Fools, jesters and the possibility of responsible leadership
探讨负责任的组织领导是否可能，通过列维纳斯和德里达的伦理思想构建责任概念，并借用愚人这一原型形象来揭示领导中责任与关系性之间的张力，为领导实践者提供应对这种张力的思路。
The vibrant academic and practitioner conversation about corporate responsibility does not appear to reduce the number of scandals involving unethical managerial behaviour. This leaves the question of whether responsible organisational leadership is possible. Some leadership scholars recently suggested that understanding leadership as a relational process can facilitate more responsible leadership practice. This article develops the relational leadership perspective by offering a critical discussion of the possibility of responsible relational leadership. I construct an understanding of responsibility following the writings of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. I then use the archetypal figure of the Fool as an imaginary device to translate Levinasian and Derridian ethics into lived experiences and thus illuminate the conditions under which responsibility may be possibilised. This theoretical analysis exposes the irresolvable tension between responsibility and the relational in leadership but also identifies ways through which leadership actors can strive for responsibility through purposefully engaging with the tension.