Abstract
Most employees occasionally wonder whether their leaders do a good job, and some wonder whether their job and life would be a lot easier and probably better without leaders. There is also a relatively recent branch of the leadership literature that has started heavily criticizing leaders and consequently we ask—a bit provocatively—what would happen if there were no leaders? Could, and would we, as employees, be better off were there no formal (or informal) leaders? Even if such a utopia may be desirable, would it be realizable in practice? We, the editors, explain how we perceive leaderless management at the start of the book project. We also discuss some patterns emerging from the chapters we observed while putting the book together. We finalize the introduction by briefly presenting the chapters and the book’s overall structure.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aasland, M. S., Skogstad, A., Notelaers, G., Nielsen, M. B., & Einarsen, S. (2010). The prevalence of destructive leadership behavior. British Journal of Management, 21(2), 438–452.
Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (Eds.). (2011). Metaphors we lead by. Oxon, UK: Routledge.
Arendt, H. (1998). The human condition (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Aristoteles. (2007). Retorik. Viborg, Denmark: Museum Tuscalanums forlag.
Cleary, T. (2004). Zen lessons: The art of leadership. Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Drucker, P. (1974). Management: Tasks, responsibilities, practices. London: Routledge.
De Geus, M. (2014). Peter Kropotkin’s anarchist vision of the organization. Ephemera—Theory & Politics in Organization, 14(4), 853–871.
Groat, M. (1997). The informal organisation: Ride the headless monster. Management Accounting, 75(4), 40–42.
Johnsen, E. (2002). Managing the managerial process. Gentofte, Denmark: Djøf Publishing.
Kellerman, B. (2004). Bad leadership: What it is, how it happens, why it matters. Boston: Harvard Business Publishing.
Kinna, R. (2005). Anarchism: A beginner’s guide. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.
Kinna, R. (2014). Anarchism and critical management studies. Ephemera—Theory & Politics in Organization, 14(4), 639–658.
Kirkeby, O. F. (2010). Management philosophy. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
Kotter, J. P. (1999). I spidsen for forandringer. København, Denmark: Peter Asschenfeldts nye forlag.
Lipman-Blumen, J. (2005a). The allure of toxic leaders: Why we follow destructive bosses and corrupt politicians—And how we can survive them. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lipman-Blumen, J. (2005b). The allure of toxic leaders: Why followers rarely escape their clutches. Ivey Business Journal, 69(3), 1–8.
Luhmann, N. (2000). Sociale systemer. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels forlag.
Mintzberg, H. (1989). Mintzberg on management. New York: The Free Press.
Morris, L. R., Jr., & Edmonds, W. M. (2021). When leadership fails: Individual, group and organizational lessons from the worst workplace experiences. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing.
Ohlsson, Ö., & Rombach, B. (2015). The art of constructive criticism. In A. Örtenblad (Ed.), Handbook of research on management ideas and panaceas: Adaptation and context (pp. 149–170). Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Örtenblad, A. (Ed.). (2020). Against entrepreneurship: A critical examination. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Örtenblad, A. (Ed.). (2021). Debating bad leadership: Reasons and remedies. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Parker, M. (2002). Against management: Organization in the age of managerialism. Oxford: Polity.
Parker, M., Stoborod, K., & Swann, T. (Eds.). (2020). Anarchism, organization, and management: Critical perspectives for students. New York: Routledge.
Peirce, C. S. (1998). The essential Peirce (Vol. 2, N. Houser, J. R. Eller, A. L. Lewis, de Tienne, A. C. L. Clark, & D. B. Davis, Eds.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Pfeffer, J. (1994). Managing with power. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Ropo, A., Mäkinen, E. I., & Seppä, I. (2020). Online company blogs as narrations of plural leadership. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 33(4), 609–621.
Quintilian, M. F. (1996). Kritik og retorik. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
Schyns, B., & Schilling, J. (2013). How bad are the effects of bad leaders? A meta-analysis of destructive leadership and its outcomes. Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), 138–158.
Tepper, B. J. (2000). Consequences of abusive supervision. Academy of Management Journal, 43(2), 178–190.
The Online Etymology Dictionary. (2022). Manage. https://www.etymonline.com/word/manage. Accessed 18 Feb 2022.
Ward, C. (1966). The organization of anarchy. In L. I. Krimerman & L. Perry (Eds.), Patterns of anarchy (pp. 386–396). New York: Anchor Books.
Wisniewski, E. J. (1997). When concepts combine. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 4(2), 167–183.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hertel, F., Örtenblad, A., Jørgensen, K.M. (2022). Introducing the Debate on Leaderless Management. In: Hertel, F., Örtenblad, A., Jørgensen, K.M. (eds) Debating Leaderless Management. Palgrave Debates in Business and Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04593-6_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04593-6_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-04592-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-04593-6
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)