Responsible Leadership: An Emergentist Perspective

We studied the situated nature of the emergence of responsible leadership. Drawing on an emergentist perspective (Elder-Vass, 2005, 2008; Lawson, 2012), our analysis of observational and interview data in three organizations shows how responsible leadership emerges as participants’ ‘shared concerns’, which are embedded in existing relations that give meaning to what is responsible and possible. In contrast to previous research, we show how relationality, in addition to individual moral duty, shape the emergence of responsible leadership. Our qualitative study shows how practical forms of responsible leadership emerge from four distinct types of shared and nested concerns of the study participants. We contribute to the theory on the emergence of responsible leadership by unpacking how the socio- relational context shapes leadership responsibility.