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Existential Leadership: ‘Good Faith’ in Contemporary Capitalism
This essay responds to the rise of new conceptions of Capitalism by arguing that rather
than formulating a new guiding meta-narrative for Capitalism, as many have presented, leaders
within organizations are uniquely situated to respond in good faith to the demands of an
historical moment. We propose Existential Leadership, derived from the works of Sartre, and
more specifically, Barnes, which involves understanding organizations as dwellings for group-infusion-praxis. Thus, Existential Leadership provides a framework as an edifice for elucidating
the relationship between individual stories and larger dwellings, transforming from passive to
active, sustaining group-in-fusion-praxis to avoid hegemony, engaging practical freedom within
the practio-inerte, and inscribing these ideas into economic reality. As such, organizations may
contribute to positive social change through the liberating ideals of Existentialism. Additionally,
this essay explores the role of Existential Leadership as action within the public sphere through
the work of Arendt who contends that plurality is the fundamental condition of human life.
Because we exist in a world of many and not one, natality, the insertion or birth of a new person
or idea, provides an opportunity for freedom enacted through praxis to respond to the ongoing
changes in the organizational landscape of the marketplace.
The considerations inherent within this essay provide a philosophical perspective to offer
depth and texture in leadership studies. We demonstrate how leadership is not simply an
individual construct, but is situated and intimately tied to organizations and the larger public
sphere. Existential Leadership involves individuals acting in mutual good faith to achieve
liberating goals, while maintaining individual autonomy. The prolific increase in essays on
authentic leadership in the past five years illuminates a hunger for leadership that addresses
meaning and purpose in life. However, authentic leadership is generally leader-centric and is
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focused on a leader’s being, rather than on the leader’s doing. We believe Existential Leadership
is a more fitting response to the fragmentation of Modern Capitalism because it positions leaders
as de-centered – situated or embedded – and directs leaders toward good faith action within
organizations and the larger public sphere.
The essay begins with a review of the literature highlighting emerging conceptions of
Capitalism and then turns to the philosophical approach to leadership studies utilized in this
essay. We believe that leadership is an apt response to a fragmenting of Modern Capitalism,
rather than developing a new guiding meta-narrative. Additionally, we believe a philosophical
perspective is needed to not only add balance to leadership scholarship, but to also provide
deeper insight into leadership practice. These sections seek to open the primary purpose of the
essay – to propose Existential Leadership in organizational dwellings, which serves as a home
for group-in-fusion-praxis. We begin with an organizational level of analysis that first
demonstrates the relationship of individual stories within organizational dwellings. We then
demonstrate how people may come together and create an active group consciousness, while
maintaining individual integrity, and continue their work in good faith to achieve liberating
goals.
The last two sections within the framework of Existential Leadership in organizational
dwellings move toward the larger public sphere with discussion of practical freedom within the
practio-inerte and reorienting Modern Capitalism. This point of the essay transitions to the work
of Arendt that articulates the role of Existential Leadership within the public sphere by positing
the human condition of plurality and natality through action. While working within the larger
public sphere, Arendt illuminates the practical reality of creating meaning through enacted
stories within a web of relationships and engaging human freedom in action and speech. Overall,
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our essay presupposes the Existential edict, existence before essence, which guides our
understanding of good faith human praxis to achieve liberating goals, rather than an essence of a
new form of Capitalism to determine human action. We attempt to construct a philosophical
entry that permits Existential Leadership to stand as a response to the ongoing call for leadership
within an historical moment.
Changing Conceptions of Modern Capitalism
Modern Capitalism as a guiding ideology for business practice has been questioned
recently by scholars working to identify the emergence of a new sense of Capitalism that goes
beyond a profit motive to attend to meaning and purpose in human life and environmental
concerns. In 2007 Hart published a book titled Capitalism at the Crossroads: Aligning Business,
Earth, and Humanity, calling attention to the significant positive and sustainable social change
business can forge when partnered with governments and civil society, but only with a changed
mindset of Capitalism. Hawken and colleagues (2008) coined the term Natural Capitalism as a
response to a changing historical moment in which industrial age Capitalism is no longer suited.
Natural Capitalism offers commensurability between business and environmental goals to protect
the natural world and posterity of future generations. Sisodia et al. (2007) argue that Natural
Capitalism is necessary for a new age with new rules that no longer tolerates scandal and
misconduct of business, which has generated widespread public cynicism. They propose
companies focus on a higher purpose and passion, which can enhance the well-being of all
stakeholders. Eisler (2007) in The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics
presents an understanding of Capitalism she believes is more humane and effective, and later in a
similar vein, Hartel and Brown (2011) discuss the idea of caring economies aligned with other
topics of values and ethical leadership. Freeman et al. (2007) recognize the importance of value
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creation coupled with stakeholder theory in proposing Stakeholder Capitalism, which they
believe provides a new narrative for Capitalism that opens up ethical implications. The term
Creative Capitalism was used in an edited book by Kinsley (2008) to describe how Bill Gates
and Warren Buffet advocate integrating ‘doing good’ into doing business. Gates also called for a
new understanding of Capitalism in a speech he gave at the 2008 World Economic Forum.
Moreover, Grace Neville published an article highlighting Green Mountain Coffee as a
case study for Conscientious Capitalism (2013). Bishop and Green (2008) offer
Philanthrocapitalism to show how those who have benefited from technology and globalization
can give back in order to address societal issues including climate change, poverty, and disease.
A year later, Buchholz (2009) published the text, Rethinking Capitalism: Community and
Responsibility in Business. In it, Buchholz acknowledges the value of philosophy and offers
different ways to interpret and reorient Capitalism, which he utilizes in discussions ranging from
individualism and rights to the social self and community. Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad
Yunus also calls for Capitalism to address social issues in his texts, Building Social Business: A
New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanities Most Pressing Needs (2007) and Creating a
World without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism (2010). Porter and
Kramer’s (2011) Shared-Value Capitalism aligns economic and social needs to enhance the wellbeing of business and society. They argue the success of business is dependent on healthy
communities. Most recently, Mackey and Sisodia (2013) present the idea of Conscious
Capitalism as a liberating movement for Capitalism to become a heroic force with a new
narrative that responds to the greatest challenges of society. The term Conscious Capitalist was
used earlier in Strong’s (2009) text, which focuses on social entrepreneurship to address global
issues.
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Grounding Leadership Studies Philosophically
These new understandings of Capitalism have emerged in the past ten years and continue
to gain scholarly interest. The multiplicity of terms for describing new variances of Capitalism
appearing in the literature illuminates a fracturing of the Modern Capitalist meta-narrative. While
globalization appears to be a homogenizing force, individual companies are realizing a one-sizefits-all approach of efficiency and progress, and even of best practices and capabilities, fails
because uniqueness of multiple stakeholders and the firm’s distinctive purpose are ignored.
Recognition of this phenomenon has fostered recent interest in Existentialism in business ethics
(Agarwal and Malloy, 2000; Ashman and Winstanley, 2006; Jackson, 2005; Liedtka, 2008;
West, 2008) and Existentialist themes such as authenticity, ontology, and phenomenology in
leadership scholarship (Algera & Lips-Wiersma, 2012; Fry & Kriger, 2009; Jones, 2014; Ladkin,
2006; Ladkin, 2010; Ladkin 2012; Ladkin & Taylor, 2010). Two scholars specifically, Lawler
and Ashman, have made direct connections between the philosophy of Existentialism and
leadership studies (Ashman, 2007; Ashman and Lawler, 2008; Ford and Lawler, 2007; Lawler,
2005; Lawler and Ashman, 2012). These scholars who write from philosophical perspectives are
considerably outnumbered to social scientific perspectives even though the latter engage
philosophical terms such as ‘authenticity’ in their research (Champy, 2009; Clapp-Smith,
Vogelgesang, & Avey, 2009; Costas & Taheri, 2012; Dhiman, 2011; Diddams & Chang, 2012;
Gardiner, 2011; Gardner, Cogliser, Davis, & Dickens, 2011; Hannah, Avolio, & Walumbwa,
2011; Hmieleski, Cole, & Baron, 2012; Hsiung, 2012; Macik-Frey, Quick, & Cooper, 2009;
Mazutis & Slawinski, 2008; Neider & Schriesheim, 2011; Peterson, Walumbwa, Avolio, &
Hannah, 2012; Peus, Wesche, Streicher, Braun, & Frey, 2012; Rego, Sousa, Marques, & Cunha,
2012; Rego, Vitória, Magalhães, Ribeiro, & e Cunha, 2013; Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner,
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Wernsing, & Peterson, 2008; Walumbwa, Wang, Wang, Schaubroeck, & Avolio, 2010; Wong &
Cummings, 2009; Woolley, Caza, & Levy, 2011; Yammarino, Dionne, Schriesheim, &
Dansereau, 2008). Overall, the emergence of this research illuminates a recent phenomenon,
described as The Second Age of Transcendence (Jones & Bharadwaj, 2013) where scholars and
leaders of organizations are raising Existential questions regarding consciousness of purpose and
influence on the lives of others. Rather than relying on the bad faith meta-narrative Modern
Capitalism, or even more inclusive new forms of Capitalism, which may still be in bad faith,
organizations and their leaders are poised to choose their actions and to be responsible for these
decisions.
Working from a platform established by scholars seeking to ground authentic and
ontological leadership philosophically, and discuss leadership in relation to Existentialism
specifically, this essay seeks to take the next step to propose theoretical development of an
understanding of Existential Leadership at the organizational level of analysis. Through this
endeavor we are also responding to Liedtka’s (2008) call for more philosophical depth in
leadership scholarship and from Ciulla (2006) for perspectives from the Humanities in leadership
scholarship. Primarily, we recognize the opportunity to bring the work of American
Existentialist, Hazel Barnes, into the conversation, which we believe is necessary for the
philosophical development of Existential Leadership. Whether discussing Existentialism in
business ethics or leadership studies, all scholars have ignored her works. If Barnes is referenced
at all, it is only her translation of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (1943). Perhaps even more so
than Sartre, who turned toward Marxism in his later career, Barnes remained within the
Existentialist tradition with her works, Humanistic Existentialism: The Literature of Possibility
(1959), and An Existentialist Ethics (1967). Additionally, her text Sartre (1974), offers more than
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just a sketch of Sartre’s philosophy, but adds her interpretation of his Existentialism that
provides her own contribution to the philosophy.
The following articulates an Existential Leadership through the lens of Barnes at the
organizational level of analysis. We specifically state an Existential Leadership to parallel
Barnes’s intentional use of the article in An Existentialist Ethics to demonstrate that what we
propose is not the Existential Leadership, which would account for the multiplicity of Existential
perspectives (e.g. Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Tillich, etc.). However, we will use the term
Existential Leadership without the article ‘an’ for the sake of readability. Later in this essay, we
transition to the work of Arendt to demonstrate how Existential leadership may be engaged in the
public sphere. While Sartre turned toward the public sphere later in his career with his Critique
of Dialectical Reason (1960), we believe Arendt is a more fruitful scholar to engage in this
discussion because of her focus on action within the public sphere.
Existential Leadership in Organizational Dwellings:
A Home for Group-In-Fusion-Praxis
Existential Leadership is a newly developed understanding of leadership that situates
leaders within organizational dwellings and communicative engagement with others that
promotes cooperative praxis to uplift human freedom for meaningful existence. Existential
Leadership involves leaders utilizing human freedom to make choices and to be responsible for
these choices in good faith. The works of Sartre (1943; 1946) and Barnes (1959; 1967; 1974)
provide a necessary philosophical frame for Existential Leadership that moves leadership theory
beyond ontological orientation (in-its-self), which scholars have focused on with authenticity, to
the domain of responsible action (for-its-self) directed toward good faith choices along with the
liberation of others. The Existential for-its-self is always a consciousness of something, which
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presupposes something outside of oneself. Existentialism is not a philosophy of the individual, as
some have critiqued, but rather a philosophy that engages the freedom of individuals as situated,
or embedded within the larger society, organizations, and interactions with others. This
embedded agency (Arnett, Arneson, & Bell, 2006; Arnett, Fritz, & Bell, 2009), also reconstitutes
an influential change in relationships with others, organizational dwellings, and the larger society
in the manner in which Sartre claims in choosing, one chooses for all humanity; “our
responsibility is thus much greater than we might have supposed, because it concerns all
mankind” (1946, p. 24). In this sense, the in-itself-for-itself relation may be understood at a level
of analysis intimately tied to the public sphere. The following discussion presents a Barnesian
perspective of Existentialism at the group/organizational level of analysis.
The Interrelationship of Stories and Dwellings
Stories (individual lives) and dwellings (cultural contexts) are co-informative where
dwellings provide the backdrop (Arnett, 1998) of lived stories, but whose stories reaffirm and
extend dwellings toward new horizons. Without dwellings to guide, individuals find themselves
in a state of “existential homelessness” (Arnett, 1994) and without individual stories, dwellings
become fixed ideologies composed of cult members incapable of possessing an “enlarged
mentality” (Arendt, 1958). It is important to maintain this narrow ridge (Buber, 1947), where one
side falls prey to excessive individualism (Arnett & Holba, 2012) while the other side turns into
hegemonic regime. For example, unrepresented groups who succeed in overturning their
oppressors need to resist becoming what they originally despised. Organizations run a similar
risk. Most often businesses are initiated by a creative vision of an entrepreneur who does not
enter the marketplace for the sole sake of making money (Mackey & Sisodia, 2013); however,
without deliberate care for its purpose, the business may become so narrowly focused on
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profitability, which is ultimately a self-defeating strategy. Barnes’s interpretation of Sartre’s
group-in-praxis provides insight for people coming together for a common purpose, which may
then be related to an organizational context in an organizational dwelling.
Barnes argues Heidegger’s translation of dwelling as an abode or place is incorrect; the
fundamental meaning of the word may more accurately be translated as custom or habit without
suggestion of locality. While critical of Heidegger in many regards, Barnes utilizes his ideas in a
constructive fashion to move on to what she finds more important, which is what one does with
one’s being. She concludes, “whatever Being is, if it is, it offers no clear apodictic message as to
what we should do about it. We must still make, each of us, our own being by means of our
specific projects in the world,” which ought to be ultimate concern for oneself and mankind
(1967, p. 423). Dwelling is a creative human activity and as such can be consciously chosen to
maintain through habit and custom, or human praxis in Sartre’s terms. For this purpose, Barnes
turns to Sartre’s idea of group-in-fusion praxis found in The Critique of Dialectical Reason
(1960) where Existentialist ideals of freedom and choice merge in group praxis, which may
ultimately achieve goals of liberation.
Transforming from Passive to Active
Barnes describes how a passive unity exists among people in the parctio-inerte, or in
Sartre’s terms, a plurality of solitudes each existing with their own projects. Even when people
are grouped together, which could be on a bus, as residents of a city, or members of an
organization, they remain a collection of people who are not present to one another, but to the
same object such as riding to some destination, living in an apartment building, or doing
prescribed organizational functions. To move from passive to active, Barnes refers to the need
for a “consciousness rising” – an “attempt to overcome serialization, to transform passive,
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external unity into the common action of a group” (Barnes, 1974, p. 121). Consciousness rising
involves orienting attitudes of group members to overcome the passive separation. When this
occurs there exists a group-in-fusion of group consciousness and a sense of “We” (p. 121). For
the We to succeed, they must come together around a common mission (Sartre refers to the
taking of Bastille) and they cannot be dissuaded by the “Look of the Third” that can paralyze
them to be only what the Third sees (p. 122). Hence, they can be inhibited by their own selfimage derived from the Third.
Important to note is that the individuals who make up this We do not lose their individual
subjectivity such as partaking in a cult. Individual subjectivity remains intact while the “union
which is realized is accomplished not by a union of consciousnesses but by means of common
action in the world outside” (Barnes, 1974, pp. 123-124). In this manner, Barnes asserts Sartre
distances himself from sociological anthropologists such as Durkheim, who view groups
resembling a metaphysical entity (p. 124). For Sartre, an organism cannot be used as a metaphor
to describe a group; “No all-inclusive consciousness exists over and above the individual
consciousnesses of the group’s members…the group-in-fusion is held together by a common
praxis. Union is based on free, shared action” (p. 124). Action is the key term that holds the
group together, which goes beyond the initial feeling of mutuality.
A primary characteristic of group-in-fusion praxis is the ability for the group to
accomplish a project, which is true to each member, but could not be accomplished on an
individual basis. At this point, Barnes refers to Sartre’s example of the group running on its
hundred legs. No one is the group is ascribed leader; “we are all united by what we do” but at the
same time, this communal initiative does not alienate each member’s subjectivity (1974, p. 125).
Even more, through group praxis, individual members’ freedom is augmented. Barnes writes,
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“not only does the group achieve the common goal of its members who could not attain it alone,
but the group enables each one to fulfill his distinctive individual capabilities in a way which he
could not do in solitude” (p. 125). Group-in-fusion praxis both controls the material world and
liberates people from it.
Sustaining Group-In-Fusion-Praxis in Good Faith
While so far the discussion points to group-in-fusion positive effects on human existence,
Barnes provides helpful caution as well. She makes clear that controlling the material world
through group-in-fusion is to control the economic reality to which humans created. Good faith
group-in-fusion does not permit destruction of what humans have not created such as the natural
environment. Additionally, the Existential goal of uplifting human freedom must remain central
to group-in-fusion praxis. For example, while the Nazis were certainly successful in organizing
around a common goal, their pursuit cannot be described as group-in-fusion praxis, because their
goal and horror oppressed and extinguished human freedom. Moreover, Sartre’s immersion in
this lived-experience of World War II, like other major scholars whose work emerged similarly,
played a fundamental role in shaping his ideas about human freedom, which certainly cannot be
used in turn to substantiate the terror he witnessed in occupied France. The Nazis also turned into
a hegemonic regime that swallowed all individual subjectivity,1 which is counter to group-infusion praxis where balance of We and I must be maintained.
Sartre describes this balance as the common individual – the “ideal of uniting individual
fulfillment and community” in order to overcome serialization and enhance freedom (Barnes,
1974, p. 127). This ideal is not easily maintained. On one hand, it is fleeting and evanescent in
building to the point of the common individual, and one the other hand, once achieved, runs the
1
People such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who presented a fervent threat against the Nazis for the sake of human
freedom offer an interesting subject for future analysis within the Existentialist framework discussed here.
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risk of disintegration. Also, while directed to group-in-fusion, the common individual views
others within the group as allies, setting aside differences while working toward a common goal.
However, when the group-in-fusion falls apart, differences among “serialization amid
collectives” (p. 127) become fodder for contention. Barnes is critical of Sartre’s frequent
connection between combat or competition and group-in-fusion praxis. While Sartre admits that
the recollection of the shared experience of danger and struggle may serve to keep the group
united, Barnes points to other possibilities beyond the agonistic situation that offer hope for
maintaining the common individual within group-in-fusion praxis. In fact, the celebration of
combat may instill a violent attitude that could be directly toward the fraternal group thereby
replacing community with hierarchy.
Practical Freedom within the Practio-inerte
The action that arises involves a commitment to values and to a better future, which must
supplant the “materialist myth” (Barnes, 1974, p. 101). Sartre extends his philosophy to the
group level where he claims that because people’s existence is contingent upon what they choose
to be, people may also transcend any established order toward another. Moreover, this argument
may also be applied to shared values, which have the possibility to be transcended. Change exists
temporally or contingently within the context of historical moments where emerging questions
about existence and values are met and cannot be predicted, but may be foreshadowed by “the
very efforts to transcend the present society toward another” (Barnes, 1974, pp. 101-102). She
writes, “we have no means, no intellectual instrument, no concrete experience which allows us to
conceive of this freedom” (p. 103), so what is needed is practical freedom for people to fulfill
their projects in the world.
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As such, lived experience is the role a person plays in effecting the situation by
“perpetually projecting himself out of the past toward his future and always within the compass
of a world already worked out by others” (Barnes, 1974, p. 114). A person’s human condition is
tied up within this web of lived experience, but is still ultimately free; “he is his choice of being,
for his choice of being is the way that his consciousness relates itself to the world and organizes
its experience” (p. 115). A person has an opportunity to utilize freedom of choice to make
meaning and take a new point of view for oneself, others, and ultimately human history.
Barnes observes in Sartre’s work the necessity for praxis within the practico-inerte; otherwise,
study on the subjects of being and consciousness remain within philosophical analysis. Praxis is
defined as “any purposeful activity, whether individual or group; it is always action in the world”
and the practio-interte is “the world of worked-over matter in which praxis inscribes itself” and
is “far more than the physical world. It is the whole weight of the social environment, the
prevailing customs and institutions, the public media, the very language I speak” (p. 119). Barnes
also recognizes that praxis may be directed toward certain action, but it is not a teleological
process due to the ever changing reality of the human situation described above. The result of
praxis may be a “counterfinality” (p. 119). Consequently, praxis is hopeful, but is not optimistic
– a term connected to a false sense deterministic certainty (Arnett & Arneson, 1999, p. 208).
Reorienting Modern Capitalism
So far, this discussion has focused generally on Barnes’s interpretation of Sartre’s groupin-fusion praxis. However, at the end of her chapter on this subject, Barnes turns to more specific
application in division of labor. She uses this example to illustrate that the disintegration
described above does not stem from human error and weakness, but rather human structures that
accompany existence within the practio-interte (1974, p. 128). She writes, “division of labor, for
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example, even though it may initially be based on the recognition of differentiation in talent and
ability, results in separation of the members from one another, both in space and in the quality of
their daily activity” (p. 128). As such, decision-making is not conducted as a group, even if
group members approve of it passively. The resulting hierarchy sees “the emergence of a
sovereign or chief – either in the form of a single leader or of an executive committee” that may
turn into a contentious relationship of distrust and passive obedience in fear of disapproval from
the authority (p. 128). There is an ironic risk that the very group who merged in praxis to engage
freedom may turn into “the bureaucracy of a pyramid structure” that suppresses freedom through
impotent separation and alienation of the lower levels whose work fulfills the material
acquisition of those above (p. 128). Thus, Existential Leadership in contemporary Capitalism
needs to reorient traditional hierarchical bureaucratic structures into more participatory
environments that uplift human freedom within the organization along with people outside of the
organization in the public space in which the organization interacts.
Barnes concludes that Sartre’s hope is to offer an understanding of social processes with
appropriate praxis to resist bureaucracy where within the group “each ‘common individual’ is
also a free self-creating person” (1974, p. 129). While the Critique (1960) may be observed as an
analysis of negative forces within the practio-interte, Barnes offers a constructive interpretation
of the hope that exists within the subtext of Sartre’s work. She ponders the possibility of moving
to a point where “human beings need no longer feel that they must be inhuman toward one
another” (p. 129), which she takes up as an investigation in her Existential Ethics (1967). This
essay views the role of Existential Leadership and sustainability within the context of a
fragmentation of the meta-narrative of Modern Capitalism that responds to the question: how can
Existential Leaders work to foster positive social change? While Sartre and Barnes provide the
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necessary background for Existential Leadership, the work of Arendt opens up understanding for
the meaning of an enlarged mentality and praxis in public space for contemporary Capitalism.
Situated within Arendt’s (1958) explication of ‘common space,’ Existential Leadership
considers the history of past business practices that influence present activities and will leave an
imprint for future generations. Moreover, Existential Leadership responds to a call for a
philosophical engagement of action to meet existential moments without guiding precepts of
Modern Capitalism. This attention to Arendt’s understanding of action further textures the
argument insomuch as it invites conversation on organizational freedom as natality and the
initiative induced by a world of plurality. By utilizing these philosophical frameworks, we argue
that organizational dwellings offer public space for engaged collective deliberation and action as
a mode of human togetherness to promote Existentialist goals of human freedom.
Existential Leadership within the Public Sphere:
The Human Condition of Plurality and Natality through Action
For Arendt, the human condition is understood through the three-fold interaction of labor,
work and action. Labor is done in and for itself and allows humans to meet basic biological
needs (Arendt, 1958, p. 7). Work “provides an ‘artificial’ world of things, distinctly different
from all natural surroundings…[and] the human condition of work is worldliness” which permits
humans the ability to procure wants instead of just meeting basic needs (Arendt, 1958, p. 7).
Action occurs without desire for meeting basic needs or wants, but is undertaken in recognition
of the multiplicity of man’s existence. Arendt writes, “Action, the only activity that goes on
directly between men without the intermediary of things or matter, corresponds to the human
condition of plurality, to the fact that men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world”
(Arendt, 1958, p. 7). By recognizing the inherent multiplicity of existence, Arendt offers a
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response to the existential understanding of action as rooted in praxis. Undertaking a
contemplative view of man’s ability to act not just to meet basic needs or extend to the
procurement of wants, Arendt directs our focus to how our actions in public permit an enlarged
mentality to emerge.
This understanding of plurality as fundamental (Gardiner, 2011, p. 101) is not just one
aspect of human existence, but for Arendt, it is “the condition…of all human life” (1958, p. 7). It
is only through action that plurality can exist, because action provides the framework for
questions of not only how we can live, but how we can live together (Vivier, 2012, p. 87).
Through action, human beings have the opportunity to insert themselves in the common world
and interact with others, to engage new experiences, and to embrace new opportunities that
permit the shaping of diverse worldviews. By engaging in new experiences and interacting with
man’s plurality, we experience a sense of natality through action. As we insert ourselves into
new situations, interpersonally or organizationally, we experience a sense of newness, a birth,
that brings new perspectives and insights to the creation of our own identities and larger sense of
existence. The connection between action and natality occurs because “…the newcomer
possesses the capacity of beginning something anew, that is, of acting. In this sense of initiative,
an element of action, and therefore of natality, is inherent in all human activities” (Arendt, 1958,
p. 9). Natality is Arendt’s attempt to recognize that at any point someone might engage in an
action that begins something new in the world (Dolan, 2004). The ongoing new experiences can
help broaden organizational viewpoints that permit a sense of natality and creativity to develop
within an organizational dwelling.
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Creating Meaning through Enacted Stories in Public Space
Man’s interactions outside the private domain require a shared common space where
labor, work, and action can occur. Public space is the shared world that acknowledges the
existence of other human beings who can see and hear everything that appears in public, as well
as the common world itself (Arendt, 1958). Moreover, the public domain or public space is the
place that gives meaning to labor, work, and action insomuch as the public sphere is created
when people work together in concert, not autonomously, while still protecting and promoting
the goods of interspaces, plurality, and natality (Arendt, 1958; Arnett, 2013; Fritz, 2012; Arnett,
Fritz & Bell, 2010; Benhabib, 2000; Benhabib, 1990; Biskowski, 1993). Only within the public
sphere can existential leadership and embedded agency be enacted in a healthy and productive
organizational dwelling.
Arendt describes the interactions of man within the world as a web of relationships.
Within this web exists narratives, or stories, that ground our actions and function as moral
guideposts. The world becomes not only where we exist, but also a record of how we exist. All
action depends on the public domain and the ongoing presence of others to whom we reveal
aspects of our individual and collective identities (Young-Bruehl, 2006). The revelatory nature of
these exchanges can further be viewed as a form of action insomuch as the exchange can serve as
a way to share insights of self and other along a continuum that attempts to both understand and
interpret history as part of the continuing life story that informs the plurality of man (Benhabib,
1990). True understanding and interpretation comes through what Benhabib (2000) terms
“narrative action” in which action is “embedded in a ‘web of relationships and enacted stories.’”
(p. 125). Thus, by inserting ourselves into the human world, and by extension an organizational
Existential Leadership
18
dwelling, we again experience a sense of natality that is further textured into a meaningful sense
of existence through the plurality created within a web of relationships and enacted stories.
Action and Speech as Human Freedom
Existential Leadership calls for an uplifting of human freedom and a recognition of
embedded agency. Through the metaphors of natality and plurality, Arendt presents insights akin
to Existential Leadership through action. She writes, “If action as beginning corresponds to the
fact of birth, if it is the actualization of the human condition of natality, then speech corresponds
to the fact of distinctness and is the actualization of the human condition of plurality, that is, of
living as a distinct and unique being among equals” (Arendt, 1958, p. 178). To this end, it is the
realization that action and speech permit man to live among others as action-oriented participants
in the world. Moreover, this interconnectedness between natality and plurality, of action and
speech, help us to consider ontological questions of existence and identity.
In addition, the relationship between action and speech further helps us understand each
other because it is through the exchanges of action and speech within the web of human
relationships that we “realize our freedom and unique identities” (Biskowski, 1993, p. 876) that
leads us to the freedom of choice found in an engagement of Existential Leadership. Action,
above all, is the fundamental idea that drives our understanding of both natality and plurality.
Action is so essential, in fact, that Arendt (1958) suggests it is “the one miracle-working faculty
of man” that permits us to engage in praxis. Action fuels praxis that encourages man to think,
act, and then evaluate the action. The ongoing contemplation of thought and action prevents us
from engaging in unreflective practices and routines (Arnett, 2013) that can turn us away from
Existential Leadership and back to a more modern existence fueled by the secular trinity of
efficiency, progress and individual autonomy (Arnett, 2011). Arendt explicates the need for
Existential Leadership
19
action and cautions against unreflective practices that could damage the public realm and
humanity. Thus, Kristeva (2001), reminds us “Arendt drew a link between history and the
deconstruction of the mind to show that life is not a ‘value’ unto itself, as humanistic ideologies
would have it, but something that is realized only if it constantly questions meaning as well as
action” (p. 42). We must know why we act in order to have a true philosophical understanding of
praxis and Existential Leadership. By situating Arendt’s understanding of action within ‘public
space,’ we attempted to position plurality and natality within the conversation of ideas that helps
to inform an understanding of Existential Leadership.
Future Research and Conclusion
This essay responded to Liedtka’s (2008) call for more philosophically grounded study in
Leadership and leadership study from a Humanities perspective (Ciulla, 2006). We utilized the
works of Sartre, Barnes, and Arendt to extend understanding of leadership for socially
responsible organizations. Future research may utilize this theoretical development to examine
contemporary marketplace practices and consider implications of an organizational dwelling
where ‘good faith’ is part of the ongoing fabric of leadership. One such study may be examining
the creation of and world-wide projects initiated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The
philosophical considerations in this essay may be applied to better understand how these ideas
can take shape. Operating under a mission that every life has equal value, while at the same time
embracing the ideal of difference, the Foundation focuses on health and development issues by
building strategic partnerships and providing funding, support, advocacy, and education
activities on a global scale (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2008). Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation illuminate aspects of the practice of Existential Leadership to foster the freedom of
others rather than impose a homogenous way of Being. However, our philosophical analysis also
Existential Leadership
20
may point to constructive opportunities for the Gates Foundation to continually engage in
Existential Leadership and enact vigilance as suggested by Arendt in order to avoid potential
hegemonic transformations as Sartre and Barnes cautions. This example is more aligned to
Existential goals of liberation, which is a good place to begin to look at an organization through
the lens of Existential Leadership. However, we believe the insight from Barnes and Arendt
presented here is valuable to myriad organizations because it fundamentally embraces an ideal of
difference or alterity among organizations and publics.
We believe Existential Leadership offers hope for positive social change (Bies et al.,
2007) fostered by uniquely situated organizations within the public sphere. By acknowledging
the complexities of global issues while being responsive to the pluralities of local communities,
good faith calls Existential Leaders to be mindful of actions to protect and promote the Other’s
freedom and not exploit the ongoing challenges within a global marketplace. Contemporary
scholars have recognized the failure of Modern Capitalism to deliver on its optimistic promises;
however, we believe that the appropriate response is not to develop a new guiding metanarrative. We contend, instead, to engage in Existential Leadership practice situated within
unique organizational dwellings, human communities, and the natural environment. In good
faith, Existential leaders are responsible for their free actions within organizational dwellings
that correspondingly offer an opportunity to make positive contributions to benefit the fabric of
humanity.
Existential Leadership
21
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