Not that we'd have any knowledge of sex in organisations if we were to read most published accounts of working life; nor, come to that, if we just read HR policy documents (with the possible exception of sexual harassment policies).
Unless forced into it, official accounts of life in organisations remain very tight-lipped indeed about sex-and-work, and usually ignore it altogether. In other words, even in today’s supposedly liberal society, talk of sex in official work contexts remains pretty much taboo.
In spite of the taboos, however, leaders can also be sexy. But again, we certainly don’t know this from reading books on leadership, nor by going on leadership courses. Perhaps the booming silences of such sources tell us, however subliminally, ‘just don’t go there!’ In any case, people know that they shouldn't link sex and leadership out loud – especially, perhaps, when they are being interviewed by researchers about leadership.
But if we can’t talk directly about sex in the context of leadership, what can be said about leadership (to take a couple of brief excerpts from what people actually did say to us when we interviewed them about leadership in their organisations) are things such as:
It is… sort of intangible really, like a charisma kind of thing. You hear stories: about Asda and Allan Leighton’s approach, and before him Archie Norman wandering around the shop floor, sitting down with somebody saying ‘what are you doing? How are you getting on? What are your issues?’ And Asda have it and seem to do it well, you know, the Richard Branson stuff, that charisma that makes you want to fall in behind somebody…
Or:
"Our CEO is seen to be a very good leader, he is very inspiring. Anybody that has a presentation from him says ‘wow, I really bought that'. And a number of senior managers when they come into contact with people are seen to be ‘wow'.
Our reading of these excerpts – and others like them in the 34 interviews with people involved in leadership development from a range of companies – suggests that leadership was understood as the ability to have an impact upon people through the power of an intangible 'something' that they emanate. It is leaders (unlike mere managers) who have that certain irresistible je ne sais quoi: a something usually labelled ‘charisma'. According to our interviewees, when this ‘something’ gets emanated, then the leader's very presence is almost irresistible – it overwhelms followers.
But, with the exception of a few hints, the interviewees were silent about what this indefinable ‘charisma' might actually be. However, these few hints gave us clues. For example, it was said to be an ability to ‘get into people’s hearts and souls'; to 'take people’s hearts and minds and you go into battle together’; and that a leader’s charisma 'has to be in the soul... You have really got to get under the skin of your people.'
Such references started to suggest that eroticism is inherent within ideas about leadership – put plainly, that eroticism is part of what makes leadership ‘work'.
It is erotic because the only way to approximate to the merger desired in these statements is through the ecstasy of the sexual act. The managers seemed to be imagining a scene of seduction where the follower’s mind, heart and soul are entered by the leader. Here we have an erotic fantasy where the follower is so overcome by the leader’s charisma that s/he loses all power of resistance to this penetration.
Furthermore, the people we interviewed happened to be all men and the leaders they were talking about were also men. What was being talked about, then, was how control over followers can be achieved through homo-eroticism.
In summary, then, sex is everywhere in organisations and it also, naturally enough, infuses peoples' understanding of leadership. What is unsayable about leadership, though, is that the leader’s charisma arises from an irresistible sexual attractiveness which evokes an (often homo-) erotic desire whose libidinal energies can be diverted towards the achievement of organisational goals.
Interviewees' understanding of leadership presumed that followers will be so overcome by a subliminally erotic desire to be possessed by the leader that they will forget their own objectives and fall in with the leader’s vision. They will, in theory at least, see only what the leader wants them to see and they will thus, in theory, become controllable.
We wonder whether such insights make you more or less comfortable about seeking to be a great leader!
Mark Learmonth (pictured) is professor of organisation studies at Durham Business School
