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Profaning the sacred in leadership studies: a reading of Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase

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Author

Summary, in English

The leadership literature is full of stories of heroic self-sacrifice. Sacrificial leadership behaviour, some scholars conclude, is to be recommended. In this article we follow Keith Grint's conceptualization of leadership as necessarily pertaining to the sacred, butdrawing on Giorgio Agamben's notion of profanationwe highlight the need for organization scholars to profane the sacralizations embedded in leadership thinking. One example of this, which guides us throughout the article, is the novel A Wild Sheep Chase, by the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. By means of a thematic reading of the novel, we discuss how it contributes to profaning particular notions of sacrifice and the sacred in leadership thinking. In the novel, self-sacrifice does not function as a way of establishing a leadership position, but as a way to avoid the dangers associated with leadership, and possibly redeem humans from their current collective urge to become leaders. Inspired by Murakami's fictional example, we call organization scholars to engage in profanation of leadership studies and, in doing so, open new vistas for leadership theory and practice.

Publishing year

2013

Language

English

Pages

860-880

Publication/Series

Organization

Volume

20

Issue

6

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • Heroic leadership
  • leadership studies
  • literature
  • novel
  • profanation
  • sacrifice

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1350-5084