scholarly journals Placing Camelot: Cultivating leadership and learning in the Kennedy presidency

Leadership ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 174271502110421
Author(s):  
Leo McCann ◽  
Simon Mollan
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Development ◽  
Leadership Styles ◽  
Leadership Style ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Frontier ◽  
History Of ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Learning Event

The concept of ‘place’ can play a powerful role in understanding how leadership is socially constructed. This article explores the geographic, symbolic and mythic uses of place in the cultivation of a distinct leadership style around the Presidency of John F. Kennedy. It focuses on the history of a social and learning event that today might be called a leadership development programme: the ‘Hickory Hill Seminars’ of 1961-4, named after and mostly held at the specific location of Robert F. Kennedy’s home. These seminars – only lightly touched on in Kennedy-era history and leadership literatures – were semi-formal occasions organized by the historian Arthur Schlesinger that brought eminent public intellectuals of the day to present their work to the assembled group of insiders. The seminars functioned as a network in action, both cultivating and projecting certain cultural formations of leadership. Bounded by the geographic places inhabited by Washington elites, the seminars formed part of the broader construction of the symbolic place of the ‘New Frontier’ and the mythic place of ‘Camelot’. The Hickory Hill seminars were one part of a broad metaphysical canvas upon which a distinct presidential leadership style and ‘legacy’ was created. Building on critical and social constructivist perspectives, we argue that geographic, symbolic and mythic notions of place can be central to the social construction of particular leadership styles and legacies, but that these creations can be deceptive, and remain always vulnerable to critique, co-optation and distortion by opponents and rivals.

The New Frontier

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Disadvantaged Groups ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Frontier ◽  
Equal Opportunity Employer

Does the burgeoning Indian Information Technology (IT) sector represent a deviation from the historical arc of caste inequality or has it become yet another site of discrimination? Those who claim that the sector is caste-free believe that IT is an equal opportunity employer, and that the small Dalit footprint is due to the want of merit. But they fail to consider how caste inequality sneaks in by being layered on socially constructed ‘pure merit’, which favours upper castes and other privileged segments, but handicaps Dalits and other disadvantaged groups. In this book, Fernandez describes how the practice of pure and holistic merit are deeply embedded in the social, cultural, and economic privileges of the dominant castes and classes, and how caste filtering has led to the reproduction of caste hierarchies and consequently the small Dalit footprint in Indian IT.

Empowering and Directive Leadership: The Cost of Changing Styles

2021 ◽  
pp. 227853372110083
Author(s):  
Smita Mukherjee ◽  
Zubin R. Mulla
Keyword(s):  
Laboratory Experiment ◽  
Leadership Styles ◽  
Leadership Style ◽  
Affective Commitment ◽  
Team Outcomes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Satisfaction With The Leader ◽  
The Cost ◽  
First Time

We examine the cost of leaders changing between empowering and directive leadership styles on team outcomes. In a laboratory experiment, we collected data from 240 participants in 80 teams. Confederates enacted different leadership styles and led teams of participants in performing a series of tasks. When leaders changed their style from directive to empowering, teams took time to respond in terms of higher satisfaction with leader and affective commitment. However, when leaders changed their style from empowering to directive, the deterioration of satisfaction with leader and reduction in affective commitment were immediate. Moreover, teams of leaders who had been consistently directive showed higher affective commitment as compared to teams of leaders who had a history of being empowering but later shifted to being directive. First time managers can get inputs on how they should enact their leadership style and be aware that switching between styles may impose long-term costs on the team’s affective commitment and satisfaction with the leader.

The History of Unreason

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Samuel Teague ◽  
Peter Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
History Of

This chapter reflects on the importance of the historical narrative of mental illness, arguing that Western countries have sought new ways to confine the mentally ill in the post-asylum era, namely through the effects of stigma and medicalization. The walls are invisible, when once they were physical. The chapter outlines how health and illness can be understood as socially constructed illustrating how mental health has been constructed uniquely across cultures and over time. To understand this process more fully, it is necessary to consider the history of madness, a story of numerous social flashpoints. The trajectories of two primary mental health narratives are charted in this chapter. The authors argue that these narratives have played, and continue to play, an important role in the social construction of mental illness. These narratives are “confinement” and “individual responsibility.” Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Roy Porter, the authors describe how Western culture has come to consider the mentally ill as a distinct, abnormal other.

Tracing the Sociopolitical Reality of Race

What Is Race? ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 4-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Haslanger
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Cultural Empowerment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Theorist ◽  
Philosophical Questions

The concept of race has a troublesome history. It has been used to divide societies and subordinate groups in unjust ways. It has also been a source of pride and strength for the subordinate (as well as, unfortunately, for the dominant). Historically it has also carried assumptions of naturalness: races are natural kinds that exist independent of human thought and activity. In recent years, however, the naturalness of race has been challenged and replaced with the idea that race is socially constructed. This raises many important philosophical questions: How should one inquire into the concept of race when there is such broad controversy over what race is? What are the relevant phenomena to be considered? How should such an inquiry take into account the social stakes (e.g. the potential impact of maintaining or rejecting the concept of race)? Is it possible for concepts to evolve, or is conceptual replacement the only option? In Chapter 1, the author takes up these methodological questions and positions herself as a critical theorist considering what role the concept of race has in the sociopolitical domain. She argues that there is a meaningful political conception of race that is important in order to address the history of racial injustice. This is compatible with there being different conceptions of race that are valuable in other contexts and for different purposes (e.g., for medical research, cultural empowerment).

LEADERSHIP STYLE AND PERSONALITY OF MOCK JURORS AND THE EFFECT ON SENTENCING DECISIONS

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-424
Author(s):  
Paul M. Valliant ◽  
Jennifer E. Loring
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Styles ◽  
Leadership Style ◽  
Social Presence ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Mock Jurors ◽  
Personality Variables ◽  
Sentencing Decisions ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Criminal Matters

Attitudes toward sentencing decisions were examined in 135 University students. Subjects were administered the Leadership Ability Evaluation (LAE) and the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). They were asked to make sentencing decisions regarding two mock criminal matters. Data were evaluated using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). In comparison to other leadership styles, individuals who had a democratic-cooperative leadership style scored significantly higher on personality variables of good-impression, self-control, tolerance, and achievement via independence than other leadership styles. In the autocratic-aggressive group, males scored much lower on communality than females. The females in the study scored significantly lower than males on social presence, socialization, and good impression. A two way interaction was noted for leadership style and gender for sentencing. Females with a democratic-cooperative leadership style were significantly harsher in sentencing than males from the same group.

Anti-Semitism, Unhappy Consciousness and the Social Construction of the Palestinian Nakba

2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 397-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yakub Halabi
Keyword(s):  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
Refugee Problem ◽  
State Of Israel

The history of Zionism is composed of two narratives: One is the history of anti-Semitism that begot Zionism, and the other is the history of the Zionist–Palestinian conflict that begot the Palestinian refugee problem (the Nakba). So far, these two narratives have been investigated in parallel and, thus, they were kept artificially disconnected from each other. The history of the Palestinian catastrophe has been examined mainly in the light of the 1947–1949 events that culminated in the 1948 War and the birth of the Nakba. This narrative ignores the identity of the Zionists, especially the link between anti-Semitism and the Nakba. Many Israeli scholars claim that the territorial demands of the two groups had ushered in the 1948 War, the outcome of which was determined by the balance of power between the Zionist forces and the Arabs. Based on theories of social constructivism, this essay claims, however, that the Nakba and the establishment of the state of Israel are a socially constructed enterprise that reflected the shared ideas, the collective unhappy consciousness and the identity of Zionists and their protracted history in Europe. Anti-Semitism shaped the world views of Zionists and their desire to establish a Jewish state on the total area of mandatory Palestine—the area west of the Jordan River under British administration—in which the Jews aspired to live alone with themselves. Finally, in order to uproot the ‘diaspora mentality’ from the Jewish newcomers to Palestine and to construct a Jewish nationality, the Zionists had excluded the Palestinians from the Hebrew labour market.

scholarly journals Are equality policies reflected in textbooks?

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-166
Author(s):  
Olga Moreno Fernández ◽  
Pablo Ruiz-Alba
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Secondary Education ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Inclusive Language ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Publishing Houses ◽  
Formed Part

This research has used as a technique the analysis of the content, both of the language and of the images of the textbooks that have formed part of the sample, taking as a reference the criteria of the instructions of 14 June 2018 on textbooks. The focus has been on the number of images of men and women, as well as the use of language in the three publishers studied. The sample consisted of 3 textbooks used in the Social Sciences subject (Geography and History) of the 2nd year of Compulsory Secondary Education of the publishing houses Vicens Vives, Oxford and Santillana. Use of inclusive language, 158 images analysed for category 2. Diversity, and 286 images analyzed for category 3. Social roles. The results indicate that equality policies in Andalusia aim to achieve goals that are still far from being achieved, at least in the field of education and more specifically in the values that are transmitted, so it is necessary to continue working so that equality is reflected in the textbooks present in the school classrooms.  

Constructionist Organizational Data Mining

2011 ◽  
pp. 696-700
Author(s):  
Isabel Ramos ◽  
João Álvaro Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organizational Knowledge Creation ◽  
Technology Applications ◽  
History Of ◽  
Adequate Representation ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Objective Existence ◽  
Objective Study

Scientific or organizational knowledge creation has been addressed from different perspectives along the history of science and, in particular, of social sciences. The process is guided by the set of values, beliefs, and norms shared by the members of the community to which the creator of this knowledge belongs, that is, it is guided by the adopted paradigm (Lincoln & Guba, 2000). The adopted paradigm determines how the nature of the studied reality is understood, the criteria that will be used to assess the validity of the created knowledge, and the construction and selection of methods, techniques, and tools to structure and support the creation of knowledge. This set of ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions that characterize the paradigm one implicitly or explicitly uses to make sense of the surrounding reality is the cultural root of the intellectual enterprises. Those assumptions constrain the accomplishment of activities such as construction of theories, definition of inquiry strategies, interpretation of perceived phenomena, and dissemination of knowledge (Schwandt, 2000). Traditionally, social realities such as organizations have been assumed to have an objective nature. Assuming this viewpoint, the knowledge we possess about things, processes, or events that occur regularly under definite circumstances, should be an adequate representation of them. Knowledge is the result of a meticulous, quantitative, and objective study of the phenomenon of interest. Its aim is to understand the phenomenon in order to be able to anticipate its occurrence and to control it. Organizations can instead be understood as socially constructed realities. As such, they are subjective in nature since they do not exist apart from the organizational actors and other stakeholders. The stable patterns of action and interaction occurring internally and with the exterior of the organization are responsible for the impression of an objective existence. The adoption of information technology applications can reinforce or disrupt those patterns of action and interaction, thus becoming key elements in the social construction of organizational realities (Lilley, Lightfoot, & Amaral, 2004; Vaast & Walsham, 2005).

Haslanger’s Reply to Glasgow, Jeffers, and Spencer

What Is Race? ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 150-175
Author(s):  
Joshua Glasgow ◽  
Sally Haslanger ◽  
Chike Jeffers ◽  
Quayshawn Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Cultural Empowerment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Theorist ◽  
Philosophical Questions

The concept of race has a troublesome history. It has been used to divide societies and subordinate groups in unjust ways. It has also been a source of pride and strength for the subordinate (as well as, unfortunately, for the dominant). Historically it has also carried assumptions of naturalness: races are natural kinds that exist independent of human thought and activity. In recent years, however, the naturalness of race has been challenged and replaced with the idea that race is socially constructed. This raises many important philosophical questions: How should one inquire into the concept of race when there is such broad controversy over what race is? What are the relevant phenomena to be considered? How should this inquiry take into account the social stakes, e.g. the potential impact of maintaining or rejecting the concept of race? Is it possible for concepts to evolve, or is conceptual replacement the only option? In Chapter 1, the author took up these methodological questions and positioned herself as a critical theorist considering what role the concept of race has in the social-political domain. Here she argues that there is a meaningful political conception of race that is important in order to address the history of racial injustice. This is compatible with there being different conceptions of race that are valuable in other contexts and for different purposes, e.g. for medical research, cultural empowerment. She argues that, although on this conception race is socially constructed, the resulting notion has a claim to being “our” concept of race.

The influence of the chief audit executive’s leadership style on factors related to internal audit effectiveness

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (8/9) ◽  
pp. 807-835 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciano Oreste Dal Mas ◽  
Karin Barac
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Development ◽  
Leadership Styles ◽  
Leadership Style ◽  
Internal Audit ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Internal Auditors ◽  
Transactional Leaders ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
Training Programmes

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the leadership style of a chief audit executive (CAE) and the perceived effectiveness of the internal auditing (IA) function that he/she leads. Perceived IA effectiveness is based on identified attributes in the literature influencing IA effectiveness. The aim of this paper is thus to expand the IA effectiveness debate by adding individual differences in CAEs’ leadership styles as a research focus. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative approach is followed. A survey was conducted on a sample of 58 IA students enrolled in a master’s degree programme at a South African university; all students hold senior positions in IA. Findings The study confirms that the CAE leadership style significantly influences the identified attributes of perceived IA effectiveness. It further shows that the traditional conceptualisation of leadership (as transformational, transactional and/or laissez-faire) might not be appropriate for or compatible with leaders of professional teams in a regulated environment. Practical implications Practically, the study identifies and explores attributes influencing IA effectiveness that are within the purview of the CAE’s leadership style and within his/her ability to influence. This information could (re)direct leadership development training programmes presented in industry and by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), and at organisational level, it could inform appointment and retention and succession practices for heads of and senior management in IA. Social implications CAEs are cautioned about the limitations imposed by laissez-faire leadership on IA effectiveness. They should strive to become both transformative and transactional leaders as it has a significant influence on the effectiveness of their IA functions, and by being more effective, they can demonstrate the value proposition of IA. Organisations need to create the environment in which CAEs can act as transformational and transactional leaders. The IIA, as the pre-eminent professional body, could become involved in developing leadership skills of its members. The IIA could provide guidance on leadership styles for CAEs and could also offer formal training initiatives to internal auditors on skills needed to lead IA teams. Originality/value This paper may open a new research area in IA effectiveness by focussing on the role and leadership qualities of the CAE.

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