Leadership-as-Practice: Antecedent to Leaderful Purpose

ABSTRACT

The practice perspective of leadership de-emphasizes purpose and rather recognizes pre-reflective forms of intentionality carried out in embodied practices that may be subsequently guided by democratic, emancipatory and reflexive processes. Although leadership-as-practice should be classified as a descriptive metaethical theory, it can be animated by normative accounts derived from exploratory and critical discourses.

MAD statement

The contribution of the telos of social justice and sustainability needs to be accompanied by the exploratory study of the processes that detail social and material interactions that may alter the trajectory of the flow of practices within the organization. By focusing on process, we observe the actual doings or enactments of leadership that require mining prior to diving into goal attainment.

KEYWORDS:

• Leadership-as-practice
• process
• purpose
• phenomenology
• emancipation
• reflexivity

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joe Raelin

Joe Raelin is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of collective leadership, learning, and practice. He is the Donald Gordon Visiting Professor of Leadership at the University of Cape Town in South Africa