from ARTIST-AS-LEADER to LEADER-AS-ARTIST

From artist-as-leader to leader-as-artist is a critical examination of the image of contemporary leadership and its roots. Through the lens of modern management texts, Pieterse explores the link between contemporary management speak and the artistic critique of the avant-garde movements of the 1950 in the Netherlands, focusing specifically on the Dutch Fiftiers group, the Cobra movement and 1960's countercultural activism. Subsequently, a neo-management-discourse is generated whereby the figure of the artist becomes the model for the modern leader: charismatic, visionary, intuitive, mobile, creative, cooperative, open to taken risks ans strong at networking. Such a discourse appeals to the values of self-actualization, freedom, authenticity ans 'knowledge deriving from personal experience'(Boltanski and Chiapello 2007:113), the very values of the artistic critique that have been absorbed into modern-day capitalism. Pieterse explores this transformation of the artistic critique into contemporary leadership rhetoric by unfolding the life and work of the Dutch Beat Poet and performer Simon Vinkenoog, a highly influential leader in the artistic critique. In doing so he examines the dilemmas, paradoxes and contradictions present within contemporary leadership. Pieterse is a Program Director at the Baak Management Centre, one of the largest management training institutes in the Netherlands.