How “shared” leadership comes into being: managers’ sensemaking in networked child welfare policy

Purpose The purpose of this article is to unravel how managers amidst a policy transformation toward a networked model of child welfare make sense of a new leadership narrative rooted in shared responsibilities instead of siloed, organization-centered responsibilities. Design/methodology/approach We draw on an ethnographic study (from March 2023 until January 2025) located in an urbanized Dutch region where child welfare providers created a network to realize child welfare services for youth populations. Our fieldwork consists of participant observations of managers’ interactions during these sessions, complemented and triangulated with multiple rounds of (digital) interviews, numerous informal conversations and a document analysis of network, organizational and policy notes. We analyzed our data through an iterative approach, going back and forth between preliminary findings and leadership studies that converge with the public managements field’s interest in (network) governance. Findings The findings highlight how managers construct shared leadership as a mode of interaction, an organizing method and a moral standard. They start to engage with shared leadership over time through relational transparency, responsive organizing and moral intentionality. These findings add to ongoing public and scholarly debates around the quest for shared leadership in policy domains that rely on networks, emphasizing the processual, provisional and political nature of how managers must navigate through (conflicting) organizational traditions with routinized ways of working and networked ones. Research limitations/implications Although the combined data sources allowed us to capture the meanings managers bring from one situation to another, our data collection mainly revolved around the managerial arena. Further inquiry in citizen, professional and policy arenas is warranted. Practical implications Our empirical findings inform public managers and policymakers about the work in policy transformations to actively bring a leadership narrative alive. This comes with a sensitivity for cultural notions and change. Originality/value Our ethnographic study provides a rich description of, and new processual insight into, the potential of a new leadership narrative for policy transformations that intend to overcome siloed ways of working.