TY - JOUR

T1 - Learning to listen

T2 - exploring discourses and images of masculine leadership through corporate videos

AU - McCabe, Darren

AU - Knights, David

PY - 2016/4

Y1 - 2016/4

N2 - Through analysing corporate videos, this article examines two chief executive officer leadership narratives in a UK Building Society that reflected and reproduced certain discourses of masculinity; the first expressed this through military images and metaphors while the second emphasised sport. This article makes three arguments for why certain expressions of masculinity may disengage those whose support managers are endeavouring to enlist. The first is that not all employees are attracted to images of war, conquest or competition. The second is that masculine sporting and warring discourses may repel staff when they are wielded against them. The final argument is that disenchantment is likely to result from enactments of masculinity that treat critical voices as a threat and where leaders simply seek to win the argument, silence opposition and refuse to ‘listen’ to alternative points of view. This analysis of leadership discourses is distinctive because it explores the visible (watching) and the verbal (listening). In this way, it exposes ‘hidden, gendered practices’ that are all too often neglected.

AB - Through analysing corporate videos, this article examines two chief executive officer leadership narratives in a UK Building Society that reflected and reproduced certain discourses of masculinity; the first expressed this through military images and metaphors while the second emphasised sport. This article makes three arguments for why certain expressions of masculinity may disengage those whose support managers are endeavouring to enlist. The first is that not all employees are attracted to images of war, conquest or competition. The second is that masculine sporting and warring discourses may repel staff when they are wielded against them. The final argument is that disenchantment is likely to result from enactments of masculinity that treat critical voices as a threat and where leaders simply seek to win the argument, silence opposition and refuse to ‘listen’ to alternative points of view. This analysis of leadership discourses is distinctive because it explores the visible (watching) and the verbal (listening). In this way, it exposes ‘hidden, gendered practices’ that are all too often neglected.

KW - Discourse

KW - leadership

KW - masculinity

KW - power

KW - qualitative

KW - subjectivity

KW - videos

U2 - 10.1177/1350507615586334

DO - 10.1177/1350507615586334

M3 - Journal article

VL - 47

SP - 179

EP - 198

JO - Management Learning

JF - Management Learning

SN - 1350-5076

IS - 2

ER -