The Existential Leader

An Authentic Leader For Our Uncertain Times

Monica Hanaway

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429681561
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Psychologie
• Sous-sujet: Industrie- & Organisationspsychologie

The Existential Leader: An Authentic Leader For Our Uncertain Times invites us to reconsider our preconceptions about leadership, introducing a new model more in line with our uncertain times: existential leadership.

Monica Hanaway presents an illuminating overview of existential thinking and describes how an understanding of philosophy can improve leadership, drawing on existing leadership theories to show how this new model is more fitting for the challenges of today. The approach is primarily philosophical, rather than systemic or behavioural. It invites us to re-examine what we think about leaders, whether we really need leaders at all, and, if so, which existential concerns leaders must address. The book offers an introduction to the development of existential thinking and main concerns, including meaningfulness, anxiety, loneliness, freedom, choice and responsibility, authenticity, and values and beliefs. These are explored in the leadership context, with practical approaches for using these in everyday leadership dilemmas. Unique and accessible, The Existential Leader paves a way for modern leadership perfectly suited to the challenging times we live in.

Innovative, theoretical and applicable to our changing world landscape, this book will appeal to coaches, HR and L&D professionals, executives, business consultants, and current and future leaders. It will also be of interest to academics and students of coaching psychology, applied philosophy and psychology.

Chapter 1

What do we mean by ‘existential’?

If we are to develop an understanding of existential leadership, we need firstly to understand what we mean by the terms ‘existential’ and ‘leadership’. Let us start by exploring what we mean by ‘existential’.

Marcel first coined the term ‘existentialism’ (l’existentialisme) in the early 1940s as a way of describing the thoughts of his friends Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. There was a precedent for the term in the German philosopher Karl Jaspers’ idea of ‘Existenzphilosophie’, as well as Martin Heidegger’s idea that when it comes to the kind of beings we are, our essence lies in our existence. Indeed, even earlier, Socrates showed a deep concern with the self and self-knowledge, so the roots of existentialism can be seen in the very early stages of western philosophy.

Today we will regularly see or hear the word ‘existential’ scattered around the media in connection with all manner of things. Currently, it would seem the world is governed by existential angst and we are in the midst of endless existential crises. Generally, the word is being used to imply something mysterious, complex, profound or sometimes even just trendy or cool. However we understand it in the media field, we should perhaps accept that even existential scholars are not in full agreement as to what constitutes existentialism.

This is quite fitting, as existentialism emphasises the unique perspective each of us brings to our experience of the world. As Spinelli (2005) described it, we live in ‘an interpreted world’ in which we come to our own conclusions about the meaning we choose to give things. Despite the growing common usage of the word, what can we understand by the term ‘existential’?

The British philosopher Gary Cox (2009) in his book How to Be an Existentialist: or How to Get Real, Get a Grip and Stop Making Excuses offers us a useful definition to start our own exploration of what existentialism is, ‘Existentialism is all about freedom and personal choice. It is all about facing up to reality with honesty and courage and seeing things through to the end, as well as being about putting words like choice in italics.’ He warns that it requires effort to sustain the approach, believing that most people will want you to succumb to what existentialists call ‘bad faith’ or in Cox’s words, ‘Bad faith is a lot like what serious artists, musicians and rock stars call “selling out”’.

Essentially, existentialism is about the human condition and calls on each of us to live honestly, or as existentialists would term it, authentically, from a starting point of life having no meaning other than the one we choose to give it. It focuses on the belief that inner conflict within a person is due to that individual’s confrontation with the givens of existence – the inevitability of death, freedom and its attendant responsibility, existential isolation, and meaninglessness.

Existential thinkers and writers have focused on different aspects of the philosophy and are not always in agreement. Nor would some of them accept the label of ‘existentialist’ in relation to themselves. Having them round the same dinner party table would certainly produce an interesting evening. I shall just give a brief overview of the approach of a few key ‘existential’ thinkers so we can begin to identify some common interests.

A brief overview

Overall, the core philosophy of existentialism can be described as being concerned with the ‘problem of existence’. This has been seen as a product of the twentieth century, with its characteristic themes of interest in alienation, angst, absurdity and preoccupation. However, it has much earlier beginnings and it derives directly from Kierkegaard, who was born almost a century before Sartre.

Kierkegaard (1813–55) was ahead of his time. He brought about a long-overdue reexamination of one of the first philosophical questions ever to be asked: ‘What is existence?’ Kierkegaard insisted that every individual should not only ask this question but should make his very life his own subjective answer to it. He believed that Christian beliefs and the ‘objectivity’ of science were being misused to avoid the anxiety of human existence. He called for people to be courageous and take the leap of faith and live with passion and commitment from the inward depth of an uncertain existence. In Kierkegaard’s view, this purely subjective entity lay beyond the reach of reason, logic, philosophical systems, theology, or even ‘the pretences of psychology’.

Nietzsche (1844–1900) is known for his statement that God is dead. He saw the idea of God as outmoded and limiting and believed that we must re-evaluate existence in light of this. He challenged people to accept the reality of free will and to take responsibility for their choices, introducing the important existential themes of freedom, choice, responsibility and courage.

Thinkers like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche looked to Husserl’s phenomenology (Husserl 2009) for a method to address and explore these themes. Husserl proposed a whole new mode of investigation and understanding of the world and our experience of it. Prejudice and assumptions needed to be put aside or ‘bracketed’, in order for us to meet the world afresh and discover what is absolutely fundamental and only directly available to us through intuition. If people want to grasp the essence of things, instead of explaining and analyzing them, they have to learn to describe and understand them.

Heidegger (1889–1976) applied this phenomenological method to understanding the meaning of being (Heidegger 1962). He argued that deep philosophical thinking rather than scientific knowledge can bring greater insight into what it means to be human in the world. The importance of time, space, death and human relatedness lies at the heart of his thinking. He favoured hermeneutics, an old philosophical method of investigation, which is the art of interpretation. Unlike interpretation as practised in psychoanalysis (which consists of referring a person’s experience to a pre-established theoretical framework) this kind of interpretation seeks to understand how the person themself subjectively experiences something.

Sartre (1905–80) contributed many other strands of existential exploration, particularly in terms of emotions, imagination, and the person’s place in a social and political world. Existentialists suggest that it is possible for people to face the anxieties of life head-on and embrace the human condition of aloneness, to revel in the freedom to choose and take full responsibility for their choices. They aim to have the courage to be. This does not mean ignoring the feelings of meaninglessness, but choosing new meanings for their lives.

Practical use of existential thought

At the beginning at the twentieth century we begin to see some psychotherapists inspired by phenomenology and existential thought. They sought to explore the possibilities of using this thinking in working with people. Often cited as early existential therapists, Otto Rank, an Austrian psychoanalyst, and Ludwig Binswanger, a psychiatrist at the Kreuzlingen sanatorium, attempted to bring existential insights to their work with patients. Binswanger’s work inspired others such as Paul and Rollo May, who played an important role in developing existential therapy in America.

Further development took place in Europe, with the development of a method of existential analysis by Medard Boss in close co-operation with Heidegger, and with Viktor Frankl’s development of logotherapy, an existential therapy which focused on finding meaning. In France, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and others further developed existential ideas.

Medard Boss (1963, 1994) developed Daseinsanalysis, a form of psychotherapy which united the psychotherapeutic practice of psychoanalysis with the existential-phenomenological philosophy of Heidegger. In this, existence is open to any and all experience, we are alone with ourselves. It focused on concepts of personhood, mortality and the paradox of being alone yet living in relationship to others.

As mentioned earlier, Viktor Frankl (2003), an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist and importantly a Holocaust survivor founded ‘logotherapy’, a form of existential analysis. He contributed enormously to our exploration of meaning and the essential role it plays in man’s existence. His experience in a concentration camp led him to believe that even in the most brutal circumstances man will seek out a meaning to make the experience bearable. He identified three psychological reactions experienced by all prisoners to one degree or another: shock during the initial admission phase to the camp, apathy after becoming accustomed to camp existence, in which the inmate values only that which helps himself and his friends survive, and reactions of depersonalisation, moral deformity, bitterness and disillusionment if he survives and is liberated. Frankl concludes that the meaning of life is in every moment of living; life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death. He believed that for everyone in a dire condition there is someone looking down, a friend, family member, or even God, who would expect not to be disappointed. Thus a prisoner’s psychological reactions are not solely the result of the conditions of his life, but also of the freedom of choice he always has, even in severe suffering.

Merleau-Ponty (2013) focused on the embodied nature of our existence, that our understanding of the world comes via the body and its relationship with mind. I am sure we have all experienced our thoughts and emotions through our body. We can feel sick with excitement, blushes may accompany shame, our legs may tremble with fear etc. There is an emphasis on first-person activities and subjectivity, with the body generating its own consciousness. Merleau-Ponty also believed time and temporality to be subjective. Our memories of the past, and our hopes for the future, are not based on facts, but on our interpretation of the events past and future. Taking his interest in perception into the arena of freedom, he saw ‘total freedom’ as limited by our perception of obstacles to that freedom.

Sartre’s ideas found fertile ground in Britain. R. D. Laing and David Cooper, often associated with the anti-psychiatry movement, placed his ideas centrally in their work (Laing 1960, 1961; Cooper 2007; Laing and Cooper 1971). They used them as the starting point by which to critically reconsider the notion of mental illness and its treatment. They founded the Philadelphia Association, an organisation drawing on the studies of Wittgenstein, Levinas, Foucault and Lacan to provide alternative living, therapy and therapeutic training. Perhaps their most famous project was Kingsley Hall, in London, where patients lived through their ‘madness’ without the usual medical treatment.

The existential approach in Britain was further developed through the establishment of a number of existentially based courses in academic institutions. This started with the programmes created by Emmy van Deurzen, initially at Antioch University in London and subsequently at Regent’s College, London (now Regent’s University, London) and then at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling (NSPC), London. I was fortunate to study at Regent’s during a very exciting time for existential thought, when both Emmy van Deurzen and Ernesto Spinelli were members of the teaching faculty. Ernesto Spinelli has worked to demystify therapy and to develop existential thought in the areas of coaching and business consultancy. Freddie Strasser, with whom I was also fortunate enough to work, developed an existential approach to time limited psychotherapy and brought existential thinking and a psychological approach into the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) arena.

Some core ideas in existential philosophy

Existential thought talks a lot about ‘Being’ (by which we mean all human experience). As already alluded to, the approach concentrates on our experience of ‘Being’ in the world on a temporal journey – how we experience our life and how we approach the decisions we have to make. Although we are unique and will each experience our lives differently, there are a number of things we all share, and which an existential approach posits, cannot be avoided. Yalom identifies these commonalities, or ‘givens’, as – death, freedom, responsibility, existential isolation and meaninglessness. Engaging with these givens is essential to pursuing an existential approach. Simplistically, it could be claimed that ‘Being’ is also underpinned by three core assumptions:

• Relatedness: We experience ourselves and everything around us – the World, other people, us included, in the context of a relationship.
• Uncertainty: This related way of experiencing reveals that ‘Being’, life, is uncertain –uncertain in its meaning, its future and because there exists no certainty beyond the finite nature of our existence and the uncertainty itself.
• Anxiety: This awareness produces an anxiety that is all pervading and never ending as long as we are alive.

Existential thinking focuses on issues relating to those assumptions – freedom, responsibility, authenticity, purpose, meaning, paradox, uncertainty, anxiety, values, time and temporality.

Everyone who exists in the world is free to change at any time. The world gives us no definitive meaning, we must find meaning ourselves. This brings with it a great deal of anxiety, as the freedom to choose and bring meaning to life brings with it responsibility which we cannot ignore. Whatever I decide is my decision, it is not forced on me. I have made a decision with the knowledge that for everything I say ‘yes’ to, there is a ‘no’ which is experienced as a loss.

It is true that we do not choose to be born into this world or in this time. This is termed ‘thrownness’. We are thrown into an existence we did not choose. However, once here we are free to choose what we make of our lives. The responsibility we have for choosing to become what we are causes anxiety, and can lead to living authentically or inauthentically.

Of course, if we cannot look for external truths or theories, we must look to a deep exploration of the phenomenon of our experience, a discipline know as phenomenology, literally the study of the ‘phenomena’. Phenomenology (from Greek phainómenon ‘that which appears’ and lógos ‘study’) is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded in the early years of the twentieth century by Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) and was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of Göttingen and Munich. It then spread to France, the United States, and elsewhere, often in contexts far removed from Husserl’s early work.

As with existentialism, different authors share a common family resemblance, but have many significant differences, so a unique and final definition of phenomenology is dangerous and perhaps even paradoxical as it lacks a thematic focus. It is not a doctrine, nor a philosophical school, but rather a style of thought, a method, an open and ever-renewed experience having different results, and this may disorient anyone wishing to define its meaning.

Phenomenology, in Husserl’s conception, is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection on, and study of, the structures of consciousness and the phenomena that appear in acts of consciousness. Phenomenology can be clearly differentiated from the Cartesian method of analysis which sees the world as objects, sets of objects and objects acting and reacting upon one another. Its object is to systematically describe a phenomenon from different angles and intuitively grasp its essence in a new way. So, everything we encounter, we interpret, we make assumptions about its meaning. The only things we can draw on to help our interpretation are our past experiences and knowledge. Unfortunately we often leap from interpretations to assumptions to beliefs and we act on those beliefs as though they were evidenced ‘truths’.

A phenomenological approach gives us no ‘truths’ to fall back on. It requires us to ‘bracket’ all our assumptions and to focus on things as they appear in our experience, that is, on the way we experience things and the meaning we give to them – the significance of objects, events, tools, the flow of time, the self and others, as these things arise and are experienced in our ‘life-world’.

Phenomenology studies conscious experience as experienced from the subjective or first person point of view. It concerns itself with thought, memory, imagination, emotion, desire, volition to bodily awareness and embodied action, and social activity, including linguistic activity. The structure of these forms of experience typically involves what Husserl called ‘intentionality’ – the directedness of experience toward things in the world, the property of consciousness that it is a consciousness of or about something. Phenomenologists base their understanding about how we exist in the world on the premise that humans interpret something so that things can be identified and have meaning, thus objects exist through the meaning that we give them. Every act of intentionality contains two parts: the noema and the noesis (Husserl 2009). Noema is directional, it is the object (the what) that we direct our atte...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. What do we mean by ‘existential’?
• 2. What do we mean by ‘leadership’?
• 3. The twenty-first century leader
• 4. What do we mean by ‘existential leader’?
• 5. Leadership in the context of existential concerns
• 6. Existential leadership skills
• 7. Four ages of existential leadership
• 8. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index