LEADERSHIP AS CARE-FUL CO-DIRECTING CHANGE: A PROCESSUAL APPROACH TO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP FOR ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Abstract

This chapter makes the case for a processual approach to understanding ethical change leadership in order to develop a more fine-grained understanding of how leadership matters. It starts with a vignette taken from current empirical studies on digitalization, leadership, and organizing. This vignette is utilthere isized as an illustration of the theoretical argument made. The argument is presented in three steps. First, the vignette is reread and some critical questions as posed. Second, it delves deeper into the perspective that leadership may be understood as a process, and what this means for understanding leadership for change. Third, a processual conceptualization of ethics that is not centered on individuals, but focused on what is produced, re-produced, and not-produced in the doing of leadership for organizational change, is presented. This leads to the introduction of the concept of care, and propose the idea of care-ful co-directing change.