

When dealing with dominant members, who have a negative influence on the team, we should start by bringing awareness about the different roles in the team and encouraging everyone to adhere to them as much as possible. One of the pitfalls for the team leader is that one is triggered to give all attention to the person who demands it. When awareness is there, one can avoid this pitfall and focus positive attention on those who do not participate much and to empower those who make relevant comments. (TL 9)

Another leader explained that he had organized a specific meeting with his team separately from the case-discussion meetings to talk about the issue of resistance, and found that this approach was helpful in dealing with the tension:

Collective identification of different resistances in a team [coming from specific professional backgrounds and traditional expression of roles] helps to clarify what is expected of each and every one, which thus enhances the quality of the future discussions. (TL 2)

Team leaders agreed that resistance is often connected to feelings of shame, loss and/or fear, which are challenging to address, and yet need to surface from time to time to avoid polarization toward either side of the tension (e.g., freedom vs. control). It is vital for a leader to have some sense of the affective charge during the team discussions, as this might influence the atmosphere in the group that either inhibits or enables learning. In other words, moving toward shared responsibility requires the leader’s active involvement to determine how the balance can best be achieved. It does not ask the leader to become over-dominant, but to take responsibility for asking how shared responsibility can be best achieved.

The second tension has to do with both the question of efficiency (e.g., managing time, structuring meetings effectively), and with taking sufficient time to create opportunities for learning. While it is important for team leaders to spend ample time on normalizing the new method, similarly there is a need to do things according to a schedule so as to not lose too much time and energy. CYPSA deals with a significant number of families with a fixed set of resources, and “deliverables” need to be met. In the FGDs, team leaders discussed this matter in greater depth, reflecting on one team leader’s critique of her peer, saying that:

You want the team and the family managers to come with the solutions. In this case, the team leader herself offers solutions about the case. (TL 7)

The leader in question explained that he experienced a tension between giving the family manager in the team enough time to discuss the case in their own way and thus come to solutions and also control the discussion to not deviate too much from the purpose. In this case, the leader decided to prioritize the lack of time over learning, and said:

Sometimes, when I think we have enough time with little on the agenda, we can spend more time on discussion and shared understanding. However, after a while, I often feel that time is running short, and then I take over a bit, while thinking meanwhile: this team member also needs to learn how to reflect and to practice this in the team. So many processes are happening at once. (TL 5)

Other leaders recognized the situation. One said: “I feel as a team leader very responsible, and I worry quickly that important matters will not be picked up” (TL 6). By worrying that things are not picked up quickly and efficiently, the team leader imposes knowledge rather than facilitating learning. Another team leader explained that she preferred to be open about this challenge with the team, and checked what they would like:

I sometimes check with the team. Because you are going to say it anyway, and will wait for you to do it. And it is very difficult to say that I will keep my mouth shut and only at the end of the case say hey, guys, I missed a few things. That is just difficult. I find it really difficult. (TL 6)

Others added that it again takes awareness of the leader on the energy in the group:

If people are sitting on the edge of their seats, and it is inspiring, then you don’t want to stop and give them the feeling that we need to move on to something else. Then the energy will drop. It is very important to know how you can balance it. (TL 9)

Discussing issues thoroughly can sometimes produce a lot of energy, which both contributes to the goal of learning, and can also be leveraged for keeping up a good pace with other cases. But, dragging out discussions in which not everyone is enthusiastically involved may stagnate the process, and leave people confused about the workability of the new method, even in the team meetings. In this case, it might be more helpful to maintain a firmer grip on the agenda. The practice that is normalized among team leaders is therefore to be attentive to the energy of the group and base their decisions on how to lead the group accordingly.

Finally, an important finding from the FGDs is the team leaders’ recognition that the way tensions could be addressed also depends on how far the team is developed in the normalization process. If teams were still in an early stage of this process, and only just started to recognize and become more comfortable with the idea and the process of change, leaders agreed that it was helpful to acknowledge that. If they were to push questions that were too advanced, or criticize family mangers for not picking up quickly enough, this might lead to negative interaction cycles in the team, and potentially to resistance.

I think it is very important that you match the level of development of a team. In a team that has developed more, you act in a different way. Even between individual family managers, you react differently to that, so you are very much in line with the development where they are. (TL 9)

As they realized that the team only works if everyone is included and involved, some leaders spoke about helpful agreements made with the team, to plan out its development, to take care of each other, and check in with each other on how engaged they still felt.

In our group the team plan is very helpful. The team members have made the plan themselves. They looked at their own interactions and said these are the conditions that everyone has to adhere to in their work. (TL 14)

Discussion

In this study, we aimed to understand the challenges faced and strategies used by team leaders (middle management) when normalizing the new practice as part of a transformation process. Our study shows, first, that the new working method implied a radical change in the philosophy, working practice, and routines, and required new technical/organizational structures and leadership style. The new working method was normalized through a process of collective sense-making (in which the working method is explicitly articulated and, in some sense, co-created). While some of the principles were already understood, the way the new working method functions was partly developed and sharpened as the family managers learned to implement it. The team meetings exhibited how such learning processes emerged and what was needed to foster coherence, cognitive participation, collective action, and reflexive monitoring, as part of the normalization process. Our data shows that team leaders, who were instrumental in the normalization process, relied on principles of sense-making (including differentiation and individual/communal specification) to understand what the method really is about (as opposed to the former ways of working, or in specific cases). They also used strategies to actively engage team members in understanding their new roles, and how these were supported in the system. Finally, team leaders employed appraisal techniques to ensure that good practices could be enhanced (e.g., through sharing success stories, and reflecting on principles that work well). While these strategies are not entirely new (Carroll & Conboy, 2020), our data draws attention to what emerged for team leaders as difficult or, seemingly unsolvable, tensions, and what they felt was needed to cope with these tensions as part of a new leadership style.

One of the challenges all team leaders faced was the principle of stimulating shared responsibility and role division, which was observed in this study as relevant at the level of family-management practice (for instance, in the way they communicate and share responsibility with the family), and at the level of the team meeting itself, in which all team members were invited to take responsibility in supporting the case discussion. Kearney et al. (2019) also address this issue, explaining that leaders are confronted in their work with the need to maintain control while simultaneously letting go of control. The authors distinguish between visionary and empowering leadership, where visionary leaders exert some level of control by orienting a team toward a vision, or an idea, whereas in empowering leadership, power and responsibilities are transferred from the leader to the leader’s followers. Kearney et al. (2019) suggest that leaders ideally adopt a “both/and- approach”, combining both strategies.

The second challenge involved a tension between long-term goals (such as learning in the team) and the need to for the meetings to be efficient and structured. Such a tension is also described by Smith et al. (2016, p. 2), who state:

Tensions around time frame are especially salient, because a firm’s long-term survival depends on experimenting, taking risks, and learning from failure in the pursuit of new products, services, and processes. However, firms also need consistency, discipline, and steady attention to make the most of the products, services, and processes they already have.

Leaders are thus asked to make intelligent decisions regarding the tension between today’s and tomorrow’s needs, gauging how to incorporate a level of consistency, rhythm and pace, while remaining open to opportunities for growth when they appear. Again, Smith et al. (2016) suggest a “both/and” approach to this dilemma, but we would add that it asks leaders to be affectively aware, and sensitive to the needs of the moment; to have a sense of the energy that is present in the room and gauge the team’s emotional charge. These are qualities that have been connected to emotional intelligence, which is often associated with transformational leadership forms. Leaders who are high in emotional intelligence often also score high in their transformational leadership style, which focuses on engaging a team toward collective change.

Implications for leadership practice

As the three most important implications for leaders who normalize a new working method, we identified the following principles:

• An awareness of—and reflection on—tensions are essential to succeed;

• A both/and approach rather than an either/or seems in most cases the best way to deal with tensions, although in the beginning of the transformation process leaders might find this feels counterintuitive; and

• A combination of transformational, transactional, and implementation leadership styles can be used for normalizing a new work method, within the context of learning, appreciation, and creating trusting relationships.

As mentioned above, the literature on leadership suggests that a lack of awareness of the emergence of paradoxical tensions is one of the main reasons why many change processes fail. Lewis and Smith (2014) explain that tensions are best handled proactively, and explicitly, which was also discussed by the leaders in our study. Unaddressed tensions may lead to long negative (“vicious”) cycles of frustration and lack of progress in the normalization process (Lewis, 2000; Pradies et al., 2021; Szentes, 2018).

Our findings elucidate here how the awareness of tensions and their importance took place in the peer reflection, and the subsequent reflection sessions, inspired by the video input. Interestingly the peers’ comments on the evaluation sheets could be understood as indications of how normalization is hampered (picked up and translated by the peer leaders as questions and remarks) and promoted (formulated by the peer leaders as eye-openers). It was during the reflection sessions that the evaluated peer leaders started to talk about the tensions underlying leadership challenges. Obviously, the team leaders were familiar with the major tensions, like efficiency versus long-term learning, but the fact that peer leaders evaluating their colleague’s video made no comments about tensions seems to suggest that they do not have what is called “a paradoxical mindset” (Gaim, 2017). Instead, they began to develop this by being confronted with their peers’ feedback. Once started, the discussion was not restricted to discussing the tensions, but also included processes to seek strategies that could be used in their specific case. This finding resonates with the literature, which suggests that if you give leaders a paradox frame, it supports the development of solutions. Kempster and Gregory (2017) similarly propose that, as leadership-as-practice orients us to what is often unselfconscious and internalized, dilemmas can be used to help middle managers articulate what is otherwise subconscious, intangible, and unspoken. Our findings suggest that for understanding the high rate of failure to achieve organizational change, the study of challenges and associated (paradoxical) tensions with the help of normalization process framework is conceptually innovative and offers significant insights. Especially when combined with a peer video-reflection approach, in which the process of identification, analysis, and dealing with tensions can be followed in-depth, normalization processes can be supported.

Finally, we reflect on the debate regarding leadership styles and how our findings relate to the various theories. First, we see that forms of transformational leadership (focusing on learning) and transactional leadership (focusing on control) are reflected in our study. The leaders showed several characteristics of transformational leaders; for example, they were purpose-driven, provided a vision, and focused on learning (intellectual stimulation) (Bass, 1999; Bryant, 2003; Hannah et al., 2020). Transformational leaders are usually less attentive to systems, structures, and implementation, but our results show that many team leaders did not shy away from addressing complex control issues. Control and structure were embraced during the reflection sessions, but peer leaders advised each other to do this within the context of learning and appreciation, and to create trusting relationships first. Furthermore, they suggested finding creative solutions to deal with the issues, as in the case of having a separate meeting to reflect on resistance in their teamwork. These strategies to deal with challenges are very different from the strategies of transactional leaders, who usually rely on identifying and correcting errors, which hampers the building of trusting relationships, creativity, and risk-taking. In this sense, the leadership style exhibited in this study is also in line with what Aarons et al. (2014) refer to as implementation leadership, reflecting a degree of proactive and knowledgeable support and removing obstacles. The leaders in our study demonstrated clear efforts to take the lead in creating solutions together to better align their child and youth protection practices with the explicit organizational goals. They put in their own resources, skills, and networks to push through changes that were deemed necessary, which perhaps reflects a more comprehensive way of looking at leadership for transformation (Williams et al., 2020). This is illustrated by situations in which team leaders chose to escalate matters—when the family manager and team did not make progress in following the central line or when barriers were encountered with other organizations that required a more strategic approach.

Finally, as it becomes increasingly clear that leadership for change does not rely on “one-size-fits-all” approaches, we argue that it is important to keep promoting shared reflections among middle managers, and constantly finetune their intuitive sense-making abilities. This is even more important as transformation is now recognized as being continuous, and organizations will be increasingly dependent on middle managers to help them adapt to new situations.

Strengths and limitations

One strength of our study is that it empirically highlights how and with what challenges the new working practices of a child and youth protection organization become normalized and integrated in the context of team members’ daily routines. The peer video-reflection approach shows the process of increasing peers’ awareness of the problems and how they can be addressed. Secondly, the team leaders received the video-reflection method well. During the FGDs we started with eye-openers. This released the tension and created an atmosphere to learn because the team leaders saw that their peers and themselves were already employing helpful strategies. Furthermore, the themes discussed were issues that all the team leaders were struggling with. This also created a feeling of togetherness.

The study also shows that the complexity of normalization, as captured in NPT, takes place at different levels in the organization. A limitation is that the interactions with other relevant groups outside and inside the organization were not included in the analysis. It would be useful to conduct studies that help our understanding of challenges that arise in the normalization processes in other departments in the organizational system. Moreover, there is a need for follow-up studies to determine the extent to which the findings emerging from this study are sustainable over time. Other limitations are related to design bias of the video-reflection method. Team leaders found the evaluation of the 2.5-hour team meeting very demanding. As a result, the end of the video evaluation may not have received the same attention as the first part, resulting in procedural bias (Worthy et al., 2020). Secondly, the time between recording the team meeting and the reflection section was, on average, about four months, which may have led to the themes no longer being relevant to discuss. However, the team leaders indicated during the reflection sessions that the team challenges and tensions are quite persistent. There might also be a degree of confirmation bias (Klayman, 1995) of the first author because he was also engaged with the organization as a policy advisor. Despite this, the nature of the study was not to prove the intervention’s effectiveness but rather to explore and understand the various leadership practices, making this limitation somewhat less likely to occur. Efforts were also made to reduce this limitation, by ensuring independent data analysis by the second and third authors, and having various discussions on this issue with all authors during the writing process.

Conclusion

The results show that during a normalization process of implementing a new working method, many challenges and tensions arise in the team interactions in the daily practices of middle managers in a child and youth protection organization (the team leaders). These interactions—or the lack of interactions—could be categorized and thought through by drawing on the four domains of NPT, which allowed us to get a deeper understanding of the nature of the challenges, and how they hamper or promote the change process. Lastly, our study shows that leaders’ awareness of and reflection on challenges and tensions are essential in order to articulate and employ successful strategies to enhance the normalization of a new work method.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).