This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Iszatt-White, M. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Leadership as Emotional Labour: The Effortful Accomplishment of Valuing Practices

Lancaster University Management School, UK, m.iszattwhite{at}lancaster.ac.uk

Within the context of an ethnographic study of leadership in the learning and skills sector, this article focuses on the role of leadership in making stafffeel valued (Iszatt-White & Mackenzie-Davey, 2003) and the‘emotional labour’ (Hochschild, 1983) through which leaders’ valuing practices are accomplished. By shadowing college leaders, observation was made of the day-to-day practices through which they sought to give staff a feeling of being valued. The article provides evidence of such‘valuing practices’ before going on to explicate the notion of emotional labour— previously researched largely in the services sector— in the professional context of educational leadership. In doing so, it differentiates professional emotional labour from‘emotional intelligence’ (Goleman, 1995), a more common theme within the management literature. It also explores the role of social identity and value congruence in moderating the‘emotional dissonance’(Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993) which can result from a requirement for prolonged emotion work.

Key Words: emotional intelligence • emotional labour • leadership • social identity theory • valuing practices

Leadership, Vol. 5, No. 4, 447-467 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1742715009343032


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?