Chapter Three
Naming
The political work performed by a single word
Overview
The chapter opens with a question the author was asked directly by a postgraduate researcher: how do you reconcile critique of leadership language with work that supports senior leaders? It takes the question as fair and builds the chapter as an answer.
Austin's distinction between describing and doing supplies the analytical move. To call someone a leader is not to report a property but to cast them — assigning the hero function and importing the narrative logic that comes with it before anyone has spoken. Corpus evidence then documents how far and how fast that casting has spread across organisational life.
The conclusion is not that the word should be abandoned. It is that the choice between leader and manager is political rather than terminological, and that the naming mechanism itself can be made an object of study.
Key questions
- What changes if we substitute manager, colleague or group for leader in this sentence?
- Who is being converted into a follower by this description?
- What collective work is being attributed to one person?
- Why does this role need the word leadership attached to it?
- Which forms of authority have become harder to see without the word?
Central concepts
Cases in this chapter
Work with it
Related lens: Naming
Related tools: Critical Narrative Review
Status: paraphrased from the manuscript · author review required