ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes to discussion on responsible leadership by exploring how an integrative approach to leadership may foster more inclusive forms of responsibility in companies, especially at the practice level. At the core of integrative leadership is the view that formal hierarchical positions of leaders are not the only signs of leadership; rather, leadership should be enabled in interaction among many people.
The data consists of ten Finnish business leaders’ narratives about responsible leadership. Listening to the stories that leaders tell can improve our understanding of the often invisible socially constructed nature of leadership and its role in opening or closing down possibilities for responsibility in leadership. The stories of business leaders support the idea that we can better understand the integration of responsibility at a practical level in companies by examining the relational processes of responsible leadership. In the stories, leaders position themselves in the middle of the people and appropriate responses to challenges are co-created together with the people around them.
