The aim of this study is to illustrate the rich potential of using a phenomenological lens to forefront leader–follower interactions in an intercultural and dangerous context, thus providing a more situational, relational, and integral understanding of leadership practices. An interdisciplinary approach that used a phenomenological ontology and a leadership practice epistemology was applied to re-analyze a competency framework previously identified in a larger case study of Australian military advisers during the Vietnam War. We demonstrate the rich promise of an embodied perspective through the words of the practitioner and their own (bodily) interpretations of leading. In so doing, we challenge the Cartesian mind–body dichotomy and acontextual approach that underpins most mainstream leadership studies. The (re)analysis locates two “leaderful practices” and identifies the influence of in situ context in which leader–follower relations are situated. Our results signal the explanatory potential of embodiment and the related influence of context on the processual nature of leadership.
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