The Paradoxes of Leadership: The Contribution of Aristotle

Abstract

Collins's (2001a) findings that great leaders possess a paradoxical combination of traits have, for the most part, left the leadership community unresponsive despite their potential implications for conceptualizing leadership. Playful metaphors and alluring ideas that underpin present-day leadership theory provide many insights into leadership, but seem to be unable to explain the complex and contextual nature of leadership. At a time when a host of examples attest to the limitations of understanding leadership in creative yet simplistic ways, findings that incorporate the notion of complexity require closer scrutiny. In this article, the author uses Collins's research as a starting point for addressing the salience of a holistic understanding of leadership. Specifically, the author provides an explanation of the paradoxical combination of leadership traits by invoking Aristotle's philosophy, and, in particular, the complexity inherent in his teleological, ethical, and action-oriented view of the world. Ramifications of a narcissistic approach to leadership are addressed as an illustration of the perils of an overly simplistic and decontextualized understanding of leadership.

Development of a Broader Conceptualization and Measurement Scale of Ethical Leadership

“…Prudence or wisdom according to Van Wart (2014) can be used for understanding why things are the way they are. It refers to blending experience, knowledge and reason to make optimum or prudential decisions (Kodish, 2006in Van Wart, 2014.…”

Ethical Leadership: Examining the Relationships with Full Range Leadership Model, Employee Outcomes, and Organizational Culture

“…For ''good leadership'', it is important that leaders are not only competent but also ethical in their everyday conduct (see Ciulla, 1995). Kodish (2006), while discussing Aristotle's philosophy of leadership also argues that ''Leadership is more than a skill, more than the knowledge of theories, and more than analytical faculties. It is the ability to act purposively and ethically as the situation requires on the basis of the knowledge of universals, experience, perception, and intuition.…”

Learning to Lead: Can Aristotle Help Us Find the Road to Wisdom?

“…We also need to recognize that learning to lead is itself a social process rather than an individual event (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and that the learning of leadership may be, as Aristotle implied, not just learning a body of theoretical knowledge -episteme -and not merely captured by replicable skills -techné -but rather something including practical wisdom -phronesis. Here, understanding the potential collective good in a concrete situation is then realized by the practical wisdom of leaders (see Kodish, 2006, on the relationship of leadership to paradox). In effect, we need to stop reducing leadership to a technical issue that can be solved by the more sophisticated application of science; or in Dunne's (1993: 364) more elegant phrase, 'the cause of the dissatisfaction .…”