“Dialogue – possible between leader and follower?” - Ashridge

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is contained neither in one, nor the other, nor in the sum of both – but becomes really present between them”. The critical elements to draw out here are that ‘I- Thou’ relations can be identified in terms of the quality of intersubjective partnership present. In contrast, in ‘I-It’ relations, the other is viewed as a separate object, perhaps as something which can be used to serve our own purposes, and thus has the nature of one-sidedness. The former can be described as true meeting, whereas the latter implies mismeeting. Fundamentally Buber argues that indeed “all real living is meeting” (1958:25), in other words we are always relating; it is the nature of being human to be in relationship, and it is when one glimpses the very nature and depth of this relationship that one encounters the ‘I-Thou’. Buber’s ontology focused on knowledge forming only in relation to the otherness encountered in the world. Thus he offered a very different ontology to that which was popular at the time that he was writing, i.e. the Cartesian view of the world which focused attention on individuals as the source of knowledge and meaning. Buber did not mention the word ‘dialogue’ in I-Thou, however in later works (Buber, 2002) he identified three realms of dialogue in relation to ‘I-It’ and ‘I- Thou’: • genuine dialogue when the participants meet each other as ‘Thou’; technical dialogue when there is simply a need for objective understanding between participants; • monological events where a participant speaks “with himself in strangely tortuous and circuitous ways and yet imagine[s] they have escaped the torment of being thrown back on their own resources” (Buber, 2002:19). All these forms of dialogue are appropriate at times however Buber claimed that fundamentally one is not fully human unless one experiences others, the world around them and God as ‘Thou’ in genuine dialogue. Unfortunately “the exalted melancholy of our fate [is] that every Thou in our world must become an It” (Buber, 1958:31). Buber has been enormously influential in the exploration of dialogue, the fields of education and psychotherapy and of course in theology with his background in Haidism. His writing is evocative and poetic, but as a result might not be at all 12
accessible to a pragmatic individual who seeks any clear ‘how to’ advice. Most of the leaders I have encountered in the development programmes run at Ashridge fit into this category and so assuming Buber’s work is deemed of some relevance, there is work to be done in making it more accessible to this audience. Even Kramer’s excellent explanation of I and Thou is at times circuitous and unstructured in part because it follows the flow of the original I and Thou book. Buber has also been criticised for demeaning the ‘I-It’ relation into the position of a “cripple” according to Rosenzweig (Stanford University, 2007) and even more damningly Kaufmann complained that Buber enlisted the “oracle tones of false prophets” (see Stanford University, 2007), implying that he evangelises ‘I- Thou’ and falsely persuades others that there is a pinnacle of relating that one can strive for, (see also Stevenson, 1963). However these critics appear from the literature I have engaged with to be very much in the minority. One can understand how one might, on a superficial reading of Buber, feel he was advocating an attachment or grasping for the ‘I-Thou’ but a more in depth study of Buber’s ideas indicates he is very explicit on the value of I-It alongside I- Thou. He would not therefore be advocating to my room full of leaders that they should be permanently encountering their employees, customers and suppliers as Thou, (which is just as well as I am sure this would raise some eyebrows), but he would advocate I believe that moments of realising our essential connection with these people and holding a deep appreciation for the difference they offer is fundamental to our being in the world. Undoubtedly in the literature examined Buber continues overwhelmingly to be held in high regard and is called upon time and time again by scholars to describe most ably the experience of very high quality relating. Given this apparent importance it is perhaps very surprising that there appears to be such a lack of literature which has sought to bring Buber’s work into organisational life in an empirical way, despite the fact that some of his concepts such as his description of monologue, technical dialogue and genuine dialogue, from my experience, would seem very relevant. Although I have felt Buber’s work to be an inspiration, the question that this literature review has sparked for me is whether, given the increasing focus in the leadership literature on relationships, 13
Page 1 and 2: “Dialogue - possible between lead
Page 3 and 4: 2. Background It is difficult for m
Page 5 and 6: 3. Literature Review a. Dialogue Th
Page 7 and 8: Figure 1: the historical developmen
Page 9 and 10: Both sets of authors have in common
Page 11: academic work linking the two areas
Page 15 and 16: and Uhl-Bien, 1995) and charismatic
Page 17 and 18: many of their propositions are cert
Page 19 and 20: to leadership theory” (2008:253).
Page 21 and 22: i. Inhibitions to leader-follower d
Page 23 and 24: can easily grow into a feeling that
Page 25 and 26: Research questions, methodology and
Page 27 and 28: A methodology which has grown in us
Page 29 and 30: My experiences of co-operative inqu
Page 31 and 32: • The very ambiguous and uncertai
Page 33 and 34: • As the above points indicate, i
Page 35 and 36: Where next? The process of co-opera
Page 37 and 38: References Anderson, R., Baxter, L.
Page 39 and 40: Habermas, J. (1984), The theory of
Page 41: Stewart, J. and Zediker, K. (2000),

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