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Most of the literature on strategic management portrays the strategic leader as a planner, decision formulator, and implementer of structure and processes. Theories of strategic management have not paid much attention to the essence of all leadership roles, namely the role of influencing others, and have not been much informed by leadership theories in this regard. In this chapter, I argue that the existing gap between the field of leadership and the field of strategic management can be bridged by paying closer attention to the fundamentally social and interpretative nature of the strategy formation and implementation, and in particular to the role of strategic leaders as managers of meanings. The chapter presents the idea of leadership as the management of meanings, applies this idea to the role of strategic leaders, offers a set of meanings to focus on when we consider strategic leaders as managers of meanings, discusses the link between meaning making and organizational performance, and attends to some potential dangers involved in viewing leaders as managers of meanings.

The meaning of management is partly the management of meaning. Management is an activity in which people collaborate not just over what they do but also how they mean: how concepts like “effective” are defined and made actual through work, and how knowledge can properly be applied to management situations. Such knowledge is not merely intellectual; it takes in values and belief systems and the intentionalities of discourse. Management is also an area in which over‐arching paradigms of what is best to know and do demonstrate pluralistic and collaborative features. What is known, and what is best to know, therefore, are built up through negotiation and reformulation. This occurs in settings characterised by organisational cultures and authority structures like line management, and in these we find meanings being negotiated for many complex cognitive, ideological and interpersonal reasons (such as to avoid “loss of face”). In professional information training, it is important to develop knowledge of, and skills in, the management of meaning, using negotiative strategies and tactics.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate Peter Drucker's management theory by exploring German theological concerns which constituted his unique approach in management theory.

To uncover the secularized German theological roots in Drucker's work, the paper juxtaposes his writings from his 60‐year‐long career with prior cultural interpretations of German scholarship.

The analysis shows that German secularized theological concerns surrounding the fall of modernity influenced Drucker's oeuvre, leading him to advocate “the meaningful organization” as a pragmatic solution to the ills of modern society. While Drucker's ideas evolved over the years, the paper shows that his agenda to promote meaningful organizations in an otherwise totalitarian‐prone, alienated, rationalized and meaningless era remained consistent. This interpretation suggests that Drucker believed that management had moral duties in a Nietzschean godless world. The paper shows that these themes continued structuring Drucker's corpus in three domains: the information revolution, corporate social responsibility, and the role of organizations in the third sector.

The paper reveals that Drucker was driven by deep cultural codes that proscribed many of his observations and suggested remedies. Hence, it calls for similar unearthing of the historical roots of management theory and practice.

In this paper a novel interpretation of Drucker's work is introduced. Extending work highlighting Drucker's spiritual roots, the paper demonstrates that the German secularized theological conception of the downfall of modernity was a constant lens through which Drucker saw the world, and that this historical backdrop was the motivating spur in his attempt to save it from another catastrophe. Given the entrenchment of Drucker's ideas in today's management practices and theories, it is imperative to understand these German moral and theological predispositions.

The purpose of this paper is to build a conceptual framework that enables an improved comprehension of how brand meaning is constructed.

Conceptual implications are drawn from an analysis and discussion of the literature in the fields of brand management, meanings, rhetoric, and narratives.

Brand managers are progressively losing control over the multiple sources of brand meaning. Brand meaning is co‐created during the consumer‐brand relationship and the customer‐perceived brand meaning is re‐interpreted at each touchpoint that a consumer has with a managerially determined brand interface, a brand employee, or an external stakeholder.

“Persuasive brand management” is presented as a new approach to brand management. It considers that the main activities of managers regarding brand strategy decisions involve processes of interpreting and creating meanings; as well as persuading a wide diversity of internal and external stakeholders.

In personal relationships, the clarification and negotiation of meanings is central. We live within a web of language and, by giving things names and through sharing and restructuring knowledge, we communicate with each other. In personnel management in organisations, therefore, the management of meaning lies at the heart of things. Such management entails the ordering and co‐ordinating of work done by ourselves and other people, as well as the mastery of complex social and technical patterns of thought and behaviour.

The symbolism of words, statements, actions and design, and their meanings as perceived by their recipients, should really be managed rather than left to chance. The author states that it should be in the brief of the personnel manager to do this. Some words in everyday management currency, such as “effectiveness” or “success” are more value statements than concrete, universally understood terms. It is important for managers to understand and manage this.

Relationships are socially constructed by companies in interaction. This study explains the dynamic character of business-to-business relationships with the aid of rules theory, a theory borrowed from the communications field. Two forms of rules are identified: constitutive rules guide the interpretation of the other's acts, and regulative rules guide the appropriate response to the interpreted act. Rules theory asserts that companies act as if applying these rules. Relationships provide not only the context in which the parties’ acts are performed but are also the result of such acts. Thus, relationships are potentially reshaped each time one party performs an act and the other party gives meaning to that act and reacts.

While there is growing recognition of the role of leaders as managers of meanings, leadership theories have so far focused primarily on the articulation of a positive vision, the framing of organizational issues as opportunities, and emphasizing potential gains and benefits for the organization and its members. However, these positive frames may not be equally valid under all circumstances and with respect to all issues. This chapter concentrates on exploring leadership as management of meanings in times of crisis and recovery, when leaders attempt to stop deterioration, turn the organization around, and lead it to recovery. We label this leadership approach prevention-oriented leadership. On the basis of an analysis of a series of weekly e-mail letters sent by the CEO of a large company to all organizational members over a period of 22 months we suggest that prevention-oriented leaders may use three related ways to manage meanings, namely (1) generating a clear picture of the negative challenge, (2) strengthening the organizational members’ self-efficacy and confidence in the organization's resources available for coping with the crisis, and (3) creating a sense of progress.

Systems theory is frequently discussed. The aim of the contribution is to elaborate what is to be advised with the idea of closed systems regarding change management.

This paper follows Niklas Luhmann and his so-called “autopoietic turn.” It provides a profound theoretic basis, from which the needs and requirements of the post-heroic management emerge. The implications of this specific approach to change management are demonstrated by means of the contemporary example of scrum. The applied method is literature review.

This contribution seeks to understand the relevance of closed systems within change management. Especially, the meaning of indirect strategies of control as a requirement for change management will be shown. That means Luhmann emphasizes the pessimism of traditional change management. The findings emphasize the meaning of self-organizing systems predicating by means of observation, which configurates corporate agility.

Systems theory often suffers from lack of empirical evidence, as systems are multi-complex. As an alternative, in this study, a literature-based discussion of the contemporary agile project management technique “scrum” is used.

The meaning of power in management shifts from formal to informal or soft power, e.g. the ability to promote self-binding processes. Thus, closed systems emphasize the need to look for alternatives for change management.

Characterizing Luhmann as a hidden champion of contemporary management as modern management tools like hackathons or crowdsourcing also benefit from closed systems.

There is little research on managers’ meanings of commitment. Unprompted responses from interviews with 37 senior engineers in three major UK and Swedish engineering companies indicate a shift from the traditional conceptualisation of commitment as desiring to remain in, and identification with, the organisation, towards a meaning putting more emphasis on a highly proactive, innovative and challenging approach to work, as a mutually beneficial psychological contract between organisation and individual. Women responded with less visible meanings of commitment. When engineers are assessed on commitment for promotion, or for UK chartered engineer status, these differences may impact on the process differently for men and women. More Swedish than UK engineers identified task delivery, involvement, and ready for challenge, while more UK engineers mentioned creativity and innovative behaviour, as part of their meaning of commitment. These findings are indicative of the shift towards high performance, high commitment HRM in both countries.