The myth of rational objectivity and leadership: the realities of a hospital merger from a CEO's perspective
by John H. Tobin
International Journal of Learning and Change (IJLC), Vol. 3, No. 3, 2009

Abstract: Executive power and status depends on others' belief in the executive's capacity for control via rational decision-making, 'by the numbers' and above the fray of day to day minutia. By exploring his own experience in the complex social dynamics of a long, complicated merger process – characterised by misunderstanding, incomplete information, conflicting agendas, power struggles – the author argues the real world of executive praxis is one of paradoxically being in control and not in control at the same time. One strategy to cope with the anxieties inherent to the ambiguities of complex processes and to better influence the evolving trajectories of processes one cannot control is to attain a degree of mental distancing through the paradoxical dynamic of detached involvement.

Online publication date: Wed, 15-Apr-2009

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