Wise Ways: Leadership as Relationship
Chatterjee, D. (2006).
Journal of Human Values, 12(2), 153-160.

Discussion Questions:

1. This article describes leadership as a process of evolving adaptive cultures by relating to reality in new ways and encouraging other people to relate to each other in novel ways as well. Although the article supports the position that we have taken in this book, it would be useful to give specific examples of the way in which such changes could take place. What examples can you think of that would bring about such relational change?



2. What do you make of the author’s proposal that a transformational system works best when monolog is changed into multilogue, that is to say when all voices are given an opportunity to be heard and leadership is not simply a top-down process.



3. The author argues that there are fundamental traditions of wisdom in the world that have shed light on fundamental values for personal and organizational excellence. This suggests that there is a transcultural way to run groups. Do you agree that such a possibility is realistic, or are groups in some countries necessarily going to be run differently from those in others?



4. Take the example of two different organizations which have their own culture, which would be a much lower level of analysis than that which is offered by the author of the present article, and see if you can suggest ways in which two different organizations could involve themselves in a dialogue about how they could transform the two systems into one.



5. Is the nature of organizations necessarily tied in with the nature of culture or not?