TY - JOUR

T1 - Rethinking global leadership development programmes

T2 - the interrelated significance of power, context and identity

AU - Gagnon, Suzanne

AU - Collinson, David

PY - 2014/5

Y1 - 2014/5

N2 - Organization studies scholars have examined leadership development processes on only a handful of occasions. This paper argues that an organizational lens, rather than individualized and decontextualized research, can significantly advance this under-theorized field. A critical organizational framing, in particular, assists not only in problematizing the ‘leader’ identities produced within contemporary leadership development programmes (LDPs), but also in surfacing the ways in which power, context and identity can be inextricably linked within specific practices. The article contributes to critical leadership and organization studies in three main ways. First, it theorizes through a critical identity lens the regulatory practices that constitute an idealized leader self in two separate global LDPs, and which create tensions and paradoxes rarely examined in studies of LDPs and organizations more generally. Second, it examines participants’ considerable resistance to the prevailing models of global leader prescribed in the two programmes. Third, our dual case analysis highlights the role of discursive context, enabling us to compare two particular strategies of leadership development through identity regulation: ‘investiture’ and ‘divestiture’. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of thisanalysis for rethinking theory and practice, and suggests future research directions for critical organization studies of leadership and LDPs.

AB - Organization studies scholars have examined leadership development processes on only a handful of occasions. This paper argues that an organizational lens, rather than individualized and decontextualized research, can significantly advance this under-theorized field. A critical organizational framing, in particular, assists not only in problematizing the ‘leader’ identities produced within contemporary leadership development programmes (LDPs), but also in surfacing the ways in which power, context and identity can be inextricably linked within specific practices. The article contributes to critical leadership and organization studies in three main ways. First, it theorizes through a critical identity lens the regulatory practices that constitute an idealized leader self in two separate global LDPs, and which create tensions and paradoxes rarely examined in studies of LDPs and organizations more generally. Second, it examines participants’ considerable resistance to the prevailing models of global leader prescribed in the two programmes. Third, our dual case analysis highlights the role of discursive context, enabling us to compare two particular strategies of leadership development through identity regulation: ‘investiture’ and ‘divestiture’. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of thisanalysis for rethinking theory and practice, and suggests future research directions for critical organization studies of leadership and LDPs.

KW - critical identity theory

KW - critical leadership studies

KW - divestiture

KW - identity-targeting

KW - investiture

KW - leadership development

KW - power

KW - prescribed leader identities

U2 - 10.1177/0170840613509917

DO - 10.1177/0170840613509917

M3 - Journal article

VL - 35

SP - 645

EP - 670

JO - Organization Studies

JF - Organization Studies

SN - 0170-8406

IS - 5

ER -