A collaborative autoethnography of embodied leadership struggles: the case of leaderful practices in a university context

Salla Lehtonen, Suvi Satama, Joseph A. Raelin and Hannele Seeck

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This study explores embodied leadership struggles and the ongoing negotiation of leaderful practices in a university context. The empirical material is based on autoethnographic diary notes of two authors of this study. Through our collaborative analysis, we identify two themes of embodied leadership struggles as we attempted to create leaderful practices in the university setting: (1) moving between heroic and collective leadership expectations through bodily spaces and (2) while attempting to navigate our vulnerability in relation to our leadership expectations about the quest to find leaderful practices. Our study makes three contributions. First, our study contributes to the discussion of leadership-as-practice (L-A-P) by articulating the embodied struggles managers face when attempting to enact and promote leaderful practices. Second, the study contributes to the understanding of how these struggles can become a source of leadership learning through vulnerability. Rather than treating vulnerability as an inherently empowering personal condition, we show that vulnerability is a context-dependent, relationally shaped, and negotiated phenomenon. Finally, our study offers a methodological contribution by advancing collaborative autoethnography as a means for enacting leadership learning.

Keywords: collaborative autoethnography; embodied leadership struggles; leaderful practices; leadership learning; leadership-as-practice; vulnerability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2026-06-10
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Published in Management Learning, 10, June, 2026. ISSN: 1350-5076

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