Dialogical Leadership and Its Foundations

This book demonstrates Dialogical Leadership which is the workplace application of the Dialogical Self Theory, first developed by Dutch psychologist Hubert Hermans in the 1990s. It encourages scientists and science-practitioners interested in leadership issues to discuss the power of dialogue in solving workplace culture problems. Van Loon’s work extends the concept of Dialogical Self Theory to the leadership of organizations, drawing on social constructionism by the American psychologist Ken Gergen and the leadership framework of British academic Keith Grint. This book explicitly links the health of organizations to the psychological and emotional health of those who lead them, concluding with the factors of teamwork and motivation.

Key Concepts of Dialogical Leadership

Dialogical Leadership jettisons the idea that organizations are run by ‘superheroes’, presenting a more realistic picture of the workplace. This is the first book to isolate ‘generative dialogue’ as the key mechanism for successful change and transformation programs in organizations. It rejects the idea that successful organizations are ‘rational systems’ conforming to scripts laid down by leaders, and it places dialogue and co-creation – ‘reciprocal exchange’ – at the heart of successful change programs. It starts from the kinds of questions leaders ask themselves – their ‘interior dialogue’ – and the quality of their interactions with others – their external dialogues – which can as shown in this book, be the difference between success and failure.