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Cruel Comforters: Management Gurus as Outsourced Thinkers

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Abstract

The influence of popular management gurus derives from two factors: the willingness of their management audience to outsource or subcontract thinking and the ability of gurus to deliver apparently relatively simple messages to an audience that probably does not want or need to think deeply, while retaining their leadership status. As managers look to management gurus to provide them only with reasons to be, to behave or act as opposed to reasons to think, per se, the nature of a popular guru’s output can never address the unseen innovating process which true leadership demands. As a result, popular management gurus are not in a position to promote insights, awakening or higher consciousness in others and cannot fulfil the traditional raison d’être of a guru as an enlightened being. The output of popular management gurus probably communicates more about their audience than it usefully communicates about the guru’s thinking.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of East London, UK

    Kazem Chaharbaghi (Professor of Management, Business School’s Director of Research and Development and Head of University’s Interdisciplinary Research)

  2. Pfizer Research University, Sandwich, UK

    Victor Newman (Chief Learning Officer of Pfizer)

Authors
  1. Kazem Chaharbaghi
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  2. Victor Newman
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Chaharbaghi, K., Newman, V. Cruel Comforters: Management Gurus as Outsourced Thinkers. Philos. of Manag. 6, 135–146 (2007). https://doi.org/10.5840/pom2007619

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/pom2007619

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