Leadership as identity: A practice-based exploration

Abstract

This chapter explores what a practice based approach to leadership identity could look like. To do so it unpacks a story of an observed team interaction in an IT environment. The chapter proposes that primary reliance on interviewing or participants’ explanation of leadership misses fundamental dimensions of the practice of leadership. Accordingly it focuses on use of space, artefacts and routines as an alternative series of constructs that reveal leadership identity through practice. Such a series of constructs focuses us on how leadership identity emerges between people as they go about connected work as opposed to their own internal reflections on the topic. This marks a radical departure from most identity related studies and shows the appeal of a practice approach particularly to research that wants to go beyond an individual as the source of leadership.