Leadership: A categorical mistake?
- 1 June 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Human Relations
- Vol. 61 (6), 763-782
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726708092403
Abstract
As growing numbers of scholars become disaffected by the research traditions laid down by leadership psychology, there is a steady turn towards treating leadership as a discursive phenomenon. In response, leadership researchers are increasingly adopting interpretive and observational methods in the search for the practices of leadership in everyday life. This article suggests that while there are many advantages to an interest in discourse and action, there are also many subtle difficulties in making leadership observable and knowable in the field. Taking Louis Pondy's notion of leadership as a language-game as its starting point, this article argues that leadership studies as a discipline suffers from a persistent category mistake; a category mistake that some recent interpretive studies of leadership reveal, but inadvertently reproduce in the search for leadership's essential character. Instead, this article takes Pondy's thesis to its logical conclusion and outlines a programme of research that confronts this category mistake, whilst demonstrating the potential for, and limitations of, treating leadership as a language-game.Keywords
This publication has 26 references indexed in Scilit:
- Resistance leadership: The overlooked potential in critical organization and leadership studiesHuman Relations, 2007
- Leadership Refrains: Patterns of LeadershipLeadership, 2006
- How Can We Train Leaders if We Do Not Know What Leadership Is?Human Relations, 1997
- Leaders in Context: Postpositivist Approaches to Understanding Educational LeadershipEducational Administration Quarterly, 1996
- A Disagreement over Agreement and Consensus in Constructionist SociologyJournal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 1993
- CONCEPTUALIZING LEADERSHIP PROCESSES: A STUDY OF SENIOR MANAGERS IN A FINANCIAL SERVICES COMPANY*Journal of Management Studies, 1992
- COMMITTEE TALK: NEGOTIATING 'PERSONNEL DEVELOPMENT' AT A TRAINING COLLEGE [1]Journal of Management Studies, 1985
- Neo-Taylorism in Educational Administration?Educational Administration Quarterly, 1982
- Leadership: The Management of MeaningThe Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 1982
- Implicit leadership theory: A potential threat to the internal validity of leader behavior questionnairesOrganizational Behavior and Human Performance, 1977