Leadership, not leaders: On the study of leadership as practices and interactions

SummaryIn this paper, we suggest a perspective within leadership research that has an analytical focus on leadership as it is practiced in daily interaction, rather than on individual leaders. We draw upon recent developments in leadership research that emphasize leadership as processes, practices and interactions in formulating basic scientific assumptions of such a perspective. The suggested perspective will enable us to gain new understandings of how leadership activities emerge in social interaction and of how institutionalized notions of leadership are brought into – and re-constructed in – these same activities. Given this reasoning, we would suggest that the empirical study of leadership should be based in a process ontology, focused on leadership practices as constructed in interactions.