Phenomenology and Integral Pheno-Practice of Wisdom
In Leadership and Organisation
Dr. Wendelin M. Küpers
Department of Business Administration, Leadership & Organisation
FernUniversität in Hagen - Profilstr. 8 - D-58084 Hagen, Germany
Tel.: + 49 (0)2331/987-4905
E-Mail: [email protected].
Abstract
This paper investigates the multidimensional phenomenon of wisdom in organizations and
management as an integral and relational process. In particular, the paper will show how
phenomenology can help to render an extended understanding of the “incorporated” dimensions
of wisdom situated in organizations and managerial life-world practises. Based on this, an
integral (and holonic) pheno-practice of wisdom in organisations will be proposed. Accordingly
the interior and exterior dimensions as well as individual and collective spheres of wisdom are
assessed together. Furthermore, the interconnected processes of intentional, behavioural, cultural
and systemic domains of wisdom can be integrated. Following a processual turn, a dynamic and
decentred perspective on wisdom will be developed by which it is interpreted as an emerging and
inter-relational event. Finally, theoretical and practical implications and further research on a
more integrated understanding of wisdom are discussed.
Introduction
This article aims to retrieve wisdom as a relevant mode of meaning and practice within
organization and leadership. With its multi-facetted modalities, wisdom carries tremendous
potential for broadening, deepening and realising more integral ways for current managerial and
organizational practices. Moreover, wisdom becomes relevant for transforming today’s personal,
social, cultural, political and economic realities into a sustainable, equitable, peaceful and highly
enjoyable existence and evolution (Macdonald 1993, 1995).
More specifically, wisdom becomes increasingly important for dealing with the challenges of
current business contexts. At present, realities of leadership and organizations are characterised
by increasing complexity and uncertainty (Marion & Uhl-Bien, 2001). Leaders, employees and
organizations are called upon to respond to macro-level societal dynamics as well as micro-level
organizational dynamics, and to integrate a variety of distinct value systems and priorities. At the
macro-level, specific issues include socio-cultural changes and value-shifts, globalisation,
increased competition and technological developments, exponential increase in innovation rates
and so on. At the micro-level, challenges of modern corporations include the acceleration of
discontinuous change processes (Prahalad, 1998; Nadler et al. 1995) and transformation
endeavours such as downsizing Cascio 1993; de Vries & Balazs, 1997), delayering, and
outsourcing.
Leaders and leadership in contemporary organisational contexts are facing contradictory
performance imperatives (Margolis & Walsh, 2003); they have to manage leadership paradoxes,
deal with complex social and moral dilemmas (Dawes 1980), and cope with “necessary evils”
(Molinsky & Margolis 2005) in order to manage effectively. These issues bring about new
exigencies, roles and tasks, and while some leaders are flexible enough to remain effective, others
struggle and fail. Poor and abusive leadership practices such as inconsistent behaviour, hypocrisy
and unethical conduct (Johnson 2004) lead to internal organizational conflict, triggering
‘oppositional practices’ (Collinson, 1994), ‘organizational retaliatory’ or ‘anti-citizenship’
behaviours. These include those labelled ‘dysfunctional’, ‘antisocial’ (Folger & Cropanzano,
1998; Giacalone & Greenberg, 1997); and ‘recalcitrant’ practices of employees demonstrated by
sabotage, absenteeism, disobedience and decreased productivity (Ackroyd & Thompson, 1999;
Robinson & Bennett, 1995) or other forms of misbehaviour (Vardi & Wiener, 1996) and
demotivation (Wunderer & Küpers, 2003). Thus, inadequate leadership behaviours cause various
problematic internal and external effects (Tepper, 2000; Trevino et al., 2003, Trevino & Brown,
2005), contributing to a heightened uneasiness with current leadership practices.
Furthermore, there are many examples of business decisions that turn out to be imprudent or
unwise (Small, 2004: 761) leading to illegal and eventually unethical or even criminal actions.
Moreover, as corporate scandals and crises of an unprecedented scale (e.g., Enron, Parmalat,
ABB, etc.) and frauds (Schroth & Elliot, 2002) have been widely reported, public perceptions
have become sensitised to questioning and calling for better leadership practice. This is
coterminous with rising calls for corporate social responsibility, sustainable development, and
corporate citizenship (Carroll, 1999; Crowther & Rayman-Bacchus, 2005; Grayson & Hodges,
2004, Lockett et al. 2006; Matten & Moon 2004). Thus, the current state of practice calls on
leaders to enable economic value creation while at the same time considering, organizing and
leading ethically responsible practices throughout the organization and responding to the various
demands of stakeholders (Donaldson & Preston, 1995; Phillips, 2003).
In the same way that contemporary life-worlds of leadership and organization are fragmented
and in urgent need of serious rethinking, the state of leadership and organization theory and
discourse displays various non-integrative approaches (Küpers & Weibler, 2006). In academic
discourse, leadership has been conceptualised as the accepted process for influencing and
developing people, teams and organisations, to enhance human potential (Bijur, 2000: 167), and
effectively attain shared objectives (Ivancevich & Matteson, 2002; Yukl, 2002). However,
traditionally studies in leadership take either a leader-centred, a follower-centred, or situational
approach (Yukl, 2002). More problematically, even when researchers have taken dyadic
relationships into account, it leads them to focus on only a partial or limited representation of the
practical phenomenon. The status of multiple influences on leaders and leadership, including the
active role of followers (Smith & Peterson, 1988; Küpers, 2006c) and the interplay of macro- and
micro-level dynamics (Osborn et al., 2002), have been largely ignored.
In an effort to overcome these limitations, more recent conceptualisations of leadership have
tried to broaden the scope of relevant factors. For example, the concepts of ‘transformational
leadership’ (Bass, 1985), ‘charismatic leadership’ (Conger, 1989), relational models of leadership
(Ivancevich & Matteson, 2002; Hosking et al., 1995), authentic leadership (Bass & Steidlmeier,
1999; Avolio et al., 2005; Ilies et al., 2005), and ethically responsible leadership (e.g. Ciulla,
1995, 2004; Kanungo & Mendonca, 1996; Sanders et al., 2003) have gained increasing currency
within the field. Furthermore, new and alternative conceptualisations are emerging that address
leadership as an empowering activity that can be shared or distributed among self-managing
members of a group or organizations (Bradford & Cohen, 1998; Cox et al., 2003; Manz & Sims,
1995, 2000; Pearce & Conger, 2003; Sims & Lorenzi, 1992). Following a service orientation,
other researchers have conceptualised leadership as “stewardship” (Greenleaf, 1977; Block 1993;
Spears, 1998) in an effort to replace the traditional management tools of control and consistency
with partnership and responsible choice throughout the organization.
Yet, in spite of these recent accounts of the complex relationships between leaders and
followers, the field of leadership research remains dominated by one-sided, behavioural and
cognitive accounts (Bryman, 1996), lacking a grounding in human development (Bennis &
Thomas, 2002). Like the state of leadership practice, the current state of leadership research
signals a need for an integrative and wisdom-related orientation.
Addressing the contexts and concepts outlined above, this paper highlights perspectives on an
integral understanding of wisdom in organizations and leadership. In particular, the paper will
show how the phenomenological approach of Merleau-Ponty (1962; 1964) can help to render an
understanding of the constitutive role of “in-corporated” dimensions of wisdom. On this basis, an
integral understanding and what will be called pheno-practice of wisdom will be developed.
Using advanced phenomenology and an integral framework (Wilber 1999; 2000a,b) this allows
for an integration of subjective, inter-subjective and (inter-)objective processes of wisdom and its
interrelatedness. Following a processual turn, a dynamic and decentred perspective on wisdom
will be then be offered, interpreting wisdom as an emerging event. Finally, theoretical and
practical implications and further research perspectives on a more integral understanding of
wisdom in leadership and organizations are discussed.
Understanding wisdom
The concept of wisdom dates back over 3500 years as a traditional, pragmatic or spiritual
folk practice and distilled knowledge as well as profound sageness of countless generations.
Wisdom has various mythological, spiritual, philosophical and secular facets and differentiations,
and has endured across time and across cultures. Throughout history, wisdom has been seen as a
“supreme” form of human knowledge and a peak of human excellence leading to highest levels
of performance. Historically, in various cultures wisdom has been used to reference a special
understanding of oneself and others as well as mastery and better way of life (Holiday &
Chandler 1986: 10-22).
For the Greeks and conventionally theoretical wisdom (sophia) was concerned with (the right
use of) knowledge including matters relating to life and conduct and episteme as a more
scientific, rationally-grounded type of wisdom (Robinson, 1990). As a supplement to these more
contemplative, introspective and reflective searches for truth, practical wisdom (phronesis) or
prudence (Statler, 2006) point to soundness of judgement in the choice of means and ends and
corresponding action measured by day-today effectiveness (Arnoud & LeBon, 2000). Thus, for
the Hellenistic culture, including the Skeptic and Stoic traditions, wisdom was characterised by a
synthetic nature, embracing knowledge and ethics as part of a way of living.
However, with the rise of Christian regimes, replacing wisdom by a demanding theological
ethics based on prayer and sacrifice, and the Enlightenment, with its positivism and empiricism,
wisdom lost this direct life-worldly relation. Despite its re-emergences during the Renaissance,
more and more it became marginalised or replaced by scientific knowledge (Marcel, 1955), being
increasingly equated with “rational knowledge”, “expertise”, or a “competency”. With the
“modern eclipse of the study of wisdom” (Holliday & Chandler, 1986: 21), dominated by
technical interests, it has been assimilated and reduced to a psychological construct of cognitive
or moral maturation or even as mere exaggerated technical expertise. In an attempt to find a
scientifically valid measure and methodological operationalisation of wisdom monistically, many
approaches to it follow a cognitive orientation, loosing its practical functions. As such, it has
been researched as “a form of advanced cognitive functioning” (Dittman-Kohli & Baltes, 1990:
54), or reasoning ability (Sternberg 1985), and as a “fundamental cognitive process of reflection
and judgement” (Arlin, 1990: 235).
Accordingly, wisdom is often seen as a special form of empirical-analytic knowledge or as
“an expert knowledge system” (Baltes & Smith, 1990: 87). It is interpreted as a meta-cognitive
capacity for handling and solving complex problems. With it, an actor applies factual and
procedural knowledge in order to make judgments employed for the good of oneself and others in
the fundamental pragmatics of life (Baltes & Staudinger, 2000; Staudinger & Baltes, 1996).
Wisdom offers a comprehensive knowledge characterised by tolerance and depth and exceptional
competency for formulating appropriate, feasible, and reflective judgments in the face of
uncertainty (Kitchener & Brenner, 1990). Thus, wisdom not only allows subjects to be critically
aware of the limits of reliability of their own (fallible) knowledge (Meacham, 1983, 1990;
Sternberg, 1990), it also represents an awareness of the existence of ill-structured problems; and
of the fluid, contradictory, and paradoxical nature of reality (Kramer, 1990).
However, the possession of high levels of knowledge does not in itself mean that a person is
wise. Rather, wisdom is a rare combination of “attributes” with cognitive development being only
one feature of the array (Kitchener & Brenner, 1990). Therefore, wisdom is not solely a cognitive
phenomenon, but it also involves cognitive, emotional, and motivational characteristics (Baltes
and Kunzmann, 2003: 132). That is, wisdom relies on and requires experiential knowledge and
implicit knowing (Küpers, 2005), for example, in selecting courses of action involving a tight
integration of cognition and affect (Kramer, 1990; Pascual-Leone, 1990).
In conceptions of wisdom in which cognition and affect are integrated (Clayton & Birren,
1980; Kramer, 1990), wisdom requires that cognitive development be accompanied by
development of the ego (Kramer, 1990) in a comprehensive whole in which cognition, affect and
personality are interconnected (Clayton & Birren, 1980), and whose underlying common ground
is a disposition-of-will (Pascual-Leone, 1990). In these conceptions, in addition to capacities for
cognition and communication, as well as significant experience of life, aspects of personality
must also be taken into consideration. For example, affect and sensitivity to certain emotional
indicators are needed to make it possible to perceive others’ intentions and to facilitate
empathetic understanding (Birren & Fisher, 1990; Kramer, 1990).
Being “an integrative aspect of human life” (Birren & Fisher, 1990: 324), and relating
reflective attitude and a practical concern (Small 2004, 755), wisdom brings together affective,
conative, and cognitive abilities in response to every-day tasks and problems and allows for good
decisions and enactments to be made at individual and societal levels. Moreover, as Staudinger
and Baltes (1996: 746) demonstrate, social interaction plays a significant role in wisdom-related
performance. Thus, wisdom is already inherently tied to collective systems of knowledge and
would rarely be found in an individual operating in isolation. Rather, it is more likely to be
observed when multiple minds are interacting. Related to various forms of (shared) knowledge
and imagination, wisdom can be seen as a socio-cultural process. Thus, it refers to the
development on both individual and communal levels as well as systemic dimensions.
Narrow cognitive or subject-based concepts or person-centred approaches threaten to
dislocate wisdom from its multiple traditions and social and systemic contexts. Such one-sided acontextual interpretations underestimate or abstract the embodied interrelations found in situated
practices (Case & Gosling 2006) that are co-constituting of wisdom in leadership and
organizations (Korac-Kakabase et al., 2001). Phenomenology and integral theorising provide an
approach for considering these interrelated and interdependent dimensions of wisdom.
Phenomenology and Wisdom
The practice of wisdom shares some similarities with the method of phenomenology. Both
apply a kind of non-judgemental attitude as a starting point. The art of detachment of wisdom
resembles an attempt to overcome the natural biases in ones phenomenological orientation. The
examination and suspension of all assumptions about the nature of any reality is one of the key
principles in phenomenology as a means of philosophical inquiry. This phenomenological inquiry
is specified by methodological procedures and techniques of epoché, bracketing; reduction, and
free variation (Küpers, 2007). Likewise, wisdom practises are initiated by stepping out of
ordinary ways of experiencing the world, seeing through a different lens, juxtaposing different
angles, and freeing oneself from concepts (expectations, anticipations etc.) that we unreflexively
bring to and impose on the perceptions. While deeply committed and personally responsible for
“the common good,” wise individuals have the capacity to detach or “distance” themselves (in
terms of satisfying their own egos and self-interests) from the problems confronting them and,
thus, can operate objectively and with open minds (Hays, 2005).
Thus, both phenomenology and wisdom practices strive for suspending or “bracketing out”
the individual’s experience that had been contaminated by cultural, historical and societal
influences. Both aim for questioning the preconceptions and assumptions, and cultivating an
open, beginner’s mind and ‘pure or witness consciousness’. Like phenomenology aims to
describe and understand how phenomena present themselves in lived experience of “being in the
world”, practices of wisdom relates to experiential dimensions of human existence. With this,
phenomenology and wisdom value mindfulness for keeping consciousness alive to the present
life-worldly reality, that is for helping make sense of phenomena, and for aiding the ability to
understand, interpret, and transform.
Phenomenology of Embodied Wisdom in Organizations
From a phenomenological perspective, all those involved in their “life-world” (Husserl,
1970; Schütz and Luckman 1989) are first and foremost embodied beings (Merleau-Ponty 1962).
This implies that they can never perceive, experience or know about things or encounters
independent of our lived experiences as bodily-engaged beings. We find the life-world
meaningful primarily with respect to the ways in which we act within it and in which it acts upon
us as an engaged and perceiving “body-subject” (Crossley, 1996: 101). Thus, “embodiment” does
not simply refer to “physical manifestation”, rather, it means being grounded in everyday,
mundane experience and being inherently connected to the environment in an ongoing
interrelation.
In this sense the living body as it is experienced and experiences is the mediating link
between internal and external experience and between meaning and action. Thus, embodiment is
a “third term” between subject and object (Merleau-Ponty, 1964). Our bodies are both physical
structures and lived experiential structures, that is, both biological and phenomenological (Varela
et al., 1993). Without the bodily perceived sense of the situation we would not know where we
are or what we are knowing and learning, nor how to communicate to others about it. In this way,
our bodies “are” our situation; they “do” our living (Gendlin, 1992). This extended understanding
of embodiment can be used to capture a sense of “phenomenological presence”. This refers to the
way that a variety of inter-active and “inter-passive” phenomena arise from a direct and engaged
perception and participation, in which members of organizations are immersed. This view of
embodiment also considers emotional, social and systemic dimensions of situated practice. The
incarnate status of the “body-subject” opens the way to a phenomenological description of the
“living present” in organizations. It is through their perceptual selves that the subjects of
organising processes are situated in their environment in a tactile, visual, olfactory or auditory
way. Whatever they may think, feel or do, they are exposed to a synchronised field of interrelated senses (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 207), in the midst of a world of touch, sight, smell, and
sound. It is the sensual perception and experience that re-creates or re-constitutes the life-world
and its living communication and meaning (Merleau-Ponty, 1962: 207, 212).
This notion of a living present allows us to develop a much deeper understanding of how
wisdom can emerge in concrete organizational contexts. Indeed, a phenomenological
understanding of wisdom takes these sense-related contacts and “embodied intention”
systematically into consideration. In such an intentional and responsive space, organizations and
their members are embodied in particular and correlated ways. It is through the body that
organizational members directly reach their perceived and handled “objects” of work. Anyone
involved in organizational processes – even in intermediated virtual networks – will necessarily
encounter perceived realities through bodily organs, from a specific point and horizon of seeing,
hearing or touching. During these encounters, the body responds to the meaningful questions,
demands, problems or claims posed to it. Moreover, it is through such situational conditions and
contexts that the embodied agents of organizations take part in their everyday practices. This
includes different local patterns of possibilities of performances as well as the constraints
associated within a specific embodied habitus.
Thus, the genuine intentionality of “bodily consciousness” does not feel an “I think”, but an
“I can or cannot” or “I relate to” or “I do” (MacMurray, 1957: 84). Accordingly, in these
embodied life-worlds of organization, wisdom is not only influenced by what employees and
managers think, rather, wisdom is also constituted by what they feel and live through their
“operative intentionality” (Merleau-Ponty, 1962: xviii) and responsiveness. This again is being
part of their experiential interrelations and embedded inter-relational situatedness. With this
understanding of embodied wisdom there is a close link between what is aimed for and what is
given, and between intention, responsiveness and the situations of everyday practice and hence
between knowing and acting.
As, the body and embodiment have been marginalised as medium of organisational practice
and theory (Hassard, et al., 2000; Casey, 2000) and facing the prevailing separation of body and
consciousness (Dale & Burrell, 2000; Dale, 2001) in social and organisational theory, there is a
need for a “re-membering” between body, embodiment and (re-)embodied organisations (Styhre,
2004). Only this allows re-integrating and reviving wisdom as a specific practice in organisations.
With this orientation wisdom can be understood as constituted and reconstituted in the dynamics
of everyday experiential practice as “experience is knowing” (Levinas, 1969: 62).
Accordingly, embodied wisdom can be seen as a concrete form of decentred knowing and
judging in the face of ambiguous or uncertain circumstances to guide meaningful actions. With
this perspective, wisdom is interpreted not simply as an individual “trait”, “quality” or a
“behaviour” born out of an individual’s capabilities. More generatively, it can be interpreted as a
relational accomplishment that is a thread of community and as a systemic network of processes
and meanings. Thus, the embodied experiential and relational dimensions of wisdom are
embedded in collective and systemic contexts that require a more comprehensive
conceptualisation. Therefore, instead of a person-centred and static notion of wisdom, what is
needed is the development of an integrated approach, radicalised by a relational and processual
understanding of the transformational dynamics of wisdom.
Integral Pheno-Practice of Wisdom in Organizations
As we have seen, understanding and enacting wisdom in organizations and management
demands a comprehensive and integrated framework, and more inclusive practice-oriented
approach that is suited to investigating complex, inter-related processes. As any single
perspective is likely to be partial, limited and maybe distorted, to avoid reductionistic fallacies an
integrated multi-level framework and analysis of wisdom is required. Accordingly, the following
section presents an integrate model of what is called “pheno-practice” (Küpers, 2005, 2007). This
“pheno-practice” is understood as a special employment and application of phenomenology. Like
classical phenomenology, pheno-practice is basically driven by the intention to clarify and
understand what is at issue; that is what appears as live-worldly phenomena. As such, it strives to
make accessible, describable, and interpretable the implicit and explicit settings and meanings of
wisdom in hand of individuals, groups and systems in organizations and their interrelated
practices.
Accordingly, pheno-practice is applicable as a style of “concrete thinking” and way to
understand and deal with phenomenal reality. However, “pheno-practice” aims to “overcome”
classical phenomenology and its underlying, limited ontological and epistemological assumptions
and methodologies to develop a post-Husserlian methodology of understanding phenomena in
organizations (Küpers & Jäger, 2005; Küpers, 2006). Furthermore, pheno-practice focuses on
offering critical and practical perspectives for creative and transformative processes of wisdom. It
aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice by providing a conceptual and practiceoriented approach to the complexities involved in wisdom.
To develop a more comprehensive approach to the multiple dimensions of wisdom, phenopractices uses an over-arching integral scheme developed by Ken Wilber (1999, 2000a, 2000b).
This is a theory-building endeavour that attempts to integrate as many valid systems of
knowledge as possible into an inclusive, meta-theoretical framework. This endeavour is not a
synthetic one in that it attempts to superficially unify the plurality of views, rather, integral
theorists use a method of integral pluralism to acknowledge the multiplicity of perspectives.
Accordingly, integral theory can be seen as a heuristic system of analytical lenses that can
provide a clearer, more comprehensive picture of wisdom.
The integral model (cf. Figure 1) accommodates the “intra-subjective”, inter-subjective and
individual objective and “inter-objective” dimensions of wisdom a holonic event. Holons are
integrative ´entities´ or processes which are both wholes and parts of bigger wholes at the same
time (Koestler, 1967). As emerging events holons evolve to complex orders of whole/partness by
virtue of specific dynamic “patterns” that they exhibit. Furthermore, the holon construct is based
on the distinctions between the higher (transcendence) and the lower (immanence), and between
the dynamics of agency (preservation) and of communion (adaptation) (Edwards, 2005).
Holonically, wisdom comprises processes and structures which are simultaneously
autonomous and dependent, characterized by differentiation (generation of variety) and
integration (generation of coherence). A holonic understanding of wisdom utilises different
lenses of integral pheno-practice. Consequently, it allows considering interior and exterior
dimensions as well as the individual and collective spheres and its specific interconnected
processes of intentional, behavioural, cultural and social-systemic domains together.
Accordingly, the interior and exterior dimension as well as individual and collective spheres
of wisdom and its specific interconnected processes of intentional, behavioural, cultural and
social-systemic domains are assessed and considered together. The crossing of these dimensions
gives four quadrants representing four different perspectives of interior-agency or self &
consciousness (I), exterior agency or behaviour as enactment (My; It), interior-communal or
culture (We) and exterior-communal or system (Its). While the first quadrant involves the intrapersonal or internal reality of a person (e.g. intentional, emotional, cognitive, volitional processes
and implicit knowing); the second sphere implies the individual external aspects of behaviour
(e.g. action, knowledge, skills, competencies and performance). The third quadrant deals with
interior-communal issues on a collective level (e.g. culture, history, stories, beliefs, values of the
community). Finally, the last quadrant encompasses the exterior external dimensions. It is the
quadrant of structural or functional order and systemic mechanisms (e.g. resources, tools,
technologies, design, work-place conditions or workflow procedures).
Each of the four orientations would be incomplete without the others, and each depends on
the others for its basic existence and sustenance. As wisdom is enacted in all these domains and
its interrelations, they all need to be considered in its inter-connected nexus as the following
figure shows:
Individuality
Behavioural
Quadrant
Intrasubjective
(emotion, cognition,
intentions, volition)
I
social/collective
We
Individual
objective
(action, knowledge,
skill, competencies,
performance)
Integral
Pheno-Practice
c
of
Wisdom
Intersubjective
(culture, history, stories,
beliefs, values of the
community)
Culture
Quadrant
My, It
Our, Its
Exterior
Interior
individual
Consciousness
Quadrant
Interobjective
(resources, tools,
technologies,
design, structures,
functions)
System
Quadrant
Communality
Figure 1: Integral Pheno-Practice of Wisdom
Developmental Stages and Lines within an Integral Cycle
The quadrant model can be further extended by a series of different developmental stages or
levels and lines of development that are essential dynamic aspects of integral wisdom.
Developmental psychology (Piaget, 1977; Kegan, 1982, 1994; Kohlberg 1981, 1984; Loevinger,
1976; Wade, 1996; Wilber 2000c, 2001; Gardner 1983) - using a comprehensive cross-cultural
comparison from pre-modern, modern, and post-modern sources - has found the main
developmental dimensions to be basic components of human functioning and overall growth. The
levels of development refer to what is being developed (matter, body, and mind, soul and
“spirit”) and the amount of consciousness in particular developmental lines. Thus, the levels are
stages of development through which the lines proceed by a transcending but inclusive embrace
and enfolding. With this, the levels mark out new capacities and emergent qualities found
through life or that are situated in the context (e.g. acquiring, competing, conforming achieving,
including, visioning).
Furthermore, these basic levels of consciousness - though unfolding at different rates - can be
seen as fluid, flowing, overlapping waves in an overall spectrum of consciousness and can be
used as a “scale” to measure all the lines. The “lines of development” co-determine a human
being's capacity to perform successfully in various circumstances. The various lines of
development include the following: moral development, self-identity or proximate-self
development (generally called ‘ego development’), visual-spatial thinking, logico-mathematical
thought, linguistic-narrative knowledge, cognitive development, worldviews, interpersonal
capacity, conotative and motivational drives, intimacy, spiritual development, self-needs,
altruism, creativity, affective development, level of typical defence mechanisms, mode of spacetime. But they include also various specific talents (e.g. musical, artistic, bodily-kinaesthetic),
and object relations among others (Wilber, 2001: 246). Most of these lines develop in a relatively
independent fashion on their own rate with their own dynamics. Some lines are necessary but not
sufficient for others; while some develop closely together (Wilber, 2000a).
Both levels and lines of development are essential aspects of human beings in the
organizational context. For example, organizational members need to understand for themselves
their capacity to influence and motivate themselves and others. Moreover, when such lines of
development are viewed they can also be applied for collective spheres like groups or entire
organizations. The following figure shows different stages and lines of development and domains
(cf. Figure 2):
Interior
Individuality
Consciousness
Exterior
Behaviour
Lines
Exterior
Interior
of
develop ment
Levels
of
development
Culture
System
Communality
Figure 2: Levels and Lines of Development and Domains of Integral Wisdom
Applied to leadership and organizational contexts, the developmental lines apply to complex
cognitive (e.g. strategic thinking), emotional (e.g. emotional intelligence), interpersonal (e. g.
social awareness, empathy) development and behavioural, knowledge and learning-related
phenomena as well as ethical/moral development. As consciousness increases in a developmental
line, it progresses to a higher stage in the overall spectrum. Thus the “lines” develop over time
through increasingly complex levels of maturity, education and skill. But there are also “lagging
lines” of development that represent specific weaknesses manifest in every-day life. These underdeveloped capacities may be a limiting factor in an effectiveness or success of practices of
organisational members or processes. The differences in level and lines explain for instance why
people, who are advanced on one line, for example cognitive-intellectually, do not always use
their intelligence and their understanding to act wisely. Thus, unpacking the significance of levels
and lines simply means that a leader, a follower, a group and culture, or even an organizational
system can be at a fairly high level of development in some lines (e.g. cognitive), at a medium
level of development in other lines (e.g. interpersonal), and at a fairly low level in yet others (e.g.
moral). As I have noted already, conventional conceptualisations of wisdom often follow
cognitive lines, which explains prevailing difficulties in integrating embodied tacit knowing
emotional dimensions into research in organisation (Küpers 2005) and wisdom.
The levels and lines and the quadrants are energised by the dynamics of growth and
integration within an “Integral Cycle” (Cacioppe & Edwards, 2005a,b; Edwards, 2004, 2005).
This cycle keeps all the various elements and domains hanging together in a coherent and
dynamic system. Moreover, this cycle co-ordinates the interrelation between the four quadrants
and the developmental levels and lines. With its capacity to analyse, categorise and synthesise,
the integral cycle offers some important heuristic benefits: namely as a way of representing the
mutual interpenetration of the quadrants, with their constituent structures and developmental
stages and lines. These are shown in the integrative, translational, and growth dynamic
relationship that exists between the domains and their involutionary and evolutionary pathways.
that allow that all dimensions of wisdom co-create each other and are unfolding together.
Individuality
Behaviour
Integral
Cycle
Dynamics
Integrativ e
Grow th
Dynamic
Exterior
Interior
Consciousness
Translational
Dynamics
Culture
System
Communality
Figure 3: Integral Cycle of Wisdom (Edwards, 2004, 2005 modified)
Processual Turn towards Inter-Relational Wisdom
As with the relationship between emotion and ethics (ten Bos & Willmott, 2001), it is
necessary to problematise the very idea of a distinction between emotional receptivity or lived
experience on the one hand, and wisdom as active reason or universalisable duty on the other.
That is, developing and fostering post-dualistic relational forms of wisdom.
For this, the following describes a necessary processual turn towards an inter-relational
understanding of wisdom. Thereby, the advanced phenomenology and integral model of wisdom
is linked with an interrelational paradigm and a radicalised processual orientation for approaching
wisdom as an emerging event. With this orientation, the processual “space in-between”
(Bradbury & Lichtenstein 2000) as intermediate field and inter-play is emphasised. Accordingly
in these relational realms all parties involved meet and influence mutually in an on-goingness
within embedded con-+-Texts (Küpers, 2002). Wisdom is a processual ‘quality’ that emerges in
such con-+-textual inter-relations in which wise people and groups are able to reflect on a
situation through evaluating and making choices. Even more, they can relate to the sorts of
practical actions as well as communal and systemic conditions that are “right” for the given
situation (Kekes, 1995), while being authentic (May et al., 2003: 253; Avolio et al., 2005;
Küpers, 2005), and serving the common good (Bryson & Crosby, 1992).
Ontologically the “inter-” of this relational nexus of wisdom marks a ongoing flow of events,
that can be assed by Merleau-Ponty’s (1964) late philosophy of flesh. This interrelational
understanding of “being” refers to a formative medium or milieu anterior to the conceptual
bifurcation into the “subjective” and the “objective”. It implies a chiasmic intertwining and
reversibility that result into the emergence of both “subjective” and “objective” realities. In such
fields of experiences all inter-relational processes of wisdom are always on the move between
order and disorder, that is, always becoming and never complete. As a living in-between it is
continuously energising an excessive “zero degree of organisation” (Cooper, 1990: 182, 187).
Ultimately, this in-between is the birth-place of the process of wisdom in contexts of
organisations and leadership.
Accordingly, individual and collective wisdom are inter-relationally and mutually constituted
in the course of being experienced and put into practice. Once we recognise the primacy of
relational processes, we can frame them as media in which wisdom is continuously created and
changed in the course of being practised. Accordingly, wisdom is not something individuals
“have”. Rather it is a process of enacted inter-relations by engaging in interior individual
dimensions complemented by a corresponding behaviour, communal activities and systemic
structures and functions. Interdependently, all together these integral processes co-create and
generate an emerging wise knowledge and action that realises an ethically reflected judgement
and its corresponding manifestations.
Thus, it is the processes of relating in organizations and leadership (Hosking et al., 1995) that
might be identified as “emblems” of wisdom. This allows for the re-inscription of wisdom within
joint practices and actions as a relational achievement (McNamee, 1998). Situating wisdom into a
relational engagement directs focus to the particular modes of “interrelation” and “interpretation”
by which members of organizations create and experience their life-worlds. Consequently, what
is valued as ethical or “wise” emerges out of communal interchange and interplay in these
relationally achieved realities with their multiple rationalities and indeterminacies. As wisdom in
not a permanent trait, but a dynamic process of complex relating, subtle knowing, judging and
acting, it must always be readjusted, restructured and rebuilt (Srivastava & Cooperrider, 1998:, 5)
Accordingly, a relational approach overcomes the inherent problems and limits of a
mechanistic and essentialistic perspective on wisdom. What the relational paradigm encourages
us to do is to describe “inter-connections”. It is through these powerful historical, embodied,
emotional, cognitive, social as well as systemic-structural connections that the world of
organising, knowing and wisdom are constituted and experienced. Moreover, wisdom is not only
embedded and entangled in distributed social practices and interactions, it only becomes useful in
cont-textual setting and interrelational processes. As the constituencies of wisdom are dispersed
with dynamic sets of relations, relationality provides an adequate understanding and decentred
perspective on wisdom.
With this orientation, a relational approach helps to avoid the reification of wisdom and
overcomes a ‘possessive individualism’. From either perspective, wisdom is seen as an
identifiable entity, sui generis, based on the individual and made objectively measurable. With a
relational framework in place, we can shift our attention from what is “contained” within
individuals or an “organisational knowledge base” to what transpires between people (Sampson,
1993). With this, wisdom becomes factually based on relational processes that comprise of jointly
or dialogically organised activities. One basic methodological advantage of an integral and
relational perspective is that it avoids the problem of how to bridge individual, collective, and
organizational levels of wisdom and it also bridges theoretical constructs and practical
undertakings. Relationally, wisdom emerges as a kind of responsive action (Shotter. 1984;
Stacey, 2001) in a continual state of “becoming”. That is, an ongoing event of relating that
develops out of a complex set of inter-actions and “inter-relations” by which individual
intentions, feelings, cognitions and communal values and meanings of a community as well as
systemic structures and functions are continually created and re-created. All of these spheres are
continuously put in question and are re-negotiated through a woven network of individual and
collective intertwined processes of organisations, within a are dynamic constellations of
relationships between forces (Hosking et al., 1995; Gergen, 1994). Accordingly, organizational
realities and processes of wisdom are not substantively fixed, but rather are a shifting cluster of
variable elements and dimensions throughout a configured mesh and dynamic nexus.
Theoretical and Practical Implications
The advanced phenomenological, integral pheno-practice and processual dimensions view of
wisdom invites further theoretical and methodological research and provides a series of practical
implications. With regard to implications for further research, the proposed conceptualisations
provide a “bedrock” for more rigorous theory building, further analysis and empirical testing. As
a framework, it provides a theoretical platform for further refinement of existing research
questions as well as generation of new research questions, directions and agendas. For example,
research might address the selection of elements and contents of each quadrant and
developmental lines. Do they separately and together explain the dynamics of wisdom in
organizations? Which variables carry more weight and are levers for change? Which other
variables may be important? Moreover, how would those fit and confounds the current model?
Concerning the relationships between the elements, further research may identify new
interdependencies and directions of influence. What kind of conceptual research is needed to
either substantiate or refute the relationships as proposed here? What lines of empirical inquiries
are required for a pheno-practical, integral and processual understanding of wisdom? What are
limits and difficulties to realise a process-oriented practice of wisdom?
The integral model can be used specifically to map the topology of wisdom as it emerges
through relational processes connections, dependences and reciprocities investigating specific
encounters, relational issues or situations. This map, however preliminary it is, provides a
foundation for an interdisciplinary program of wisdom research that contributes to the emergence
of new theories and methods for investigation. Methodologically, the model invites integral
research designs representing both the quantitative and qualitative paradigms (Bryman, 1988),
rendering a more coherent account than self-reporting or prototype oriented research (Holiday &
Chandler 1986: 33-93). This implies to consider simultaneously the first-, second- and thirdperson perspectives in their singular and plural forms with each of their inherent methodologies
or modes of inquiry.
Following an integral methodological pluralism and epistemology, the integral model not
only provides a shared language for addressing the basic patterns and problems of wisdom
practices, it can also be used as a functional guideline that is careful not to reduce, oversimplify,
isolate or fragment our understanding. Offering multidimensional perspectives and
developmental orientations, the integral framework is designed to illuminate our blind spots,
reductionistic pictures of reality, and mistaken assumptions. Moreover it points toward new ways
of dealing with obstacles of realising wisdom in organizational and leadership contexts.
Additionally, an integral informed approach encourages greater reflexivity in research on
wisdom, helping researchers to examine their work and selves at new depth (Holland, 1999) by
providing the potential for personal learning. Furthermore, by enabling the generation of
theoretical alternatives, it facilitates discourse and inquiry across paradigms, and fosters greater
multi-theoretical and multi-dimensional understanding of wisdom within pluralist and even
paradoxical organizational realities (Lewis & Kelemen, 2002, p. 258). That is the integral
conceptualisation of wisdom allows for the consideration of opposing approaches, juxtaposing
them, illustrating the partial nature of their understanding. Thus it provides a more
accommodating framework that mirrors the plurality and multi-sided narrative accounts and
reveals a comprehension of seemingly disparate but interdependent facets of complex wisdom
phenomena.
Pragmatically speaking, the integral approach aids a more comprehensive exploration and
facilitating of practices that are more in tune with the diversity, and ambiguity of the multifaceted nature of organizational life and corresponding intricacies of wisdom as praxis. By
applying varied lenses and perspectives, researchers are better equipped to shed light on tensions
that come along with practices of wisdom; e.g. by exposing conflicting demands on leaders or
organisational members as complementary, and by demonstrating that apparently opposing
interests are actually interwoven in a process.
The phenomenologically based, integral approach to practical wisdom can also be used to reinterpret and extend the balance theory of wisdom (Sternberg, 1990; 1998) and the synthesized
WISC-model of leadership (see Sternberg & Vroom, 2002; Sternberg, 2003; 2003a) that
integrates wisdom, intelligence, and creativity. According to the balanced theory, an individual
(manager) is wise to the extent that he or she uses successful intelligence, creativity, and
experience as moderated by values to: (a) seek and reach a common good, (b) balance
intrapersonal (one’s own), interpersonal (others’), and extrapersonal (organizational, institutional/
spiritual) interests over the short and long terms, and (c) adapt to, shape, and select environments.
Interestingly, Sternberg’s balance theory of wisdom has recognised that wise decisions and
behaviors involve not only the capacity to balance one’s own interests with those of others, but
also the capacity to use one’s experiential tacit knowledge to select appropriate courses of action
(see Sternberg & Vroom, 2002). However, this balance theory does not adequately account for
embodied dimensions of experience and does not adequately express the interrelated dynamism
that is inherent in the balances. Thus, it will be necessary to extend this rather person-centred
conceptualisation of individual-level balances of creative, analytical and practical skills towards a
more inclusive, interrelated and responsive practices. This practices can then be related to such
issues like embodied well-be(com)ing in organizations (Küpers, 2005a).
The practical implications of this paper primarily involve the identification of specific
conditions for development as well as targeted measurement criteria of each of the outlined
pheno-practical spheres of wisdom. Just as organizational learning and implicit knowing have
been identified (Küpers, 2005; 2006b), the emergence of practical wisdom through relational
processes might also be tracked and represented in accordance with the integral model presented
here. For this, various functional policy areas could be targets for further investigation and
corresponding interventions. These areas may include the business functions of operations;
accounting and finance; marketing and sales; information technology; and human resource
management and development. All of these and further policy areas can be explored and analysed
through the lenses of the outlined dimensions of wisdom and its integral nexus, leading to
concrete measurements. It would be revealing to investigate questions like: How do
organizational systems like human resource management and other operational functions could
be organised in favour of an integral wisdom practice? How do practices of integral wisdom
contribute to job satisfaction and quality of the relationship between managers and employees
and organisational every-day-life? Furthermore, given that the model is complex, how can it be
instrumentalised to serve the practitioner? Finally, how does it hold up to the test of application?
Of course, since practical wisdom in organizations is being constituted and processed in
changing inter-related practises; it cannot just be ‘learned’ but must remain a continuous process
of learning (cf. Vail 1985: 37). Furthermore, since wisdom involves an active practice of thinking
and ´living ´ in relation to change in the social and material environment, all interventions will
remain necessarily provisional. Thus, regarding practical implications, it will be crucial to
emphasise the fact that there cannot be a given, stable or “manageable” wisdom. Therefore, it is
important to keep in mind that the integral approach does not serve as simple means of
instrumental use for optimising leadership and organization, but is a heuristic for holistic
orientation and transformational practice. Applying wisdom to organizational contexts does not
mean primarily tapping into resources for more efficient and effective economic processes. It was
not the intention to present wisdom or the integral model as just another “tool” or instrument of
leadership or organization; thus it does not represent a form of “managerialism” (Alvesson &
Willmott, 1996; 2004; Parker, 2002). Therefore, the integral model of wisdom as presented here
is not to be understood as a device to unify diverse fields of vision into managerialist homophony
discourse, colonizing and entrenching dominant orientations. Instead of managerialistic
appropriations, the integral model is designed to enable and facilitate the emergence of practical
wisdom by reflecting critically and participatory the conditions in which it is commonly
acknowledged to flourish or could possibly unfold creatively.
These conditions may imply specific work and communication related resources and
competencies (e.g. human, social, socio-cultural, infra-structural, financial, technological)
(Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1980) as part of situated practices in organizations. The difficulty of
creating such conditions has led most theorists to posit practical wisdom as an ideal which an
individual or a society can strive for, rather than as something that can be attained by specific,
demonstrable means (cf. Baltes & Smith, 1990; Clayton & Birren, 1980; Cornelius & Caspi,
1987; Denney, 1984; Erikson, 1959; Holliday & Chandler, 1986). However, these conditions can
and often do support the enactment of competent processes of wisdom within distributed
organizing process that are operating effectively across various boundaries (Orlikowski, 2002).
As a complex practice, wisdom develops only incrementally; there are no quick fixes and
simple panaceas. Thus, cultivating wisdom is rather more a gradual and experimental process.
Moreover, due to its complexity, wisdom will not be easy to teach, if at all. Nevertheless, what
can be done is to inform about mediating presuppositions for practices of realising wisdom (Kuhn
& Udell, 2001) and contributing to the creation of a wisdom-friendly “healthy” environment can
be nurtured. Thus, wisdom in organizations requires a specific wisdom-supportive environment,
“wisdom atmosphere” (Meacham, 1990) or “culture of wisdom” (Jones, 2005: 370).
This culture or atmosphere can be further enhanced by supportive interpersonal relations. In
these relations, members of organization may safely discover and reveal the limitations of and
doubts regarding what they know. Moreover, members of organizations may be spared from
extreme scepticism and paralysis of action through sharing the burden of their doubts and
receiving from others the confidence that comes with knowledge (Meacham, 1990: 209). Part of
such climates in organizations need to incorporate formal and informal systems to facilitate
ethical and wise conduct (Victor & Cullen, 1988).
Practical forms of relational practice and engagement like expanding the domain of
empowerment, participation and conversational resources and honouring relational responsibility
(McNamee & Gergen, 1999; Küpers, 2007) are important for further supporting the development
of practical wisdom. Creating conversational opportunities and responsibilities for such reflection
and critique can greatly assist people and groups as they seek to organize in the contemporary
world of enormous and ever changing complexity in a more integral and wise way. Furthermore,
engaging in reflexive critique about intentions, actions, and collective processes, with regard to
“success”, power, or authority, and sharing those critical concerns with others, needs to be
developed and supported (McNamee, 1998). Wise business practices can also be encouraged
through the selection of an organizational structure and functions sensitive to wisdom processes
and that also consider appropriate forms of leadership (Jones, 2005: 371ff). Even more an
extended wisdom orientation would also integrate aesthetics and art into leadership and
organisation, which in turn requires far-reaching consequences for education and development
(Gosling & Mintzberg, 2003; Küpers 2004, 2005). Furthermore, while integral wisdom and
corresponding development are strategically important, both are also laborious, expensive and
time-consuming. Therefore, what will be needed are integral oriented feedback-systems
(Cacioppe & Albrecht, 2000) and responsive evaluations (van der Haar & Hosking 2004).
As there is no simple formula, and each organization and context is different, implementing
processes to facilitate wisdom need to be tailored to the unique circumstances in particular
leadership and organization practices in a situated based way.
Conclusion
Facing the various shortcoming of traditional discourses and concepts of leadership
respectively organization, and conventional interpretations of wisdom, this paper has tried to
show the significance of a an integral “pheno-practical” and processual approach to wisdom that
considers various individual and collective dimensions and levels and their interrelations as they
pertain to organizations and leadership. Understanding and enacting wisdom in this way requires
and brings together previously separated processes of knowing and doing, communal activities
and collective functioning with all its ambivalent and reflective qualities in a comprehensive way.
With this orientation an integral oriented research on wisdom provides an alternative to
dominant reductionistic orientations. Analytically, it knows about relative relevance among
various distinguished elements and dimensions of wisdom, while enacting an awareness of the
holonic interweavements involved. Accordingly, it does neither lose sight of particularities and
concrete intricacies, nor of the overriding connection and complexity of wisdom in organisation
and leadership. With this orientation, integral wisdom research and practices can serve as a
compelling guide to higher levels of mindfulness, action and socio-cultural as well as systemic
evolution and committed transformation (Cziksentmihalyi & Rathunde, 1990). As such, it can
contribute to transforming the phenomenality and the relationships relevant for well-be(com)ing
in organizations (Küpers, 2005a).
Reaching for a sphere beyond the horns of dilemmas and metaphysical dichotomies
(Kitchener & Brenner, 1990) and by emphasising the complexities of this comprehensive
conceptualisation of wisdom, this article has certainly generated more openings than closings. As
such, it manifests an invitation to further explore ways in which wisdom is not only realised
through experiential processes, but is always already involved in an interrelational nexus and its
interdependent processes and practices. Thus seen integrally, wisdom is in a way “complexity
understood” (Joseph W. Meeker) and enacted.
Nevertheless, even the promising integral understanding of wisdom can only be a limited and
provisional one. Not only can we not comprehend the nature of wisdom “because of our own lack
of it” (Sternberg, 1990: 3). Rather each generation must find for itself the wisdom of the ages and
its current relevance in the form of its own wisdom (Erikson, 1988). In this sense, it is hoped that
this article has inspired to a current reflection of an integral and processual understanding within
the actual ongoing revitalisation of wisdom as a sustainable practice within organization and
leadership contexts. Then indeed with an integral realisation of wisdom the Owl of Minerva may
takes flight not post-factum with twilight closing in, spreading its wings only with the falling of
the dusk, but early enough towards an imaginative horizon within the dawns of the possible.
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