Engaged Leadership: Living the Myth and Embodying the Legend of the Olympian Athlete

Abstract

Leadership is one of the concepts in our language that maintains a mythical tone. It describes those — so-called ‘leaders’ — who are extraordinary and demonstrate qualities that are unique akin to super-humans. The legendary image with which leaders are being presented positions them in a league of their own. Leaders are heroes and in the management and organization studies literature in particular, their unique status in history is earned by their success — most frequently their success in delivering financial prosperity to the business. Therefore, it is not uncommon for leadership to be associated with winning and celebrating achievements of extraordinary proportion. Ironically, reaching the pinnacle of success is often presented with little account for any struggle, pain and suffering. It almost seems that leaders emerge to their status miraculously as if they were meant to be that way. This adds to the mystique that leadership entails, which on the one hand, makes narratives of leaders create a promising world of possibility that everyone could envision and on the other hand, a promising world of possibility that very few can be part of and only a handful can deliver.