Wise Leadership and the Capacity for Ontological Acuity
Wise Leadership and the Capacity for Ontological Acuity
复制标题
明智的领导力和本体敏锐度
DOI:
10.1177/0893318907313715
复制
发表时间:
2008
影响因子:
2.5
通讯作者:
D. Rooney
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
B. McKenna;D. Rooney
Everything can be reduced to discourse, including leadership, or so it seems. The same can be said of psychology, although its epistemological tributaries are more diverse than those of discourse theory. The challenge for discourse theorists is to rigorously define their discipline and develop methodologies that link theory to practice. Fairhurst (2007) has considerably contributed to this endeavor and has as well set up a conversation between psychology and discourse analysis. This article adds to this conversation by examining agency in wise leadership through discussing the concept of ontological acuity. In doing so, we extend Fairhurst’s discussion of reflexive agency because we agree that leadership theories generally fail to adequately theorize agency and the ontological complexity of organizational life. By showing the role of discourse analysis in understanding agency in leadership research, this article indicates how discourse analysis and psychology research at the level of social cognition can contribute significantly to leadership research. Leaders constantly have to deal with the complexity of organizational knowledge inscribed in organizational discourse. Underlying this discourse is an episteme, comprising “the total set of relations that unite, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences, and possibly formalized systems” (Foucault, 1972, p. 191). Because this episteme is an “a priori organising principle” (Bannet, 1989, p. 164) regulating what people think and say in discursive sites, leaders need to be able to reflexively understand and critique the inherent ontologies that regulate these sites. We call this capacity ontological acuity. Possessing this capacity, wise leaders become critical discourse analysts, even if unwittingly