Rethinking Leadership

Topic:

Leadership and the uses that are made of it have an undeniable claim to be one of the socially consequential areas of political, moral, and economic philosophy that traditional philosophy journals tend to focus on. And yet, now 20 years after Joanne B. Ciulla laid out progress to date on the philosophy of leadership and called for more philosophical work on the nature and ends of leadership[1] more philosophical work is being done in this area, both by philosophers and by leadership scholars using the tools of philosophy.  Leadership, we feel, remains a field of inquiry that is (still) ready and waiting for careful conceptual analysis.

[1] Ciulla, Joanne. (2005). The state of leadership ethics and the work that lies before us. Business Ethics: A European Review. 14. 323 - 335. 10.1111/j.1467-8608.2005.00414.x.

Format:

This will be a small two-day workshop on the philosophy of leadership, in Vienna, for late July. Following on from the first workshop in 2025, the format will be a small group with longer than usual round table sessions for in depth discussions. Full papers will be required 4 weeks before the workshop to allow for in depth commentary. 

Papers will each have a dedicated reader, with author response and group discussions. 

The focus is on exploring leadership through the lens of analytic philosophy.  Anyone with any training can participate, as long as you’re ready to use that lens for two days.  No papers will be presented; all materials will be distributed and read in advance.

We plan to have up to ten sessions.  If you want us to discuss your work, please email us an abstract for approval before April 30th. 

Graduate students with relevant background are welcome and encouraged, please email us for more information.