The body, the mind and the soul: Discursive practices shaping contemporary management

Description

There are many management models and ideas circulating, and there seem to be a constant search for predictions of new ones, what the next global trends are and how to best respond to them. One trend is individualism; the increasing desire to establish oneself as a unique individual. If we believe the quote above, this could be the new leadership ideal. While common calls for leadership includes being guiding, supporting, visionary, collaborative, agile, and creative to impact others and the organizations, we now also see calls for leaders to be increasingly individualistic and to focus attention on mastering herself. This is visible in leaders engaging in high-performing sports practice and competitions, such as running marathons or doing Iron-man races, develop their analytical skills, or learning meditation and mindfulness techniques (Forbes, 2018; Future Center, 2017; Brendel & Bennett, 2016; Crossan & Mazutis, 2008). Leadership ideals and practices such as these are often assumed to have implications for how managers lead, and can be seen as expressions of new forms of identity regulation and normative control in and of organizations (Costas & Grey, 2014; Alvesson & Willmott, 2002).

In this program we aim to explore this nascent trend of “mastering the self” in leadership discourse. What does this trend entail, and how is it shaping ideas of managerial practice? We investigate how such ideas travel and take form outside organizational contexts, through discursive framings of management and leadership practice. We argue that the shift in focus from “leadership of others” to “leadership of self” operates through three discursive practices: perfecting the body, developing the mind, and caring for the soul. The shift in focus implies, as argued by Maravelias (2015), that leadership discourse is extended beyond a focus on what leaders do at work, and increasingly come to focus on how they live their lives. In order for this shift to occur, we argue that the new forms of management training, techniques and methods are increasingly used to construct managerial identities and ideals. In our project we detail the discursive practices that managers engaging in these activities use.