Teaching leadership critically: new directions for leadership pedagogy

Conventional approaches to teaching leadership in business schools have overrelied on transformational models that stress the role of charismatic individuals, usually white men, in setting compelling visions to which all organizational actors are expected to subscribe. Such approaches pay insufficient attention to the dynamics of power, the influence of context, and the significance of follower dissent and resistance. This article examines the pedagogical potential of critical leadership studies: an emergent, alternative paradigm questioning deep-seated assumptions that power and agency should be vested in the hands of a few leaders and exploring the dysfunctional consequences of such power dynamics for individuals, organizations, and societies. It also recognizes that follower compliance and conformity, as well as resistance and dissent, are important features of leadership dynamics. Informed by our own experience of trying to teach leadership more critically, this essay highlights a number of guiding principles that we have used in the classroom to encourage a more questioning approach from our students in their study of leadership.