Abstract
The present study focuses on a manager’s understanding of leadership and how this guides – or does not guide practice. The paper reports an empirical in-depth study of a middle manager in an international manufacturing company. We link our discussion to both – the mainstream leadership studies, which assume that managers have a solid type of leadership behavior, and authors with a meaning-oriented, linguistic approach to leadership, in which language, self-awareness, and behavior are linked. The present study suggests that leadership attempts can vary, be divisive, and that a manager’s advocacy efforts are driven by a multitude of different, partly opposing, forces, meaning a decoupling of ideas and behavior in leadership practice. The paper raises the question of whether managers’ meanings of leadership correspond with what they do in practice.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 40-57 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Leadership |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Feb 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors gratefully appreciate the support from Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Research Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, © The Author(s) 2016.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors gratefully appreciate the support from Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Research Foundation.
Keywords
- Identity
- managing
- practice
- qualitative research
- relational leadership
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science
- Strategy and Management