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© 2011 M@n@gement and the author(s).T yrone S. PITSIS 2011
Book review:
Mats Alvesson and Andre Spicer (2010).
Metaphors We Lead By: Understanding Leadership
in the Real World.Abingdon, UK: Routledge
M@n@gement, 14 (4), 263-269.
M@n@gement est la revue officielle de l’AIMS
M@n@gement is the official journal of AIMSISSN: 1286-4892
Emmanuel Josserand, HEC, Université de Genève (Editor in Chief)
Jean-Luc Arrègle, Université du Luxembourg (editor)
Laure Cabantous, ESCP Europe, Paris (editor)
Stewart Clegg, University of T echnology, Sydney (editor)
Olivier Germain, U. du Québec à Montréal (editor, book reviews)
Karim Mignonac, Université de T oulouse 1 (editor)
Philippe Monin, EM Lyon Business School (editor)
T yrone Pitsis, University of Newcastle (editor)
Jose Pla-Barber, Universidad de València (editor)
Michael T ushman, Harvard Business School (editor)
Florence Villesèche, HEC, Université de Genève (managing editor)
Walid Shibib, Université de Genève (editorial assistant)
Martin G. Evans, University of T oronto (editor emeritus)
Bernard Forgues, EM Lyon Business School (editor emeritus)
Association Internationale
de Management Stratégique

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M@n@gement vol. 14 no. 4, 2011, 263-269
book reviewPaperback : 208 pages
Publisher : Routledge
(Published December 2010)
Language: English
ISBN 9780415568456Book review
Mats Alvesson and Andre Spicer (2010).
Metaphors We Lead By: Understanding Leadership in the
Real World. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Reviewed by
T yrone S. Pitsis,
Newcastle University Business School
[anonimizat]
Leadership studies is a broad and problematic domain. Few, if any,
fields of research, theory, and practice in organization studies have
grown as quickly and as widely. Indeed, one can be forgiven for be –
lieving that the study of and writing on leadership have grown dispro –
portionately in both speed and volume, compared to the development
of good theory and convincing research (Clegg, Kornberger & Pitsis,
2012). Even the very concept of leadership poses difficulties. The term
is usually used to denote an individual who inspires, directs, and coor –
dinates others towards the achievement of organizational or personal
goals (Clegg, et al., 2012; Pitsis, 2007). Almost anyone can name a
leader that inspires them. The recent death of Steve Jobs has high –
lighted how leaders are held in the highest esteem, with the outpouring
of grief, millions of messages of condolence sent to Apple, and many
articles celebrating Jobs’ inspirational, entrepreneurial, maverick quali –
ties as a leader. Leadership as a process and leaders themselves are
often deified and almost always presented in a positive, flawless light.
They are said to operate with guile, exemplary moral standards, fair –
ness, love and compassion. Indeed, leadership is often discussed and
presented with biblical undertones where it is ‘morally good’ to be a
good leader, and people are blessed to be led by such good leaders.
Leadership, however, has a dark side. In psychology we have
been interested in how certain personality types pursue a certain form
of leadership that has less than positive intentions. Narcissistic lead –
ership is a perfect example of the dark side of leadership, and it has
devastating outcomes (Conrad, 2004). In one of my favourite books on
leadership, The Man Who T ried to Buy the World by Jo Johnson and
Martine Orange (2003), we see how Jean-Marie Messier went from
being one of the youngest and richest CEOs in the world to an arro –
gant, narcissistic leader who eventually self-destructed. Similarly, Ein –
arsen, Schanke Aasland and Skogstad (2010) explore the less savoury
aspects of leadership at work and how leaders can bully people into
performance. However, as interesting as the literature and musings on

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book reviewleadership are, what typifies both the more positive and the more nega –
tive perspectives on leadership is the dualist notion that leadership is
either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Leadership is in reality neither good nor bad; it is
situational and socially constituted, understood and valued.
As a practice theory scholar, that is a scholar who rejects
overly dualist notions such as good versus evil, body versus mind, and
who is more concerned with the way in which people make sense of
ideas in socially experienced contexts, I have always been wary of sim –
plified, dualistic distinctions between good and bad, saintly and evil.
Leadership is much more complex than this, much more social and a
product of socially distributed cognition where people make sense of
the concept relative to their social contexts. In this way leadership is
made up of an array of situated practices and socialized norms that
constitute the habitus of leadership: the habitus being what drives the
taken-for-granted behaviors, thoughts and actions of those being led
and of those leading within any given field of practice (see Bourdieu,
1980), or in what Alfred Schutz (1967) refers to as the ‘working’ world,
where what is sensed as reality is that which is inter-subjectively expe –
rienced as pragmatically real (i.e. it works) in a world of multiple reali –
ties? In this world, symbols are shared and understood, predecessors
have laid down the foundations of sensemaking, consociates and as –
sociates help to sustain, transform and perpetuate realities, and there
are successors who will continue the evolutionary development and
growth of the knowledge signs and symbols of our socially shared real –
ity. Everything in this world is experienced and shared as a metaphor. In
such a world, what drives the behaviors and actions of the leaders and
the led—all of which we take for granted?
When asked to review a book that had the words ‘metaphors’,
‘leadership’ and ‘real world’ in its title, I could not refuse, particularly
when two well-established and leading critical scholars such as Mats
Alvesson and André Spicer were the editors. Alvesson and Spicer open
the book by taking us through the journey of leadership theory and do
an expert job in problematizing the domain. As with most modern man –
agement texts, they begin with the financial crisis in 2008 (thank good –
ness for that financial crisis, for we business scholars would not have
enough material to hang our arguments upon). It has given academics,
especially the critical management scholars, enough material for an –
other decade of work, and the crisis is only going to get worse thanks
to those terrible Greek leaders). As I read the introductory chapter I was
impressed with the simplicity of the writing, and the way the authors
take the reader through the key debates, theories, and ways in which
we have come to understand leadership. Society has constructed the
story of leadership as both savior and demon, and as I discussed ear –
lier, the good, the bad, and the ugly are often presented as separate
entities. Things are never that simple. Alvesson and Spicer make their
message clear early on: too much weight, they argue, is given to leader –
ship as a concept denoting the solution to all our problems, and leaders
are all too often sanctified or vilified. Often, when things go wrong we
either blame leaders or claim there is a lack of leadership. By taking us
through the main theories, debates and critiques, the authors prepare

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M@n@gement vol. 14 no. 4, 2011, 263-269
book reviewthe reader's mind to entertain the idea of an “ambiguity-centred” ap –
proach to leadership. This approach certainly has the potential to make
a major contribution to understanding leadership, but I was disappoint –
ed that there was little engagement with practice theory. No Schutz,
no Bourdieu, no Schatzki; even Orlikowski avoided any mention in the
introductory chapter. This is important because any claim to an ambi –
guity-centred approach would benefit greatly from frameworks that es –
tablish how humans inter-subjectively construct and co-construct ideas
– for even leadership is an idea – into a socially shared reality that is
created, sustained or transformed through situated and socio-material
practices. Maybe that is why the subheading is “T owards an ambiguity-
centred approach to leadership”: because we are not quite there yet.
Clearly, or at least to my mind, this is a book for Europeans,
particularly because we are offered a mainly Scandinavian take on
leadership (aside from the two contributors who are from the USA and
the UK); Whether intentional or not, in symbolic terms the choice of
mainly European contributors intimates that there is a lot to be learned
from the European take on leadership in a world that is dominated by
both North American scholarly work and more popular culture in the
form of airport bookshop texts on leadership.This is one of the book’s
strengths, and I would hope that students and researchers in the USA
would take the time to read it. It may not change their minds about how
to study and make sense of leadership, but at the very least it will en –
courage them to think about and question assumptions regarding the
way in which they have come to understand leadership. Leadership, as
Alvesson and Spicer establish, is ambiguous, contextual, and as much
about followers as it is about leaders. T o help their readers traverse this
slippery concept, Alvesson and Spicer use one of the oldest forms of
knowledge-sharing and sense-making: the metaphor.
In its most simplistic form a metaphor takes an exemplar from
one context to make sense of something arising in another. As such,
the metaphor is both different from and similar to the target of the meta –
phor. T argets can include stories, analogies, proverbs, and other words
of wisdom. For example, there was Forrest Gump's use of a box of
chocolates to symbolize ambiguity in life? That said, I prefer my meta –
phors to be more subtle, as in The T ree of Life by T errence Malick (Fox,
2011), but this is a book review, not a movie review. The point here is
that because metaphors are both similar to and different from the actual
thing they are being used to describe, they typically require us to reflect
upon the target concept. If life is like a box of chocolate then is it sweet?
Do we sometimes get things we do not like? Do we find that things that
look very inviting can in fact be the hardest to chew and swallow, and
others that do not look as appealing tend to be the most delicious? And
so on. Thus, even though we are talking about chocolates, we are actu –
ally reflecting on life. That is the beauty of the metaphor, but it is also
its curse. We can make too much out of a metaphor and over-analyse
it, and one of my biggest criticisms of academic research and theory is
that they unfairly dumb down what managers and leaders do.
There is a propensity among management scholars to under –
play the complexities and even ingenuity inherent in the mundane, ev –

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book revieweryday practices of managers and so-called leaders. Often we can
impose a lens (i.e. theory or set of theories) upon practitioners which
are nothing more than a metaphor, “alike but different”. This lens im –
poses our own presupposed image of the world: that everything is a
metaphor and hence is deprived of any respect as an object; A fish,
a frog, and a worm can all be made sense of from the metaphor of a
gardener, or a bully or a commander; but what aspect of the the fish,
frog or worm do we understand through the metaphor? It all depends
on the metaphor, and rather than making sense of the sisg or frog, it
changes its meaning. So, ‘metamorphizing’ – the personifying of things
through metaphors is something that we humans do, and we do this
even to concepts such as leadership. In many ways, then Alvesson and
Spicer are responding to the public image of leadership. So, their ideas
are less about the metaphors we lead by, and more about metaphors
of leadership (a subtle but important distinction), as inculcated by the
researchers making sense of leaders doing what leaders do. While I am
convinced that the use of metaphors is a powerful analytical tool (after
all, that is all it is: a tool for social interaction), to make sense of lead –
ership metaphors alone are not viable as the only tool of a proposed
“ambiguity-centred” approach to leadership: such an approach actually
fosters greater ambiguity.
With this caveat in mind, Metaphors We Lead By provides an
excellent resource for students of leadership. Each of the chapters ex –
plores leadership practice and makes sense of it through the use of
metaphors. Alvesson's take on leaders as saints (which reminds me
of Wray-Bliss's take on leaders as devils) is as you would expect from
the author in question: beautifully written and argued. We can take
this metaphor to unlimited boundaries: if the leader is the saint, who
is the god he or she is representing? Who are the believers and non-
believers? But even metaphors have their limits. What if, for example,
Alvesson presented the leader as the Prophet Mohammed? Would
Routledge’s offices be burnt down? Here, you see, is my gripe with
metaphors as an analytical tool. These metaphors belong to an entire
social world; they are boundary objects and spanning those boundar –
ies not only changes the way we view the target object, but also unset –
tles the world from which the metaphor is invoked. Thus, in many ways
they suffer from the same traps as those leadership theories critiqued
in the book (such as transformational and transactional theories, etc).
The travelling of ideas does not come without implications of power in –
herent in social relations. T o continue with the religious theme, do those
invoking the metaphors in order to make sense of leadership have the
divine right to choose and apply whatever metaphor they see fit? Do
we enter a person’s place of work, seek to explore the most intimate
details of his or her work, and then frame everything he or she does to
fit our chosen metaphor, such as a Devil or a Bully? This is something
that is somewhat unexplored in the book. A critical approach would
also critique its own assumptions and the ethical implications of fram –
ing people in such ways for academic novelty.
The book also presents leaders as gardeners. Huzzard and
Spoelstra; imagine the leader fertilizing workers (not done in this chap –

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book reviewter, perhaps because the idea of leaders fertilizing employees may not
be appropriate for sensitive audiences), cultivating their flowers, and
getting the eco-system just right. What about the leader as a buddy?
Y our feel-good mate? (see Sveningsson and Blom's chapter). An –
other case in point is Spicer's eloquent leader as the tough coercive
commander, although Spicer's commander is very different to the
commander on the love boat or even McHale’s Navy. Maybe André
Spicer watches too many war movies. Muhr then presents leaders as
cyborgs, where the leader transcends what is human and non-human;
anthropologists inspired by Malinowski have used such metaphors in
terms of cyborg consciousness, and Muhr does a great job in exploring
this metaphor and applying it to leadership. Karreman then presents
us with the leader as bully through practices of intimidation, with all
that the bully metaphor implies. Fairhurst probably has one of the most
important chapters in the book (though of course its importance rests
upon the preceding chapters, which are all very good in and of them –
selves). Even though the first and last chapters do a convincing job, it is
Gail Fairhurst's chapter that wraps the ideas of the book up neatly and
pragmatically. Alvesson and Spicer’s decision to add this chapter on
communicating leadership metaphors was an excellent one, because
it gives the book a more practical feel. A chapter in which the reader not
only gets a sense of the complexities of leadership theory and practice,
but also has a sense of how metaphors as a tool for dealing with ambi –
guity in leadership can be communicated.
Metaphors We Lead By: Understanding Leadership in the
Real World is a book which I have no hesitation in recommending to
any student of leadership. I believe it is best for students with a grasp
or understanding of the mainstream leadership theories for the book
relies upon established ways of understanding leadership to differenti –
ate itself. I also think consultants and leadership coaches would find
this book useful as it provides insights into how one might open a dis –
cussion on the quality of leadership within client companies. The book
would make an ideal counterpart for many of the 'traditional' leadership
courses offered, particularly in the USA, as a way of at least opening
up discussion about the nature of leadership and the way in which we
make sense of it. As to the novelty of the work, I am less convinced. As I
read the book I was reminded of Boje and Dennehy's (1994, Chapter V
“Leading stories") postmodern leadership, which is surprisingly absent
from Alvesson and Spicer’s book; this is rather strange given how simi –
lar the ideas are. In spite of this, however, this is book is well worth the
investment. Buy it, read it, and cite it!

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book reviewREFERENCES
 Boje, D. M., & Dennehy, R.
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Managing in the Postmodern World:
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 Clegg, S. R., Kornberger, M.,
& Pitsis, T . S. (2012).
Managing and Organizations:
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