Martin Blom

This paper addresses the challenge of how to understand and handle divergent views on the need for leadership interventions between managers and subordinates. Recent popular discourses of leadership, such as the authentic leadership perspective, privileges the potential leader himself or herself as the origin of leadership. This perspective thereby neglects the view of the followers and the essentially socially constructed relationship between leaders and followers. Based upon a critique against essentialist views of leadership such as authentic leadership we suggest a model on how to analyse divergent views between leaders and followers and its implications regarding managerial discretion regarding leadership initiatives.