Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Leadership, 14 (4), 2018, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Leadership page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/lea on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
Accepted author manuscript, 230 KB, PDF document
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - The absent follower
T2 - identity construction in organizationally assigned leader-follower relations
AU - Schedlitzki, Doris
AU - Edwards, Gareth
AU - Kempster, Stephen John
N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Leadership, 14 (4), 2018, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Leadership page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/lea on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
PY - 2018/8/1
Y1 - 2018/8/1
N2 - This article seeks to add to our understanding of processes of identity construction within organizationally assigned leader-follower relations through an exploration of the role of the absent, feminised follower. We situate our work within critical and psychoanalytic contributions to leader/ship and follower/ship and use Lacan’s writings on identification and lack to illuminate the imaginary, failing nature of identity construction. This aims to challenge the social realist foundations of writing on leader-follower constellations in organizational life. We examine our philosophical discussion through a reflective reading of a workplace example and question the possibility of a subject’s identity construction as a follower. If a subject is unable to identify him/herself as follower, he/she cannot validate others as leaders, rendering the leader-follower relationship not only fragile but phantasmic. We highlight implications of our exploration of the absence of follower/ship and endless, unfulfilled desire for leader/ship for future research and practice.
AB - This article seeks to add to our understanding of processes of identity construction within organizationally assigned leader-follower relations through an exploration of the role of the absent, feminised follower. We situate our work within critical and psychoanalytic contributions to leader/ship and follower/ship and use Lacan’s writings on identification and lack to illuminate the imaginary, failing nature of identity construction. This aims to challenge the social realist foundations of writing on leader-follower constellations in organizational life. We examine our philosophical discussion through a reflective reading of a workplace example and question the possibility of a subject’s identity construction as a follower. If a subject is unable to identify him/herself as follower, he/she cannot validate others as leaders, rendering the leader-follower relationship not only fragile but phantasmic. We highlight implications of our exploration of the absence of follower/ship and endless, unfulfilled desire for leader/ship for future research and practice.
KW - Leader-follower relations
KW - identity construction
KW - identification
KW - lack
KW - unconscious dynamics
U2 - 10.1177/1742715017693544
DO - 10.1177/1742715017693544
M3 - Journal article
VL - 14
SP - 483
EP - 503
JO - Leadership
JF - Leadership
SN - 1742-7150
IS - 4
ER -