Skip to main content

Leadership as a Profession? The Significance of Reflexive Judgment

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Professionalizing Leadership

Abstract

Management today is characterized by complexity and constant change. Often very little time is left for reflexivity in a fluctuating organizational life. We argue that it is crucial to supplement the practice of leadership with semi-formal learning spaces where reflexive conversations between leaders and researchers can unfold. In the chapter, we present examples from conversations between leaders and researchers. What is crucial here is that these conversations take departure from within the specific situations and the specific organizational contexts, based on challenges defined by the leaders themselves, and that these conversations are carried out carefully based on mutual respect. It is our argument that these kinds of reflexive dialogues are necessary in order to explore and discuss the multiple ways to deal with organizational challenges.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Berger, Peter, and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cunliffe, Ann L. 2002. “Reflexive Dialogical Practice in Management Learning.” Management Learning 33:35–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cunliffe, Ann L. 2004. “On Becoming a Critically Reflexive Practitioner.” Journal of Management Education 28:407–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cunliffe, Ann L., and Guiseppe Scaratti. 2017. “Embedding Impact in Engaged Research: Developing Socially Useful Knowledge Through Dialogical Sensemaking.” British Journal of Management 28:29–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • French, Robert, and Christopher Grey. 1996. Rethinking Management Education. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gergen, Kenneth J. 1994. Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction. Cambridge, MA, and London, UK: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gergen, Kenneth J., and Lone Hersted. 2016. “Developing Leadership as Dialogic Practice.” In Leadership-as-Practice: Theory and Application, edited by Joseph A. Raelin, 178–97. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodall, Amanda H. 2011. “Experts Versus Managers: A Case Against Professionalizing Management Education.” In Business Schools Under Fire: Humanistic Management Education as the Way Forward, edited by Wolfgang Amann, Claus Dierksmeier, Michael Pirson, Heiko Spitzeck, and Ernst von Kimakowitz, 122–9. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Grey, Christopher. 2001. “Re-imagining Relevance: A Response to Starkey and Madan.” British Journal of Management 12(S1):27–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hersted, Lone. 2017. “Relational Leading and Dialogic Process.” PhD diss., Aalborg University, Denmark.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hersted, Lone, and Kenneth J. Gergen. 2013. Relational Leading: Practices for Dialogically Based Collaboration. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khurana, Rakesh, and Nitin Nohria. 2008. “It’s Time to Make Management a True Profession.” Harvard Business Review 86(10):70–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larsen, Mette V., and Jørgen G. Rasmussen, eds. 2015. Relational Perspectives on Leading. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larsen, Mette V., and Søren Willert. 2017. Using Management Inquiry to Co-construct Other Memories About the Future. Journal of Management Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492617696889. Accessed on August 5, 2017.

  • Martin, Roger L. 2010. Management Is Not a Profession: But It Can Be Taught. Harvard Business Review, July 1. https://hbr.org/2010/07/management-is-not-a-profession. Accessed on 17 September 2017.

  • Mead, George H. 1974. Mind, Self and Society From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mintzberg, Henry. 2004. Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development. San Francisco: Berret-Koehler.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parks, Sharon D. 2005. Leadership Can Be Taught. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reed, Michael, and Peter Anthony. 1992. “Professionalizing Management and Managing Professionalization: British Management in the 1980s.” Journal of Management Studies 29:591–613.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ripamonti, Silvio, Laura Galuppo, Mara Gorli, Guiseppe Scaratti, and Ann Cunliffe. 2015. “Pushing Action Research Toward Reflexive Practice.” Journal of Management Inquiry 25:55–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schein, Edgar H. 1968/1988. “Organizational Socialization and the Profession of Management.” Sloan Management Review 30(1):53–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shotter, John. 1993. Conversational Realities: Constructing Life Through Language. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shotter, John. 2010. “Situated Dialogical Action Research: Disclosing ‘Beginnings’ for Innovative Change in Organizations.” Organizational Research Methods 13:268–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spender, JC. 2007. “Management as a Regulated Profession: An Essay.” Journal of Management Inquiry 16:32–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Starkey, Ken, and Paula Madan. 2001. “Bridging the Relevance Gap: Aligning Stakeholders in the Future of Management Research.” British Journal of Management 12(S1):3–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weick, Karl E. 1995. Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weick, Karl E. 2001. “Gapping the Relevance Bridge: Fashion Meets Fundamentals in Management Research.” British Journal of Management 12(S1):71–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1953. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Hersted, L., Larsen, M.V. (2018). Leadership as a Profession? The Significance of Reflexive Judgment. In: Örtenblad, A. (eds) Professionalizing Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71785-2_18

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics