Personal Leadership Development within Master of Public Governance: Imaginary Interventions?

The purpose of this study is to explore how managerial agency is constructed through three relational strategies: i. between self and institutional context, ii. between self and social context, and iii. between self and oneself. The empirical source is a database of assignments by some 270 students, participating in a one year Personal Leadership Development course within a Master of Public Governance 2009 – 2012. The context of the study is the accelerated changes in Danish Public Sector, and how these changes impact managers and their organisations under dominant management discourses, New Public Management and New Public Governance etc. The empirical analysis – initiated in this paper - explore if a žižekian approach can make sense of the managers ‘fantastic’ reliance on leadership and management tools and concepts to complete the (likewise) fantastic promises of organisational change brought in from the above. The originality of the project (in total) stems partly from the unique and rather massive data material, partly from the introduction of žižekian concepts into leadership research.