Leadership and Wisdom: Lessons from folklore

Leadership and Wisdom: Narrating the Future Responsibly gives business students and practitioners the opportunity to re-read tales, poems, myths and fables that have been interpreted by leading management scholars in order to translate the world’s folk wisdom into insightful and actionable lessons for a more responsible leadership practice.

Most, if not all, cultures generate narratives that teach people how to make sense of the world and how to respond to challenges with wisdom. These sources provide a medium for character, as well as a guide for decision-making in ambiguous and uncertain circumstances. Management and organization scholars increasingly focus on what narrative wisdom traditions can teach us about leadership and organizational practices, and this book is designed to bring it to students and practitioners. Statler and Küpers have assembled a world-class team of contributors, who reflect on narratives near and dear to them, and draw out the lessons for leaders.

With consistency throughout and end-of-chapter questions, this book enables all readers – including undergraduate and postgraduate students of leadership, management and organization studies, as well as interested researchers and practitioners – to reflect on the contents and implications of folk wisdom.

Wendelin Küpers is Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies at Karlshochschule International University, Germany and affiliated Professor at ARTEM ICN Business School Paris, Nancy, Berlin.

Matt Statler is the Richman Family Director of Business Ethics and Social Impact Programming and a Clinical Associate Professor of Business and Society at NYU Stern School of Business, USA.