The materiality of leadership

Bibliographic Data

ID12883142
AuthorsA Pullen (0000-0003-1933-1582, Swansea University, corresponding author), Sheena Vachhani (0000-0002-2911-455X, Swansea University)
Year2013
Volume9
Issue3
Pages315-319
Publication date2013-07-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLeadership (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1742-7150 • E-ISSN: 1742-7169
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1742715013486038
OpenAlexW2046824655
LanguageEN
Citations received22
References cited12

There is a growing body of research that has advanced knowledge of the embodied nature of leadership, and its relationship between aesthetics and affect (Hansen et al., 2007; Ladkin, 2008; Ropo and Sauer, 2008; Sinclair, 2005). The relationship between the surface or exterior of the body and embodiment have developed rich insights, yet we suggest that the ways in which affect, materiality and leadership connect requires space to change the ways in which we think about ‘leadership’. Acknowledging the sea of literature on embodied organisation (see for example, Dale, 2001; Lennie, 2000), this special issue creates a space for the basic assumption that leadership is embodied – leadership is practised through and between bodies, where matter matters, and body challenges leadership as an over-cognitivised phenomena. Despite extensive research on ‘emotion-based’ or ‘instinctual’ forms (Harung, 1993) of leadership such as transformational leadership and charismatic leadership, we suggest that the body becomes the carrier of emotion, desire or motivation. In such cases, the body is subordinated to an overarching regime of instrumentality and commodified in the pursuit of organisational effectiveness. Moreover, when the body is considered it is done so superficially, for example by associating leadership effectiveness with physical characteristics such as height, weight, and body type, and/or assuming that the leader is able bodied and ostensibly Western. Popular managerialist concepts such as emotional intelligence, while bearing a loose acknowledgement of the body, are also deeply entwined and understood as being deferent to organisational effectiveness (Goleman, 2006). Whilst not wanting to labour ‘the body’s neglect’, we claim that more often than not the body is enrolled in the process of organising, often in impoverished ways which do not consider the inter-connections and inseparability of mind/body and subject/object – a relation that Merleau-Ponty (1968; see also Crossley, 1995) refers to as ‘chiasm’. As a result of

Aesthetics · Charisma · Commodification · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Leadership · Leadership style · Materiality (auditing · Political science · Shared leadership · Sociology · Transformational leadership · Creativity in Education and Neuroscience · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access