Mats Alvesson is a Swedish management scholar and professor of business administration at Lund University. His research focuses on leadership and critical management studies.
Mats Alvesson
Featured Leadership Topics
Understand Leadership
“I see it as very much management or meaning, how people from a temporary perceived superior position tend to exercise systematic influence on others in terms of meanings, world views, identity constructions, beliefs and other things. It's very much how you influence how people think, feel, prioritize, etc. etc., not about regulating behavior or counting performances or something like that, but very much influencing meaning.”
Description of the video:
Sometimes they are working in tandem, and sometimes they can be a bit contradictory. I think that the challenge is often then to make them co-exist in a kind of nice way. If you have a lot of all these mechanics how to make people behave, then the space is more limited for leadership because people probably can't accept both messages, so they tend to be a bit contradictory. In other situations you have there, when you think about budget issues or people that are very unhappy, customers or collaborators that are kind of in a conflict situation, then you probably need to do both. We need to think about how can we kind of lead with this situation, and what should we do very specifically? In that case, you have tandem or overlapping logics, and sometimes if you follow people a couple of hours, you see this is clear leadership, or this is clear management, and sometimes it’s a combination.
Lead Authentically
“Autonomy, critical reflection, trying to say something that is a bit more original and make people think a bit differently about issues is very important.”
Description of the video:
Sometimes they are working in tandem, and sometimes they can be a bit contradictory. I think that the challenge is often then to make them co-exist in a kind of nice way. If you have a lot of all these mechanics how to make people behave, then the space is more limited for leadership because people probably can't accept both messages, so they tend to be a bit contradictory. In other situations you have there, when you think about budget issues or people that are very unhappy, customers or collaborators that are kind of in a conflict situation, then you probably need to do both. We need to think about how can we kind of lead with this situation, and what should we do very specifically? In that case, you have tandem or overlapping logics, and sometimes if you follow people a couple of hours, you see this is clear leadership, or this is clear management, and sometimes it’s a combination.
Communicate Effectively
“You can be a good role model, you do certain things and people find out. That's kind of impressive, I'm persuaded by that. You often use communication, talk in a particular way that people are influenced by. You tell stories, examples, you frame issues in specific ways, so that's seen as appealing and people are convinced and then it tends to influence their actions, values, priorities, how the world looks like, how we should understand then the objectives, rules, procedures, gender, diversity issues, quality related to customers, whatever. So it's more like the world view, the meaning systems that are being focused.”
Description of the video:
Sometimes they are working in tandem, and sometimes they can be a bit contradictory. I think that the challenge is often then to make them co-exist in a kind of nice way. If you have a lot of all these mechanics how to make people behave, then the space is more limited for leadership because people probably can't accept both messages, so they tend to be a bit contradictory. In other situations you have there, when you think about budget issues or people that are very unhappy, customers or collaborators that are kind of in a conflict situation, then you probably need to do both. We need to think about how can we kind of lead with this situation, and what should we do very specifically? In that case, you have tandem or overlapping logics, and sometimes if you follow people a couple of hours, you see this is clear leadership, or this is clear management, and sometimes it’s a combination.
Develop a Team
“I think that being sensitive to viewpoints and then trying to mobilize the information, or good judgement more broadly, I think that's very good for an effective organization. This is how it should work, and people then responding to requests, but also sometimes speaking up without requests or an invitation, even if you are in a junior position.”
Description of the video:
Sometimes they are working in tandem, and sometimes they can be a bit contradictory. I think that the challenge is often then to make them co-exist in a kind of nice way. If you have a lot of all these mechanics how to make people behave, then the space is more limited for leadership because people probably can't accept both messages, so they tend to be a bit contradictory. In other situations you have there, when you think about budget issues or people that are very unhappy, customers or collaborators that are kind of in a conflict situation, then you probably need to do both. We need to think about how can we kind of lead with this situation, and what should we do very specifically? In that case, you have tandem or overlapping logics, and sometimes if you follow people a couple of hours, you see this is clear leadership, or this is clear management, and sometimes it’s a combination.
Resolve Conflicts and Crisis
“Sometimes they are working in tandem, and sometimes they can be a bit contradictory. I think that the challenge is often then to make them co-exist in a kind of nice way. If you have a lot of all these mechanics how to make people behave, then the space is more limited for leadership because people probably can't accept both messages, so they tend to be a bit contradictory. In other situations you have there, when you think about budget issues or people that are very unhappy, customers or collaborators that are kind of in a conflict situation, then you probably need to do both. We need to think about how can we kind of lead with this situation, and what should we do very specifically? In that case, you have tandem or overlapping logics, and sometimes if you follow people a couple of hours, you see this is clear leadership, or this is clear management, and sometimes it’s a combination.”
Description of the video:
Sometimes they are working in tandem, and sometimes they can be a bit contradictory. I think that the challenge is often then to make them co-exist in a kind of nice way. If you have a lot of all these mechanics how to make people behave, then the space is more limited for leadership because people probably can't accept both messages, so they tend to be a bit contradictory. In other situations you have there, when you think about budget issues or people that are very unhappy, customers or collaborators that are kind of in a conflict situation, then you probably need to do both. We need to think about how can we kind of lead with this situation, and what should we do very specifically? In that case, you have tandem or overlapping logics, and sometimes if you follow people a couple of hours, you see this is clear leadership, or this is clear management, and sometimes it’s a combination.
Mats Alvesson earned his bachelor’s and PhD from Lund University, becoming a leading scholar in critical management studies, organization theory, leadership, and organizational culture.
He has published hundreds of scholarly articles and received the International Leadership Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Alvesson has served as a member of fifteen review boards for academic journals.
Explore the full oral history of Mats AlvessonBorn or Made?
“There may be some biological grounds for this… But I think for most practical purposes… we need to look at the construction processes.”
Leaders Are Readers
Books I’ve Written
- Organization Theory and Technocratic Consciousness
- Consensus, Control and Critique: Three Paradigms of Work Organization Research
- Corporate Culture and Organizational Symbolism
- Cultural Perspectives on Organizations
- Gender, Managers and Organizations
- Management of Knowledge-Intensive Companies
- Making Sense of Management: A Critical Introduction
- Understanding Gender and Organizations
- Doing Critical Management Research
- Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research
- Understanding Organizational Culture
- Postmodernism and Social Research
- Knowledge Work and Knowledge-Intensive Firms
- Changing Organizational Culture: Cultural Change Work in Progress
- Interpreting Interviews
- Qualitative Research and Theory Development: Mystery as Method
- Constructing Research Questions: Doing Interesting Research
- The Triumph of Emptiness: Consumption, Higher Education, and Work Organization
- Managerial Lives: Leadership and Identity in an Imperfect World
- The Stupidity Paradox: The Power and Pitfalls of Functional Stupidity at Work
- Reflexive Leadership: Organising in an Imperfect World
- Return to Meaning: A Social Science with Something to Say
- Doing Critical Research
- Re-imagining the Research Process: Conventional and Alternative Metaphors
- The Art of Less: How to Focus on What Really Matters at Work
- Return to Judgement: The Case for Post-Infantilized Management
- Anti Stupidity: How Organizations Can Trade Stupidity for Purpose
