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Esthetics, Educational Leadership and Management
Esthetics, Educational Leadership and Management R Bates, University of Deakin, Waurn Ponds, VIC, Australia ã 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The study of organization, administration, and leadership has largely ignored the important field of esthetics. This is as true in the field of education as in the parent disciplines of organizational, administrative, managerial, and leadership theory. This is surprising, as esthetics, being concerned with the appreciation and exploration of different ways of seeing and with the imaginary exploration of possible worlds and selves is, as Dewey suggested, fundamental to learning. Indeed, an exploration of esthetics as a foundation for organizational leadership in education might well provide grounds for a proper educational theory of administration. It is possible, however, to trace a variety of attempts to link esthetics with organizational theory within the parent fields as well as in education. These attempts fall generally into six categories:
esthetics and organizational contexts; esthetics and organizational artifacts; esthetics and organizational leadership; esthetics and organizational culture; esthetics and organizational power; and esthetics and organizational capital.
Esthetics and Organizational Contexts The most obvious relationship between esthetics and organization is that of the built environment within which organizations operate. Fundamental to such environments is the envisaging of architectural form through an exploration of the nature of the organization of work. But this is not simply a matter of idiosyncratic design but also a reflection of the needs of the client and the contemporary zeitgeist. Larson, for instance, argues that architecture is a social art, one that is public and useful, one that ‘‘. . . must convince a client, mobilize the complex enterprise of building, inspire the public . . . and work with the culture, visual skills, and symbolic vocabulary not of the client but of its time’’ (Larson, 1993: 16). Leadership, exercised through the design of physical settings is, therefore, both a response to particular needs and a bridging of those needs with the broader culture within which organizations operate. One of the most interesting examinations of this relationship during the twentieth century is that of Guillen who explores the relationship between organization and esthetics through the specific instance of ‘‘the formulation by modernist artists of an aesthetic based on the beauty of
the machine and on the new scientific management methods of the turn of the [twentieth] century’’ (1997: 682). As he suggests, Taylorist scientific management had a profound impact on organizational studies and the management of work, including educational work, in the United States. This impact, however, was largely the effect of the profession of engineering and regarded as an essentially technical exercise. In Europe and Russia a differing esthetic tradition combined with scientific management to produce quite a different architectural tradition. For instance, while in the United States the professions of engineering and architecture developed separately, with engineering following the principles of scientific management and architecture clinging to ‘‘. . . the old fashioned taste for superfluous ornamentation’’ (Guillen, 1997: 684), in Europe ‘‘. . . modernist architects found an aesthetic message in scientific management, producing an unlikely synthesis between art and the mechanical world’’ (one which) ‘‘succeeded in combining technology with style, science with history, management with creativity, and functionality with aesthetic’’ (1997: 683). Such a perspective was rejected in England and Spain where the traditions of William Morris and Antoni Gaudi and the Arts and Crafts movements held sway but in the rest of Europe, new forms of modernist architecture developed where form followed function. In France, Le Corbusier, Benoit-Levy, and Leroy; in Germany Gropius, Meyer, and Wagner; in Russia Arvatov, Krinsky, and Lissitzky among others articulated an architecture that found inspiration: . . . not in nature but in the rationalized or Taylorized world of machine production. They showed us that scientific management contained an aesthetic message emphasizing regularity, continuity and solidity. In their eyes, monotony and standardization had become beautiful. (Guillen, 1997: 698)
In the United States, however, much building had come under the influence of engineers rather than architects. Callaghan (1962) showed how Taylorist engineering principles underlay the cult of efficiency in education, while Tyack and Hansot (1982) showed how regularity, monotony and standardization became fundamental to the practice of education and educational leadership. Indeed an educational esthetic based on engineering and the principles of scientific management but without the esthetic of the European modernist architects had come to dominate the construction and management of schools. In school design as in educational practice, ‘‘Thorndike won
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and Dewey lost’’ (Lageman, 1989: 185). The result was, as Klein and Diket suggest, that ‘‘Universities and schools were built according to the factory metaphor, not designed to address the needs of their inhabitants’’ (Klein and Diket, 2006: 99). Adopting an alternative esthetic for leaders as architects and architects as leaders, Klein and Diket argue for an educational approach to leadership in design where ‘‘. . . visionaries of change . . . create portals and paths . . . [and] . . . alter spaces and beliefs about the way people view themselves, others and society’’ (2006: 104). This argues for quite a different approach to architecture in general and schools in particular – one where creativity, flexibility, and possibility take the place of regularity, monotony, and standardization. Leadership in their view should be exercised on the basis of a creative approach to education and design that opens up possibilities for learning and imagination.
Esthetics and Organizational Artifacts A second approach to the esthetics of leadership is that advocated by Gagliardi (1996), and Strati (2001) as well as by Rafaeli and Pratt (2006). Their approach is both a way of studying organizations through the ways in which leaders demonstrate commitments through the employment of particular artifacts, and an assessment of organizations through the artifacts that they produce. In the first place, organizational leaders are seen to demonstrate particular commitments through the ways in which they display particular esthetic artifacts: such displays announce the culture of the organization preferred by the leaders. As Strati suggests: . . . aesthetic objects are not simply appreciated on the basis of their artistic workmanship alone; they are special principally because of the emotions, insights, and feelings that they arouse in the cultures of those who use them or talk about them. (Strati, 2001: 573)
Gagliardi argues further that the ways in which leaders employ esthetic artifacts both affect the perceptions of reality held by organizational members and either facilitate or hinder organizational action (Gagliardi, 1996: 568). In fact ‘‘. . . artefacts are pathways of action in the sense that they structure sensory experience and enlarge or narrow the range of behaviour that is materially possible’’ (1996: 569). Rafaeli and Pratt provide a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which artifacts are used by leaders to manage organizational problems, especially those related to the construction of collective identity, strategies of communication with the market and environment, and the creation of work settings that foster behaviors consistent with corporate purposes (Rafaeli and Pratt, 2006; Gagliardi, 2006).
Dean et al. (1997) consider not only the ways in which organizations use esthetic objects to manage their internal processes, but also the ways in which organizations generate esthetic artifacts in order to interact with their environment. They show how leadership is focused on the production of artifacts that will generate esthetic appreciation and through such appreciation, commitment to the organization: . . . such potential objects of aesthetic appreciation could include products (an automobile) and services (an airline flight), organizational settings (the ambience of a restaurant) and processes (fabrication in a manufacturing cell). It could also include jobs (the role of a team leader), computer programs (the look and feel of a graphic interface), ‘‘performances’’ (resolution of a messy conflict), and even teams (that work together ‘‘beautifully’’). (1997: 424)
Oddly enough, such esthetic phenomena are often ignored or trivialized in the study of organizational leadership. As Witkin argued: . . . the exclusion of the aesthetic from conceptualisations of . . . modern organizations . . . has meant that phenomena which are clearly recognized to be aesthetic tend to be conceptually trivialized. (Witkin, 1990: 327)
Yet, the communication of purpose through esthetics is a major component of leadership through the vision of organizational mission and the harmony of organizational coherence through the engineering of consent. Similarly, the relationship of the organization to its wider environment (public, market, politics, etc.) is managed through esthetic artifacts in terms of both products and communication systems (such as logos and advertising). In education, esthetic artifacts are used continuously by leaders as they attempt to generate particular commitments and outcomes both internally within educational organizations and externally in terms of they way in which their organization is perceived.
Esthetics and Organizational Leadership Perhaps the one enduring tradition of esthetics in leadership is the notion of leadership as performance, or, as Weber (1968) called it, charisma. For Weber, charisma was a form of authority distinct from other types of traditional, legal–rational, or bureaucratic authority in that it engaged leaders and followers in an intensity of relationship and commitment uncommon in these other forms. As Samier suggests: Charisma potentially exceeds any other authority type. . . in its personal effect through emotional intensity, inspirational capacity, and sacrificial character – all of which are
Esthetics, Educational Leadership and Management creative processes taking recognisable and analysable expressive form. (Samier, 2006: 172)
While charisma has been involved in the great-man theory of leadership and its modern version – transformational leadership – most theories of organizational leadership assume a benevolent relationship between charisma and organizational and social outcomes (for instance Deal and Peterson, 1999; Saphier and King, 1995). But as Gronn, (2006) and Bates (2006b) point out, the cult of heroic leadership can serve ill purposes as well as good. However, there seems little doubt that such charisma depends very much on the presentation of self and the rituals of face-to-face encounters (Goffman, 1959, 1972). Indeed, Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis was a precursor to the analysis of cult leadership and spin and imagemaking in the second-half of the twentieth century. As Gardener (1992) points out, impression management is an important part of organizational dramaturgy where ‘‘. . . skilful players . . . take great care in defining and playing their roles, because they realize the importance of their performance’’ (p. 34). Duke explores the importance of such impression management where ‘‘The artistry of leadership encompasses leaders’ purposeful efforts to foster the impression of leadership [through] dramatics, design and orchestration’’ (Duke, 1986: 20) and Howard suggests that ‘‘leadership is less a process or a thing-in-itself than a matter of performance success’’ (Howard, 1996: 34). Starratt (1990, 1993) explores the drama of leadership through consideration of leaders as players, directors, stage managers, critics, and educators (1993) arguing that leadership is both a dramatic performance and a bridge between organizational life and the social dramas of the wider society. Leadership as a performance is therefore a bridge between internal and external dramas. The question arises therefore as to whether leadership in this sense of performance can be taught. Some, like Howard, don’t believe so: . . . however many skills of leading we may identify, however much we may learn about leading and leadership from the experience of others, leadership as an achievement, like virtuosity in the deployment of musical skills, cannot be taught. (1996: 34)
Others, like Duke, take a somewhat neutral ground, suggesting that one of the chief virtues of an esthetic approach to leadership is appreciation, in that ‘‘like beauty, leadership deserves to be enjoyed for its own sake’’ (1996: 24). Greenfield, however, argues that experience of the esthetic is fundamental to the performance of leaders in that, first, esthetic experience gives us insights into the human condition that cannot be captured through rational thought and, second, that esthetic performance speaks
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of human involvement in the world. ‘‘It gives us the highest form of authentic human expression embedded in the very fabric of human intention, human communication and human understanding’’ (in Harris 1996: 494). Here, there is an argument that without an appreciation of esthetic traditions through which understanding and intention are communicated most vividly, leadership is likely to be an impoverished, inauthentic activity where performance is divorced from humanity and esthetics divorced from ethics. For Greenfield both leadership and esthetics fundamentally ‘‘speak to questions of how to live a life’’ (in Greenfield and Ribbins, 1993: 430). Harris develops this thesis with reference not only to Greenfield, but also to Greene (1995), Eisner (2002), and Collingwood (1958), putting the position that artistry both enlarges our experience and provides ‘‘an emancipatory potential . . . that draws us towards envisioning the world as it could become’’ (Harris, 2006: 48). It is this emancipatory potential, that shows us how things might be but are not, that is at the heart of both art and leadership. The issue of how art changes perception of reality and can inform leadership, in terms of imagining and articulating possibilities, is taken up by several commentators. For instance, Samier and Stanley in their exploration of legacy of the Romantic tradition argue that: Romanticism is both an ideal and a caution for administration and leadership. . . . it provides a liberationist ethic for rising above the mundane, the profane, and the conventional in which educational administration is mired, in its promise of heightening the human potential towards self-determination, self-actualisation and authenticity. It also includes a critique of power, authority educational mediocrity and political stagnation. (2006: 42)
Educational leadership is then, at its best, characterized by ‘‘the cultivation of a deep and broad sensibility, rather than a narrow rationality or self-interest characterised by the lust for power or money’’ (Samier and Stanley, 2006: 43). This is an esthetic ideal for the creation of character as a work of art among both educational leaders and the other inhabitants of educational organizations. The Romantic tradition also, however, warns of the slide into the ugly and grotesque through novels such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the works of Edgar Allan Poe (see also Strati and Montoux, 2002). Others speak specifically of the role of literature (Brieschke, 1990; Stanley, 2006), theater (Mangham and Overington, 1987; Meyer, 2001), and cinema (Stockton, 2006) in the preparation of educational leaders and the ways in which such esthetic experiences can both deepen insight into the human condition and bring about an understanding enlivened by the contradictions of culture, not the unities or harmonies (Brieschke, 1990: 389) as well
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as a confrontation with the moral nature of decision making in contradictory circumstances (Meyer, 2001; Bebeau et al., 1999).
Esthetics and Organizational Culture The literature on leadership and organizational culture comes to education through two routes, anthropology and organizational studies. The anthropological perspective sees organizations as cultures, that is, as communities and as manifestations of human consciousness (Smircich, 1983: 347). In this view, the realization of organizational culture is a manifestation of both the commonality and diversity of the knowledge and beliefs of its participants through material artifacts, events, behavior, and emotions. On the other hand, organizational studies have tended to see organizational culture as something that an organization has: a shared system of beliefs and values that conveys a sense of identity, facilitates commitment, and enhances organizational stability (Smircich, 1983: 345-46). In this second sense, culture is seen as another critical lever or key by which strategic managers can influence and direct the course of their organizations (Smircich, 1983: 346). These alternative approaches are articulated in education by, for instance, Bates (1987, 2005b, 2006a) and Angus (1993), who argue the anthropological view, and Beare (1982); and Deal and Peterson (1999) who argue the managerial view. The difference in view is one of conflict between the anthropological concern for understanding and the managerial concern with manipulation (Bates, 2006b: 161). The implications are not trivial as the managerial view produces a drive toward consensus – contrived through the exercise of authority – while the anthropological view acknowledges the struggle between diversity and coherence and the need in education, as elsewhere, to acknowledge the complexity of the dynamics of cultural interactions both within schools and across their boundaries with various communities (Bates, 2005b, 2006b). This does not deny the role of cultural entrepreneurs or their role within organizations, or the importance of their role in helping construct ceremonies, myths, and rituals (Pettigrew, 1979), but it does suggest that such an entrepreneurial role is not necessarily restricted to organizational leaders. The anthropological approach also illuminates the cultural dynamics of organizations that provoke resistance as well as compliance and describes rituals that celebrate both identity and difference (Bernstein et al., 1966; Samier, 1997). In short, such a perspective can help to . . . reveal heterogeneity in educational organizations, identify the bases of both conflict and a shared or common culture, suggest resolutions for leaders of the adverse effects of cultural conflict, and demystify and clarify educational ethos and values for establishing intellectual
standards and integrity for planning and policy-making. (Harman, 1989 in Samier, 1997: 433)
Again, the power of the esthetic may well lie not solely in its ability to offer us shared cultural experience, but even more so in its power to help us cross cultural boundaries both within organizations and between organizations and other cultures. If the problem of contemporary society is indeed to answer Touraine’s question ‘‘Can we live together?’’ (Touraine, 1990; Bates, 2005b) then we might well accept Schein’s assertion that ‘‘We will not learn about the power of culture unless we cross real cultural boundaries’’ (Schein, 1996: 239).
Esthetics and Organizational Power Weber was the great theorist of organizational power in the modern world, arguing that the increasing rationalization of organizational life generated by the spirit of capitalism spilled over and captured every other area of social, ethical, and esthetic activity (Weber, 1930, 1968). Rationalized, bureaucratic, and calculative organizations were, for Weber, instrumental in the displacement of cultured people from positions of leadership and their replacement by technical experts: ‘‘specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart’’ (1946: 182). This new form of organizational power – that of bureaucracy – set up a conflict between specialized expertise and the cultivated personality, a conflict that ‘‘is determined by the irresistibly expanding bureaucratisation of all public and private relations of authority and by the ever-increasing importance of expert and specialized knowledge. This fight intrudes into all intimate cultural questions’’ (Weber, 1946: 243). As Samier (2002) and others have shown, and in contradiction to the continuing misrepresentation of Weber in organizational and educational studies (e.g., Bush, 2000), Weber increasingly viewed the iron cage brought about by such calculative rationalization with despair. The pessimism of his later work contrasts with the optimism of his earlier work which lauded the demystification of traditional society and the increasing autonomy of science, ethics, and esthetics (see Pusey, 1987, Bates, 2003). Habermas, in his reinterpretation of Weber argues that, rather than the rationalization of ethical and esthetic values analyzed in Weber’s early work being displaced by the rationalization of interests that became the focus of his later work, the process of rationalization in each of these spheres continues alongside each other in the conflicts between what Habermas calls the life-world and the system (Habermas, 1989). This conflict is played out within organizations where, on the one hand, individuals search for utility ‘‘which becomes the predominant value that directs the deployment of technical rationality [and] where the exchange and consumption of commodities becomes the main
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object of social action’’ and, on the other hand, they search for meaning through ‘‘substantive values, emotion and authentic self-expression [in] morality, ethics, culture, art and aesthetics’’ (Milley, 2006: 83). The result, in educational organizations as elsewhere, is ‘‘a fine balancing act between substantive cultural work and instrumental action’’ (Milley, 2006: 91). Organizational power, and the theorization (or as Foucault (1980, 1998) would call it, the normalization) of organizational power, has, for the most part been justified by appeals to utility and efficiency. However, as Maxcy (2006: 64) points out, leadership that asserts organizational power that is vainglorious, value neutral, and programmatic is deeply problematic, for leading does not occur in a vacuum, but rather, is rooted in our deepest beliefs about humankind, nature, and the real world around us (2006: 65). Cairns (2002) takes a similar position when he explores the relationships between esthetics, morality, and power in organizations. In his exploration of the redesign of a particular workplace, he examines the multiple, conflicting meanings constructed by individuals and groups with regard to the change. The esthetics of the redesign were supposedly guided, not so much by the principles of scientific management discussed earlier, but by consideration of interpersonal relations as a key driver of organizational design (2002: 800). However, the changed esthetics of the workplace produced a situation where various individuals and groups held divergent and conflicting beliefs simultaneously and without contradiction (2002: 817). These beliefs, about the power relationships embedded in the esthetics of the redesign of the workplace by their masters, were, for instance, argued by staff to be both genuine reforms directed at staff empowerment and the implementation of fashionable management models for managerial self-advancement (2002: 815). Even at the level of the design of physical environments then, esthetics are capable of holding contradictory meanings in tension. In terms of the exercise of power by different groups in organizations, esthetics may in fact be important in allowing individuals and groups to relate the system and life-world within the organization in ways that produce ‘‘. . . not a state of consensus, [but] rather a state of divergent equilibrium’’ (Cairns, 2002: 815). This is a particular consideration in education where typically members of such organizations have diverse and multiple goals as well as hold various definitions of reality. They are likely, therefore, to be sites of competing esthetics that need constantly to be rebalanced into Cairns divergent state of equilibrium.
Esthetics and Organizational Capital Recently, attempts have been made to explore the place of educational management and leadership in the (re)
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production and distribution of symbolic (esthetic) capital and the role of education in esthetic self-realization. This is an area of investigation that follows from the work of Bourdieu (1984, 1993) and his exploration of the ways in which symbolic capital is distributed throughout society and the role played by various cultural institutions, such as museums, art galleries, theaters, publishing houses, and foundations, in organizing, adjudicating, and distributing such capital. The effect of such institutions is to produce a hierarchy of taste (Bourdieu, 1984), access to, and ownership of which constitutes symbolic capital that in turn legitimates the position of the owner in social space (Bourdieu, 1984, 1993). Schools play a vital role in the consecration of symbolic capital and the maintenance of hierarchies of taste and power. Educational leaders, therefore, inasmuch as they articulate particular notions of cultural/symbolic capital (classical as against popular culture, for instance) and, through the assessment systems of their institutions, certify the possession (or absence) of such capital. Typically, schools act to conserve traditional notions of symbolic/cultural capital. In this way the school simply . . . maintains the pre-existing order, that is, the gap between pupils endowed with unequal amounts of cultural capital. More precisely, by a series of selection operations, the system separates the holders of inherited cultural capital from those who lack it. Differences in aptitude being inseparable from social differences according to inherited capital, the system tends to maintain pre-existing social differences. (Bourdieu, 1998: 20)
As Bates (2006b) suggests, advocates of high culture (Eliot, Leavis, Bloom) and popular (working class) culture (Hoggart, Willams, Hall) articulate very different versions of symbolic capital. Educational institutions that adopt particular versions of symbolic capital therefore label their graduates in particular ways. For many, such distinctions mark off the sacred from the profane (Bourdieu, 1998) and purity from danger (Douglas, 1970; Durkheim, 1971). The placing of individuals in symbolic space therefore depends upon both the differences in the location of institutions and the processes by which they associate particular differences with particular individuals. The work of educational administrators is, therefore, esthetic, not only in terms of their vision of school culture and their embodiment of that vision in the esthetic performance of the self, but also in the act of consecration of a particular esthetic distinction between purity and danger, between the noble and the mundane, and their classification of individuals according to such categories (Bates, 2006: 212). In the contemporary world however, the struggle to maintain clear hierarchies of symbolic capital and power is confused by the anarchy of cultures that now rub up against each other in various media. This is not to suggest
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that such hierarchies are less important than they once were, but rather that the competition for places within and between hierarchies is more intense (McKee, 2005). Educational institutions and educational leaders are, therefore, increasingly caught up in debates about the production and reproduction of such hierarchies of symbolic capital and arguments over what particular esthetic (as well as ethical and instrumental) values they should transmit.
Conclusion The application of esthetic theories to educational leadership and to the study of educational institutions has hardly begun. There are some promising leads in both organizational and educational literature, but much work remains to be done at both theoretical and empirical levels. As Samier (2006: 5) suggests, following Hostadter (1965) ‘‘art is the means by which the three functions of symbolism, expression, and meaning are integrated.’’ Such integration is at the heart of the educational process. It is also at the heart of organizational and social processes as Dewey (1916) acknowledged. But, for Dewey, such processes were fundamentally an exercise in consensual value formation across boundaries and always with the potential that things could be other than what they are. The exercise of such an esthetic imagination is important in both organizational and educational leadership.
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Esthetics, Educational Leadership and Management Lageman, E. C. (1989). The plural world of educational researchers. History of Education Quarterly 29(2), 185–214. Larson, M. S. (1993). Beyond the Post-Modern Fac¸ade: Architectural Change in Late Twentieth Century America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mangham, I. L. and Overington, M. A. (1987). Organizations as Theatre: A Social Psychology of Dramatic Appearances. Chichester: Wiley. Maxcy, S. J. (2006). The metaphysical sources of a pragmatic aesthetic leadership. In Samier, E. and Bates, R. (eds.) Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership, pp 64–78. London: Routledge. McKee, A. (2005). The Public Sphere: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meyer, M. (2001). Reflective leadership training in practice using theatre as representation. International Journal of Leadership in Education 4(2), 149–169. Milley, P. (2006). Aesthetic experience as resistance to the ‘Iron Cage’ of dominative administrative rationality. In Samier, E. and Bates, R. (eds.) Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership, pp 79–98. London: Routledge. Pettigrew, A. (1979). On studying organizational cultures. Administrative Science Quarterly 24(4), 570–581. Pusey, M. (1987). Jurgen Habermas. London: Tavistock. Rafaeli, A. and Pratt, M. (2006). Artifacts and Organizations. Mahwah, NJ: LEA. Samier, E. (1997). Administrative ritual and ceremony. Educational Management and Administration 25(4), 417–436. Samier, E. (2002). Weber on education and its administration: Prospects for leadership in a rationalised world. Educational Management and Administration 30(1), 27–45. Samier, E. (2006). The aesthetics of Charisma: Architectural, theatrical and literary dimensions. In Samier, E. and Bates, R. (eds.) Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership, pp 161– 174. London: Routledge. Samier, E. and Stanley, A. (2006). The art and legacy of the romantic tradition: Implications for power, self-determination and education. In Samier, E. and Bates, R. (eds.) Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership, pp 34–44. London: Routledge. Saphier, J. and King, M. (1985). Good seeds grow in strong cultures. Educational Leadership March, 72–75. Schein, E. (1996). Culture: The missing concept in organizational studies. Administrative Science Quarterly 41(1), 229–240. Smircich, L. (1983). Concepts of culture and organizational analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly 28(1983), 339–358.
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Stanley, A. (2006). The Victorian hangover: Colourful headmasters in the works of Mr Dickens ad Ms Bronte. In Samier, E. and Bates, R. (eds.) Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership, pp 110–127. London: Routledge. Starratt, R. J. (1990). The Drama of Schooling. London: Falmer. Starratt, R. J. (1993). The Drama of Leadership. London: Falmer. Stockton, J. (2006). A narrative looking glass for leadership studies in administration: Cinema and literature as source and reflective medium. In Samier, E. and Bates, R. (eds.) Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership, pp 128–144. London: Routledge. Strati, A. (1992). Aesthetic understanding of organizational life. Academy of Management Review 17, 568–581. Strati, A. (2001). Organization and Aesthetics. London: Sage. Weber, M. (1930). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Unwin Hyman. Weber, M. (1946). From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. Weber, M. (1968). Economy and Society: and Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkley, CA: University of California. Witkin, R. W. (1990). The aesthetic imperative of a rational-technical machinery: A study of organizational control through the design of artefacts. In Gagliardi, P. (ed.) Symbols and Artifacts: Views of the Corporate Landscape, pp 325–338. Berlin: DeGruyter.
Further Reading Bates, R. (1989). Leadership and the rationalization of society. In Smyth, J. (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Educational Leadership, pp 131–156. London: Falmer. Bates, R. (2005a). An anarchy of cultures. Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education 33(3), 231–241. Samier, E., Bates, R., and Stanley, A. (2006). Foundations and history of the social aesthetic. In Samier, E. and Bates, R. (eds.) Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership, pp 3–19. London: Routledge. Strati, A. and Montoux, P. (2002). Organizing aesthetics. Human Relations 55(7), 755–766. Touraine, A. (2000). Can We Live Together? Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
The study of organization, administration, and leadership has largely ignored the important field of esthetics. This is as true in the field of education as in the parent disciplines of organizational, administrative, managerial, and leadership theory. This is surprising, as esthetics, being concerned with the appreciation and exploration of different ways of seeing and with the imaginary exploration of possible worlds and selves is, as Dewey suggested, fundamental to learning. Indeed, an exploration of esthetics as a foundation for organizational leadership in education might well provide grounds for a proper educational theory of administration. It is possible, however, to trace a variety of attempts to link esthetics with organizational theory within the parent fields as well as in education. These attempts fall generally into six categories:
esthetics and organizational contexts; esthetics and organizational artifacts; esthetics and organizational leadership; esthetics and organizational culture; esthetics and organizational power; and esthetics and organizational capital.
Esthetics and Organizational Contexts The most obvious relationship between esthetics and organization is that of the built environment within which organizations operate. Fundamental to such environments is the envisaging of architectural form through an exploration of the nature of the organization of work. But this is not simply a matter of idiosyncratic design but also a reflection of the needs of the client and the contemporary zeitgeist. Larson, for instance, argues that architecture is a social art, one that is public and useful, one that ‘‘. . . must convince a client, mobilize the complex enterprise of building, inspire the public . . . and work with the culture, visual skills, and symbolic vocabulary not of the client but of its time’’ (Larson, 1993: 16). Leadership, exercised through the design of physical settings is, therefore, both a response to particular needs and a bridging of those needs with the broader culture within which organizations operate. One of the most interesting examinations of this relationship during the twentieth century is that of Guillen who explores the relationship between organization and esthetics through the specific instance of ‘‘the formulation by modernist artists of an aesthetic based on the beauty of
the machine and on the new scientific management methods of the turn of the [twentieth] century’’ (1997: 682). As he suggests, Taylorist scientific management had a profound impact on organizational studies and the management of work, including educational work, in the United States. This impact, however, was largely the effect of the profession of engineering and regarded as an essentially technical exercise. In Europe and Russia a differing esthetic tradition combined with scientific management to produce quite a different architectural tradition. For instance, while in the United States the professions of engineering and architecture developed separately, with engineering following the principles of scientific management and architecture clinging to ‘‘. . . the old fashioned taste for superfluous ornamentation’’ (Guillen, 1997: 684), in Europe ‘‘. . . modernist architects found an aesthetic message in scientific management, producing an unlikely synthesis between art and the mechanical world’’ (one which) ‘‘succeeded in combining technology with style, science with history, management with creativity, and functionality with aesthetic’’ (1997: 683). Such a perspective was rejected in England and Spain where the traditions of William Morris and Antoni Gaudi and the Arts and Crafts movements held sway but in the rest of Europe, new forms of modernist architecture developed where form followed function. In France, Le Corbusier, Benoit-Levy, and Leroy; in Germany Gropius, Meyer, and Wagner; in Russia Arvatov, Krinsky, and Lissitzky among others articulated an architecture that found inspiration: . . . not in nature but in the rationalized or Taylorized world of machine production. They showed us that scientific management contained an aesthetic message emphasizing regularity, continuity and solidity. In their eyes, monotony and standardization had become beautiful. (Guillen, 1997: 698)
In the United States, however, much building had come under the influence of engineers rather than architects. Callaghan (1962) showed how Taylorist engineering principles underlay the cult of efficiency in education, while Tyack and Hansot (1982) showed how regularity, monotony and standardization became fundamental to the practice of education and educational leadership. Indeed an educational esthetic based on engineering and the principles of scientific management but without the esthetic of the European modernist architects had come to dominate the construction and management of schools. In school design as in educational practice, ‘‘Thorndike won
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and Dewey lost’’ (Lageman, 1989: 185). The result was, as Klein and Diket suggest, that ‘‘Universities and schools were built according to the factory metaphor, not designed to address the needs of their inhabitants’’ (Klein and Diket, 2006: 99). Adopting an alternative esthetic for leaders as architects and architects as leaders, Klein and Diket argue for an educational approach to leadership in design where ‘‘. . . visionaries of change . . . create portals and paths . . . [and] . . . alter spaces and beliefs about the way people view themselves, others and society’’ (2006: 104). This argues for quite a different approach to architecture in general and schools in particular – one where creativity, flexibility, and possibility take the place of regularity, monotony, and standardization. Leadership in their view should be exercised on the basis of a creative approach to education and design that opens up possibilities for learning and imagination.
Esthetics and Organizational Artifacts A second approach to the esthetics of leadership is that advocated by Gagliardi (1996), and Strati (2001) as well as by Rafaeli and Pratt (2006). Their approach is both a way of studying organizations through the ways in which leaders demonstrate commitments through the employment of particular artifacts, and an assessment of organizations through the artifacts that they produce. In the first place, organizational leaders are seen to demonstrate particular commitments through the ways in which they display particular esthetic artifacts: such displays announce the culture of the organization preferred by the leaders. As Strati suggests: . . . aesthetic objects are not simply appreciated on the basis of their artistic workmanship alone; they are special principally because of the emotions, insights, and feelings that they arouse in the cultures of those who use them or talk about them. (Strati, 2001: 573)
Gagliardi argues further that the ways in which leaders employ esthetic artifacts both affect the perceptions of reality held by organizational members and either facilitate or hinder organizational action (Gagliardi, 1996: 568). In fact ‘‘. . . artefacts are pathways of action in the sense that they structure sensory experience and enlarge or narrow the range of behaviour that is materially possible’’ (1996: 569). Rafaeli and Pratt provide a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which artifacts are used by leaders to manage organizational problems, especially those related to the construction of collective identity, strategies of communication with the market and environment, and the creation of work settings that foster behaviors consistent with corporate purposes (Rafaeli and Pratt, 2006; Gagliardi, 2006).
Dean et al. (1997) consider not only the ways in which organizations use esthetic objects to manage their internal processes, but also the ways in which organizations generate esthetic artifacts in order to interact with their environment. They show how leadership is focused on the production of artifacts that will generate esthetic appreciation and through such appreciation, commitment to the organization: . . . such potential objects of aesthetic appreciation could include products (an automobile) and services (an airline flight), organizational settings (the ambience of a restaurant) and processes (fabrication in a manufacturing cell). It could also include jobs (the role of a team leader), computer programs (the look and feel of a graphic interface), ‘‘performances’’ (resolution of a messy conflict), and even teams (that work together ‘‘beautifully’’). (1997: 424)
Oddly enough, such esthetic phenomena are often ignored or trivialized in the study of organizational leadership. As Witkin argued: . . . the exclusion of the aesthetic from conceptualisations of . . . modern organizations . . . has meant that phenomena which are clearly recognized to be aesthetic tend to be conceptually trivialized. (Witkin, 1990: 327)
Yet, the communication of purpose through esthetics is a major component of leadership through the vision of organizational mission and the harmony of organizational coherence through the engineering of consent. Similarly, the relationship of the organization to its wider environment (public, market, politics, etc.) is managed through esthetic artifacts in terms of both products and communication systems (such as logos and advertising). In education, esthetic artifacts are used continuously by leaders as they attempt to generate particular commitments and outcomes both internally within educational organizations and externally in terms of they way in which their organization is perceived.
Esthetics and Organizational Leadership Perhaps the one enduring tradition of esthetics in leadership is the notion of leadership as performance, or, as Weber (1968) called it, charisma. For Weber, charisma was a form of authority distinct from other types of traditional, legal–rational, or bureaucratic authority in that it engaged leaders and followers in an intensity of relationship and commitment uncommon in these other forms. As Samier suggests: Charisma potentially exceeds any other authority type. . . in its personal effect through emotional intensity, inspirational capacity, and sacrificial character – all of which are
Esthetics, Educational Leadership and Management creative processes taking recognisable and analysable expressive form. (Samier, 2006: 172)
While charisma has been involved in the great-man theory of leadership and its modern version – transformational leadership – most theories of organizational leadership assume a benevolent relationship between charisma and organizational and social outcomes (for instance Deal and Peterson, 1999; Saphier and King, 1995). But as Gronn, (2006) and Bates (2006b) point out, the cult of heroic leadership can serve ill purposes as well as good. However, there seems little doubt that such charisma depends very much on the presentation of self and the rituals of face-to-face encounters (Goffman, 1959, 1972). Indeed, Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis was a precursor to the analysis of cult leadership and spin and imagemaking in the second-half of the twentieth century. As Gardener (1992) points out, impression management is an important part of organizational dramaturgy where ‘‘. . . skilful players . . . take great care in defining and playing their roles, because they realize the importance of their performance’’ (p. 34). Duke explores the importance of such impression management where ‘‘The artistry of leadership encompasses leaders’ purposeful efforts to foster the impression of leadership [through] dramatics, design and orchestration’’ (Duke, 1986: 20) and Howard suggests that ‘‘leadership is less a process or a thing-in-itself than a matter of performance success’’ (Howard, 1996: 34). Starratt (1990, 1993) explores the drama of leadership through consideration of leaders as players, directors, stage managers, critics, and educators (1993) arguing that leadership is both a dramatic performance and a bridge between organizational life and the social dramas of the wider society. Leadership as a performance is therefore a bridge between internal and external dramas. The question arises therefore as to whether leadership in this sense of performance can be taught. Some, like Howard, don’t believe so: . . . however many skills of leading we may identify, however much we may learn about leading and leadership from the experience of others, leadership as an achievement, like virtuosity in the deployment of musical skills, cannot be taught. (1996: 34)
Others, like Duke, take a somewhat neutral ground, suggesting that one of the chief virtues of an esthetic approach to leadership is appreciation, in that ‘‘like beauty, leadership deserves to be enjoyed for its own sake’’ (1996: 24). Greenfield, however, argues that experience of the esthetic is fundamental to the performance of leaders in that, first, esthetic experience gives us insights into the human condition that cannot be captured through rational thought and, second, that esthetic performance speaks
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of human involvement in the world. ‘‘It gives us the highest form of authentic human expression embedded in the very fabric of human intention, human communication and human understanding’’ (in Harris 1996: 494). Here, there is an argument that without an appreciation of esthetic traditions through which understanding and intention are communicated most vividly, leadership is likely to be an impoverished, inauthentic activity where performance is divorced from humanity and esthetics divorced from ethics. For Greenfield both leadership and esthetics fundamentally ‘‘speak to questions of how to live a life’’ (in Greenfield and Ribbins, 1993: 430). Harris develops this thesis with reference not only to Greenfield, but also to Greene (1995), Eisner (2002), and Collingwood (1958), putting the position that artistry both enlarges our experience and provides ‘‘an emancipatory potential . . . that draws us towards envisioning the world as it could become’’ (Harris, 2006: 48). It is this emancipatory potential, that shows us how things might be but are not, that is at the heart of both art and leadership. The issue of how art changes perception of reality and can inform leadership, in terms of imagining and articulating possibilities, is taken up by several commentators. For instance, Samier and Stanley in their exploration of legacy of the Romantic tradition argue that: Romanticism is both an ideal and a caution for administration and leadership. . . . it provides a liberationist ethic for rising above the mundane, the profane, and the conventional in which educational administration is mired, in its promise of heightening the human potential towards self-determination, self-actualisation and authenticity. It also includes a critique of power, authority educational mediocrity and political stagnation. (2006: 42)
Educational leadership is then, at its best, characterized by ‘‘the cultivation of a deep and broad sensibility, rather than a narrow rationality or self-interest characterised by the lust for power or money’’ (Samier and Stanley, 2006: 43). This is an esthetic ideal for the creation of character as a work of art among both educational leaders and the other inhabitants of educational organizations. The Romantic tradition also, however, warns of the slide into the ugly and grotesque through novels such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the works of Edgar Allan Poe (see also Strati and Montoux, 2002). Others speak specifically of the role of literature (Brieschke, 1990; Stanley, 2006), theater (Mangham and Overington, 1987; Meyer, 2001), and cinema (Stockton, 2006) in the preparation of educational leaders and the ways in which such esthetic experiences can both deepen insight into the human condition and bring about an understanding enlivened by the contradictions of culture, not the unities or harmonies (Brieschke, 1990: 389) as well
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as a confrontation with the moral nature of decision making in contradictory circumstances (Meyer, 2001; Bebeau et al., 1999).
Esthetics and Organizational Culture The literature on leadership and organizational culture comes to education through two routes, anthropology and organizational studies. The anthropological perspective sees organizations as cultures, that is, as communities and as manifestations of human consciousness (Smircich, 1983: 347). In this view, the realization of organizational culture is a manifestation of both the commonality and diversity of the knowledge and beliefs of its participants through material artifacts, events, behavior, and emotions. On the other hand, organizational studies have tended to see organizational culture as something that an organization has: a shared system of beliefs and values that conveys a sense of identity, facilitates commitment, and enhances organizational stability (Smircich, 1983: 345-46). In this second sense, culture is seen as another critical lever or key by which strategic managers can influence and direct the course of their organizations (Smircich, 1983: 346). These alternative approaches are articulated in education by, for instance, Bates (1987, 2005b, 2006a) and Angus (1993), who argue the anthropological view, and Beare (1982); and Deal and Peterson (1999) who argue the managerial view. The difference in view is one of conflict between the anthropological concern for understanding and the managerial concern with manipulation (Bates, 2006b: 161). The implications are not trivial as the managerial view produces a drive toward consensus – contrived through the exercise of authority – while the anthropological view acknowledges the struggle between diversity and coherence and the need in education, as elsewhere, to acknowledge the complexity of the dynamics of cultural interactions both within schools and across their boundaries with various communities (Bates, 2005b, 2006b). This does not deny the role of cultural entrepreneurs or their role within organizations, or the importance of their role in helping construct ceremonies, myths, and rituals (Pettigrew, 1979), but it does suggest that such an entrepreneurial role is not necessarily restricted to organizational leaders. The anthropological approach also illuminates the cultural dynamics of organizations that provoke resistance as well as compliance and describes rituals that celebrate both identity and difference (Bernstein et al., 1966; Samier, 1997). In short, such a perspective can help to . . . reveal heterogeneity in educational organizations, identify the bases of both conflict and a shared or common culture, suggest resolutions for leaders of the adverse effects of cultural conflict, and demystify and clarify educational ethos and values for establishing intellectual
standards and integrity for planning and policy-making. (Harman, 1989 in Samier, 1997: 433)
Again, the power of the esthetic may well lie not solely in its ability to offer us shared cultural experience, but even more so in its power to help us cross cultural boundaries both within organizations and between organizations and other cultures. If the problem of contemporary society is indeed to answer Touraine’s question ‘‘Can we live together?’’ (Touraine, 1990; Bates, 2005b) then we might well accept Schein’s assertion that ‘‘We will not learn about the power of culture unless we cross real cultural boundaries’’ (Schein, 1996: 239).
Esthetics and Organizational Power Weber was the great theorist of organizational power in the modern world, arguing that the increasing rationalization of organizational life generated by the spirit of capitalism spilled over and captured every other area of social, ethical, and esthetic activity (Weber, 1930, 1968). Rationalized, bureaucratic, and calculative organizations were, for Weber, instrumental in the displacement of cultured people from positions of leadership and their replacement by technical experts: ‘‘specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart’’ (1946: 182). This new form of organizational power – that of bureaucracy – set up a conflict between specialized expertise and the cultivated personality, a conflict that ‘‘is determined by the irresistibly expanding bureaucratisation of all public and private relations of authority and by the ever-increasing importance of expert and specialized knowledge. This fight intrudes into all intimate cultural questions’’ (Weber, 1946: 243). As Samier (2002) and others have shown, and in contradiction to the continuing misrepresentation of Weber in organizational and educational studies (e.g., Bush, 2000), Weber increasingly viewed the iron cage brought about by such calculative rationalization with despair. The pessimism of his later work contrasts with the optimism of his earlier work which lauded the demystification of traditional society and the increasing autonomy of science, ethics, and esthetics (see Pusey, 1987, Bates, 2003). Habermas, in his reinterpretation of Weber argues that, rather than the rationalization of ethical and esthetic values analyzed in Weber’s early work being displaced by the rationalization of interests that became the focus of his later work, the process of rationalization in each of these spheres continues alongside each other in the conflicts between what Habermas calls the life-world and the system (Habermas, 1989). This conflict is played out within organizations where, on the one hand, individuals search for utility ‘‘which becomes the predominant value that directs the deployment of technical rationality [and] where the exchange and consumption of commodities becomes the main
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object of social action’’ and, on the other hand, they search for meaning through ‘‘substantive values, emotion and authentic self-expression [in] morality, ethics, culture, art and aesthetics’’ (Milley, 2006: 83). The result, in educational organizations as elsewhere, is ‘‘a fine balancing act between substantive cultural work and instrumental action’’ (Milley, 2006: 91). Organizational power, and the theorization (or as Foucault (1980, 1998) would call it, the normalization) of organizational power, has, for the most part been justified by appeals to utility and efficiency. However, as Maxcy (2006: 64) points out, leadership that asserts organizational power that is vainglorious, value neutral, and programmatic is deeply problematic, for leading does not occur in a vacuum, but rather, is rooted in our deepest beliefs about humankind, nature, and the real world around us (2006: 65). Cairns (2002) takes a similar position when he explores the relationships between esthetics, morality, and power in organizations. In his exploration of the redesign of a particular workplace, he examines the multiple, conflicting meanings constructed by individuals and groups with regard to the change. The esthetics of the redesign were supposedly guided, not so much by the principles of scientific management discussed earlier, but by consideration of interpersonal relations as a key driver of organizational design (2002: 800). However, the changed esthetics of the workplace produced a situation where various individuals and groups held divergent and conflicting beliefs simultaneously and without contradiction (2002: 817). These beliefs, about the power relationships embedded in the esthetics of the redesign of the workplace by their masters, were, for instance, argued by staff to be both genuine reforms directed at staff empowerment and the implementation of fashionable management models for managerial self-advancement (2002: 815). Even at the level of the design of physical environments then, esthetics are capable of holding contradictory meanings in tension. In terms of the exercise of power by different groups in organizations, esthetics may in fact be important in allowing individuals and groups to relate the system and life-world within the organization in ways that produce ‘‘. . . not a state of consensus, [but] rather a state of divergent equilibrium’’ (Cairns, 2002: 815). This is a particular consideration in education where typically members of such organizations have diverse and multiple goals as well as hold various definitions of reality. They are likely, therefore, to be sites of competing esthetics that need constantly to be rebalanced into Cairns divergent state of equilibrium.
Esthetics and Organizational Capital Recently, attempts have been made to explore the place of educational management and leadership in the (re)
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production and distribution of symbolic (esthetic) capital and the role of education in esthetic self-realization. This is an area of investigation that follows from the work of Bourdieu (1984, 1993) and his exploration of the ways in which symbolic capital is distributed throughout society and the role played by various cultural institutions, such as museums, art galleries, theaters, publishing houses, and foundations, in organizing, adjudicating, and distributing such capital. The effect of such institutions is to produce a hierarchy of taste (Bourdieu, 1984), access to, and ownership of which constitutes symbolic capital that in turn legitimates the position of the owner in social space (Bourdieu, 1984, 1993). Schools play a vital role in the consecration of symbolic capital and the maintenance of hierarchies of taste and power. Educational leaders, therefore, inasmuch as they articulate particular notions of cultural/symbolic capital (classical as against popular culture, for instance) and, through the assessment systems of their institutions, certify the possession (or absence) of such capital. Typically, schools act to conserve traditional notions of symbolic/cultural capital. In this way the school simply . . . maintains the pre-existing order, that is, the gap between pupils endowed with unequal amounts of cultural capital. More precisely, by a series of selection operations, the system separates the holders of inherited cultural capital from those who lack it. Differences in aptitude being inseparable from social differences according to inherited capital, the system tends to maintain pre-existing social differences. (Bourdieu, 1998: 20)
As Bates (2006b) suggests, advocates of high culture (Eliot, Leavis, Bloom) and popular (working class) culture (Hoggart, Willams, Hall) articulate very different versions of symbolic capital. Educational institutions that adopt particular versions of symbolic capital therefore label their graduates in particular ways. For many, such distinctions mark off the sacred from the profane (Bourdieu, 1998) and purity from danger (Douglas, 1970; Durkheim, 1971). The placing of individuals in symbolic space therefore depends upon both the differences in the location of institutions and the processes by which they associate particular differences with particular individuals. The work of educational administrators is, therefore, esthetic, not only in terms of their vision of school culture and their embodiment of that vision in the esthetic performance of the self, but also in the act of consecration of a particular esthetic distinction between purity and danger, between the noble and the mundane, and their classification of individuals according to such categories (Bates, 2006: 212). In the contemporary world however, the struggle to maintain clear hierarchies of symbolic capital and power is confused by the anarchy of cultures that now rub up against each other in various media. This is not to suggest
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that such hierarchies are less important than they once were, but rather that the competition for places within and between hierarchies is more intense (McKee, 2005). Educational institutions and educational leaders are, therefore, increasingly caught up in debates about the production and reproduction of such hierarchies of symbolic capital and arguments over what particular esthetic (as well as ethical and instrumental) values they should transmit.
Conclusion The application of esthetic theories to educational leadership and to the study of educational institutions has hardly begun. There are some promising leads in both organizational and educational literature, but much work remains to be done at both theoretical and empirical levels. As Samier (2006: 5) suggests, following Hostadter (1965) ‘‘art is the means by which the three functions of symbolism, expression, and meaning are integrated.’’ Such integration is at the heart of the educational process. It is also at the heart of organizational and social processes as Dewey (1916) acknowledged. But, for Dewey, such processes were fundamentally an exercise in consensual value formation across boundaries and always with the potential that things could be other than what they are. The exercise of such an esthetic imagination is important in both organizational and educational leadership.
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Stanley, A. (2006). The Victorian hangover: Colourful headmasters in the works of Mr Dickens ad Ms Bronte. In Samier, E. and Bates, R. (eds.) Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership, pp 110–127. London: Routledge. Starratt, R. J. (1990). The Drama of Schooling. London: Falmer. Starratt, R. J. (1993). The Drama of Leadership. London: Falmer. Stockton, J. (2006). A narrative looking glass for leadership studies in administration: Cinema and literature as source and reflective medium. In Samier, E. and Bates, R. (eds.) Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership, pp 128–144. London: Routledge. Strati, A. (1992). Aesthetic understanding of organizational life. Academy of Management Review 17, 568–581. Strati, A. (2001). Organization and Aesthetics. London: Sage. Weber, M. (1930). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Unwin Hyman. Weber, M. (1946). From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press. Weber, M. (1968). Economy and Society: and Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkley, CA: University of California. Witkin, R. W. (1990). The aesthetic imperative of a rational-technical machinery: A study of organizational control through the design of artefacts. In Gagliardi, P. (ed.) Symbols and Artifacts: Views of the Corporate Landscape, pp 325–338. Berlin: DeGruyter.
Further Reading Bates, R. (1989). Leadership and the rationalization of society. In Smyth, J. (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Educational Leadership, pp 131–156. London: Falmer. Bates, R. (2005a). An anarchy of cultures. Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education 33(3), 231–241. Samier, E., Bates, R., and Stanley, A. (2006). Foundations and history of the social aesthetic. In Samier, E. and Bates, R. (eds.) Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership, pp 3–19. London: Routledge. Strati, A. and Montoux, P. (2002). Organizing aesthetics. Human Relations 55(7), 755–766. Touraine, A. (2000). Can We Live Together? Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.