Beyond Rational Persuasion: How Leaders Change Moral Norms

Authors: Charles Spinosa, Matthew Hancocks, Haridimos Tsoukas & Billy Glennon.

Abstract

Scholars are increasingly examining how formal leaders of organisations change moral norms. The prominent accounts over-emphasise the role of rational persuasion. Instead, we focus on how formal leaders successfully break and create moral norms. We draw on Dreyfus’s ontology of cultural paradigms and Williams’ moral luck to develop our framework for viewing leader-driven radical changes to norms. We argue that formal leaders, embedded in their practices’ grounding, clarifying, and organising norms, get captivated by anomalies and respond to them by taking moral risks, which, if practically successful, create a new normative order. We illustrate the framework with Churchill’s actions in 1940 and Anita Roddick’s Body Shop. Lastly, we discuss normative orders, when ordinary leaders change norms, evil, and further research.

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