Leading beautifully: How mastery, congruence and purpose create the aesthetic of embodied leadership practice

Abstract

This paper explores the territory of leading as an embodied activity through the lens of the aesthetic category of 'the beautiful'. Its starting point is that although much of the literature about effective leadership practice focuses on leadership behaviours, little is written about the way in which those behaviours are actually enacted. The musician, Bobby McFerrin serves as a case study for identifying three key aspects of leading beautifully: mastery, congruence between form and content, and purpose. These are further considered through reference to the concept of beauty as theorised by the philosophers Plato and Plotinus. The paper then considers how 'leading beautifully' might differ from other conceptualisations of leadership and discusses the particular insight it brings to understanding the nature of leading as a relational phenomenon.

Charisma as a Follower-centric, Cognitive-affective Phenomenon: Initial Qualitative Evidence for the Cognitive Dimension

“…Thus researchers first need to strengthen it. Towards this end, researchers may benefit from the currently available literature on emotional contagion (Bono & Llies 2006), aesthetics of leadership (Ladkin 2008) and theoretical and empirical work (Wasielewski 1985, Johnson 2008) that examines the role of leader affect and arousal in charismatic attribution.…”

Twenty-First Century Leadership: A Return to Beauty

“…Cameron & Caza, 2004;Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003;Seligman, 2003;Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Yet rarely have they focused on beauty (for exceptions, see Adler, 2006Adler, , 2011Adler, , 2015Ladkin, 2008;Merrit, 2010;Stephens, 2010Stephens, , 2016Stephens, , 2017Taylor, 2013Taylor, , 2014. Rarely do we allow the power of beauty to influence our perceptions, behavior, and aspirations as leaders.…”

Chinese Philosophy Ethnical, Paternalistic and Aesthetic Leadership in Global Business World

“…We further agree that aesthetic leadership theory has substantial potential to develop through research focused on social influence, emotional involvement, and interaction among leaders and followers. Employing an in-depth case study, Ladkin [15] developed three dimensions of aesthetics in leadership -mastery, coherence, and purpose. These three dimensions can be illuminated as 'a mastery in understanding one's context and domain and mastery of the self,' coherence (also denoted as 'authenticity') in terms of the actions of the leader congruent with the overall espoused messages and purpose, and purpose in terms of 'attending to the goal towards which one is leading' [15].…”

“…Employing an in-depth case study, Ladkin [15] developed three dimensions of aesthetics in leadership -mastery, coherence, and purpose. These three dimensions can be illuminated as 'a mastery in understanding one's context and domain and mastery of the self,' coherence (also denoted as 'authenticity') in terms of the actions of the leader congruent with the overall espoused messages and purpose, and purpose in terms of 'attending to the goal towards which one is leading' [15]. Her work offers insight into the potential for the study of aesthetic behaviour in leadership.…”

“…Aesthetic leadership, in contrast, provides an approach to investigate how leadership behaviours and outcomes are produced and emerge, in an attempt to describe the subjective 'felt meanings' of leaders and followers, which are absent from the leadership literature [12]. Ladkin [15] suggests three categories of practice that contribute to what she terms 'leading beautifully' (mastery, purpose, and coherence), outlining the roles of aesthetics in leadership.…”