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The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of interaction in the process of leadership. Interaction has been claimed to be a leadership competence in the Royal Navy. The aim of this research is to define how interaction works within naval teams.

The research uses grounded theory. Following a series of leadership discussions in separate focus groups, discussion topics were coded and subjected to recursive qualitative analysis. The grounded approach is used to synthesize and develop existing leadership theory strands, as well as to extend the trait-process approach to leadership.

The research discovers the key interaction behaviors of engagement, disengagement and levelling. The findings support recent developments in follower-centric perceptions and in interaction specifically. The authors develop engagement theory by combining it with the less well-researched area of leadership resistance. The authors then re-frame resistance as social levelling, a more comprehensive interaction mechanism.

This research uniquely uses grounded theory to extend current theories (competence-based leadership and trait-process theories of leadership), explaining the complexity of leadership interaction. The research also synthesizes and develops engagement and levelling (resistance to leadership) theories for the first time. As such, the project suggests a full range model of follower response to leadership, including subtle forms of resistance to power. The value of group-level analysis using focus groups is recommended, especially for other collective leader–follower approaches to leadership. The research is of interest to those studying leadership process theories, competencies, leader-follower traditions, engagement and power/resistance research.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of interaction in the process of leadership. Interaction has been claimed to be a leadership competence in earlier research into leadership in the Royal Navy. The aim of this research is to define how interaction works within naval teams.

The research uses Grounded Theory. Following a series of leadership discussions in separate focus groups, discussion topics were coded and subjected to recursive qualitative analysis. The grounded approach is used to synthesise and develop existing leadership theory strands as well as to extend the trait-process approach to leadership.

The research discovers the key interaction behaviours of engagement, disengagement and levelling. Our findings support recent developments in follower-centric perceptions of leadership and in interaction specifically. The authors develop engagement theory by combining it with the less well researched area of leadership resistance. The authors then re-frame resistance as social levelling, a more comprehensive interaction mechanism.

The research is highly contextual because of its qualitative approach. Some of the detailed reactions to leadership behaviours may not found in other naval or military teams and are unlikely to be generalisable to non-military environments. However, the mechanism described, that of engagement, disengagement and levelling is considered highly generalisable if not universal. Rather than develop new theory fragments in an already confusing research environment, the authors fuse engagement and resistance theory to extend trait-process theories of leadership. The result is a coherent and integrative model of leadership dynamics which frames leadership in the mundane interaction of leaders and followers.

Interaction as a competence is strongly supported as is the encouragement of cultures which promote interaction. Selection procedures for future leaders should include interaction skills. The use of subtle methods of resistance are highlighted. Such methods may indicate poor interaction long before more overt forms of resistance are apparent.

The continual monitoring of leaders and implied ambivalence towards leadership could be critical to our understanding of leadership. A dynamic feedback circle between leaders and followers may be a more useful paradigm for the characterising of leadership throughout society. A better understanding of the power of followers to frame and re-frame leadership would help to manage the expectations of leaders.

This research uniquely uses Grounded Theory to extend current theories (competence based leadership and trait-process theories of leadership), explaining the complexity of leadership interaction. The research also synthesises and develops engagement and levelling (resistance to leadership) theories for the first time. As such the project suggests a full range model of follower response to leadership including subtle forms of resistance to power. The value of group-level analysis using focus groups is recommended, especially for other collective leader-follower approaches to leadership. The research is of interest to those studying leadership process theories, competencies, leader-follower traditions, engagement and power/resistance research.

I HAVE NEVER HAD ANY KIND OF AMBITION to become a sort of biographer general to the library profession. But then, as in other parts of my experience, delightfully unexpected things have happened, praise be! Penny Rate has been the only one of my books which has sold even tolerably well: I even fear that there may be something in the assertion made by one member of my staff when, soon after the formation of the Library Association's Library History Group, she said to me: ‘Whether you like it or not, I am afraid that you will go down in library history as the author of Penny Rate.’ Yet I never intended to write the wretched book at all; I only did it because the L. A. asked me to find someone else to do it for the municipal library centenary of 1950.

AT the time this appears about ten per cent of the librarians of this country will be studying how best to profit by the Hastings conference at the end of the month. The town itself is interesting, the old and new being combined in a quite graciously intriguing manner, and the library service there is worthy of attention. We say that pointedly because the pressure of these meetings is so great that the library of the place, the local example of all librarians stand for, is, by the majority, not even visited. In our October issue we hope to give an impression, at any rate a preliminary one, of the proceedings. From the advance notices, which are all that are as yet available, they are to revolve somewhat loosely round staff, stock, and standards, which can be made to cover the whole of librarianship, so that we need not descant upon its importance or pretend that it presents any original subject. Its treatment we hope will be so, as the most ordinary library topic is an old one, but fresh light upon it is always possible. The speakers appear to be all librarians of relatively small libraries and, as these comprise 75% at least of public libraries, there can be no quarrel with that. The new chairman of the L.A. Education Committee, Mr. W. B. Paton, is to look again at the pressing question of staff recruitment and training; we know he will look with clear eyes at a real problem. The Annual Lecture will be by Sir Ben Bowen Thomas, who is Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Department of the Ministry of Education. There will be the usual section meetings, annual dinner, and exhibition. We may be sure that the Presidential Address will be characteristic of Mr. C. B. Oldman, which means that it will be a scholarly reflection of many or some of his wide range of library interests; and also that, under his guidance, the whole conference will be managed well.

THE most important date in current British library affairs was undoubtedly May 6th, 1955, when the Public Libraries (Scotland) Act became law. In five laconic paragraphs it sweeps away the financial shackles which have been the exasperation, almost the despair, of our Scottish colleagues who until now were able to watch their English and Welsh ones, free from rate limits, able to lend library material one to another and able, of course all this with their local authority consent, to borrow money for legitimate library purposes. Now, Scotland is free too in all these necessary matters. The new Aft, of course, will have to be interpreted in conjunction with the existing Scottish Public Libraries Acts, and one clause, 3, which gives authorities power to revoke any decision they have made to adopt the principal Aft, may have repercussions not at present envisaged. However that may be, a new vista is open to a country which was always notable for its high valuation of education, and yet for a century withheld adequate means from its library service.

“All things are in a constant state of change”, said Heraclitus of Ephesus. The waters if a river are for ever changing yet the river endures. Every particle of matter is in continual movement. All death is birth in a new form, all birth the death of the previous form. The seasons come and go. The myth of our own John Barleycorn, buried in the ground, yet resurrected in the Spring, has close parallels with the fertility rites of Greece and the Near East such as those of Hyacinthas, Hylas, Adonis and Dionysus, of Osiris the Egyptian deity, and Mondamin the Red Indian maize‐god. Indeed, the ritual and myth of Attis, born of a virgin, killed and resurrected on the third day, undoubtedly had a strong influence on Christianity.

VINE is a Very Informal Newsletter produced three times a year by the Information Officer for Library Automation and financed by the British Library Research & Development Department. It is issued free of charge on request to interested librarians, systems staff and library college lecturers. VINE'S objective is to provice an up‐to‐date picture of work being done in U.K. library automation which has not been reported elsewhere.