Ghostbusters! On the Narrative Creation of (Absent) Leader Characters
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
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Palgrave Debates in Business and ManagementDate
2022Discipline
JohtaminenResponsible Management, Learning, Digitalization & StrategyKestävä liiketoiminta ja talous (painoala)Basic or discovery scholarshipManagement and LeadershipResponsible Management, Learning, Digitalization & StrategySustainable Business and Economy (focus area)Basic or discovery scholarshipCopyright
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
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.
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Palgrave MacmillanParent publication ISBN
978-3-031-04592-9Is part of publication
Debating Leaderless Management : Can Employees Do Without Leaders?ISSN Search the Publication Forum
2524-5082Keywords
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