Moving and being moved : ideas, perspectives and 59 theses on entrepreneurial leadership

Summary, in English

Leadership, as we will propose and discuss this here, relies on the receptivity to and of the other, as with the relationship between an author and her readers. Leading is in this sense a relational act that relies on my openness to the other, and the other’s openness to me, and makes use of this power to be aff ected so as to increase the other’s power to act. This means there is a dynamic of rest and movement, where leadership – of the entrepreneurial kind in particular – moves other bodies from rest (and receptivity) to movement (and spontaneity) for the purpose of increasing social/ collective productivity, or again, in the case of entrepreneurial leadership, social/collective creativity. However, movement on the part of the led (as with reader) also aff ect the leader (or author), and a story initiated by an author will thus develop with reception and commentaries to consider. This dynamic between leader and led is crucial for leadership to work as a force that increases a collective’s capacity for creativity. Whereas leadership research in the industrial economic era (nineteenth and twentieth centuries) has emphasised action and determination, conflating it with management or at least downplaying the need to differentiate it from management (Yukl, 1989: 5), we will suggest that for postindustrial leadership to be successful, indeed, even meaningful, it would have to shift towards this dynamics between moving people and being moved.

• Author: Daniel Hjorth; William B. Gartner
• Editor: Daniel Hjorth
• Publishing year: 2012-01-01
• Language: English
• Pages: 362-376
• Publication/Series: Handbook on Organisational Entrepreneurship
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781781009055.00030
• Document type: Book chapter
• Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Topic: Business Administration
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISBN: 9781781009055; ISBN: 9781849803786