Dichotomies, dialectics and dilemmas: New directions for critical leadership studies?

Abstract

This article builds on Fairhurst and Connaughton's proposals for future research agendas in leadership studies by critically examining three key themes in the leadership literature: dichotomies, dialectics, and dilemmas. The first section argues that mainstream leadership research frequently relies on conceptual dichotomies which are often multiple, interrelated , and proliferating. Critiques of dichotomization are suggestive of more dialectical forms of analysis and these are discussed in the second section. Dialectical studies can surface important questions about organizational power relations, paradoxes and contradictions that are typically under-explored within mainstream leadership studies. The third section proposes an additional, future research theme for critical perspectives, namely whether and if so why, how, and with what consequences leaders may engage in discourses of denial regarding the dilemmas and tensions of organizational life. The article concludes by arguing that re-framing leadership dichotomies as multiple, intersecting dialectics can open up fresh lines of enquiry and generate important insights about the complex and situated relations of power and identity that comprise leadership and followership dynamics.

Teaching Leadership Critically: New Directions for Leadership Pedagogy

“…Following Foucault, Hardy and Clegg (2006) discuss the disciplinary nature of power, and how this is manifest through surveillance, routinization, and cultural practices, all of which seek to codify and control employee behaviour. In this view, power is 19 Despite their concern to examine the exercise of power and control, many CMS writers ignore the study of leadership (Collinson 2011(Collinson , 2014). An index of this neglect is the influential Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies, edited by some of the key names in CMS (Alvesson et al, 2009).…”

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Understanding performance management in schools: a dialectical approach

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Burns, Senge, and the Study of Leadership

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