The in situ construction of leader identity in a leader’s life story during an alumni talk to MBA students

Abstract

Analysis of leaders’ life stories is widely regarded as a way of getting to the “just whatness” of leader identity. However, most research that makes use of leaders’ life stories considers the story to be a resource for investigating leader identity. Little, if any, research considers leaders’ life stories as a topic for research and investigates the in situ, context sensitive, interactional accomplishment of such stories. Using a video-recorded extract of an alumni talk to MBA students at an American business school, taking a social constructionist approach to identity, and using positioning theory as a methodology, the purpose of this paper is to reveal the “nitty gritty” of talking oneself into being as a “leader” through the in situ telling of a life story as a “leader’s” life story. Findings indicate that such a leader identity is constructed from a complex interplay of (1) characters in the storyworld, (2) the here-and-now interaction of the participants during the storytelling, and (3) wider societal Discourses of what is, and is not, an acceptable leader identity.