Small stories, positioning, and the discursive construction of leader identity in business meetings

Abstract

Stories are considered to be an essential part of organisational life and thus of leadership. However, to date research into stories and leadership has concentrated on big stories and life narratives and has tended to overlook the identity work that small stories perform as part of everyday workplace interaction. Working from the premise that leaders are managers of meaning, and using transcripts of naturally-occurring stories that were video-taped during a business meeting, this paper uses positioning theory as a research methodology to explain how leadership and leader identities are achieved through narrative both at a discourse (little-d) and Discourse (big-D) levels. Findings indicate that certain participants at the meeting are able to use discursive resources to manage the meaning of the organisation in both the story world and the real world and so do leadership and talk into being a leader identity.