Wise Leadership and the Capacity for Ontological Acuity

Wise Leadership and the Capacity for Ontological Acuity
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明智的领导力和本体敏锐度

DOI:
10.1177/0893318907313715
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发表时间:
2008
影响因子:
2.5
通讯作者:
D. Rooney
D. Rooney
中科院分区:
管理学4区
文献类型:
--
作者:
B. McKenna;D. Rooney

文献摘要

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一切都可以归结为话语,包括领导力,至少看起来是这样。心理学也是如此,尽管它的认识论分支比话语理论的分支更多样化。话语理论家面临的挑战是严格定义他们的学科,并发展将理论与实践联系起来的方法。费尔赫斯特(2007)对这一努力做出了很大贡献,并在心理学和话语分析之间建立了对话。这篇文章通过讨论本体论敏锐度的概念来考察英明领导中的能动性,从而增加了这一对话。在此过程中,我们扩展了费尔赫斯特对反身性代理的讨论,因为我们同意领导理论通常无法充分理论化代理和组织生活的本体论复杂性。本文通过展示话语分析在领导力研究中的理解代理中的作用,说明社会认知层面的话语分析和心理学研究对领导力研究的重要贡献。领导者必须不断处理组织话语中组织知识的复杂性。这一话语的基础是一种认识论,它包括“在特定时期内,将产生认识论形象、科学和可能的形式化系统的话语实践统一起来的一整套关系”(福柯,1972年,第191页)。因为这种认知是一种“先验的组织原则”(Bannet, 1989, p. 164),规范着人们在话语场所的想法和言论,领导者需要能够反射性地理解和批判规范这些场所的固有本体论。我们称这种能力为本体论敏锐度。拥有这种能力,明智的领导者成为批判性话语的分析者,即使是无意的
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