The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

The Leadership Quarterly

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/leaqua

Upbeat leadership: A recipe for – or against – “successful” leadership studies T

Mats Alvesson ⁎

Dept of Business Admin, Lund University, Sweden, University of Queensland Business School, Australia, and Cass Business School, London, UK

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: In the last 40 years, leadership studies (LS) have moved from a condition of near despair, where complaints of
Ideology slow progress were commonplace, to a situation of self-confidence and self-praise. However, during recent years
Leadership we have seen an upsurge in criticism alongside a contradiction between positive leadership ideas and a working
Recipes life bearing little imprint of the upbeat messages said to characterize successful leaders. LS primarily produces
Methodology
results where “positive” leadership is correlated with various “positive” outcomes. This is made possible through
peculiar conventions characterizing LS, which produce a recipe for flawed, but publishable, research and career
progress. This paper points at 20 elements of this recipe and argues for a radical rethinking of LS norms and
practices to develop more complex and sophisticated knowledge that is intellectually and methodologically
sounder, facilitating less ideological and more relevant and insightful studies and research results.

Introduction
How to be successful in leadership studies (LS) may be considered a
key concern for the expanding army of people studying—or at least
claiming to study—leadership in one sense or another. Without
doubting that most researchers have good motives and a high level of
commitment—including a genuine concern to improve the world
through the development of knowledge—getting published as part of
becoming employable, being promoted, and obtaining a job at a highly
prestigious university is probably high on the agenda of many aca-
demics. The centrality of journal publishing means a displacement of
purpose: the journal article becomes not primarily a means of quality
improvement and dissemination, but the main goal in itself. Publication
and adaption to the conventions needed for success take precedence,
whereas saying something insightful and important becomes periph-
eral. Very much of what is researched and published therefore becomes
meaningless, except from the perspective of the researcher's CV and the
institution's performance metrics (Alvesson, Gabriel, & Paulsen, 2017;
Tourish, 2019). This paper aims to reveal some of the secrets behind
how it has been possible to “make it,” at least up to now, by identifying
how LS people are able to produce publishable research—despite, or
perhaps due to, some fundamental flaws.
In this paper, I show somewhat ironically a number of the more
problematic conventions of LS that facilitate working life and career
progress for LS academics while simultaneously sacrificing the devel-
opment of valuable knowledge. LS is far from alone in this respect, but
for space reasons I cannot address other areas here.
A first step is to understand the drivers behind the vast expansion of
interest in “leadership.” We need here to consider the overall cultural
context, the Zeitgeist or spirit of the time, and the market forces behind
the demand for a particular type of leadership knowledge—in parti-
cular, concepts and recipes that promise good news and simple guide-
lines for "success".
I then briefly point to the change from a generally negative as-
sessment of the accomplishments and condition of LS in the 1970s and
1980s, to the very optimistic and self-congratulatory views of the 1990s
and onwards, witnessed by an expansion of studies and theories. A gap
is indicated between, on the one hand, a working life in many countries
and areas that seems to fuel frustration and cynicism, and, on the other
hand, the proliferation of upbeat leadership.
The success recipe of people adapting popular frameworks for LS is
then addressed, before the paper ends with suggestions for doing
something radically different.
Contemporary context
The societal context can be described in many different ways. There
are indicators that large parts of the Western workforce is increasingly
frustrated and disillusioned. Many scandals have been exposed, including
financial crises and environmental problems, partly created by companies.
Increasingly generous remuneration packages for CEOs and board direc-
tors have been reported (Learmonth & Morrell, 2019). Contemporary
working life is full of activities and arrangements that serve no functional
purpose, but reflect expanding bureaucracy and the need to present an

⁎
Dept of Business Admin, Lund University, PO Box 7080, S 220 07 Lund, Sweden.
E-mail address: Mats.Alvesson@fek.lu.se.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101439
Received 9 November 2019; Received in revised form 3 June 2020; Accepted 12 June 2020
Available online 29 July 2020
1048-9843/ © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
M. Alvesson The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439

appealing exterior in order to obtain legitimation. Contemporary organi- Of course, it would be unreasonable to suggest that leadership is
zations are rife with corporate bullshit talk (Spicer, 2018), ceremonial responsible for all imperfections in organizations, but it is important to
structures (Meyer & Rowan, 1977), and window-dressing activities that situate LS within this broader picture and see how leadership discourse
lead to a profound discrepancy, and often contradiction, between orga- may be a problematic source of ideology and legitimation in manage-
nizational and managerial surface and “substance” (Alvesson, 2013). ment and organization, unrealistically promising simple solutions and
Much leadership knowledge and ideology that sounds convincing may distracting attention from what happens in real working life. Leadership
contribute instead to a sense of organized hypocrisy, where talk, decisions, recipes often promise very much, and summaries of popular leadership
and action are decoupled (Brunsson, 2003). theories claim their positive effect on almost everything. Avolio and
In this context, we see strong signs of an increase in disillusionment Walumbwa (2014, p. 353), for example, write that “the world simply
and cynicism (Alvesson, 2013; Fleming & Spicer, 2003; Naus et al., can't wait any longer for more authentic leaders and leadership,” in-
2007; Spicer, 2018). There are reports of a large number of bullshit dicating that here we have The Solution to a great many of the pro-
jobs—that is, jobs disliked by jobholders who feel that they do not blems and frustrations in organizations and society.
contribute to something meaningful (Graeber, 2013; Nørmark &
Jensen, 2018)—as well as “empty labor,” people being at the workplace
Leadership studies: from despair to euphoria
and pretending to work, without doing anything productive (Paulsen,
2014). Despite all the talk about the knowledge economy and post-
For a long time, many prominent researchers expressed doubt, even
bureaucratization, modern economies are dominated by low-level ser-
desperation, about the condition and future of LS, characterized as it
vice and distribution jobs (Sweet & Meiksins, 2008) and, at least in
was by fragmentation and contradictory and confusing empirical find-
some sectors, there is increased bureaucratization (McSweeney, 2006).
ings. In the late 1970s, people were unhappy. For instance, Sashkin and
Considerable work goes into employer branding and other forms of
Garland (1979) claimed that “By any objective measure, the study of
image enhancement, raising the expectations of valuable work and
leadership has failed to produce generally accepted, practically useful,
good careers, including in business schools preparing people to be
and widely applied scientific knowledge” (p. 65). Another review of the
“leaders”, but in reality organizational life often falls short of ex-
research pessimistically concluded that “the only point of agreement is
pectations. Managerial life is more often characterized by adminis-
that existing approaches have largely lost their usefulness for the fur-
trative and operational work than by leadership in any grander sense
ther development of the field” (Andriessen & Drenth, 1984, p. 514).
(Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2003; Kairos Futures/Chef, 2006).
Tourish remarked that “fad after fad had resulted in a great pile of
Managers, and particularly senior executives, do not emerge well
research that established—well, not much, really” (2019, p. 163).
from the perspective of public and employee opinion, being seen as
But from the 1980s onwards, new approaches emerged and the view of
partly responsible for increasing inequalities, overmanaged organiza-
the situation changed drastically. The moaners and groaners were replaced
tions, impoverished work conditions, and an often cynical workforce.
by optimistic and positive voices celebrating the field. Bryman (1996)
Some studies indicate that many employees have negative perceptions
wrote about a “much greater optimism” and attributed this to the shift in
of their managers (Cunha et al., 2009; Einarsen et al., 2007). Responses
leadership towards “management of meaning and a recognition of a
take different forms, such as corporate social responsibility, business
greater range of research styles” (p. 289). Avolio et al. (2003, p. 277)
ethics, environmentalism, and branding. The contemporary situation,
claimed that conference attenders had used to remark that “never has a
of course, also affects perceptions and ideas about leadership. It may
construct been studied so much that we know so little about,” but that
even have contributed to a small literature on the problems of leader-
such opinions were now both obsolete and wrong. Parry and Bryman
ship, sometimes referred to as “toxic” and “destructive” (Einarsen et al.,
(2006, p. 464) added that a very negative remark “is unlikely to be heard
2007; Kaiser & Craig, 2014). But this is a minority subfield and in-
nowadays” and emphasized the “exciting and productive field that lea-
dicates deviations from normality. Most leadership researchers define
dership has become.” Dinh et al. (2014) wrote that during the previous
leadership as broadly “good,” implicitly for “all”. If it is not “good”,
decade LS academics “have revolutionized the way we understand lea-
then it is not leadership, but something else, like supervision (Hannah
dership phenomena” (p. 36). It might be said that, after the moan and
et al., 2014). Given the complicated and multidimensional nature of
groan period, LS was characterized by Prozac leadership (Collinson,
social life, this one-sidedly positive view of leadership seems over-
2012), or what I prefer to call upbeat leadership ideas.
simplified and ideological (e.g. Alvesson & Kärreman, 2016; Grint,
The “saviors” of LS included the strong interest in more symbolic
2010; Learmonth & Morrell, 2019; Tourish, 2019).
leadership theories that promised good results in terms of prediction,
It can be argued that “leadership, as widely envisaged, is a key part
explanation, and advice-giving. It seemed that managers just had to
of the problems we now face rather than the solution” (Tourish, 2014,
embrace the prescribed leadership style and a wealth of positive out-
p. 80). Against the sometimes ethically and politically shady and rou-
comes would be produced for employees and organizational perfor-
tinized operations of organizations and their managers, often facing a
mance. A lot of the renewed hope came from the amazing “success” of
variety of expectations and demands (Thomas & Linstead, 2002), lea-
transformational leadership (TFL) and other positive-sounding leader-
dership may appear as an ideological—more than a practical—solution.
ship types, such as charismatic, servant, and authentic leadership. The
It offers identity, status, and legitimation support through promises of
set of upbeat leadership ideas overlap in different ways, but on the
moral goodness and grandiose action, mediated by ideas such as
whole, produce the same kind of positive outcomes:
transformational, servant, empowering, authentic, and other “feel
Researchers identify multiple leadership styles that are supposed to
good” leadership, presented as recipes for creating a wide range of
shape desirable focal outcomes, like follower performance or well-being.
positive outcomes. However, as Learmonth and Morrell (2019) point
Exemplary leadership styles that are seemingly successful in promoting
out:
such desirable outcomes are authentic, empowering, ethical, servant,
One of the huge ironies of the growth in the popularity of the term
spiritual, and transformational leadership. (Fischer, 2018, p. 67)
“leader” over the last thirty years or so is that it has occurred at the
same time as there has been a massive deterioration in pay, job TFL, for example, is often said to have “generated an impressive cachet
security and working conditions for many ordinary workers. (p. 42) of findings and has made a great impact on the study of leadership”
(Jackson & Parry, 2008, p. 31). We learn from reviews that “a rich stock of
In other words, social reality and popular leadership theories move
studies suggest that TFL can be a very effective form of leadership”
in different directions. LS delivers ideology and comfort through upbeat
(Lindebaum & Cartwright, 2010, p. 1320) and that “numerous studies”
leadership talk in a world exhibiting constraining and, for many, frus-
“have demonstrated the positive effects of TFL on various levels” (Fu et al.,
trating managerialist practices.
2010, p. 225). It would appear that TFL is a straightforward success story,

2
M. Alvesson
but plenty of critiques say otherwise (e.g., Alvesson & Kärreman, 2016;
Ashford & Sitkin, 2019; Fischer, 2018; Learmonth & Morrell, 2019; van
Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013). Antonakis and House (2013, p. 36) remark
that after decades of research, no one has really shown that TFL actually
transforms individuals and organizations.
Yukl (1999) highlights how TFL texts exhibit ambiguity about the
underlying influence process, overemphasis on dyadic processes, am-
biguity about transformational behaviors, insufficient specification of
negative effects, and heroic leadership bias. Van Knippenberg and
Sitkin (2013) echo and expand on many of these points, summarizing
their critique as follows:
The conceptualization of the construct is seriously flawed, with no
definition of charismatic-transformational leadership independent
of its effects, no theory to explain why it consists of the dimensions
proposed and how these dimensions share a charismatic-transfor-
mational quality that differentiates them from other aspects of lea-
dership, and no theoretically grounded configurational model to
explain how the different dimensions combine to form charismatic-
transformational leadership. (p. 45)
Although some new approaches to charismatic leadership provide
exceptions (see Meslec et al., 2020), it can be argued that too much of
the research landscape is currently dominated by TFL (Gardner et al.,
2020), despite its weaknesses. Susan Ashford remarks that if the cri-
tique does not put “an end to research on the over-arching construct of
TFL, then I do not know what will stimulate progress on the construc-
tion front” (Ashford & Sitkin, 2019, p. 458).
While TFL has been the target of most attention during recent years,
at least before the recent devastating critique appeared, authentic lea-
dership (AL) has also become the focus of criticism. Walumbwa et al.
(2008) define authentic leadership as:
A pattern of leader behavior that draws upon and promotes both
positive psychological capacities and a positive ethical climate, to
foster greater self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective,
balanced processing of information, and relational transparency on
the part of leaders working with followers, fostering positive self-
development. (p. 94)
Here the feeling of positivity rockets, offering a very optimistic
counter-narrative to some of the gloomier pictures of contemporary
management and working life, as well as the earlier negative assess-
ments of LS as a field. If only managers are authentic, it is argued, then
good things on a massive scale will appear. Any rational recruitment
practice will filter out the “non-authentic” and any sensible manager
will then be or become more “authentic,” one might assume.
AL continues the trend of so-called positive forms of leadership
(Avolio & Gardner, 2005), which include ethical, transformational,
charismatic, servant and spiritual leadership. It shares similarities with
these other forms, it is claimed; yet it perhaps has distinctive features
that make it possible to present it as a stand-alone “construct” (Sidani &
Rowe, 2019), useful for understanding and improving how leaders
engage in leading in modern organizations. Consequently, an army of
leadership students set out to investigate and support AL (Avolio,
2013). They claim triumphantly that “there has been an extraordinary
amount of progress” in the area (Avolio & Walumbwa, 2014, p. 352).
As with TFL, however, skeptics argue that there are good reasons to
hold the horses before joining the movement, as there are a wealth of
fundamental definitional, theoretical, and methodological problems
(Alvesson & Einola, 2019; Fischer, 2018; Sidani & Rowe, 2019; Tourish,
2019). AL researchers assume the coexistence of self-knowledge, trans-
parency in relationships, objectivity of self-assessment, and a high sense of
morality guiding work. They also assume a close match between “true
self” and “behavior.” Critics, on the other hand, doubt that there is a “true
self”—at least in the workplace, the self may be less “essentialistic” and
more multiple, relational, and dynamic than the expression “true self”
implies (Ibarra, 2015; Shotter & Gergen, 1989). Critics also suggest that
people will not be too eager to express their possible “true selves” at work,
3
The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439
in a society emphasizing “customer orientation” and teamwork, asking for
adaptation and smoothness (Jackall, 1988), for political correctness and
the exhibition of ceremonial structures in order to comply with institu-
tional myths for the sake of legitimation (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Flexible
behavior and tactful interaction with customers, superiors, subordinates,
and others are often prescribed, making authenticity through the expres-
sion of the self at work a difficult enterprise. In other respects, too, AL
appears problematic:
Exercising your own positive traits—honesty, openness, authenticity,
not being political—results in a leadership where all good things go
hand in hand, to the benefit of the company, the co-workers and
possibly even the general good. There is almost a feeling of Sunday
School about it. (Sveningsson & Alvesson, 2016, p. 153)
In contrast to the “traditional” leadership models (e.g., situational,
contingency, or path–goal leadership theories), upbeat leadership theories
such as TFL and AL tend towards being normative, idealistic, humanistic,
and moralistic, and placing emphasis on the responses of followers
(Hannah et al., 2014), rather than on tasks, organizations, and their ob-
jectives. Such theories are highly influential in academia—at least in the
US, in psychological LS, and among people paying for the services of those
lecturing and consulting using their positive messages. But critics generally
find the studies basically flawed. Fischer (2018) shows, in a broad critical
scrutiny of leadership theories, that “all nine leadership style constructs
that I review are ambiguous and conflate leader behaviors with follower
assessment” (p. 68). He finds that a “systematic pattern of producing
misleading research explains why leadership style research lacks realism
while getting empirical support. Such a proliferation of misleading lea-
dership style constructs is dangerous for gullible practitioners” (p. 93).
However, analyzing the merits and problems of TFL, AL, and other
upbeat leadership approaches is not the main purpose of this article. It
is sufficient here to indicate that their “success” is disputed, and that it
is worth exploring other reasons for their popularity besides any em-
pirical support they might have. It makes sense to suggest that it is not
only or mainly their superior creativity, insightfulness, and rational
adherence to scientific methodology that account for the “success” of
TFL, AL, and other popular approaches. On the contrary, one might
claim that it is their relaxed attitudes to these values and their deviation
from careful reasoning and sound methods that explain their “success”
(Alvesson & Kärreman, 2016; Tourish, 2019). The cloak of science may
even protect these theories from careful scrutiny of their strong ideo-
logical and romantic content.
In this paper, I set out to explore the secrets of the success formula used
by people to produce what is often constructed as “an impressive cachet of
findings” and an “exciting and productive” enterprise. Given the general
reporting of an often disillusioned and cynical workforce, the general
gloominess of LS for a long time, and the wealth of skeptical comments,
the broadly claimed success is indeed a miracle. Or, perhaps, a mirage.
Let us explore how people in what I refer to as upbeat leadership
studies operate. Upbeat leadership studies are academic reports and
texts with a clear and strong positive message, basically assuming and
“showing” that good leadership leads to good outcomes. I prefer “up-
beat” to “new genre” as there are a wealth of approaches that are
new—even more novel than TFL etc.—with orientations that are more
critical (e.g. Learmonth & Morrell, 2019), reflexive (Alvesson, Blom, &
Sveningsson, 2017), task-oriented (e.g. Hunt, 2004; Yukl, 1999), or
relational (e.g. Ospina & Uhl-Bien, 2012). On the whole, I refrain from
addressing these latter approaches, as they are not yet as influential and
do not account for the “success” of LS in the eyes of its proponents.
Upbeat leadership theory typically includes a very positive message
about charisma, authenticity, transformation, servant-ship, sharing, or
something else, making the reader optimistic and disinclined to con-
sider a more realistic picture of organizations, work, and management
(and thus leadership) in general, as summarized earlier.
All the good things tend to go hand in hand, and the not-so-good is
marginalized and demonized as “toxic”, destructive, inauthentic
M. Alvesson
leadership, or not really leadership but something else, such as tyranny
(Burns, 1978; Jackson & Parry, 2008). “True leadership” is “good,”
while the alternative, demonized “other” is a deviation. Hannah et al.
(2014) argue that “morality is an inherent component of leadership” (p.
604). Effective leadership is married with integrity—as Palanski and
Yammarino (2009) write, this is almost an axiom in leadership studies.
If leaders are power-oriented, it is only for the good of the organization.
The organization is seen as a source of goodness, characterized by
“legitimate interests.” One could argue that some industries are in-
volved in pollution (transport, coal, oil), the manipulation of customers
(fashion), or killing (meat production, animal cruelty, weapons, to-
bacco, alcohol), and are not necessarily only, or even mainly, good.
There may also be many different notions of what is good or a legit-
imate interest within an organization—good for whom and in what
sense may be a difficult question to answer (Skrutkowski, 2017). The
moral considerations often differ depending on whether a group of
employees, the shareholders, or society in general is being considered.
Boal and Hooijberg (2000) make a distinction between leadership in
and of an organization, the latter suggesting sometimes very different
concerns from considering mainly the situation and interest of sub-
ordinates. But this diversity of interests, values, and moral considera-
tions is often neglected. Leaders and leadership—at least “true” and not
pseudo- or inauthentic leadership—are reserved for something pure and
morally high-standing. Bass and Steidlmeier (1999, p. 184) claim that
authentic transformational leadership rests on a “moral foundation of
legitimate values”, but the nature of these moral values is seldom
clarified, and dilemmas and conflicts are frequently glossed over.
It is here worth pointing out that many “non-heroic” views, em-
phasizing shared processes rather than the individual hero‑leader, also
place a strong emphasis on leadership as “good-doing” (e.g., Cunliffe &
Eriksen, 2011; Fairhurst, 2007). Ospina and Sorensen (2006, p. 188)
suggest “that leadership happens when a community develops and uses,
over time, shared agreements to create results that have collective
value”. Uhl-Bien et al. (2007, p. 298) frame leadership as a “complex,
interactive dynamic from which adaptive outcomes (e.g. learning, in-
novation, and adaptability) emerge”. Hence, these “non-heroic” views
also tend to marry leadership with positive outcomes. A better, less
ideological path would be not to conflate but to open up the relation-
ship between leadership acts and their possible outcomes—leadership
efforts or practices (interactive as well as leader-centric) may or may
not lead (only) to “good” outcomes such as those mentioned by the
authors cited. To define leadership by its outcomes is very problematic.
The gold-plating of leadership—upgrading managerial work to
leadership and then celebrating leadership (of the right kind) as nor-
mally a highly significant and positive force—typically involves a
combination of heroic and moral elements. In some versions (e.g.,
charismatic and transformational), the hero element dominates; in
others (e.g., authentic and servant), the moral superiority of the (right)
leader is at play. It is not easy to maintain a clear distinction between
leadership and management, but often leadership is understood as
being about management of meaning, including some granted leader-
ship authority, has an informal element, and concerns influencing
thinking and feeling, whereas management is a more formal process
associated with a holder of formal authority (Alvesson, Gabriel, &
Paulsen, 2017; Ashford & Sitkin, 2019; Bedeian & Hunt, 2006; Smircich
& Morgan, 1982). LS almost habitually conflates leadership and man-
agement, and treats managers as leaders despite the likelihood that
many managers are not seen as “leaders” by their subordinates (Ashford
& Sitkin, 2019; Learmonth & Morrell, 2019) and may spend much more
time on managerial work than on something distinctively involving
leadership (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2003).
Success formula for upbeat leadership theory
I will now take a closer look at how dominant streams (Fischer,
2018) and typical studies (Hunter et al., 2007) within LS manage to
4
The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439
achieve success and publish seemingly consistent work, indicating true
progress within the field. I realize, of course, that there are exceptions
to those I address below, as LS is enormous and diverse. Some readers
may feel that I do an injustice to parts of the field. However, on the
basis that it is important to look at the forest and not only the trees, I
indicate and concentrate on some dominant tendencies and refrain from
going into detail concerning the myriad of exceptions.
The following account is based on an ad-hoc and slightly ironic reading
of popular, influential texts focusing on—or at least claiming to focus
on—leadership behavior (and not on managers' cognition, traits, relations,
or followership). Generally, I found much published work unconvincing
and based on problematic assumptions, relying on a good deal of naïve
faith, camouflaged with rhetoric and technical details. This work may be
productively challenged as contradicting the conventional myth that re-
search and application have much to do with insightfulness, methodolo-
gical rigor, and “objectivity” in terms of relating to and representing
reality. Arguably, there are other forces and mechanisms at play.
The text below can be read either as a “true” recipe for how not only to
survive but also to prosper in the field of LS, or as a reflexivity-stimulating
piece, suggesting that we should try to do things quite differently, partly in
line with suggestions and criteria currently advocated by LQ (see editorial,
2019). Multiple readings of this paper are possible—from strong critique,
to inspiration, to self-reflection, to an exercise in learning the ropes.
Authors cannot control the consumption of their texts, but I hope that
some people will ask themselves some rather fundamental, self-critical
questions, and that others, already skeptical, may be (even) more con-
vinced that some dominant paths are to be avoided.
As my paper includes elements of a caricature, the idea is not to read
the text as a masterpiece in precision, nuance, rigor, and caution. I
concentrate on what seems to be common and on certain things that
may be good to reflect upon. Provocation is important here—and thus
there is a need to depart from the usual mode of writing. Generally, we
should consider alternative ways of writing, including using irony and
sarcasm, and make our journals less formulaic and reader-unfriendly
(Alvesson, Gabriel, & Paulsen, 2017). The idea is to stimulate dialectical
thinking—consider the antithesis to what is dominant and then perhaps
aim for new ways of dealing with issues.
The reader may wonder, why publish this paper in a journal at all?
Journals are an outlet that tends to express and reinforce some pro-
blematic tendencies, including conventionalism and formulaic writing
(Alvesson, Gabriel, & Paulsen, 2017). But journals have a readership
and they sometimes give options for alternative messages, as evidenced
by LQ in publishing this paper. It is important to show variation in
article writing and also to promote change among journals, so that their
format and conventions are not set in stone.
Let us move on to the core contribution of this paper. The following
20 points, loosely structured through headlines A to I, capture key
elements of how people in the LS field work and how the great opti-
mism of LS, at least until recently, has come about. (For a summary, see
Table 1.)
A. Go for the good
1. A good (career-facilitating) start for researchers is to find an ap-
pealing, preferably fashionable, concept that resonates with common sense
(transformational, authentic, empowering, level 5 leadership). It is best to
invent a good concept yourself, but as this is demanding, risky, and may
take time before it possibly pays off, for most researchers it is a matter of
jumping on the bandwagon before it is too late—that is, before reports
about fundamental flaws start to gain momentum, as has been the case
with, for example, TFL (van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013) and more re-
cently AL (Tourish, 2019) and LMX (Gottfredson et al., 2020).
2. Contrast this good theory with something that is clearly inferior
or unappealing (transactional, inauthentic, toxic, laissez-faire, derailed,
level 1–4 leadership), or that has a low degree of what is targeted (e.g.,
is low on LMX, TFL, or authenticity scores). For example, TFL advocates
M. Alvesson The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439

Table 1
Twenty debatable elements in contemporary leadership studies and suggested alternatives.
Theme “Success” recipe Antidote

A. Go for the good A. Go for the neutral and open

1 Choose an appealing, well-packaged concept. Aim for the neutral and open, avoid seductive concepts.
2 Contrast the good with the obviously less good. Avoid framing issues in terms of better and worse; study
complexities of outcomes.
B. Lump some variables together B. Avoid overpackaging and study themes
and (re)produce a ”style”
3 Assume a style, a package of four or five dimensions. Study various non-packaged themes/aspects of leader/
followership.
4 Define styles so that they point in a specific positive direction. Avoid “styling” leadership; study what happens more openly.
C. Link the good style to the good C. Realize that the good and the good may not always go
outcome together
5 Link positive features to positive outcomes. Carefully consider that what appears to very good may in fact
be more complicated.
6 Be relaxed about tautologies as they help in getting positive results. Avoid tautology and aim for conceptual rigor.
D. Take artificial data seriously D. Study actual practice
7 Use questionnaires, a round of interviews, or other simple methods. Get close to leadership practice and follow process.
8 Take data at face value, emphasize what they say, and neglect that they Be suspicious about data unless carefully source-checked; make
may not say so much. sure that you study something other than questionnaire-filling
behavior or interview talk.
E. Disregard reality E. Take reality seriously
9 Neglect social context and focus on psychological reductionism; Study phenomena in their natural habitat; consider the situated
emphasize the individual. nature of people's acting and relations.
10 Avoid considering organizational complexities. Carefully consider what workplaces are all about.
F. Address as much as possible as F. Use leadership vocabulary sensitively
“leadership”
11 Categorize all supervisors and managers as leaders doing leadership. Reserve the term “leadership” for leadership and do not conflate
it with managerial work.
12 Use different leadership categories without concern for overlap or the Avoid standard, clumsy labels and categories, and study key
possibility that they show more or less the same result. themes of leadership/followership.
13 Assume that the world is made up of two types of people—leaders and Consider what goes on and only impose labels like “leader” and
followers—not subordinate managers, professionals, and others not “follower” when clearly required, given the attributions and
falling into these categories. identities of people involved.
G. Develop and maintain subtribe G. Cultivate a scholarly attitude
orientations
14 Locate yourself firmly within a school or a research program and Be careful about chain-gang affiliations; cultivate the spirit of a
cultivate a specialized social identity. fairly free scholar.
15 Safeguard your position and make your study as impenetrable as Write dialogue-stimulating texts.
possible.
16 Reject critique by claiming critics are showing insufficient understanding Refrain from petty critique and discourage footnote-adding
of the key issues and not “adding to the literature.” studies; challenge taken-for-granted assumptions.
H. Create positive-sounding results H. Encourage reflexivity
and call for more research
17 Present results indicating that the good is married to something else Assume that what appears to be good and is married to other
good. good things may be deceptive; counter cognitive dissonance.
18 Call for more research; claim that there is some progress but indicate that Acknowledge saturation.
the need for more research is endless.
19 Stick to your knitting for a long time, engage in your sub-stream, and do Avoid being a silo-thinking expert; after x years as a leadership
not complicate things with broader scholarship or intellectual expert, something else could be worth exploring.
orientations that may disrupt your focus.
I. And above all … I. Use irony
20 Suppress any sign of irony or doubt in your research and publishing Work with self‑irony, irony, and playfulness.
endeavors.

like to invoke transactional leadership (really referring to management)
“as the dull, mechanical, carrots-and-sticks leadership that would be
more ordinary and customary [and which forms] a background against
which charismatic-transformational leadership shines all the more
brightly” (van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013, p. 12), even though TFL
leaves out much of what managers do in order to influence results
(Yukl, 1999). Einarsen et al. (2007) contrast constructive (pro-sub-
ordinate and pro-organization) and derailed (anti-subordinate and anti-
organization) leadership. High or low degrees of AL can be compared,
making it likely that those with high AL have better outcomes in most
respects. This is hardly surprising and we have a wealth of findings
saying that what is seen as good (higher on a positivity scale) is cor-
related with other good things (higher on another positivity scale).
B. Lump some variables together and (re)produce a “style”
3. Engage in amalgam thinking (Ashford & Sitkin, 2019; Fischer,
2018)—that is, lump a number of positive words or variables, pre-
ferably four or five, together and claim that they somehow fit into a
specific style or type of leadership, such as AL or TFL. TFL researchers
have put together idealized influence, inspirational motivation, in-
tellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Of course, one
may wonder: what is common here and do they really hang together?
Surely people can be considerate or inspirational without being in-
tellectually stimulating. People can be inspirational through hard work
and influence on workplace climate without much intellectual stimu-
lation. And why the elements picked by TFL and not others? Yukl
(1999) mentions facilitating agreements about objectives and strate-
gies, mutual trust and cooperation, and building group identification as
important group-level work, as well as articulating a vision and strategy
for the organization, guiding and facilitating change, and promoting
learning at the organizational level as important behaviors that are
typically omitted from many TFL lists. But the rule seems to be to ne-
glect such complications, make things simple, and do not overdo your

5
M. Alvesson
list. Four or five variables seem credible, are easy to remember, but still
provide a sense of sufficient complexity. The factors may be arbitrarily
chosen, but they should somehow intuitively be seen as hanging to-
gether. The most important criteria are that they all sound positive and
that people are persuaded that together they form a thing-like “it”, such
as authentic leadership or a specific LMX score.
4. Define these “styles” so that a specific positive outcome is more or
less included. The trick here is to combine some notion of behavior with
an evaluative element so that the effect of the behavior is pre-defined
and an outcome of the behavior is more or less guaranteed (e.g.,
idealized influence, inspirational talk, being true to your values)
(Fischer, 2018). However, combining behavior and outcome needs to
be done with caution as apparent cases may lead to tautologies being
too obvious. The best tactic is to smuggle in evaluative elements but
claim that behaviors and the outcomes of behavior are being studied as
separate variables. Of course, the smuggling is unlikely to remain to-
tally undetected (e.g. Fischer, 2018; Sidani & Rowe, 2019; Yukl, 1999),
but as many people are doing this you can normally get away with it.
Input and output are simply combined; a behavior, ability, or practice is
defined by the effects it creates. We see propositions such as “Leaders
who have absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity and managerial
wisdom will be more effective than leaders who do not” (Boal &
Hooijberg, 2000). That people with capacity are more effective than
those who lack it is hardly surprising. A person who is said to favor
work that “empowers and develops potential,” who “encourages critical
and strategic thinking,” and who is an “inspirational networker and
promoter” (Alimo-Metcalfe & Alban-Metcalfe, 2001) is likely to be seen
as better than one who disempowers, does not develop (but hinders)
potential, discourages critical and strategic thinking, and is uninspiring.
Someone perceived as offering intellectual stimulation or inspirational
motivation in a managerial/leadership position is surely better than
someone perceived as not doing so. Alternative, less positive formula-
tions of the same behavior, such as “inclined to turn meetings into
academic seminars,” “very analytical” or “skilled political and a power
player,” are expressions to be avoided, as you never know what answers
these questions may trigger and thus it becomes difficult to come up
with clear findings.
C. Link the good style to the good outcome
5. Link the positive features of the leader to all sorts of positive
outcomes (some of which are implied by, but not necessarily directly
part of, the definition of the leadership practice, but may appear as
results of the practice) when formulating a hypothesis, producing an
argument, or claiming to have uncovered the truth. As mentioned
above, many “non-heroic” views express a strong emphasis on leader-
ship as “good-doing” (e.g. Cunliffe & Eriksen, 2011; Fairhurst, 2007).
The rule is that doing something (framed as) good leads to good out-
comes: for example, intellectual, inspiring leadership leads to followers
being inspired, or empowering leadership makes followers grow—an
irresistible connection. If you are concerned with the opposite, “de-
structive leadership,” then you can define this so that it is about bad
outcomes, undermining or sabotaging things for the organization or the
subordinates (Einarsen et al., 2007). As Sidani and Rowe (2019) write,
“defining AL in terms of desired outcomes disguises an admirable
longing for healthier leadership situations” (p. 625). Similarly, ac-
cording to House and Aditya (1997), LMX “theory implies that any
leader behavior that has a positive effect on LMX quality will be ef-
fective” (p. 431–432). Neglect the possibility that the “good” behavior
will have less good consequences: for example, that consideration and
nurturing relations may lead to subordinates becoming passive and
dependent on the support of the manager.
For the uncritical reader, it all appears to make sense. As people like
to hear good news (including that the bad and the bad hang together,
which is reassuring) and prefer to avoid cognitive dissonance, the
message can be expected to be well received.
6
The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439
6. Do not worry too much about tautologies, cognitive dissonance,
halo effects, or the possible ignorance of respondents (often having
great problems in assessing authenticity, for example, and responding
more to impression management). In fact, these can be used actively to
guarantee what appear to be “valid” and “positive” results.
Questionnaires are notoriously ambiguous and sometimes almost im-
possible to answer in ways that allow for something informative to be
conveyed (Einola & Alvesson, 2020a); some support in guiding re-
spondents to the “right” answer is probably needed.
Conger et al. (2000) illustrate the practice. Here, charismatic leader-
ship is expected to be positively related to a follower's sense of collective
identity, perceived group performance, and feelings of empowerment. The
sample was asked to answer a “questionnaire assessing a supervisor's be-
haviour” (p. 753). If a person tends to say that “I hold him/her (the leader)
in high respect,” they may also agree with statements such as that the
leader is “inspirational,” “influences others by developing mutual liking
and respect,” and “often expresses personal concern.” And if they do, it
would hardly come as a surprise that they tend to agree with statements
like “we see ourselves in the workgroup as a cohesive team” and “I am
keen on us doing well as an organization.” But the latter may be translated
into: “I am keen on answering questionnaires so that responses hang to-
gether”—of course, a central element in any successful research project
eager to produce a clear finding.
Working with two groups of informants, one describing the man-
ager's leadership and the other (independently) the outcomes, would be
laudable and could improve research, but it would be complicated,
difficult in terms of access and design, time consuming, and would
probably lead to ambiguous results, so a simpler design seems to be
more practical. It seems common to ambiguously lump together de-
scription of behavior and evaluation of behavior:
The labels and definitions of leadership styles hoodwink researchers
into thinking they are studying leader behaviors, whereas they are
actually studying an ambiguous amalgam of leader behaviors and
follower evaluations. The conceptual confusion of leader behaviors
and follower evaluations in a single construct subsequently creates
conditions of indeterminate causality (Fischer, 2018, p. 68)
The amalgam of behavior and evaluations may, of course, sound
alarming for any advocate of rigor, and many raise similar critique
(Antonakis, 2017; Tourish, 2019), but the mixing of behavior and
evaluations is normal practice and it is probably the safest way to
produce positive results, as you measure cause (act) and effect (out-
come of act) at the same time and with the same subjects, leading to
findings such as that a leader who gives “inspirational talks” makes
followers inspired, or that perceived “destructive leadership” leads to
perceived negative outcomes.
D. Take artificial data seriously—focus on data management
7. Use questionnaires—they may not necessarily say much of value, as
complex reality and ambiguous issues cannot be boiled down to ques-
tionnaire items (Alvesson, 1996; Hunter et al., 2007), but they are easy and
convenient to use and are apparently easy to publish. Many researchers use
questionnaires and it is wise to assume (or at least pretend to believe) that
“measurements can provide relevant, consistent and accurate information”
(Scherbaum & Meade, 2009 p. 637). The likelihood of being assessed by
people having doubts about questionnaires is low. It is probably beneficial
to follow the use of the success recipe and neglect voices claiming that they
are overused (Antonakis, 2017; Bryman, 2011). Although there is the cri-
tique of “an overreliance on survey measures, cross-sectional designs, and
single source data” (Gardner et al., 2011, p. 1140), these methods and data
apparently signal normal practice and publishable studies, even though
there are demands for more rigor (Antonakis, 2017). Asking a person to
self-report about a manager's behavior (or rather the evaluation of it) and
about satisfaction or unit performance is often seen as sufficient (Hunter
et al., 2007). Given the number of questionnaire studies published, return
M. Alvesson
on investment in terms of research “results” and publication is high. Con-
struct and use questionnaires with statements where the good things are
indicated to hang together or people can be expected to respond in con-
sistent ways to items, linking positive leadership characteristics with po-
sitive outcomes and bad characteristics with bad outcomes. “Validity” is
secured through using similar-sounding statements to which respondents
are inclined to respond in similar ways. Skeptics are not impressed, but it is
very common that “we play ‘fast and loose’ with construct definitions and
the procedures we follow when translating these definitions into mea-
surements scales,” as Hughes et al. (2018, p. 563) conclude when reviewing
the literature on leadership and innovation.
8. Take any data at face value. Do not check the reliability and
trustworthiness of respondents and avoid efforts to make sure that
questionnaire or interview assessments are confirmed by other data
sources, like follow-up interviews or observations. Listening to people
trying to fill in questionnaires may create a lot of trouble, as the am-
biguity of the material becomes salient (Einola & Alvesson, 2020a).
Also avoid concerns about respondents being inclined to follow and
reproduce currently popular leadership ideals (AL, TFL, or whatever) or
cultural conventions for how we generally talk about issues. Using a
design that appeals to layman theories about good things leading to
good outcomes increases the likelihood of “positive” results. Engage in
rigorous data management—statistics or coding—and neglect the pos-
sibility that this cannot compensate for the unreliability of ques-
tionnaire filling or (unchecked) interviews. Do not consider the possi-
bility of garbage in, garbage out.
E. Disregard reality
9. Disregard issues around social context, including the broader or-
ganizational context, and its importance. Instead, claim a universally valid
result, indicating that the preferred leadership type or leader character-
istics generally lead to favorable outcomes, irrespective of the type of work
or business situation, organizational culture, and characteristics of “fol-
lowers”, such as their age, gender, ethnicity, interpretations, and interests.
Aim for generalizations about leaders, irrespective of whether they work
for Navy Seals, a library, a university department, a warehouse, the Mafia,
the Red Cross, or a sales unit; irrespective of whether they are CEOs,
middle managers or foremen, HR people, scout leaders, army sergeants or
chief engineers; and irrespective of whether they are in an organizational
growth, crisis or decline situation. Although most theoretical reasoning of
leadership emphasizes context, it is regularly neglected in studies, in favor
of psychological reductionism. Hunter et al. (2007) write that “the typical
leadership study appears to neglect the context altogether” (p. 439). This is
also acknowledged by defenders of mainstream thinking: “our theories
and operationalizations too often fail to explicitly incorporate context”
(Hannah et al., 2014, p. 600; see also Liden & Antonakis, 2009). But as this
failure is normal practice, there is no need to worry too much about it.
Actually, critique of common practice can be seen as career advice: critics
point at what is common and easy to do—as it is convenient and done by
most people, you will probably benefit from doing it. Sometimes one gets
the impression that the overall logic of LS is to neglect what is important
and concentrate on the low-hanging fruits.
Some studies indicate the significance of organizational context in a
serious manner. For example, Roberts and Bradley (1988) showed how
a senior manager in one context appeared as charismatic, but that this
quality disappeared when she got a new position and faced a very
different organizational situation. Tourish (2019) points to the like-
lihood of managers appearing authentic if conditions are favora-
ble—that is, something that appears to be AL may be an outcome of
context, rather than AL being part of how the manager “really” is and
the effects of this. In order not to complicate things, it is therefore wise
to study phenomena in a static and context-free way and to engage in
willful ignorance: avoid in-depth, rich knowledge. For large parts of LS,
the slogan “we like the better, but we follow the worse” seems to offer a
guideline. Therefore: do not complicate things through bringing in
7
The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439
context.
10. Avoid any serious consideration of organizational complexities:
for example, the real organizational life where managers struggle to get
by, may seldom be seen as leaders by subordinates, or may do much
more administration or nagging and haggling than “leadership.”
Concentrate on data, typical questionnaires, interview talk, preferably
with people in a “leadership program” as they are accessible and often
trained and temporarily seduced to think and respond in the right
way—that is, in line with popular leadership recipes. Or possibly do
experiments with students, even though the group has little in common
with the asymmetries of manager–subordinate relations and real-life
issues in work organizations. Convenience samples easily lead to pe-
culiar effects, at least if the researcher aims to generalize. Avoid in-
depth studies of organizations and observations of managers in natural
settings, as it complicates research and they may give a very different
view on relations, actions, and performances in management than those
appearing in single interviews or questionnaire responses. Here poli-
tical behavior and demands for being flexible in moral terms are salient
(Jackall, 1988; Watson, 1994), and so are interactions where everyone
is involved in influencing and it is hard to identify the “leader”
(Lundholm, 2011), and many do not relate to their superiors as leaders
(Blom & Alvesson, 2014; Learmonth & Morrell, 2019). Remember the
old sayings: no knight is a hero in front of his squire, and a strategy is
intact until the first contact with the enemy—not as an imperative to do
in-depth studies, but as an advice to avoid them, especially observations
of processes, and to choose “safer” methods. We can make a parallel:
(almost) no hero‑leader can preserve her image after a close-up study
(by a clear-sighted researcher). LS people may seek comfort in the
saying: ignorance is bliss. But in LS the heroic leader rules, and we
regularly see statements claiming that leaders create miraculous effects:
The potent identity that ideological leaders create for their followers
leads to the development of highly cohesive groups that are ex-
tremely committed to the values based vision of the leader.
(Lovelace et al., 2019, p. 98)
Operationally, it may be wise to think of oneself as being a re-
searcher of questionnaire-filling behavior or the scripted interview talk
that managers and others are inclined to produce when targeted for
data collection. (Interviews can be put on a convincing track through
claims to study “narrative identity,” “story,” or “discourse,” which gives
a license to take any loose interview talk as an important topic of sci-
entific investigation.) As a data manager-minded researcher, you should
focus on data and not worry about any (non-)relationship between data
and reality out there. The possibility that questionnaire fillers are naïve,
do not know, or are responding to questions that are impossible to
answer or irrelevant for capturing their situation or experiences (type
that they do not see their boss as a “leader” or are not interested in
“care” as much as being left alone), is not your concern. After all, who
are you to decide? Rigor is the key quality and this means sticking to
careful data management and refraining from any speculation or doubt
that the data may have no bearing on reality. If people object to your
study, you can refer to perceptions, discourse, accounts, narrative or
what the data indicate, thereby disarming the possible critique of a
data–reality gulf and a lack of realism or relevance in your studies.
F. Address as much as possible as “leadership”
11. Avoid thinking much about the meaning of “leader” or “lea-
dership.” Better not to be bothered about definitions or get into any
serious reflection on the use of the terms. Skip problems of differ-
entiating between leader and manager as well. You are most likely
studying the latter, and few people are really seen as “leaders” by their
subordinates, who are more likely to view managers as their formal
superiors or bosses (Learmonth & Morrell, 2019). But studying formal
superiors is not sufficient as “manager” sounds boring in comparison to
the sexier topic of leaders doing leadership with fine results. Oddly,
M. Alvesson
even managers seen as being destructive for subordinates are some-
times defined as “leaders” (Einarsen et al., 2007), reflecting the norm of
defining “leader” very loosely. (A more common norm is to reserve
“leadership” for what is seen as good: see, for example, Hannah et al.,
2014.) Disregard all efforts to distinguish between leadership and
management (e.g., Alvesson, Blom, & Sveningsson, 2017; Ashford &
Sitkin, 2019; Bedeian & Hunt, 2006) and the possibility that good
managerial work may involve little leadership in the sense of man-
agement of meaning (Ladkin, 2010; Smircich & Morgan, 1982). The
best thing is to gloss over all the problems of defining “leader” and
“leadership” and to rely on general ideological appeal and the in-
tellectual laziness of the audience, probably, like yourself, benefitting
from extensive talk of “leaders” and “leadership,” whatever it may
mean. One trick here is to say that managers deal with stabilities and
recurrent problems, and leaders with complex issues and change, and
then to claim that these days change and complex issues are everywhere
and therefore the label “manager” is obsolete, so we study leaders (e.g.
Palmer & Hardy, 2000). Ambiguity about the meaning of “leader” and
“leadership” is not a problem, it is the solution, as long as it can be
hidden—and most people in LS have an interest in keeping it so.
12. Be generous and flexible when it comes to distinctions and overlaps
in conceptualizations. Rigor is good for data management (data leader-
ship?) of empirical materials taken at face value, including number-
crunching, but key concepts should allow for flexibility and openness in
order to do “successful” research. Use different key leadership categories
quite freely and make sure they cannot be nailed down. Combinations and
overlaps are potentially productive and allow you flexibility. All these
streams making up “the new” can be seen as broadly similar or fairly
distinct. Transformational and charismatic leadership are, for example,
seen by various authors as the same (van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013), as
similar or overlapping (Sashkin, 2004), as siblings (Jackson & Parry,
2008), or as quite different (Wilson, 2013; Yukl, 1999). LMX may be about
manager–subordinate exchanges or subordinates' perception of their
“leaders” (Gottfredson et al., 2020). This vagueness about the nature of the
phenomenon (or rather a range of phenomena) allows for considerable
discretion and offers many possibilities for exploitation.
13. Appoint any person who is convenient to approach as a “leader”
or a “follower,” and avoid any consideration that these labels may be
irrelevant or misleading for understanding what you claim to be
studying. Assume that there are two kinds of people—leaders and fol-
lowers. Claim that the leaders are the center of the organizational
universe and the followers are a passive appendix or outcome of leaders
“empowering” them (Lovelace et al., 2019). Disregard the possibility
that most people with a manager title may not be seen as a “leader” by
anyone else, or that “followers” may act as autonomous professionals or
subordinates (obliged to comply occasionally, rather than willingly
following their inspirational leader) and may not see themselves as
followers in a leadership relation (Blom & Alvesson, 2014; Learmonth &
Morrell, 2019). Disregard the possibility that most “leaders” may be
low- or mid-level managers who are more subordinates than superiors
in their work. Proceed from “the assumption that the employees sam-
pled innately need or desire leadership” (Hunter et al., 2007, p. 436).
Assume then that the leader is the source of significant effects. Make
the leader the central character and assume that leadership is, like
health, good: “leadership is vital for healthy organizations” (Western,
2008, p. 5). Claim that it is crucial for the functioning of institutions
like firms, schools, hospitals, welfare agencies, and the police, and as-
sume that most employees are really followers, more or less lost without
leaders. In other words, join the wholly imbalanced view in the lit-
erature of the nature of agency, where leader agency is seen as close to
absolute while others are mainly passive and responsive (Tourish, 2014,
p. 83). Reproduce assumptions such as “a leader is responsible for di-
rection, protection, orientation, managing conflict, and shaping norms”
(Heifetz & Laurie, 1994, p. 127), and accept that others do not have
much responsibility or agency and are strongly leader-dependent for
direction, protection, and so on.
8
The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439
G. Develop and maintain specific subtribe orientations
14. Place yourself firmly within a specific research program or
academic subtribe and claim a firm group membership, secure identity,
narrow expertise, and adjacent “functional stupidity” that is the bed-
fellow of myopic specialization (Alvesson & Spicer, 2016). Write papers
that are clearly located within “closed” research programs with barriers
for non-believers through mobilization of esoteric vocabulary, refer-
ences, technical details, and measurements. Ignore other work, parti-
cularly qualitative and critical work, if you are a quantitatively minded
person, and quantitative studies if you are qualitatively oriented. De-
spite critique of silo-thinking, this appears common (Ashford & Sitkin,
2019). Silo-thinking means doing research with a clear and limited
focus on reviewers who can be expected to be firmly within your camp
and are not inclined to ask fundamental questions regarding the subject
matter, but are strongly into “gap spotting” and take the box-thinking of
your (AL, LMX or whatever) subtribe for granted. In other words, work
on finding and filling a gap in the literature that makes you avoid un-
wanted attention from non-believers—people with the “wrong” tribal
mentality—and do not complicate things by considering and thinking
seriously about the assumptions involved.
15. Imagine your paper writing is like designing a fortress against
possible invaders and less than trivial critiques. Do not point at un-
derlying assumptions or discuss alternative ones. Guide the reader
through a seemingly narrow and unproblematic path and do not open
the way for alternative thinking about problems with automatically
dividing people up into leaders and followers, the arbitrary nature of a
specific style, or the limited possibilities of measurements. Steer away
from opening up Pandora's box and avoid a dialogical style of writing,
inviting people to reflect on key issues, such as who is really doing
“leadership.” Fill the paper with an impenetrable assembly of obstacles
to avoid critique. Assume that reliability requires massive references to
other studies in your small camp and very detailed methodological
accounts. Make frequent use of jargon, including LS lingo celebrating
leadership and leaders (unless they are toxic, destructive, or low on
authenticity, EQ, or whatever), and use data that are at a secure and
well-camouflaged distance from the possible core phenomena claimed
to be addressed. However, an escape route from your well-protected
fortress is needed (see point 18 below).
16. Prevent any critique when you work as an editor or reviewer by
rejecting papers written by people not belonging to your academic
subtribe and not following your route. Claim that only true insiders can
understand what it is all about. Use any of the following means to
marginalize heretics and ditch critique:
i) Emphasize the critic's lack of sufficient grounding in the literature
(only a devoted advocate of the recipe you have chosen will have
the time, energy, or endurance to read all the stuff being produced
following the rules above, so given your expertise you can always
nail them for their ignorance of something claimed to be central for
offering legitimate critique).
ii) Accuse them of failing to make a theoretical or “constructive”
contribution, meaning “adding to” the existing literature in a po-
sitive way (this should be a good way of keeping troublemakers off
the track). Any person with strong motivation to find flaws in a
submitted paper will have no problem in writing a convincing re-
jection.
iii) A good supplementary tactic to conceal the politics involved is to
frame the rejection in positive vocabulary: for example, express
support for the critique of X, but emphasize that the paper has some
(read: an endless) way to go before it can be considered for pub-
lication. Send the critic out into the academic desert of trying to
improve a paper that you (and your friends), irrespective of its
merits, will find good reasons to prevent from being published (at
least in a journal that “counts”).
M. Alvesson The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439

H. Create positive-sounding results and always call for more research I. And above all …

17. Formulate your results in such a way that what sounds positive 20. Suppress any signs of irony or serious reflection when doing and
is married to something else positive. Jackson and Parry (2008) believe producing research. Exercise doubt control; do not think too much
that qualities like confidence, integrity, connection, resilience, and as- about the possible meaningfulness and relevance of the entire en-
piration “are particularly effective to promote effective leadership” (p. terprise outside the conventional templates and principles.
17). According to Hunt (2004), research has found that leader traits
include emotional maturity, integrity, cognitive ability, and task-re- A remedy: turning the dominant recipe upside down
levant knowledge. (Here the reader should perhaps consider the case of
Donald Trump.) The list of factors described as part of TFL by Alimo- This paper does not offer a (conventional) theoretical contribution
Metcalfe and Alban-Metcalfe (2001) include genuine concern for but aims to contribute to provocation and rethinking. Critical scrutiny
others, empowers and develops potential, integrity, trustworthy, honest (beyond addressing technical details), assumption challenging, and
and open, accessibility and approachability. People like to hear these reflexivity are key activities for any scholarly work worth its salt
things. A supplement to these positive characteristics is to connect what (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013). Most areas that are ingrained in a specific
sounds like bad behavior with bad outcomes: for example, when re- logic may benefit from questions such as: What are we doing? Does
ferring to destructive or abusive leadership. As Fischer (2018) notes: what I/we do really make sense? Is our work and the assumption we
All labels of leadership styles have the same structure: A positively proceed from meaningful? Can we aid organizational practice? Do we
(e.g., ethical) or negatively valenced (e.g., destructive) adjective have something insightful to say to an educated public? For much social
plus the term leadership or supervision. Examples are abusive su- science the answer is far from clear-cut (Alvesson, Gabriel, & Paulsen,
pervision, authentic leadership, or empowering leadership. (p. 74) 2017; Tourish, 2019). LS is no exception.
A possible way forward is simply to reject the type of (common,
As Hughes et al. (2018) also conclude, any seemingly convincing
possibly dominant) work portrayed here and do the opposite (see also
results about “positive” leadership leading to “positive” outcomes may
Hunter et al., 2007). Here are some very brief hints for researchers
simply reflect positive views of the leader more than actual behavior
wanting to find ways of studying what is exogenous with respect to the
and/or the use of items combining behaviors and evaluations of beha-
outcomes of leadership, bearing in mind that “Our goal as scientists is to
vior. That the positive AL, TFL, and ethical leadership versions are
do good science and to report fully and accurately; it is not to push an
highly correlated in terms of outcomes (Banks et al., 2018) supports
ideological agenda” (Antonakis, 2017, p. 16). As researchers, and as
Hughes et al.'s observation.
human beings, we cannot be entirely non-ideological but we can still try
Here we find the success formula for LS in a nutshell: combine
to study phenomena in an open-minded and realistic way.
something good associated with the leader with some good outcome.
18. Another popular element is always to call for more research and
A. Go for the neutral and open
better measurements. Keep everyone occupied! Claim that much pro-
gress has been made—but not too much. There is still a lot more to do.
1. Avoid the appealing or fashionable concept and go for more neutral
The fact that tens of thousands of studies on leadership have already
descriptions of what is to be focused upon. (For example, one could
been conducted and published is not a sign that doing more is ques-
ask: “please describe how you see your relation with your manager,”
tionable. After hundreds of studies in all the major subfields (e.g., LMX,
rather than instruct people to agree/disagree with statements such
TFL, AL, and leadership and innovation), one might assume that we
as “I hold him/her (the leader) in high respect”. Many people will
know more than we need to know or can digest, but on the contrary,
probably be unable to give a one-dimensional answer to such a
according to critics we know very little (Gottfredson et al., 2020;
question—respect is ambiguous and multi-dimensional and may not
Hughes et al., 2018; Sidani & Rowe, 2019; van Knippenberg & Sitkin,
be a relevant category for many people.)
2013), so new efforts are called for. Pointing out new intermediate
2. Do not compare the obviously good with something clearly bad or
variables to insert and investigate, new samples, new versions of
less good. Try either to work with the neutral or to compare various
questionnaires, and the general inconclusiveness of studies shows that
good things that may stand in a contradictory relationship, such as
more people can and should join the movement and cite your work,
the manager trying to take a clear leadership position and sub-
including your “call for more research.” Important here is to point to
ordinates acting more as professionals than followers and wanting to
(seemingly) manageable problems and a clear way forward, but nothing
avoid or downplay leadership in favor of autonomy and collegiality
that calls for basic questioning of assumptions, radical rethinking, or
(Blom & Alvesson, 2014).
demanding methods, as this would be to rock the boat too much. Good
logic here is to call for more research—and then respond to the calls of
B. Avoid over packaging and study themes
others in the subtribe.
19. Stick to your knitting. Avoid reading too much outside your
3. Investigate various themes separately, when relevant and in-
highly specialized subfield. You may get distracted and confused, feel
dependently, and do not lump four or five probably different qua-
doubt, engage in reflexivity (beyond addressing technicalities and
lities together in a specific “style,” but explore them as such: for
mixing mediating variables), face existential crises, and lower your self-
example, what does “intellectual stimulation” actually mean and
esteem by realizing how intellectually poor much of the subspecialized
how does the stimulating process work? (It may be more about
work is compared to more impressive scholarly contributions. You may
rhetoric and seduction than something more intellectual.) Of course,
confuse or frustrate colleagues who are assessing your work and who
this is a very complex issue, calling for careful exploration, not just
may be deeply ingrained in a narrow worldview and not understand or
asking people to put an X on a Likert scale.
want to hear about alternative viewpoints. Do not ask broader questions
4. Instead of defining a style or ideal so that the positive outcome is
about whether the type of work you are conducting is meaningful, re-
included, define and study a practice or trait so that its con-
levant, and beneficial, except in the sense of getting your research done
sequences are an open issue. Charisma or authenticity cannot be
and published. Work within the silo of the subtribe and a highly con-
studied based just on the effects, if one is interested in what the
strained logic, and be a loyal, focused insider who is predictable and
possibly charismatic or authentic person does. Some behaviors that
follows the recipe suggested here. In other words, cultivate functional
could be seen as core elements may be studied. But one may, of
stupidity (Alvesson & Spicer, 2016).
course, also look at attributions (Meindl et al., 1985; Sidani & Rowe,
2019).

9
M. Alvesson
C. Realize that the good and the good may not always go together
5. Be careful about linking the good to the good. Apart from avoiding the
positive theories, constructs and methods, and the confirmation bias, it
makes sense to look at the complexities, ambiguities, and, if one favors
the normative, mixed blessings of leadership. The problems of char-
isma are well known, as many charismatic persons have had cata-
strophic effects. But other seemingly good forms of leadership may
have problematic consequences: for example, the strong, persuasive
leader may make others passive and over-reliant on their leader (Einola
& Alvesson, 2020b); and authenticity, including sticking to values,
principles, and your true self, may lead to inflexibility and limited
personal development and change (Ibarra, 2015).
6. Avoid, as far as possible, tautological reasoning. Make sure that
different elements are not included in each other and that ante-
cedents, practices, and consequences are not confused, which is
fairly common—for example, in LMX (Gottfredson et al., 2020). Try
to follow leadership processes at close range and identify different
elements: intentions, acts, (immediate) responses, possible effects.
Study over time and see if a set of actions seem to lead to effects.
And realize that leadership is interaction; it seldom means the leader
doing certain things and others simply and passively responding.
D. Study actual practices
7. Avoid questionnaires, unless backed up by strong additional data.
After working with LMX 1–7 measurements (Gottfredson et al.,
2020), perhaps LMX measure 8 will not significantly improve the
situation. Consider if questions about complex leadership–follower
interactions and outcomes or even the perception of non-trivial
phenomena can reliably be answered in standardized ways. This
needs to be critically thought through and shown in better ways
than a sample responding to similar-sounding items in similar ways.
Some propose stricter designs, including the use of experiments
(Antonakis, 2017). Personally, I think that careful qualitative stu-
dies, with observations of manager–subordinate interactions and
interviews with people in the same relation, are an option, even
though this method often calls for case studies and means sacrifices
in terms of replicability, generalizations, and conventional notions
of rigor. Much qualitative work has its shortcomings, for example it
is often over-reliant on transcripts of minor verbal interactions or
interviews with just one party (e.g., a group of managers). Re-
searchers also need to pay attention to positive selection bias: that
is, the participation of only well-functioning managers or sub-
ordinates who are positive towards their superiors.
8. Carefully investigate your data and do not assume that they easily
mirror or even say something relevant about reality. Interviewing
managers about their leadership may, for example, only capture inter-
view talk, that is based on how people follow social scripts and con-
ventions for how to talk about leadership (Alvesson, 2011). Conduct a
critique of sources and make sure that they are reliable (Schaefer &
Alvesson, 2020): for example, by comparing questionnaires with some
observations or interviews, or double-checking interviews by inter-
viewing both managers and their subordinates within specific relations.
E. Take reality seriously
9. Take an interest in reality and be familiar with the context.
Consider what may go on in workplaces, what managers do, and
how people handle (and avoid) superior–subordinate relations.
Learning about managers at work is vital, either as part of the direct
study or as a way of getting background knowledge about the type
of setting being studied, whether it is head nurses in a healthcare
clinic or a top management group in an airline company.
10. Capture at least some of the complexities and dynamics, where
dilemmas and contradictions are part of managerial work and
10
The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439
efforts to lead. Few people can be consistent. Even if there is a
preferred mode of doing leadership, most people may have a fall-
back position and often compromise with ideals (or are very flex-
ible and uncommitted about values and principles at work).
F. Use leadership vocabulary sensitively
11. Be careful about defining “leadership” and make sure you study
this; alternatively, study MSX (manager–subordinate exchanges) or
PVM (perceived view of manager), which are probably the things
most commonly studied within the LMX stream(s) (Gottfredson
et al., 2020), or employee views/attributions of various “authen-
ticity” issues concerning their managers (Sidani & Rowe, 2019).
12. Look at the relationship (or lack thereof) between distinct elements
of leadership and avoid lumping things together.
13. Make sure, if you are interested in studying leaders and followers, that
those being studied actually see themselves as such, or behave in ways
consistent with the definitions. In many organizations, only a minority
of managers and subordinates may define their relationship in terms
of leadership. There may, of course, also be leadership and follower-
ship outside formal manager–subordinate relations, which could be
considered, unless the researcher is interested solely in managerial
leadership and disregards leadership outside formal hierarchies.
G. Cultivate a scholarly attitude
14. Be careful about strict social affiliations and defining yourself within
one academic subtribe. This easily leads to a closed mindset, con-
formism or over-reliance on pleasing the tribe. It is better to maintain
some distance and combine membership in different research com-
munities, go to different conferences, read different types of journals
and books, etc. See yourself as an intellectual, not as a TFL or follo-
wership researcher who is an expert in journal publishing.
15. Work with different authorial styles and avoid conformism. Writing a
more open, problematizing, question-asking and reflexivity-stimulating
text can encourage the reader to think and, together with the author,
relate more thoughtfully and creatively to the subject matter: for ex-
ample, through pointing to assumptions and counter-assumptions.
16. Encourage the devil's advocate—the one lurking inside you and
those who may be around. Counter-texts—taking a different stance
from the conventional one—may be hard to accept, but are ne-
cessary for the vitalization of a field. As demonstrated by the ap-
pearance of this paper, some journals are much more open to de-
viant papers than most people may expect.
H. Encourage reflexivity
17. Formulate your research result so that the reader is encouraged to
think, not just to buy into the idea that tautologies are true or that
the good leads to the good. Be careful with seductive LS language
and a romantic view of leadership. In the real world, people are
struggling with diversities of demands, principles and values, and
the imperfections of people and working life. The brave new world
of positive psychology, where authentic, transformational, service-
minded, ethical, and high-EQ leadership will fix most things, calls
for some confrontation with reality, which should be studied richly
and in depth, not through a framework based on wishful thinking.
18. Acknowledge when enough is enough and it is time to move on. Do
not continue forever with calls for more research. Hughes et al.
(2018), having reviewed 200 studies of leadership, creativity, and
innovation, find that studies probably only measure overall atti-
tudes to leaders and that we need new tools for measurement, van
Knippenberg and Sitkin (2013) conclude that all studies of TFL “say
very little” and Gottfredson et al. (2020) note that 50 years after the
start of LMX there is still basic confusion about what it means. It
may then be worth considering if we should give up these research
M. Alvesson
programs. Perhaps taxpayers' money or student fees should be de-
voted to something better than more research within domains that
make such little progress.
19. Read and think more broadly. Avoid the subtribe for some time and
read, think, talk, and collaborate more broadly, developing a
scholarly, intellectual (and not a subtribal) identity. Consult in-
tellectual giants in social science, rather than local, subtribal
heroes. Read broader studies of contemporary organizations and
working life, and make an effort to understand the cultural context
of what is being studied. Perhaps there are reasons to consider that,
while leadership is attractive, followership is less so and that far
from everyone is inclined to take the follower position that lea-
dership calls for. LS should perhaps not mark the boundaries for
researchers, but at times be exchanged for other and wider areas of
interest within behavioral and social science.
I. Use irony
20. Develop a sense of self‑irony regarding yourself, your work, and the
field—a degree of playfulness and distance may open up for ques-
tioning what you and other tribe members are doing and lead to
new creative insights.
Final words
Many LS people are unfortunately suffering from a misidentification
of themselves as being in the beauty industry. As Spoelstra and ten Bos
(2011) observed: “leadership scholars generally produce all sorts of
beautiful images of leadership” (p. 182). This basically says that if
“leaders” do something that sounds and is evaluated as “good,” then
there will be perceived outcomes that are also “good”:
“Nice” leadership appears as successful and “nasty” leadership ap-
pears as unsuccessful, irrespective of actual leader behaviors. The
reasons? First, favorable evaluations share common antecedents
with favorable focal outcomes; second, favorable outcomes render
evaluations more favorable. Or put in statistical language, the eva-
luative component entails omitted variables and is a source of re-
verse causality. (Fischer, 2018, p. 84)
The career- and publication-hungry leadership student is therefore
wise in doing as others, employing “the usual (misleadingly) romantic,
idealistic and individualistic ideas about leadership” (Learmonth &
Morrell, 2019, p. 113). Intellectually, these ideas may be fundamentally
problematic, but they indicate elements in a widely used “success for-
mula” for doing and publishing LS. Something similar is also at work in
many other fields, of course, but the target of this paper is LS, so I have
refrained from addressing other disciplines and areas. A great many of
the problems can be attributed to the social norms and institutionalized
templates in the field, rather than the individual shortcomings of re-
searchers. The temptation to package and sell appealing concepts and
recipes to businesses and students probably also accounts for some of
the peculiarities in LS.
Beneath the surface, the LS beauty industry may be rather ugly or at
least messy. Van Knippenberg and Sitkin (2013) comment on TFL: “the
vast majority of studies have relied on a measurement approach for
which there is overwhelming evidence of its invalidity” (p. 45). As the
vast majority of researchers do this, you are pretty sure to get away
with it. But this is intellectually and morally fundamentally un-
satisfactory. “If we continue to conduct typical LS we are likely to find
supportive results—but results that lack true meaning, substance, and
practical utility” (Hunter et al., 2007, p. 443). Given the recent and
expanding critique and very negative assessments of dominant theories
like TFL and AL as well as LS in general, we may face another period of
despair, where many people obtain much work by saying very little,
potentially misleading practitioners and legitimizing organizations
through leadership image boosting.
11
The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439
Forty years ago, there was much critique of a range of scientific defi-
ciencies, including “poor methodology, conceptual problems, definitional
ambiguities, inappropriate focus, lack of coherence and so on” (Meindl
et al., 1985, p. 78). Considering the critics of today, LS has, in key areas,
not made much progress. Still, one may guess that the defense barriers of
researchers with vested interest and identities associated with conven-
tional templates are strong. This is a broad theme, but for intellectual
reasons and for the long-term interest of the field we need to sort out the
relationship between the beauty and the beast, the nice superficial stuff
that people (pretend to) take seriously and the fundamental beast-qualities
of LS that appear when critically scrutinized. People in the field do not like
to rock the boat that they themselves are sitting in. But boat-rocking is
sometimes needed. As is clear from many of the references in this paper,
LQ, at least under the editorship at the time of writing, has opened up the
field of leadership studies for critique and problematization, not only—as
some other journals do—in essays or comments but as full-scale con-
tributions. This hopefully will open the way to productive discussions and
a much-needed higher level of critical scrutiny and reflexivity.
References
Alimo-Metcalfe, B., & Alban-Metcalfe, R. J. (2001). The development of a new transfor-
mational leadership questionnaire. Journal of Occupational and Organizational
Psychology, 74(1), 1–27.
Alvesson, M. (1996). Leadership studies: From procedure and abstraction to reflexivity
and situation. The Leadership Quarterly, 7(4), 455–485.
Alvesson, M. (2011). Interpreting interviews. London: Sage.
Alvesson, M. (2013). The triumph of emptiness: Consumption, higher education and work
organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Alvesson, M., Blom, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2017). Reflexive leadership: Organizing in an
imperfect world. London: Sage.
Alvesson, M., & Einola, K. (2019). Warning for excessive positivity: Authentic leadership
and other traps in leadership studies. The Leadership Quarterly, 30(4), 383–395.
Alvesson, M., Gabriel, Y., & Paulsen, R. (2017). Return to meaning. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Alvesson, M., & Kärreman, D. (2016). Intellectual failure and ideological success in or-
ganization studies: The case of transformational leadership. Journal of Management
Inquiry, 25(2), 139–152.
Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2013). Constructing research questions. London: Sage.
Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2016). The stupidity paradox. London: Profile.
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2003). The good visions, the bad micro-management and
the ugly ambiguity: Contradictions of (non-)leadership in a knowledge-intensive
company. Organization Studies, 24(6), 961–988.
Andriessen, E., & Drenth, P. (1984). Leadership: Theories and models. In P. Drenth, H.
Thierry, P. J. Willems, & C. J. de Wolff (Eds.). Handbook of work and organizational
psychology (pp. 481–520). Chichester: Wiley.
Antonakis, J. (2017). On doing better science: From thrill of discovery to policy im-
plications. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(1), 5–21.
Antonakis, J., & House, R. J. (2013). A re-analysis of the full-range leadership theory: The
way forward. In B. J. Avolio, & F. J. Yammarino (Eds.). Transformational and char-
ismatic leadership: The road ahead (pp. 35–37). Amsterdam: JAI Press.
Ashford, S. J., & Sitkin, S. B. (2019). From problems to progress: A dialogue on prevailing
issues in leadership research. The Leadership Quarterly, 30(4), 454–460.
Avolio, B. J. (2013). Foreword. In D. Ladkin, & C. Spiller (Eds.). Authentic leadership (pp.
xxii–xxvii). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Avolio, B. J., & Gardner, W. L. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the
root of positive forms of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 16(3), 315–338.
Avolio, B. J., Sosik, J. J., Jung, D. I., & Berson, Y. (2003). Leadership models, methods and
application. In W. C. Borman, D. R. Ilgen, R. J. Kilmoski, & I. B. Weiner (Eds.).
Handbook of psychology (pp. 277–308). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Avolio, B. J., & Walumbwa, F. O. (2014). Authentic leadership theory, research and
practice: Steps taken and steps that remain. In D. V. Day (Ed.). Oxford handbook of
organization and leadership (pp. 331–356). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Banks, G. C., Gooty, J., Ross, R. L., Williams, C. E., & Harrington, N. T. (2018). Construct
redundancy in leader behaviors: A review and agenda for the future. The Leadership
Quarterly, 29(1), 236–251.
Bass, B. M., & Steidlmeier, P. (1999). Ethics, character, and authentic transformational
leadership behavior. The Leadership Quarterly, 10(2), 181–217.
Bedeian, A., & Hunt, J. G. (2006). Academic amnesia and vestigial assumptions of our
forefathers. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(2), 190–205.
Blom, M., & Alvesson, M. (2014). Leadership on demand: Followers as initiators and in-
hibitors of managerial leadership. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 30(3), 344–357.
Boal, K., & Hooijberg, R. (2000). Strategic leadership research: Moving on. The Leadership
Quarterly, 11(4), 515–549.
Brunsson, N. (2003). Organized hypocrisy. In B. Czarniawska, & G. Sevon (Eds.). The
northern lights: Organization theory in Scandinavia (pp. 201–222). Malmö: Liber.
Bryman, A. (1996). Leadership in organizations. In S. R. Clegg, C. Hardy, T. B. Lawrence,
& W. R. Nord (Eds.). Handbook of organization studies (pp. 276–292). London: Sage.
Bryman, A. (2011). Research methods in the study of leadership. In A. Bryman, D.
M. Alvesson
Collinson, K. Grint, B. Jackson, & M. Uhl-Bien (Eds.). The sage handbook of leadership
(pp. 15–28). London: Sage.
Burns, J. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.
Collinson, D. (2012). Prozac leadership and the limits of positive thinking. Leadership,
8(2), 87–107.
Conger, J., Kanungo, R., & Menon, S. (2000). Charismatic leadership and follower effects.
Journal of Organizational Behaviour, 21(7), 747–767.
Cunha, M., Cunha, R., & Rego, A. (2009). Exploring the role of leader—Subordinate in-
teractions in the construction of organizational positivity. Leadership, 5(1), 81–101.
Cunliffe, A. L., & Eriksen, M. (2011). Relational leadership. Human Relations, 64(11),
1425–1449.
Dinh, J., Lord, R., Gardner, W., Meuser, J., Liden, R., & Hu, J. (2014). Leadership theory
and research in the new millennium: Current theoretical trends and changing per-
spectives. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), 36–62.
Einarsen, S., Aasland, M., & Skogstad, A. (2007). Destructive leadership behaviour. The
Leadership Quarterly, 18(3), 207–216.
Einola, K., & Alvesson, M. (2020a). Behind the numbers: Questioning questionnaires.
Journal of Management Inquiry (In press).
Einola, K., & Alvesson, M. (2020b). When “good” leadership backfires: Dynamics of the
leader/follower relation. Organization Studies (In press).
Fairhurst, G. (2007). Discursive leadership: In conversation with leadership psychology.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fischer, T. (2018). Leadership: Processes and ambiguities. Ph.D. thesisLausanne: University
of Lausanne Press.
Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. (2003). Working at a cynical distance: Implications for power,
subjectivity and resistance. Organization, 10(1), 157–179.
Fu, P. P., Tsiu, A. S., Liu, J., & Li, L. (2010). Pursuit of whose happiness? Executive
leaders’ transformational behaviours and personal values. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 55(2), 222–254.
Gardner, W. L., Cogliser, C. C., Davis, K. M., & Dickens, M. P. (2011). Authentic leader-
ship: A review of the literature and research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 22(6),
1120–1145.
Gardner, W. L., Lowe, K. B., Meuser, J. D., Noghani, F., Gullifor, D. P., & Cogliser, C. C.
(2020). The leadership trilogy: A review of the third decade of The Leadership
Quarterly. The Leadership Quarterly, 31(1).
Gottfredson, R. K., Wright, S. L., & Heaphy, E. D. (2020). A critique of the leader–member
exchange construct: Back to square one. The Leadership Quarterly, 31(1).
Graeber, D. (2013). On the phenomena of bullshit jobs: A work rant. STRIKE! Magazine. 17,
10–11 August.
Grint, K. (2010). The sacred in leadership: Separation, sacrifice and silence. Organization
Studies, 31(1), 89–107.
Hannah, S., Sumanth, J., Lester, P., & Cavarretta, R. (2014). Debunking the false di-
chotomy of leadership idealism and pragmatism: Critical evaluation and support of
newer genre leadership theories. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(5), 598–621.
Heifetz, R., & Laurie, D. (1994). The work of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 75(1),
124–134.
House, R. J., & Aditya, R. N. (1997). The social scientific study of leadership: Quo vadis?
Journal of Management, 23(3), 409–473.
Hughes, D. J., Lee, A., Wei Tian, A., Newman, A., & Legood, A. (2018). Leadership,
creativity and innovation: A critical review and practical recommendations. The
Leadership Quarterly, 29(5), 549–569.
Hunt, J. G. (2004). Task leadership. In G. R. Goethels, G. J. Sorensen, & J. M. Burns (Vol.
Eds.), Encyclopedia of leadership. Vol. IV. Encyclopedia of leadership (pp. 1524–1529).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hunter, S. T., Bedell-Avers, K. E., & Mumford, M. D. (2007). The typical leadership study:
Assumptions, implications and potential remedies. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(5),
435–446.
Ibarra, H. (2015). The authenticity paradox. Harvard Business Review, 93(1/2), 52–59.
Jackall, R. (1988). Moral mazes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jackson, B. K., & Parry, K. (2008). A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book
about studying leadership. London: Sage.
Kairos Futures/Chef (2006). Bäst på allt och aldrig nöjd. (“best on everything and never
pleased”) (Stockholm).
Kaiser, R. B., & Craig, S. B. (2014). Destructive leadership in and of organizations. In D. V.
Day (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of leadership and organizations (pp. 260–284). Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Ladkin, D. (2010). Rethinking leadership: A new look at old leadership questions.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Learmonth, M., & Morrell, K. (2019). Critical perspectives on leadership. London: Routledge.
Liden, R. C., & Antonakis, J. (2009). Considering context in psychological leadership
research. Human Relations, 62(11), 1587–1605.
Lindebaum, D., & Cartwright, S. (2010). A critical examination of the relationship be-
tween emotional intelligence and transformational leadership. Journal of Management
Studies, 47(7), 1317–1342.
Lovelace, J., Neely, B., Allen, J., & Hunter, S. (2019). Charismatic, ideological, & prag-
matic (CIP) model of leadership: A critical review and agenda for further research.
The Leadership Quarterly, 30(1), 96–110.
Lundholm, S. (2011). Meta-managing: A study in how superiors and subordinates manage
their relationships in everyday work. Ph.D. dissertationLund: Lund Business Press.
12
The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101439
McSweeney, B. (2006). Do we live in a post-bureaucratic epoque. Journal of
Organizational Change Management, 19(1), 22–37.
Meindl, J. R., Ehrlich, S. B., & Dukerich, J. M. (1985). The romance of leadership.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 30, 78–102.
Meslec, N., Curseu, P., Fodor, O. C., & Kenda, R. (2020). Effects of charismatic leadership
and rewards on individual performance. The Leadership Quarterly (in press).
Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as
myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2), 340–363.
Naus, F., van Iterson, A., & Roe, R. (2007). Organizational cynicism: Extending the exit,
voice, loyalty, and neglect model. Human Relations, 60(5), 683–718.
Nørmark, D., & Jensen, A. F. (2018). Pseudo-arbejde. (Pseudo work). Köpenhamn:
Gyldendal.
Ospina, S., & Sorenson, G. (2006). A constructionist lens on leadership: Charting new
territory. In G. Goethals, & G. Sorenson (Eds.). The quest for a general theory of lea-
dership (pp. 188–204). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Ospina, S., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2012). Mapping the terrain: Convergence and divergence
around relational leadership. In M. Uhl-Bien, & S. Ospina (Eds.). Advancing relational
leadership research: A dialogue among perspectives (pp. 203–225). Charlotte, NC:
Information.
Palanski, M., & Yammarino, F. (2009). Integrity and leadership: A multi-conceptual fra-
mework. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(3), 405–420.
Palmer, I., & Hardy, C. (2000). Thinking about management: Implications of organizational
debates for practice. London: Sage.
Parry, K. W., & Bryman, A. (2006). Leadership in organizations. In S. R. Clegg, C. Hardy,
T. B. Lawrence, & W. R. Nord (Eds.). Handbook of organization studies (pp. 447–468).
London: Sage.
Paulsen, R. (2014). Empty labour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roberts, N., & Bradley, R. (1988). The limits of charisma. In J. A. Conger, & R. N. Kanungo
(Eds.). Charismatic leadership: The elusive factor in organizational effectiveness (pp. 253–
275). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Sashkin, M. (2004). Transformational leadership approaches: A review and synthesis. In
J. Antonakis, (Ed.). The nature of leadership. Thousand Oakes: Sage.
Sashkin, M., & Garland, H. (1979). Laboratory and field research on leadership:
Integrating divergent streams. In J. Hunt, & L. Larson (Eds.). Crosscurrents in leader-
ship (pp. 67–87). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Schaefer, S., & Alvesson, M. (2020). Epistemic attitudes and source critique in qualitative
research. Journal of Management Inquiry, 29(1), 33–45.
Scherbaum, C., & Meade, A. (2009). Measurement in the organizational sciences:
Conceptual and technological advances. In D. Buchanan, & A. Bryman (Eds.). The sage
handbook of organizational research methods (pp. 636–653). London: Sage.
Shotter, J., & Gergen, K. (Eds.). (1989). The text of identity. London: Sage.
Sidani, Y., & Rowe, G. (2019). A reconceptualization of authentic leadership: Leader le-
gitimation via follower-centered assessment of the moral dimension. The Leadership
Quarterly, 29(6), 623–636.
Skrutkowski, M. (2017). Disgraced: A study of narrative identity in organizations that suffer
crises of confidence. Ph.D. dissertationLund: Lund Business Press.
Smircich, L., & Morgan, G. (1982). Leadership: The management of meaning. The Journal
of Applied Behavioral Science, 18(3), 257–273.
Spicer, A. (2018). Business bullshit. London: Routledge.
Spoelstra, S., & ten Bos, R. (2011). Leadership. In M. Painter-Morland, & R. ten Bos (Eds.).
Business ethics and continental philosophy (pp. 181–198). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Sveningsson, S., & Alvesson, M. (2016). Managerial lives: Leadership and identity in an
imperfect world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sweet, S., & Meiksins, P. (2008). Changing contours of work: Jobs and opportunities in the
new economy. Los Angeles: Pine Forge Press.
Thomas, R., & Linstead, A. (2002). Losing the plot? Middle managers and identity.
Organization, 9(1), 71–93.
Tourish, D. (2014). Leadership, more or less? A processual, communication perspective
on the role of agency in leadership theory. Leadership, 10(1), 79–98.
Tourish, D. (2019). Management studies in crises. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., & McKelvey, B. (2007). Complexity leadership theory: Shifting
leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era. The Leadership Quarterly,
18(4), 298–318.
van Knippenberg, D., & Sitkin, S. B. (2013). A critical assessment of charismatic-trans-
formational leadership research: Back to the drawing board? Academy of Management
Annals, 7(1), 1–60.
Walumbwa, F. O., Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Wernsing, T. S., & Peterson, S. J. (2008).
Authentic leadership: Development and validation of a theory-based measure. Journal
of Management, 34(1), 89–126.
Watson, T. J. (1994). In search of management: Culture, chaos and control in managerial
work. London: Routledge.
Western, S. (2008). Leadership: A critical text. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Wilson, S. (2013). The authentic leader reconsidered: Integrating the marvellous, mun-
dane and mendacious. In D. Ladkin, & C. Spiller (Eds.). Authentic leadership (pp. 55–
64). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Yukl, G. (1999). An evaluation of conceptual weaknesses in transformational and char-
ismatic leadership theories. The Leadership Quarterly, 10(2), 285–305.