The blog »Existential Leadership – Leadership Topics for Thinking Practitioners and Practical Thinkers« is a joint project of Dr Georg Martensen (Braunschweig, member of the advisory board of the German Empowerment Institute) and René Märtin (Osnabrück).
The first existential blog on organisation and leadership promotes existential thinking and understanding. In addition to articles on central questions of organisation and leadership, contributions to book launches and reviews will be among the topics and themes of the day.
The authors are following logotherapy and existential analysis as well as Daseinsanalysis. The authors draw, among other things, from hermeneutic-phenomenological and existential-philosophical sources as well as existential and existentialist thinking, and draw on their own rich experience in leadership functions, in management, in political and organisational consultancy. Their texts and approaches are pointed, non-objective, argumentative, stimulating – and profoundly committed to humane questions of existence.
Once, we »really take a look at what existential writers have to say, [we] may find that things can be seen very differently. The particular emphasis on temporality and time, with its constant reminders that life is short and we all shall die, may seem negative or defeatist but can also be seen as a clarion call to give each minute of life the importance due to something so fleeting. If we can do this, the world may take on a sharper and more interesting flavour. Indeed, we may find a world which is both more exciting, and more challenging due to its temporality, and where the need to consider and take responsibility for our own individual actions becomes paramount. (xiv). … Just as life is essentially relational and that we are always living in relation to others the same is obviously true in leadership. A Leader cannot exist without a follower. Each Follower will bring their own set of values, believes and meaning into their relationship with a leader. If we understand and work with this, we are beginning to approach leadership in an existential manner.« – Monica Hanaway, The Existential Leader (2019).
All articles on »Existential Leadership« and information on the project can be found at www.existential-leadership.org.
Current articles
Findings on organisation, leadership, and counselling in change
