ABSTRACT

The romance of leadership (ROL) has been much discussed amongst leadership researchers, yet few researchers actually analyze the way in which it is talked into being as it is socially constructed in the here-and-now of localized interaction. Drawing on the Montreal School’s interactional twist to Actor Network Theory with which to analyze transcripts of interview talk from a socio-material perspective, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the way in which a follower discursively constructs leadership. Findings indicate that, from the follower’s emic perspective, leadership occurs within a network of human and other-than-human actants that inspire her to act and follow the leader. This therefore challenges and nuances the conventional wisdom of leadership research that locates the ROL in the purely human leader. The implication of this for leadership research is clear: if followers construct (transformational) leadership in terms of socio-materiality, then so should leadership researchers.

摘要

领导力的浪漫 (ROL) 已经在领导力研究人员中进行了很多讨论，但很少有研究人员真正分析它是如何在本地化互动的此时此地社会构建的。利用蒙特利尔学派对演员网络理论的互动扭曲，从社会物质的角度分析访谈谈话的记录，本文的目的是调查追随者话语构建领导力的方式。研究结果表明，从追随者的主位角度来看，领导力发生在激励她行动和追随领导者的人类和非人类行为者网络中。因此，这对将 ROL 定位于纯粹的人类领导者的领导力研究的传统智慧提出了挑战和细微差别。