This article explores the relationship between leadership as adaptive work and different forms of social consciousness, and between leadership and alternate facets of imagination. It argues that nongovernmental and government leaders typically are enjoined either to support or to challenge existing imaginaries at different levels of analytic aggregation — social, community, interorganizational and organizational — and that they routinely employ different dimensions of imagination to do so. These include aesthetic, cognitive, affective and moral imagination. The essay concludes with a brief overview of the implications of the argument for leadership practice.
Bass, B., and Steidlmeier, P. ( 1999) ‘Ethics, Character and Authentic Transformational Behavior’, Leadership Quarterly10(2): pp. 181-217.
2.
Beauchamp, T., and Bowie, N. ( 1988) Ethical Theory and Business, 3rd edn. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
3.
Becker, C. (ed.) (1994) The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society and Social Responsibility. New York: Routledge.
4.
Block, P. ( 1993) Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.
5.
Boon, J.A. ( 1982) Other Tribes, Other Scribes: Symbolic Anthropology in the Comparative Study of Cultures, Histories, Religions and Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6.
Burns, J.M. ( 1978) Leadership. New York: Harper and Row.
7.
Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership (n.d.), URL (consulted 25 October 2007) http://www.chumirethicsfoundation.ca/main/page.php?page_id=1
8.
Ciulla, J.Price, T. , and Murphy, S. (eds) ( 2005) The Quest for Ethical Leaders: Essays on Leadership Ethics . Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar .
9.
Dalla Costa, J. ( 1998) The Ethical Imperative: Why Moral Leadership is Good Business . Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
10.
De Pree, M. ( 1989) Leadership is an Art. New York: Doubleday.
11.
Eliot, T.S. ( 1952) The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909-1950. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
12.
Feldman, M.S., Khademian, A.M., Ingram, H., and Schneider, A.S. ( 2006) ‘Ways of Knowing and Inclusive Management Practices’ , Public Administration Review66 (s1): pp. 89-99.
13.
Fischer, D.H. ( 2004) Liberty and Freedom: A Visual History of America’s Founding Ideas. New York: Oxford University Press.
14.
Fisher, B.A., and Ellis, D.G. ( 1990) Small Group Decisionmaking: Communication and the Group Process, 3rd edn. New York: McGraw Hill Publishers.
15.
Fisher, D. ( 1997) Communication in Organizations. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.
16.
Foucault, M. ( 1969) L’Archeologie du Savoir. Paris : Gallimard.
17.
Foucault, M. ( 1970/1994) The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage Books.
18.
Frank, T. ( 2004) What’s the Matter with Kansas?New York: Metropolitan Books.
19.
Gilligan, C. ( 1982) In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
20.
Graen, G., and Uhl-Bien M. ( 1993) ‘Relationship-Based Approach to Leadership: Development of Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory of Leadership over 25 Years: Applying a Multi-level, Multi-Domain Perspective’, Leadership Quarterly6(2): pp. 219-47.
21.
Graham, J. ( 1991) ‘Servant Leadership in Organizations: Inspirational and Moral’, Leadership Quarterly2(2): pp. 105-19.
22.
Greene, M. ( 1995) Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
23.
Greenleaf, R. ( 1977) Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. New York: Paulist Press.
24.
Grint, K. ( 2000) The Arts of Leadership. New York: Oxford University Press.
25.
Guroian, V. ( 1998) Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
26.
Heifetz, R. ( 1994) Leadership Without Easy Answers. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
27.
Hoffman, M.L. ( 2000) Empathy and Moral Development: Implications for Caring and Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
28.
Jaksa, J., and Pritchard, M. ( 1988) Communication Ethics: Methods of Analysis. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
29.
Jenkins, R. ( 1996) Social Identity. New York: Routledge.
30.
Jones, M. ( 2000) ‘TheLeader’s Journey and the Imaginative Life’, URL (consulted 25 October 2007) http://www.pianoscapes.com/pdfs/GreenLeafEssay.pdf
31.
Jones, M. ( 2006) Artful Leadership: Awakening the Commons of the Imagination . New York: Trafford Publishing .
32.
Kirk, R. ( 1971) Eliot and His Age: T.S. Eliot’s Moral Imagination in the Twentieth Century. New York: Random House.
33.
Knippenberg, D. and Hogg, M. (eds) (2004) Leadership and Power: Identity Processes in Groups and Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA : SAGE.
34.
Kohlberg, L., and D. Candee. (1984) ’The Relationship of Moral Judgment to Moral Action’, in W.M. Kurtines and J. Gewirtz (eds) Morality, Moral Behavior, and Moral Development. New York: Wiley.
35.
Lederach, J.P. ( 2005) The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace . New York: Oxford University Press .
36.
Maccoby, M. ( 2003) The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership. New York: Broadway.
37.
Marcuse, H. ( 1978) The Aesthetic Dimension. Boston, MA : Beacon Press.
38.
McDonald, W.W. ( 2004) Russell Kirk and the Age of Ideology. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.
39.
Northouse, P. ( 2007) Leadership Theory and Practice, 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE .
40.
Pava, M. ( 2001) ‘The Many Paths to Covenantal Leadership: Traditional Resources for Contemporary Business’, Journal of Business Ethics29(1-2): pp. 85-93.
41.
Price, T. ( 2005) Understanding Ethical Failures in Leadership. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
42.
Sanders, J., Hopkins, W., and Geroy, G. ( 2003) ‘From Transactional to Transcendental: Toward an Integrated Theory of Leadership’, Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies9(4): pp. 21-31.
43.
Schein, E. ( 2004) Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
44.
Senge, P., Scharmer, C.O., Jaworski, J., and Flowers, B.S. ( 2004) Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society. New York: Doubleday.
45.
Stokols, D. ( 2006) ‘Toward a Science of Transdisciplinary Action Research’ , Journal of Community Psychology38(1-2): pp. 63-77.
46.
Taylor, C. ( 2004) Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
47.
Turiel, E. ( 1983) The Development of Social Knowledge: Morality and Convention . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
48.
Twain, M. ( 1979) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: The Works of Mark Twain, Vol. 9, ed. B. Stein.Berkeley: University of California Press.
