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Blackboxing leadership: Methodological practices leading to manager-centrism
- Source :
- Leadership. 19:85-97
- Publication Year :
- 2022
- Publisher :
- SAGE Publications, 2022.
-
Abstract
- The scholarly literature on leadership has long been characterized by leader-centrism, in the sense of a focus on individual leaders, their characteristics and actions. This tendency has been strongly criticized, not least by scholars with a critical perspective. However, we still see a strong emphasis on leaders and managers in empirical studies of leadership. In this article, we suggest that this tendency is at least in part a consequence of common methodological blackboxing practices within leadership studies. We identify two such blackboxing practices: delegation, where identification of the core phenomenon is left to informants, and proxying, when more easily defined phenomena are taken to stand for leadership. We suggest that a consequence of such practices is an unintended focus on managers, and attempts to avoid leader-centrism that rely on these blackboxing practices therefore paradoxically might result in manager-centrism.
- Subjects :
- Sociology and Political Science
Strategy and Management
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 17427169 and 17427150
- Volume :
- 19
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Leadership
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........8735cbc6bd6145d7945e7226c6afcedb
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1177/17427150221132398