ABSTRACT

Based on the assumption that employees that feel good are better equipped to manage stress, anxieties, uncertainties and change, a variety of managerial means has been developed as ways of improving employees’ well-being, many of which focus on employees’ feelings and emotional status. We see this for example in the rather recent development in the emergence of therapeutic culture, emotional management and coaching. Targeted in this development is the presumed well-being of organizational members, their emotional status, self-esteem and self-actualization, often also described as important means for increased motivation and performance among employees. Many modern ideas of leadership are consequently intimately interwoven with this development

subjectivity are managed and organized’. An outcome of this development is an increasing body of literature suggesting that leadership activities should target peoples’ need for recognition and praise. The renaissance of these ideas and concepts has its intellectual roots in many of the relationship-oriented behavioural ideas of effective leadership developed during the 1950s (Yukl 2006). Conceptualized as considerate and/or participative leadership, these ideas are sometimes said to involve a radical shift in understanding leadership in organizations, from command and control of employees to issues of motivation (Western 2008). In contrast to the classic idea of leaders as commanders (see Chapter 7 on the leader as commander), leadership also came to mean privileging employee social and psychological well-being and welfare. These ideas, intimately related to the Human Relations movement (e.g. Mayo 1949) suggested that more employee participation is beneficial in order to get happier workers and improved productivity. Fuelling and maintaining employee motivation is a key issue in this development and leadership researchers took up the notion of consideration as a way of understanding what triggers people beyond traditional command and control notions of role/task specification and expectations. In general, consideration involves leader concern for people and interpersonal relationships.