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Leadership and Language Games

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References

  1. J. MacGregor Burns, Leadership, p 3, Harper and Row, New York, 1978.

  2. J. Adair, Effective Strategic Leadership: An Essential Path To Success Guided By The World’s Great Leaders. Macmillan, London, 2003 and K. Grint, The Arts of Leadership, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.

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  5. B. Czarniawska-Joerges & B. Joerges, ‘Linguistic artefacts at service of organizational control’, P. Gagliardi (Ed.) Symbols and Artifacts: Views of the Corporate Landscape, pp 509–548. De Gruyter, Berlin, 1990.

  6. J.B. Ciulla, ‘Leadership Ethics: Mapping the Territory’, J.B. Ciulla (Ed.) Ethics, The Heart of Leadership, pp 3 -25. Praeger, London, 1998.

  7. In this sense we can say that traditional views (such as traditional traits theories) in leadership studies are flawed with psychologism. Psychologism is the claim that epistemological problems (i.e., of the validity of human knowledge) can be solved satisfactorily by the psychological study of the development of mental processes. According to critics psychologism destroys objectivity (and intersubjectivity) and reduces the validity of any form of human knowledge to people’s subjective preferences, determined solely by the constitution of the individual or group of individuals. For example, let us analyze the meaning of the word ‘tree’; from the point of you of psychologism its meaning is its mental representation; but, each individual have his/her own mental representation of a ‘tree’ which springs from his/her experiences. The meaning of a word, on the contrary, is an objective one which is common to every speaker: therefore it is an error to equate the meaning of a word with its mental representation. In other words, that is not an empirical point, but a question about the meaning of the word. The empiricist must consequently reduce the meaning of the word to the physical content of somebody’s brain thinking of the word; but this means reducing logical concepts to psychological object. See D. Constant, ‘Frege’s Anti-Psychologism and the Problem of the Objectivity of Knowledge’, Gorman, S. (Ed.) Locations of the Political, Vienna: IWM Junior Visiting Fellows Conferences, 15(2), pp 1–12.

  8. R.J. House and R. Aditya, ‘The Social Scientific Study of Leadership: Quo Vadis?’, Journal of Management, 23(3), pp 409–473.

  9. J. Rost, Leadership for the Twenty-First Century. Praeger, Westport, 1997.

  10. Ciulla cites a series of symposia organized by J.G. Hunt in which ‘scholars constantly lament that they have done so much studying and know so little about leadership. Yet these same scholars — she claims — who lament this fact do little to change the way that they do research’ (Ciulla, op. cit., n. 32).

  11. Rational reconstructions standardly operate so as to transform a given problematic philosophical scientific account — particularly of a terminological, methodological or theoretical entity — into a similar, but more precise, consistent interpretation. This method occupies a central position in the practice of analytic philosophy.

  12. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen, Blackwell, Oxford, 1953.

  13. See, W.G. Astley & R.Y. Zammuto, ‘Organization Science, Managers and Language Games’, Organization Science, 3(4), pp 443 460; and K.M. Mauws & N. Phillips, ‘Understanding Language Games’, Organizational Science, 6(3), pp 322–334.

  14. W.G. Astley. & R.Y. Zammuto, op. cit., and L. Pondy ‘Leadership is a language game’, H.McAll and M. Lombardo (Eds.) Leadership: Where Else Can We Go?, pp 87–101, Duke University Press, Durham (NC), 1911.

  15. E. Wenger, Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1998.

  16. E.P. Hollander, ‘Ethical Challenges in the Leader-Follower Relationship’, J.B. Ciulla (Ed.) Ethics, The Heart of Leadership, pp 49–61. op.cit, and M. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, J.C.B. Mohr, Tubingen, 1925.

  17. A.K. Rice, Learning for Leadership. Tavistock, London 1965.

  18. J.A. Conger & R.N. Kanungo, ‘Toward a behavioural theory of charismatic leadership in organisational settings’, Academy of Management Review, 12(4), pp 637–647; J.A. Conger & R.N. Kanungo ‘Perceived behavioral attributes of charismatic leadership’, Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science, 1992(24), pp 86–102; J.A. Conger & R.N. Kanungo, ‘Charismatic leadership in organizations: perceived behavioral attributes and their measurement’, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15(5), pp 439–452. J.A. Raelin, Creating Leaderful Organisations: How to Bring Out Leadership in Everyone, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, 2003.

  19. B. Hermalin, ‘Toward and economic theory of leadership: leading by example’, The American Economic Review, 88(5), pp 1188–1206; and M.C. Jensen, & W.H. Meckling, ‘The nature of man, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, 7(2), pp 4–19.

  20. J.R. Searle, The Construction of the Social Reality, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1995, pp 60–61.

  21. ibid.

  22. ibid., p 63.

  23. The intension of a word or phrase (not to be confused with intention or intentionality), may be regarded as a concept or a set of properties which applies to each member of the word’s extension and which distinguishes those things from everything not in the extension. The extension of a word, phrase, or concept is the set of things it extends to, or applies to. What, for example, would be the intension of the phrase ‘Encyclopedia readers’? Simply the property of having read any part of any encyclopedia at any time. Anything that has that property is part of the extension of the phrase ‘Encyclopedia reader’. For example, Jon has been reading an Encyclopedia; so the intension of the phrase ‘Encyclopedia reader’ applies to Jon; and so Jon is part of the extension of ‘Encyclopedia reader’. Moreover, anything that has not read any part of an Encyclopedia at any time is for that reason not part of the extension of the phrase ‘Encyclopedia reader’.

  24. W.V.O. Quine, Word and Object, MIT Press. Cambridge (Mass.), 1960.

  25. D.N. Den Hartog, R. House, S.A. Hanges, S.A., Ruiz-Quintanilla, & RW. Dorfman, ‘Culture specific and crossculturally generalizable implicit leadership theories: are attributes of charismatic/transformational leadership universally endorsed?’, Leadership Quarterly, 10(2), pp 219–256, and J.R. Meindl, S.B. Ehrlich & J.M. Dukerich, ‘The romance of leadership’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 30(1), pp 78–102.

  26. J.R. Meindl, S.B. Ehrlich & J.M. Dukerich, ‘The romance of leadership’, op. cit., p79.

  27. E.M. Engle & R.G. Lord, ‘Implicit theories, self-schemas, and leader-member exchange’, Academy of Management Journal, 40(4), pp 988–1010; and L. Pondy ‘Leadership is a language game’, op. cit.

  28. D.N. Den Hartog, et al., ‘Culture specific and cross-culturally generalizable implicit leadership theories: are attributes of charismatic/transformational leadership universally endorsed?’, op. cit.

  29. R. Stodgill, ‘Personal factors associated with leadership: A survey of the literature’, Journal of Psychology, 25, pp 35–71.

  30. J. Burns, J. 1978. Leadership, op. cit.

  31. P. Hersey & K.H. Blanchard, Management of organization behavior: Utilizing human resources, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (NJ), 4th Edition.

  32. B.M. Bass, Leadership Performance Beyond Expectations, Academic Press, New York, 1995.

  33. J.R. Meindl, S.B. Ehrlich & J.M. Dukerich, ‘The romance of leadership’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 30(1), pp 78–102.

  34. M. Maccoby ‘Narcissistic leaders: the incredible pros, the inevitable cons’, Harvard Business Review, 78(1), pp 68–77.

  35. J.R. Meindl, and al., ‘The romance of leadership’, op. cit.

  36. J. Pfeffer, ‘The ambiguity of leadership’, Academy of Management Review, 2(1), pp 104–112.

  37. ibid, p 110.

  38. ibid.

  39. R.R. Blake, & J.S. Moutonne Managerial Grid, Gulf, Houston, 1964.

  40. F.E. Fiedler, A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness,: McGraw-Hill, New York, 1967; P. Hersey & K.H. Blanchard, Management of organization behavior: Utilizing human resources, op. cit.

  41. R.J. House, ‘A path-goal theory of leader effectiveness’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 16, pp 321–339.

  42. B.M. Bass, Leadership Performance Beyond Expectations, op. cit.

  43. B.M. Bass & B.J. Avolio, (Eds.) Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership, p 202, Sage, Thousand Oaks (CA), 1994.

  44. R. Goffee & G.J. Jones, ‘Why should anyone be led by you?’, Harvard Business Review, 78(5), pp 63–70.

  45. G.B. Graen & T.A. Scandura, ‘Toward a psychology of dyadic organizing’, Research in Organizational Behavior, 9, pp 175–205.

  46. R.M. Dienesch & R.C. Liden, ‘Leader-member exchange model of leadership: a critique and further development’, Academy of Management Review, 11(3), pp 618–634.

  47. R.G. Lord, D.J. Brown & S.J. Feiberg, ‘Understanding the dynamics of leadership: the role of followerself-concepts in the leader/follower relationship’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 78, pp 167–203.

  48. R.G. Lord at al., ‘Understanding the dynamics of leadership: the role of followerself-concepts in the leader/ follower relationship’, op. cit.

  49. L. Pondy ‘Leadership is a language game’, op. cit.

  50. H. Mintzberg, ‘Enough leadership’, Harvard Business Review, 82(11): p 22. Original Emphasis.

  51. P. Drucker, ‘Managing oneself, Harvard Business Review, 77(2), p 65–74.

  52. S. Houlgate, Hegel and the Philosophy of Nature, SUNY Press, Albany (NY), 1999, p 99

  53. R.M. Dienesch & R.C. Liden, ‘Leader-member exchange model of leadership: acritique and further development’ Academy of Management Review, 11(3), pp 618–634.

  54. C. Soanes, & A. Stevenson, Oxford Dictionary of English.. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2nd Edition.

  55. R.M. Dienesch & R.C. Liden, ‘Leader-member exchange model of leadership: a critique and further development’, op. cit.

  56. G.B. Graen & T.A. Scandura, ‘Toward a psychology of dyadic organizing’, op. cit.

  57. H. Bergson, Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Trans. F.L. Pogson, Kessinger Publishing, Montana, 1910.

  58. D.N. Den Hartog, at al. ‘Culture specific and cross-culturally generalizable implicit leadership theories: are attributes of charismatic/transformational leadership universally endorsed?£’, op. cit., p 226.

  59. R. G. Lord, D.J. Brown, & S.J. Feiberg, ‘Understanding the dynamics of leadership: the role of followerselfconcepts in the leader/follower relationship’ Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 78, pp 167–203.

  60. D.N. Den Hartog, at al. ‘Culture specific and cross-culturally generalizable implicit leadership theories: are attributes of charismatic/transformational leadership universally endorsed?’, op. cit., p 219.

  61. ibid. p 226.

  62. ibid., p 233.

  63. R.G. Lord, et al., ‘Understanding the dynamics of leadership: the role of followerself-concepts in the leader/ follower relationship’, op. cit., p 197.

  64. B. Russell, ‘Vagueness’, Aust. J. Psychol. Philos., 1 (1923), pp 84–92.

  65. W.V.O. Quine, From a Logical point of view, Harper and Row, New York, 1961.

  66. Leibniz’s Law says that if A and B are one and the same thing, and then they have to share all the same properties. if A and B have different properties, then they cannot be one and the same thing. If we find some property that B has but A doesn’t, then we can conclude that A and B are not the same thing.

  67. W.V.O. Quine, From a Logical point of view, op. cit., p 142n.

  68. Most propositional attitude attributions use a propositional attitude verb that is followed by a that-clause, a clause that includes a full sentence expressing a proposition. Attributions of cognitive relations to propositions can also take other kinds of clauses, though: John wanted to play, Hillary wished Bill to succeed, for example. These still attribute propositional attitudes, cognitive relations to an identifiable proposition (John willplay, Bill will succeed), though the proposition is not so directly expressed. The weakened form of the sentence, although apparently more active, disguises the presence of a propositional attitude, as in Hillary wished that Bill would succeed.

  69. In logic, a hypothetical syllogism is a valid argument of the following form: P→Q. Q→R. Therefore, P → R. In other words, this kind of argument states that if one implies another, and that other implies a third, then the first implies the third.

  70. R.C. Tucker, ‘The theory of charismatic leadership’, D.A. Bastow (Ed.), Philosophers and Kings: Studies in Leadership, Braziller, New York, pp 69–94.

  71. D.N. Den Hartog, at al. ‘Culture specific and cross-culturally generalizable implicit leadership theories: are attributes of charismatic/transformational leadership universally endorsed?’, op. cit, p 219.

  72. B. Russell & A.N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, Cambridge U.P., Cambridge, 1925.

  73. We are proposing here a nominalistic or a nominalistic-conceptualistic idea of leadership. Nominalism is a philosophical position that argues that abstract or general terms, ‘universals’, are not real entities either in the world or in the mind, but names that refer to groups or classes of individual things. These terms are canonically used to designate the theories that have been proposed as solutions of one of the most important questions in philosophy, often referred to as the problem of universals, which, while it was a favorite subject for discussion in ancient times, and especially in the Middle Ages, is still prominent in modern and contemporary philosophy.

  74. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen, ibid.

  75. M. Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretative Sociology, G. Roth, and G. Wittich (Eds.), vol. 3, Bedminster Press, New York, 1968, p 241.

  76. E Tuccari, Carisma e leadership nelpensiero di Max Weber, Franco Angeli, Milan (Italy), 1971.

  77. M. Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, A.R. Henderson, and T. Parsons (Eds.), Hodge & Co., London, 1947, p 329.

  78. J. Winckelmann (Ed.), Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Critical ed.). J.C.B. Mohr, Tubingen, 1956.

  79. P. Bullen, ‘Charismatic Political Domination, 1987, http://paul.bullen.com/BullenCharisma.html, accessed 22.02.2009.

  80. In support of this interpretation see: T.E. Dow, ‘An Analysis of Weber’s work on charisma’ British Journal of Sociology, 29(1), pp 83–93. R.C. Tucker, ibid., and F. Tuccari, ibid.

  81. J.A. Conger, J.A., & R.N. Kanungo, ‘Charismatic leadership in organizations: perceived behavioral attributes and their measurement’, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15, pp 439–452.

  82. Other passages in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft suggest our interpretation, such as M. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, op. cit., p 156.

  83. E. Shills, ‘Charisma, order and status’ American Sociological Review, 30, pp 199–213

  84. J. MacGregor Burns, Leadership, op. cit., p 243.

  85. ibid.

  86. J. Paul, D. Costley, J. Howell & P. Dorfman, ‘The mutability of charisma in leadership research’, Journal of Management History, 40(1), pp 192–200.

  87. J.A. Conger, & R.N. Kanungo, ‘Toward a behavioural theory of charismatic leadership in organisational settings’, op. cit.

  88. J.A. Conger & R.N. Kanungo, ‘Toward a behavioural theory of charismatic leadership in organisational settings’, op. cit.; J.A. Conger & R.N. Kanungo ‘Perceived behavioral attributes of charismatic leadership’, Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science, op. cit.; J.A. Conger & R.N. Kanungo, ‘Charismatic leadership in organizations: perceived behavioral attributes and their measurement’, op. cit.

  89. J.A. Conger & R.N. Kanungo, ‘Toward a behavioural theory of charismatic leadership in organisational settings’, op. cit.

  90. ibid.

  91. W.L. Gardner, & B.J. Avolio, ‘The Charismatic Relationship: A Dramaturgical Perspective’, Academy of Management Review, 23(1), pp 32–58.

  92. G. Wills, Certain Trumpets, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994, p 17.

  93. A. Gini, ‘Moral Leadership and Business Ethics’, J.B. Ciulla (Ed.), Ethics, The Heart of Leadership, op. cit., pp 27–45.

  94. M. Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, op. cit., p 87.

  95. See for example, J. MacGregor Burns, op. cit.

  96. J.B. Ciulla, ‘Leadership Ethics: Mapping the Territory’, J.B. Ciulla (Ed.) Ethics, The Heart of Leadership, op. cit., p 15.

  97. ibid.

  98. J. MacGregor Burns, op. cit., p 426.

  99. B.M. Bass, Leadership Performance Beyond Expectations, op. cit.

  100. For the importance of this distinction at meta-ethical level in applied ethics see, for example, A. Marturano, ‘The role of metaethics and the future of computer ethics’, Ethics and Information Technology, 4, pp71-78.

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  102. J. Pfeffer, ‘The ambiguity of leadership’, op. cit.

  103. An empirical generalization is ‘a pattern or regularity that repeats over different circumstances and that can be described simply by mathematical, graphic, or symbolic methods’ (Bass, 1995). In other words, there are two types of statements of sociological uniformities. One is the empirical generalization or an isolated proposition summarizing observed uniformities of relationships between two or more variables. The other is scientific (universal) law of a statement of invariance.

  104. H. Mintzberg & J. Gosling, ‘The five minds of a manager’, Harvard Business Review, Nov. 2003, pp 54–63, R.A. Heifetz, & D.L. Laurie, ‘The Work of Leadership’, Harvard Business Review on Leadership, Harvard University School Press, Boston (MA), 1998, pp 171–197; J.P. Kotter, ‘What leaders really do’ Harvard Business Review on Leadership: Harvard University School Press, Boston (MA), 1998, pp 37–60; A. Zaleznick, ‘Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?’, Harvard Business Review on Leadership, Harvard University School Press Boston(MA), 1998, pp 61–88.

  105. R. Bolden & J. Gosling, ‘Leadership and Management Competencies: Lessons from the National Occupational Standards’, SAM/IFSAM VIIth World Congress: Management in a World of Diversity and Change, Gothenburg University, School of Economics and Commercial Law, Gothenburg (Sweden), 2004.

  106. R.S. Kaplan and D.P. Norton, The Balance Scorecard, Harward Business Press, Boston (MA), 1996.

  107. R. Bolden & J. Gosling, op. cit.

  108. MSC 2004, Draft National Occupational Standards in Management and Leadership. Management Standards Centre working document. http://www.management-standards.org, accessed 22.02.2009.

  109. M. Wood, ‘The fallacy of misplaced leadership’, op. cit.

  110. R.J. House, ‘Illustrative Examples of GLOBE findings’, R.J. House, RJ. Hanges, M. Javidan, RW. Dorfman & V. Gupta (Eds.), Culture, Leadership, and Organizations. The GLOBE study of 62 Societies, Sage, Thousand Oaks, 2004, pp 3–7.

  111. Similarly to J. Hintikka, Knowledge and Belief, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1962; S. Kripke, ‘Semantical analysis of modal logic’, Zeitschrift für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik, 9, pp 67–96; R. Stalnaker, Semantics for belief. Philosophical Topics, 15(1), pp 177–190. For a different perspective, see U. Eco, Lector in Fabula. La cooperazione interpretativa nei testi narrativi. Bompiani, Milan, Italy 1979; for a non formal application of Eco’s proposal see A. Marturano, ‘Understanding Leadership: Is It Time for a Linguistic Turn?’, J. B. Ciulla (ed.) Leadership at the Crossroads, London, Praeger, 2008.

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  1. Sacred Heart Catholic University of Rome, Rome, France

    Antonio Marturano (adjunct professor)

  2. University of York, York, UK

    Martin Wood (Senior Lecturer)

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Marturano, A., Wood, M. & Gosling, J. Leadership and Language Games. Philos. of Manag. 9, 59–83 (2010). https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20109118

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