Ghostbusters! On the Narrative Creation of (Absent) Leader Characters

Abstract
We seek to “bust out” ghost leaders, narrated leader(ship) characters manifesting leadership influence, to discuss the inherent challenges related to leaderless management. By taking the non-corporeal aspect of leadership into account, we challenge the notion of leaderless management—which we argue has turned out to be more of an inspiring and empowering idea rather than a standing practice. We illustrate, with a Finnish high-tech organization, how organizational members narrate leader characters into existence in the non-corporeal realm during an organizational change to fill the void of a corporeal leader. While organizations may declare themselves to be leaderless, they, in fact, are not as such. According to our findings, a certain kind of leader always exists—the non-corporeal ghost leader. Thus, leaderless management is a myth.
Main Authors
Format
Books Book part
Published
2022
Series
Subjects
Publication in research information system
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
The permanent address of the publication
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202302271923Käytä tätä linkitykseen.
Parent publication ISBN
978-3-031-04592-9
Review status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2524-5082
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04593-6_14
Language
English
Published in
Palgrave Debates in Business and Management
Is part of publication
Debating Leaderless Management : Can Employees Do Without Leaders?
Citation
  • Auvinen, T., Sajasalo, P., Sintonen, T., & Takala, T. (2022). Ghostbusters! On the Narrative Creation of (Absent) Leader Characters. In F. Hertel, A. Örtenblad, & K. Mølbjerg Jørgensen (Eds.), Debating Leaderless Management : Can Employees Do Without Leaders? (pp. 227-244). Palgrave Macmillan. Palgrave Debates in Business and Management. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04593-6_14
License
In CopyrightOpen Access
Copyright© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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