Moderne refleksiv ledelse

Abstract

Modern reflexive ledership The communicative transformation of modernity has made it necessary to formulate a new understanding of leader-ship which is in contrast to the dominating management thinking. The global communication society opens up for a new form of leadership, which could be called reflexive leadership. The reflexive leadership is founded on a radical free communication, where there is no hinderance of the possibility to get information and where all participants have the possibility to have a reflexive relation to communication. The concept of reflexive leadership is developed both from a sociological and a philosophical perspective. From the sociological perspective it is developed through a critique of Max Weber’s three ideal types of leadership, namely the traditional, the charismatic and the legal form of leadership. From the philosophical perspective the concept is developed through a critique of the concept of leader-ship by Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel and Habermas. It is shown that communication has to be in the centre of leadership in a communicative oriented modern society. On this background it is shown that reflexive leadership has the advantage that it makes possible to reflect normative problems in modern society. Reflexive leadership can be seen as a further development of modern demo-cratic society towards an open society which is building on reflexive social relations in all the institutions of society.