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Is Critical Leadership Studies ‘Critical’?

Learmonth, M.; Morrell, K.

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Authors

M. Learmonth

K. Morrell



Abstract

‘Leader’ and ‘follower’ are increasingly replacing ‘manager’ and ‘worker’ to become the routine way to frame hierarchy within organizations; a practice that obfuscates, even denies, structural antagonisms. Furthermore, given that many workers are indifferent to (and others despise) their bosses, assuming workers are ‘followers’ of organizational elites seems not only managerialist, but blind to other forms of cultural identity. We feel that critical leadership studies should embrace and include a plurality of perspectives on the relationship between workers and their bosses. However, its impact as a critical project may be limited by the way it has generally adopted this mainstream rhetoric of leader/follower. By not being ‘critical’ enough about its own discursive practices, critical leadership studies risk reproducing the very kind of leaderism it seeks to condemn.

Citation

Learmonth, M., & Morrell, K. (2016). Is Critical Leadership Studies ‘Critical’?. Leadership, 13(3), 257-271. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715016649722

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 21, 2016
Online Publication Date May 13, 2016
Publication Date May 13, 2016
Deposit Date May 3, 2016
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Leadership
Print ISSN 1742-7150
Electronic ISSN 1742-7169
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 13
Issue 3
Pages 257-271
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715016649722
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1413382

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