In Search of Phronesis

This chapter explores the process through which people in organizations, especially those in leadership positions, arrive at judgment. The rationalist orientation of the (somewhat limited) literature on judgment in management studies prevents us (scholars and practitioners alike) from properly grasping important features of the hermeneutical-developmental process involved in coming to a judgment. In particular, the role of emotions, moral agency, and language use, and, especially, the selective and integrative nature of perceptual processes are too easily ignored. This chapter makes the case for a particular notion of judgment understood as Aristotelian “phronesis” (practical wisdom). Phronetic leaders are people who, in their search for a way out of their difficulties, have developed a refined capacity to intuitively grasp salient features of ambiguous situations and to constitute a “landscape” of possible paths of response. This chapter sheds light on how this is accomplished, by drawing on neo-Aristotelian, phenomenological, and Wittgensteinian philosophy.