To the things themselves: contributions of phenomenological epistemology to leadership studies

Abstract

Abstract Leadership theories developed since the beginning of the last century primarily represent positivist premises, strongly marked by the separation between subject and object, dichotomization, objectivism, quantification, reproduction, and validation. Based on this, we argue that the field needs epistemological approaches that challenge the mainstream of leadership studies. To this end, phenomenology can ground the possibility of understanding leadership as a world phenomenon. In theoretical terms, phenomenology is a return to the acts through which we gain knowledge of objects, thus the proposal to return to the things themselves. This article analyzes the contributions of phenomenology to leadership studies. In order to interact with such identified gaps in leadership studies, we explore the rescue of the lifeworld in the face of objectivism, the reconciliation between subject and object, the attribution of meanings, the epoché, and the change of positioning.