Fools, jesters and the possibility of responsible leadership

Abstract

<jats:p> The vibrant academic and practitioner conversation about corporate responsibility does not appear to reduce the number of scandals involving unethical managerial behaviour. This leaves the question of whether responsible organisational leadership is possible. Some leadership scholars recently suggested that understanding leadership as a relational process can facilitate more responsible leadership practice. This article develops the relational leadership perspective by offering a critical discussion of the possibility of responsible relational leadership. I construct an understanding of responsibility following the writings of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. I then use the archetypal figure of the Fool as an imaginary device to translate Levinasian and Derridian ethics into lived experiences and thus illuminate the conditions under which responsibility may be possibilised. This theoretical analysis exposes the irresolvable tension between responsibility and the relational in leadership but also identifies ways through which leadership actors can strive for responsibility through purposefully engaging with the tension. </jats:p>

When ‘I’ becomes ‘we’: An ethnographic study of power and responsibility in a large food retail cooperative

“…Importantly, Foucault and Levinas shared reservations about phenomenology as generally expounded by Husserl, vigorously problematizing the supposed ‘self-sufficiency of the subject and the primacy of action’ before sociality (Bergen and Verbeek, 2021: 335). For Levinas, an endless responsibility to others requires us to locate our sense of security in community relationships rather than a desire for ‘internal coherency and stability’ that reduces the other to the same (Zueva-Owens, 2020: 617) for purposes of securing the self. As our findings intimate, self-formation processes (and the ethics that people enact) are inseparable from community, and yet, while ‘community .…”

Problematizing leadership learning facilitation through a trickster archetype: An investigation into power and identity in liminal spaces

“…We also take note here of the political anthropological work of Horvath and Szakolczai (2018) where they highlight the potential use and abuse of liminality where uncertainty and anxiety occur. Similar to Zueva-Owens (2020) and Kostera (2008), we see the importance of using archetypes in enabling us to see and understand important phenomena that may be otherwise invisible. Lastly, we believe this enriches the awareness of ambiguity or the 'shadowy nature' (Nicholson and Carroll, 2013) of leadership development initiatives.…”

Speaking truth to power: The academic as jester stimulating management learning

“…He first attracted the king’s attention by screaming ‘The English cowards!’, and when asked by his sovereign to explain, he answered ‘because they don’t even have the guts to jump into the water like our brave French!’ (Otto, 2001: 113). In this example the jester personifies the archetypal character capable of critiquing power (of the king) and ideology (of nationalism) through jest (Zueva-Owens, 2020).…”

“…Nonetheless, jesters were ‘ fiercely loyal to the eminent objects of their foolish ridicule’ (Välikangas and Sevón, 2010: 559, emphasis added), perhaps due to ‘a shared sense of isolation’ (Otto, 2001: 49). The jester’s power to act was only through the monarch (Zueva-Owens, 2020). Historically, in courtly society jesters were expected to act as much more than mere entertainers, performing various household responsibilities, including that of being the monarch’s messenger on the battlefield (Maitland, 2019).…”