Understanding Leadership Through Leadership Understandings

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AbstractIn 1992, Margaret Wheatley urged leadership scholars to search for “new ways of understanding” (Wheatley, 1992/2006, p. 160). The search, with some exception, has stalled. Leadership studies remains mired in a philosophical understanding grounded in positivism. Within the current paper, an exploration of how an understanding is informed by its core philosophical assumptions is presented. An alternative framing for understandings is explored through the reconstruction of these same core philosophical assumptions. The benefits of dwelling within the alternative framing are sketched.