Leadership Metaphors as expressions of Implicit Leadership Theories in Germany and the Czech Republic

Implicit Theories about leader and follower or about leadership attributes and contexts are important to understand managerial leadership processes. In our attempt to understand leadership behaviours in Central and East European Countries (CEE), we address a widely neglected aspect of management behaviour in countries of transition. Metaphors of Leadership as specific culturally endorsed verbal expressions of Implicit Leadership Theories (ILT). Hence, this study investigates the use of metaphors of leaders and leading in German and Czech media. In our preposition, Leadership Metaphors carry implicit suggestions about leadership and thus are expressions of Implicit Leadership Theories. Hence, the use of specific Leadership Metaphors in the media reflects images of Implicit Leadership Theories. However, these images can also influence the use of Leadership Metaphors in the media them self. Furthermore, Leadership Metaphors can be found in different preferences and constellations and thus lead to the construction of different Implicit Leadership Theories. Our comparative case study is theoretically based on the concept of Implicit Leadership Theories and influenced by Alvesson and Spicer’s “Metaphors We Lead By” from 2011. Overall, we analysed 60 different newspaper articles. In this paper, we present our first results of this work-in-progress-project in form of two short country analyses, and a culture-comparative part. The country comparison of our results shows overlaps and differences in the use of Leadership Metaphors in both countries. On top of that, our study identified Leadership Metaphors that were not yet used in Alvesson & Spicer (2011) typology so far. So finally, we further develop this typology and proposed directions for further research.