Realistic egocentrism: caring leadership through an evolutionary lens

Pederzini, Gerardo David Abreu

doi:10.1080/14759551.2019.1637875

Cited by 6 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…These attitudes suggest a problematic element of paternalism and self-enhancement. Like the grand leadership identity Sveningsson & Alvesson, 2016), the caring leader identity can apparently contain a streak of self-delusion, as suggested by Abreu Pederzini (2020).…”

Section: Managerial and Subordinate Fantasiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Caring Leader Identity Between Power and Powerlessness

Levay

Bäck

2021

Organization Studies

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This paper investigates what happens when managers’ identity is centred on caring, an underappreciated aspect of leadership. Drawing on a case study of managers in elderly care, we distil an ideal-typical caring leader identity as well as contextualised interpretations that suggest both problematic and constructive aspects. The caring leader identity implies a self-understanding as being highly present, supportive, and helpful to subordinates’ development. We find that the belief of making a decisive difference to others’ development by caring for them can be a deceptive fantasy that incites over-dependence among subordinates, particularly for ambitious managers who experience pressing situations and little power. Under better but likely less common conditions, managers can develop more modest expressions of a caring leader identity, leaving space for subordinates themselves to define problems and explore solutions.

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Section: Managerial and Subordinate Fantasiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Caring Leader Identity Between Power and Powerlessness

Levay

Bäck

2021

Organization Studies

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“…Philosophical elaborations of caring leadership have drawn on Foucauldian ethics (Ladkin, 2018), Jungian archetypes (Gabriel, 2015), Heideggerian ontology (Tomkins and Simpson, 2015), evolutionary theory (Abreu Pederzini, 2020), and Classical understandings of the relationship between care and democracy (Atack, 2020) and care and national security (Lowrie, 2020). These have traced some of the power dynamics of caring leadership, focusing principally on the suggestion that care can be infantilising.…”

Section: Caring Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rarely, however, has the power asymmetry of caring leadership been approached from the opposite direction, i.e. from the perspective of the powerlessness of the caring leader (Abreu Pederzini, 2020, is a notable exception). Here, leadership scholars have much to gain from the vibrant sociological, political and feminist literatures on care ethics, where the impotence, indeed, potential abuse, of care- givers has long been a crucial concern.…”

Section: Caring Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In suggesting that caring leadership might both involve and camouflage impotence , I connect with elaborations of care as a matter of survival, rather than moral virtue or genuine concern for others. Abreu Pederzini (2020) sees caring leadership in evolutionary terms, whereby the leader – based on the archetypal care-giver, the parent – cares for his followers/offspring not because it is a loving or honorable thing to do, but because care-giving is a behavioural trait selected for its strategic evolutionary usefulness. Through an evolutionary lens, of course, this survival instinct is not conscious, but merely the operation of the gene.…”

Section: The Power Dynamics Of Caring Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Caring leadership as Nietzschean slave morality

Tomkins

2020

Leadership

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In this paper, I respond to calls for more critical reflection on the power dynamics of caring leadership. I consider how a combination of care and impotence might unfold as Nietzsche’s ‘slave morality’, crystallised in the phenomenon of ressentiment. At the heart of slave morality is an inversion of values in which everything represented by the Other is denigrated so that the slave can find meaning and solace in his own place in the world. The Nietzschean inversion transforms impotence, inferiority and submission into virtue, identity and accomplishment. In contrast to recent elaborations of ressentiment in followers, I argue that slave morality is something to which leaders, especially caring leaders, are also vulnerable. When caring leadership awakens or exposes the slave-within, we are unable to take charge of – or responsibility for – ourselves, because we have ceded control of the self to forces beyond the self. This is the risk of ‘care ethics’ as a systemic inversion of values which constructs an ideology out of letting others define who and what we are. It creates a breeding ground for ressentiment, feeding off unspoken and unspeakable grievances about the injustices of one’s lot, especially those involving a clash between the rhetoric of empowerment and the experience of impotence. The Nietzschean warning is: Be wary of leadership models which might look and even feel nice, but which turn self-sacrifice into virtue and silence into necessity.

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“…The low self-esteem of some of the priests, as suggested by Esther, perhaps pushes them into defensive positions against the high expectations of some of their followers. The differences in understanding may have emerged from personal and institutional values and lead to an obvious incongruence in understandings of caring leadership (Abreu Pederzini, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Values and Ethics of Care Conflict: A Lived Experience in the Roman Catholic Church

Zigan

Héliot

Grys

2021

Work, Employment and Society

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This article investigates contemporary understandings of the ethics of care. While the ethics of care is predominantly known as showing empathy and support to others, analysing the complex relationship between institutional and personal values of clerical leaders and the congregation in the Roman Catholic Church in England reveals very different understandings. The sociological and psychological concepts of authority, pastoral care and identity are used to analyse the role of a female youth work leader in a Roman Catholic parish who is exposed to different (conservative and liberal) leadership approaches. She explains how her views on care, gender and participation differ from those of three clerical leaders and powerfully illustrates the resulting conflicts between the priests but also towards the congregation. This story shows that individual agency influences strong conservative institutional values and that leadership in faith-based organisations needs to embrace the complex interplay between institutional and personal dynamics.

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Realistic egocentrism: caring leadership through an evolutionary lens

Abstract: The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.

Cited by 6 publications

References 42 publications

Caring Leader Identity Between Power and Powerlessness

Caring Leader Identity Between Power and Powerlessness

Caring leadership as Nietzschean slave morality

When Values and Ethics of Care Conflict: A Lived Experience in the Roman Catholic Church

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