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Structure of this Website Lecture 5 : Shared meanings and why myths matter: The power of the symbolic The learning objective of this lecture is to provide readers with a map in which leadership is studied as existing as a perceptual phenomenon. This contrasts with earlier maps in which leadership is treated as having an objective existence independent of perceptions in specific situations. The more familiar earlier essentialist maps presumed to have a correct reading. Here, the maps are socially constructed and open to more than one reading or interpretation. They are generally assumed to develop through processes which ‘read’ situations by creating the meaning associated with the actions and words of participating group members, among which leaders are potentially powerful. The processes are sensitive to ‘non-rational’ impact of evocative and symbolically powerful cues such as metaphors and ‘visions’. The processes seem connected with the establishing of personal, group and organizational identities (making sense and creating meaning). The maps help explain the means whereby leaders can influence through the way the express themselves and act. However, the maps remove the certainties of the earlier essentialist maps. They make more visible the practical situation in which there are competing maps (beliefs) of ends or means within organisational life. The leader has opportunities of intruding change through helping in the development of a coherent shared map of the organisation’s goal or goals. Box 5.1 is a short case study of a leader facing a transformational task. The reader is invited to tackle it prior to study and then to revisit the issue drawing on the maps of symbolic leadership in the Lecture. |  |
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