Dances of leadership: Bridging theory and practice through an aesthetic approach

Abstract

We wish to develop the argument in this paper that through aesthetic and artistic work, practices and their metaphorical use, we have a potential to better understand the relationship between academic leadership theory and practical action. By aesthetic approach we mean the experiential way of knowing that emphasizes human senses and the corporeal nature of social interaction in leadership. In this paper, we discuss how leadership could look, sound and feel like when seen via the artistic metaphor of dance. We use the traditional dance, waltz and the postmodern dance experience of raves to illustrate our argument. By doing so, we challenge traditional, intellectually oriented and positivistic leadership approaches that hardly recognize nor conceptualize aesthetic, bodily aspects of social interaction between people in the workplace.The ballroom dance waltz is used as a metaphorical representation of a hierarchical, logical and rational understanding of leadership. The waltz metaphor describes the leader as a dominant individual who knows where to go and the dance partner as a follower or at least as someone with a lesser role in defining the dance. Raves, on the other hand representparadigmatically different kind of a dance and therefore a different understanding of leadership. There are neither dance steps to learn, nor fixed dance partners where one leads and the other follows. Even the purpose or aim of dancing may not be known at the beginning of the dance, but it is negotiated as the raves go on. We think that raves describe the organizational life as it is often seen and felt today: chaotic, full of unexpected changes, ambiguous and changing collaborators in networks. Here leadership becomes a collective, distributed activity where the work processes and the targeted outcome is continually negotiated.Through the dance metaphors of waltz and raves, we suggest aspects such as gaze, rhythm and space to give an aesthetic description both to a more traditional and an emerging aesthetic paradigm of leadership where the corporeality of leadership is emphasized. We wish to make the point that leadership is aesthetically and corporeally co-constructed both between the leader and the followers as well as between the researcher and the subjects. The metaphor of dance illustrates the corporeal nature of leadership both to practitioners and theoreticians.

Dancing with the D-man: Exploring reflexive practices of relational leadership in ballet and ice hockey

“…The difference between offstage and onstage work has remained underexplored among organisational scholars, even though it can be applied outside dance and ice hockey to numerous other fields. Just like professional dancers, ice hockey players practice their movements offstage towards the final outcome onstage; an analogous relationship between planning and execution is evident, which can be applicable in other fields as well, for example, rescue services (Bigley and Roberts, 2001), health care (Klein et al., 2006), the armed forces (Lindebaum et al., 2016) and artistic contexts (Barrett, 2006; Ropo and Sauer, 2008). What makes such twofold environments even more interesting is that the roles of leadership are continuously negotiated.…”

Leading Aesthetically: Insights from the Founders of the San Antonio Conservation Society

“…Several researchers stress the importance of using sense-making and the direct sensory experience to leading aesthetically (e.g., Barry & Meisiek, 2010;Ropo & Sauer, 2008;Springborg, 2010;Taylor & Hansen, 2005). Several researchers stress the importance of using sense-making and the direct sensory experience to leading aesthetically (e.g., Barry & Meisiek, 2010;Ropo & Sauer, 2008;Springborg, 2010;Taylor & Hansen, 2005).…”

Pragmatic leadership: A return to wisdom

“…Pragmatic leaders, employ their personalised knowledge about their roles and relationships, positioning themselves within the changing environments of the organisation by adopting appropriate leadership styles in a specific context. Specifically where leadership is understood as a collective activity where the processes and targeted outcomes are continually negotiated (Ropo & Sauer, 2008). The exercise of wisdom in this sense means that a leader is able to include all features of knowledge, experience and virtues to anticipate business situations and decisions in their moral, social and financial implications (Roca, 2007).…”

“…At the theoretical level, we suggest an epistemological approach derived from a value-rational pragmatism (Ruwhiu & Cone, 2010; Zhang et al, 2011), has equal legitimacy to mainstream perspectives (and vice versa) in leadership theory development. Importantly, we view this as a challenge to the dominant, positivist and intellectually oriented approaches to leadership that ‘hardly recognise’ or ignore the aesthetic and pragmatic aspects of leadership as social interaction (Ropo & Sauer, 2008; Zhang et al, 2011). This view is supported by the critical dialogue of indigenous scholarship, emerging in the domain of management and organisation (Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008; Henry & Pene, 2001; Verbos et al, 2011).…”