The aestemethical stance in life and leadership

Julia Romanowska

Chapter 16 in Leadership, Art, and Responsibility, 2026, pp 135-140 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter introduces the concept of an aestemethical stance in life and leadership, emerging from the lived transformations of the Shibboleth study. What came into view was not a new method, but a displacement: leadership shifted from influence, role, and performance towards responsibility – understood as an obligation inherent in power. An aestemethical stance is neither doctrine nor model. It is a way of standing exposed in the world that resists instrumental reason and refuses to reduce human beings to functions. At its core lies a reversal: the self is no longer the centre of leadership; the summons issued by the world and by those for whom one bears responsibility takes precedence. Leadership is thus reframed not as the management of outcomes, but as responsiveness grounded in judgement, imagination, emotional discernment, and reverence for human dignity. Drawing on Aristotle's account of virtue and practical wisdom, the chapter presents this stance as an experience-formed disposition – a unity of sensing, feeling, and judging – oriented towards action that does not violate the laws of humanity or diminish the human possibility of a good life. The chapter concludes by outlining the triadic structure that guides the chapters that follow: aesthetics as poetic insightfulness; emotion as discerning engagement; ethics as sensitive responsibility – three inseparable dimensions of one stance.

Keywords: Aestemethical Leadership; Poetic Insightfulness; Emotional Discernment; Ethical Sensitivity; Character Cultivation; Practical Wisdom; Responsibility; Rehumanising Language (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781049403991
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