Lessons from the field: an essay on the crisis of leadership in contemporary organizations
Article Abstract:
A consensus is emerging that contemporary organizations are in critical need of leadership with compelling vision. Often this leads to an overemphasis on the personality of character of the leader. Although people clearly need to coalesce around a shared purpose in today's organizations, the same conditions that make "vision" so prominent also make the huge emphasis on the leader inappropriate. Increasingly complex, turbulent environments have made highly centralized, bureaucratic hierarchies obsolete, and require our understanding of effective leadership to shift from the leader alone to the context in which leadership can be exercised. People's heightened interdependence and need to exert authority and leadership at all levels call for a focus on systemic leadership capacity, for focusing only on top executives as the sole source of organizational leadership hinders the confrontation of the more troubling, deeper problems contributing to the contemporary crisis in leadership. This article explores common themes in the organizational literature and discusses three books in depth (by Bennis, Gilmore, and Vaill) that point to the emerging understanding of the crisis of leadership among organizational scholars. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
Subject: Social sciences
ISSN: 0021-8863
Year: 1990
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Mitigating organizational contradictions: the role of mediatory myths
Article Abstract:
This article examines the role of mediatory myths in mitigating ideological contradictions of organizations, explaining the nature of such contradictions and how myths act as frameworks for understanding and addressing complex reality. Case study analyses are provided of four community mental health centers in North Carolina involved with outpatient commitment. Data were collected over two years through observation, interviews with personnel, and medical and court records of clients. The author found that a mediational myth concerning the efficacy of medication operates in these centers, and that this enables participants to perform their work despite contradictory goals of patient liberty versus social control of the mentally ill. These findings expand the concept of the mediatory myth by indicating its role in mitigating contradictions in the environment outside an organization, not just within the organization. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
Subject: Social sciences
ISSN: 0021-8863
Year: 1988
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The feminine in the foundations of organizational psychology
Article Abstract:
This article examines how early work in the field of organizational psychology manifested the archetypal feminine, despite the lack of a feminist consciousness among notable theorists. It begins with an explanation of Jung's theory of the collective unconscious and the role of archetypes in the human psyche and then presents a hypothesis about how individual, social, and archetypal forces might have contributed to the expression of the feminine in the works of Eric Trist and William F. Whyte, who are chosen as exemplars of this phenomenon. The article concludes with a discussion of the legacy of their work - in particular, the field's amnesia about its roots and the use of the archetypal feminine in understanding gender roles. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
Subject: Social sciences
ISSN: 0021-8863
Year: 1997
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