ABSTRACT
A few years ago, the author attended a brief presentation of some extensive academic research into leadership performance. Leadership here was taken to mean the contribution of the organization’s ‘top person’. The basis of the researcher’s conclusion was their discovery of a “statisti-cally significant” correlation between one aspect of the leader’s background and the chosen measure(s) of business success. Medical and technological advances, for example, owe everything to rigorous scientific research. Conventional role expectations and political considerations push managers towards endorsing these in their formal interactions, as well as describing their actions in these terms in official settings. All of which inevitably diverts their attention away from the conversational themes and patterns of interaction that are organizing their own and others’ participation.
