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Take your lead: The pleasures of power in universities and beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2019

Jonathan Robert Gosling*
Affiliation:
Pelumbra Ltd, 54 Velwell Road, Exeter EX4 4LD, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: jonathan.gosling@exeter.ac.uk

Abstract

Ken Parry once asked me why I wanted to take the lead on a particular initiative. This paper summarises the answer I'd like to have given him. Taking the lead is pleasurable in three principle ways: it affirms or modifies self-concept, confirms a degree of control over the external world and promises self-transcendence through relationship with others. The paper proposes three categories: identity, influence and interaction, as the basis of an analytic framework for further research into the pleasures of power.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2019 

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Footnotes

Dedicated to Professor Ken Parry.

References

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