Article

Leadership
0(0) 1–19
Spacing leadership ! The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1742715018768707
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Arja Ropo
Faculty of Management, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

Perttu Salovaara
Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, NY, USA;
Faculty of Management, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

Abstract
Aligned with the recent stream of research on the materiality of organizing, in this article,
we develop a conceptualization of leadership as a sociomaterial relationship between human
and space. We join the emerging discussions on the ‘thing-ness’ of leadership and extend
these by addressing how an aesthetic, sense-based and embodied knowledge constitutes the
sociomateriality of leadership and organizing. With the help of a Lefebvre-inspired framework,
we introduce the concept of ‘spacing leadership’ that explicates leadership as being produced in
an embodied and performative process between people and space. To specify this, we thematise
three aesthetically embodied categories of knowledge development – senses, feelings and
memories – to depict a sociomaterial understanding of leadership and space.

Keywords
Materiality, space, leadership, aesthetic epistemology, embodiment, process ontology, Lefebvre,
performative

Introduction
Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam.
But these handprints on the front steps are mine.
And up those stairs, in that little back bedroom

Corresponding author:
Arja Ropo, University of Tampere, Pinni A 5015, Tampere 33014, Finland.
Email: [email protected]
2 Leadership 0(0)

is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar.

And I bet you didn’t know under that live oak
my favourite dog is buried in the yard. (. . .)
Won’t take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.

In the hit song The House That Built Me, released on the American country singer Miranda
Lambert’s 2010 album Revolution, the songwriters Douglas and Shamblin (2009) reverse
the conventional relationship between people and houses: not only do people build houses
but houses build people too. Winston Churchill shares the same view: ‘We shape our
buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us’ (in Yanow, 2010: 139). Granted, artists
and politicians may have more freedom in their expressions than academics do, but lately,
research has also recognized materiality as having an influence on human interaction,
behaviour, identity and agency (Dale and Burrell, 2008; Latour, 2005; Miller, 2005, 2008;
Taylor and Spicer, 2007; van Marrewijk and Yanow, 2010). Following on from this
‘material turn’, the impact that material objects and the built environment have on practices
and organizing activities has also been conceptualized as leadership in leadership studies
(Hawkins, 2015; Oborn et al., 2013; Pullen and Vachhani, 2013; Ropo et al., 2013; Sergi,
2016). The message from these studies on materiality and leadership resembles the song:
human social interactions and knowledge about the self are embedded in the materiality of
the environment and physical places. Alas, houses do build us.
But how do they do that? This article aims at conceptualizing human spatial engagement
under the term ‘spacing leadership’ (see also Salovaara and Ropo, 2018). Applying insights
from Henri Lefebvre’s (1991, 2004) theorizing on space, particularly his concepts of lived
space and embodied rhythmanalysis, we analyse three empirical work-related vignettes
where spatiality has a profound impact on human actions, and the human, in the process,
re-forms spatiality. While Lefebvre is the seminal figure in organizational space studies, our
conceptualization is further indebted to Beyes and Steyaert (2011), who in a Lefebvre-
inspired fashion, conceptualize space as active, dynamic and performing, and propose a
verb form for this spacing. In Crevani’s (2015) words: ‘Instead of space as a container
“already there,” space is to be conceived as produced, always under construction’.
We connect these space-related discussions with current sociomaterial leadership studies
on the ‘thing-ness’ and materiality of leadership (Hawkins, 2015; Oborn et al., 2013; Sergi,
2016; Zhang and Spicer, 2014) to create the concept of ‘spacing leadership’. We propose that
the intersection of leadership and space offers an ample instance for clarifying the socio-
materiality of leadership from two thus far less-discussed, yet potentially beneficial perspec-
tives: aesthetic epistemology and embodiment. While the concept of spacing leadership
aligns with sociomaterial leadership studies, it also extends the discussions by addressing
how an aesthetic, sense-based and embodied knowledge constitutes the sociomateriality of
leadership and organizing. We formulate our research interest as follows: How does the
embodied epistemology of spacing leadership through a Lefebvre-inspired framework con-
tribute to debates on the sociomateriality in leadership?
The article proceeds as follows: we first outline discussions on the materiality and spa-
tiality of leadership, and then proceed to show how linking space studies with process
ontology has resulted in space being described in terms of dynamics, activity and perfor-
mance. The article then turns to Lefebvre’s triadic space model that has greatly influenced
organizational studies on spaces. He emphasizes how the experience of space is, in the first
Ropo and Salovaara 3

place, an embodied one, which leads us to further discuss embodiment and aesthetic epis-
temology to address the sociomaterial conceptualization of leadership. Next, we illustrate
three vignettes to empirically describe and analyse what spacing leadership is. To specify
this, we thematise three aesthetically embodied categories of knowledge development,
senses, feelings and memories, to depict a sociomaterial understanding of leadership and
space. We finish the article by reflecting on ethical issues in regard to materiality at large: the
environment.

Materiality and spatiality in leadership

Materiality has been included in leadership studies in different ways. Most commonly,
materiality is viewed as embodiment and as being specifically attached to the bodies of
leaders, referring to their physical presence, appearance, identity or bodily gestures (e.g.
Bathurst and Cain, 2013; Fisher and Reiser, 2015; Ford et al., 2017; Ladkin and Taylor,
2014; Melina et al., 2013; Pullen and Vachhani, 2013; Ropo and Sauer, 2008; Sinclair, 2005,
2013). Here, materiality and embodiment predominantly concern leaders, followers and
their relations. Also, the terms ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ are typically set equal, thus contrib-
uting to – and popularizing – notions like ‘leaders embody leadership’, ‘leaders embody the
capacity to lead’ or ‘leadership embodiment tools’.
The view presented in this paper on leadership materiality takes quite a different route.
First, we will use embodiment in what follows as the key for conceptualizing human spatial
engagement as leadership, but to be quite clear, here embodiment refers to an aesthetic,
sense-based epistemology related to ways of knowing (not to a leader’s body, appearance or
body language) (Hansen et al., 2007; Ropo and Parviainen, 2001; Salovaara and Ropo,
2013). Second, instead of relying on the notion of leaders doing leadership, our view of
leadership is post-heroic and plural: many people, collectives and groups, and even mate-
riality, contribute to leadership (Crevani et al., 2010; Denis et al., 2012). Third, we explore
leadership as constructed and performed in a process where people are being led by their felt
experiences on the physical spaces. The processual view of leadership does not regard lead-
ership as an entity, but something that emerges from interactions and that is constantly
shaping and being shaped. Fourth, although organization research prioritizes human mental
functions over bodily ones (Ropo et al., 2013), from a phenomenological perspective, an
everyday connection to space is that of an embodied attachment, not that of a distant,
rational disembodied observer (Merleau-Ponty, 2012). In sum, when, in what follows, the
paper refers to space and embodiment, it associates the connection with these premises
on embodiment.
Now, in terms of its interest in materiality, leadership research follows the shift that has
taken place in organization studies. There is a growing sensitivity to materiality and physical
objects transforming ‘how social actors interact with each other’ (Orlikowski, 2007: 123).
This is evidenced in organization studies in how, for instance, water coolers, copy machines
or smart phones impact people’s daily interactions and identity (Fayard and Weeks, 2007;
Humphries and Smith, 2014; Orr, 1995; Symon and Pritchard, 2015). Several studies have
advanced this proposition in various spatial contexts ranging from hospitals, bookstores,
co-working spaces, offices and virtual work to homes and houses (Clegg and Kornberger,
2006; Dale and Burrell, 2008, 2015; Ropo et al., 2013, 2015; van Marrewijk and Yanow,
2010). As Oborn et al. (2013) observe, in an office environment, a plenitude of mundane
material objects contributes to leadership:
4 Leadership 0(0)

Leadership enactment entails engaging with materiality – for example, offices, meeting rooms,
desks, computers, reports, email distribution lists. (. . .) We argue that multiple actors, data
sheets, structures of accountability, specialized knowledge, technological resources, protocols
and workshop rooms come together to enact leadership in formulating policy. (Oborn et al.,
2013: 256)

This shift towards acknowledging the role materiality and spatiality play in organizing
activities goes for leadership research, as well. Hawkins (2015) claims that there has been
an absence of things in leadership studies, but ‘it is becoming clear that leadership is mate-
rialized through inter alia human bodily performances, architecture, clothing and other
artifacts’ (p. 952).
Acknowledging how materiality enacts leadership requires connecting three recent devel-
opments in leadership research that stress the plural, processual and material nature of
leadership. First, leadership is no longer only attached to individual leader or follower
qualities, but is practised informally by many, thus highlighting how leadership is also a
multiple and plural phenomenon by nature (Denis et al., 2012; Parry and Bryman, 2006;
Raelin, 2011; Wood, 2005). Second, the process ontological approach has been applied to
leadership studies lately, where a shift from the ‘being of leadership’ towards ‘leadership as
becoming’ can be observed (Crevani et al., 2010; Dachler and Hosking, 1995; Draht et al.,
2008; Wood, 2005). Here, leadership is seen as an ongoing and dispersed organizational
activity where a myriad (social and material) of intermingling influences develop as a func-
tion of time and ‘lead’ to something. Third, we identify leadership as an emerging interaction
process being shaped in and by everyday practices and the material environment.
In a similar vein, Sergi (2016) includes materiality as a key dimension to leadership
(-as-practice) and emphasizes the processual and collective nature of leadership. Thus, ‘spac-
ing leadership’ refers to the constant dynamics of how people and space interact, regardless
of whether this connection is explicated or not.
When studying space in terms of leadership, our focus is on the fluid character of space
(Crevani, 2015), and ‘on the process of sociomaterial entanglement, not the outcome of it’,
as Leonardi (2013a: 162) puts it. Physical spaces and places have been shown to influence
human action, either directly, indirectly, symbolically or through evoking emotions
(De Vaujany and Vaast, 2014; Kastelein, 2014; Ropo et al., 2013; van Marrewijk and
Yanow, 2010; Wasserman and Frenkel, 2015; Zhang and Spicer, 2014). In these studies,
space is not given an independent agency but is treated in relation to human engagement:
we need to give a voice to space (Yanow, 2010), read the ruins (Dale and Burrell, 2011)
and listen to the walls talk (De Vaujany and Vaast, 2014). The physical features, traces,
marks on paint, wood or stone – as in the country song: ‘handprints on the front steps’ –
come alive and gain in meaning when read by humans. Space activates memory, and
memories or associations can turn entering space into an active, resonant and
vibrant experience.
Yet despite this seemingly lucid influence of spaces on humans, here this relation is not
regarded as a ‘strong’, direct material influence on humans, but rather as a sociomaterial one
where the social and material form simultaneously and interdependently. To describe the
reciprocity of this concept, several terms have been proposed: the social and material are
intrinsically/inherently entangled, i.e. inseparable (Carlile et al., 2013; Orlikowski, 2007),
interpenetrative (Barad, 2003), intertwined (Jones, 2013), intertwined and mutually enacted
(Dale, 2005), constitutively entangled (Orlikowski and Scott, 2008) or mutually constitutive
Ropo and Salovaara 5

(De Vaujany and Vaast, 2014; Hernes et al., 2006; Michel, 2014; van Marrewijk and Yanow,
2010). This manifold terminology reflects how theoretical/conceptual the discussions on
sociomateriality have become, Leonardi (2013b) points out.
While organization studies have had difficulty in theorizing on how the human and
material relate, the experience of space has been thematised in, for instance, human geog-
raphy. Tuan (1977) studied how people in various cultures think and feel about spaces and
how those unpronounced concepts influence their actions in space. The construction of
spatial reality has consequences, he argues. Massey (2005) emphasizes how space is not a
frozen thing, but there is movement and fluidity to nature and the built environment.
While nature in general has not typically been included in leadership conceptualizations,
‘environmental leadership’ nowadays shows a growing concern with how the environment
has been acted upon, mainly (ab)used (Redekop, 2010). Also sociomaterial studies note this
ethical concern: a passive or neutral stand towards materiality may more easily accept
exploitation (Carlile et al., 2013; Introna, 2013). This article joins a material-ethical
agenda according to which we should not be indifferent to materiality or the ways in
which it becomes included in our conceptualizations.
To further this more inclusive agenda, the following two sections address an
ontological and epistemological issue that the entire spacing leadership concept relies on
understanding spatial performance as a performative process, and as an aesthetic and
embodied engagement.

Space as performing
Recently, research emphasizing how mundane practices and interactions produce leadership
has configured the role of materiality through artefacts (Carroll, 2016; Carroll et al., 2008;
Crevani et al., 2010; Raelin, 2016) and the ‘lived’ experience of material things (Crevani and
Endrissat, 2016: 31–32). Theoretical debates around materiality have ‘made a convincing
case for the need to acknowledge the performative role of materials in social affairs’, Carlile
et al. (2013: 6–7) claim.
The question, then, is not whether space influences social interaction, but how. In our
conceptualization, we follow Beyes and Steyaert (2011), who note the processual nature of
space: human spatial entanglement is not a momentary event or static entity, but something
that evolves and changes over time. In discussing a video-based art work that shows an
event – a crowd of people seemingly unexpectedly being in the middle of an ‘extremely
powerful gush of water’ (Beyes and Steyaert, 2011: 46) – in extreme slow motion, they
suggest the verb form ‘spacing’ to illustrate the various aspects and influences that space
is continuously performing. Spacing ‘implies exchanging a vocabulary of stasis, representa-
tion, reification and closure with one of intensities, capacities and forces; rhythms, cycles,
encounters, events, movements and flows; instincts, affects, atmospheres and auras; rela-
tions, knots and assemblages’ (Beyes and Steyaert, 2011: 47). Through listening, experienc-
ing and memorizing, space is experienced and influences individuals in many ways, which
makes it multiple (Hernes, 2004). Similarly to a theatre play that is never repeated in exactly
the same fashion, the performance of space is constant, but never repetitive. The term
‘spacing leadership’ highlights this eventful, active, dynamic performing character of
space that influences human actors in their interactions with themselves, with each other,
with artefacts and with the space.
6 Leadership 0(0)

To discuss how the ongoing performative process unfolds, we apply process organization
studies. Using process terminology, human spatial engagement can be described as a process
of becoming, a continuation of micro-activities where both the space and humans are in
constant movement, change and perpetual emergence (Chia and Holt, 2006; Hernes, 2014;
Langley et al., 2013; Tsoukas and Chia, 2002). For our purpose in this paper, one can
distinguish between three currents in process research at large: the ‘weak’ and the ‘strong’
process orientation, a part of which is the ‘performative’ view (Langley and Tsoukas, 2016).
The weak orientation regards a process as a change from one form to another, or as
Feldman (2016) puts it: it focuses on the arrows between boxes. From this perspective,
the fluid character can be followed chronologically and is regarded ‘as something that
happens to organizations viewed as relatively stable entities’ (Langley and Tsoukas, 2016:
3). But as we have already defined spacing as something constantly evolving, our definition
relies on the idea of change and movement taking place on a more profound basis. The
performative view describes an ontological stance according to which the reality is fluid and
constantly becoming. The strong process approach sees that this change is not something
that only happens, but that is actively constructed by agentic actions. While we consider
space as something that (as in the lyrics from the opening country song) can ‘build’ us, we
feel committed to the strong performative approach. In performance, the social and material
are ‘ontologically inseparable’ in two ways: there is socialness to things and thingness to
social order (Carlile et al., 2013: 8).
Applying that formulation, we claim that there is leadership to spatiality and spatiality to
leadership. When we grow in places that have a profound impact on what we have become,
then places and buildings build us, as noted in several studies above. Space performs leadership
as a combination of various events that we associate with material places (properly or not).
To consider space as a process evolving in time means that the space a person engages
with is not one and the same for each encounter. Time leaves marks on materials and
surfaces, and it shows wear and tear, patina, from daily use. The same physical space can
create various reactions: at times it can feel inspiring and exciting, at other times boring or
even frightening (Elsbach and Pratt, 2007; Ropo and H€ oykinpuro, 2017).
The main inspiration in organization studies for including this kind of lived experience
into the concept of space has been the French sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre.
In his major work The Production of Space (1991), Lefebvre argued that space should not be
regarded solely in abstract architectural qualities, as an object measured in numbers and
figures, but as a social production. For this purpose, he distinguishes between three kinds of
spaces: conceived, perceived and lived space (Lefebvre, 1991). The conceived space refers to
space as an object ‘out there’, and it is accounted for in abstract geometrical and mathe-
matical measures. Taylor and Spicer (2007) call conceived space the ‘planned space’, the way
it is represented, for instance, in architectural sketches and in three-dimensional renderings.
The next element, perceived space, implies how people actually practice the space: no matter
the plans, spaces can be practically used in very different ways. The third element within the
triadic model, ‘lived space’, is based on the embodied experience of space: this is how people
feel it, how they perceive it, how they relate to it personally, socially or culturally. Although
analytically separate, each of the components is simultaneously valid. Zhang (2006) uses the
term ‘shifting perspectives’ to explain the relations between these three:

We might compare conceived space, perceived space and lived space as three cameras projecting
simultaneously onto any organisational event. (. . .) through the first camera we read
Ropo and Salovaara 7

mathematical data, the height of the man, the length of a corridor, and so on; through the
second we see the body movement of the man, his walking about, his gestures; and through the
third, we reach into his inner subjectivity, his feeling about the stupid doorknob which wouldn’t
turn, for instance. (p. 222)

The last one, the lived space, is maybe currently the most interesting part of Lefebvre’s triad,
because it underlines how conceptualizing space is incomplete without the individual and
social meanings attached to it. Linking perceived and lived space means focusing on the
moving, acting, feeling, thinking human within the space. Spacing is experienced as an activ-
ity, not an entity, and therefore it should not be designed or planned as an entity, either.
To further refine this understanding, we next discuss the embodied experience of space.

The embodied experience in spacing leadership

Central to understanding the dynamic character of ‘spacing leadership’ is to see how it is
epistemologically based on embodied experience. For Lefebvre, the ‘understanding of space
. . . must begin with the lived and the body, that is, from a space occupied by an organic,
living, and thinking being’ (Lefebvre, 1991: 229). Theorizing about space is to be considered
‘through the body, not in a flight away from it’ (Braidotti, 2002: 5). It is through the organic
human engagement with space that the messy rhythms of everyday life, where all is mobile
and fluctuous, become included in the concept of spacing. We term the human embodied
relation to space as ‘spacing’ because of the processual nature of the relation, where both
mutually influence and constitute each other. The basic argument we now want to develop,
and later describe in vignettes, is that spacing leadership is epistemologically based on sense-
based observations, emotions, experiences, memories and intuitions, on gut feelings (aesthetic
epistemology). Not everything we experience is epistemologically fully explicable (Ropo et al.,
2013), and the connections a space evokes can be surprising, unexpected, even enigmatic.
We are not always able to provide convincing reasons as to why we like or dislike something –
but we can work on it. And as in the country song, often these references and meanings are
invisible or even incomprehensible to outsiders: ‘in that little back bedroom/is where I did my
homework and I learned to play guitar’. Therefore, again, spacing leadership cannot be cap-
tured in a single snapshot, but needs to be fashioned as an evolving process that has past,
present and future, as Hernes (2014) describes.
The lived experience of space can be further explained by paying attention to how
Lefebvre in his Rhythmanalysis (2004) approached knowledge created by humans as embod-
ied beings:

The body. Our body. So neglected in philosophy that it ends up speaking its mind and kicking
up a fuss. Left to physiology and medicine . . . The body consists of a bundle of rhythms,
different but in tune. It is not only in music that one produces perfect harmonies. The body
produces a garland of rhythms. (p. 20)

For Lefebvre, humans think with and through their bodies.

The rhythmanalyst calls on all his senses. He draws on his breathing, the circulation of his
blood, the beatings of his heart and the delivery of his speech as landmarks. Without privileging
8 Leadership 0(0)

any one of these sensations, raised by him in the perception of rhythms, to the detriment of any
other. He thinks with his body, not in the abstract, but in lived temporality. (2004: 21)

The lived temporality is not a product of the moment, but a continuous chain of impressions
and sensations, and of reactions to these. Embodiment is thus not only a sense organ at the
receiving end, but a co-producer of reality, and, as such, an epistemological tool for the
space researcher. That is how humans and spaces come to a performative relation with
each other.
The radicality of an embodied approach to knowledge needs to be considered against the
background of organization studies’ complicated relation with embodied knowledge. There
has been a ‘discomfort with bodies and embodied meaning’ (Yanow, 2010: 147) in organi-
zation studies in general and in leadership studies in particular (Ropo et al., 2002, 2013;
Sinclair, 2005). Leadership has been over-cognitivized, Pullen and Vacchani (2013) claim.
Lefebvre’s concept of lived space contributes to this critical view, also, as Merrifield
(2000) explains:

Lefebvre knows too well . . . that the social space of lived experience gets crushed and van-
quished by an abstract conceived space. In our society, in other words, what is lived and per-
ceived is of secondary importance compared to what is conceived. (. . .) Conceptions, it seems,
rule our lives, sometimes for the good, but more often – given the structure of society – to our
detriment. (p. 175)

This quote underlines that spacing leadership, as a concept combining spatial and human
interaction, is easily at risk of being understood in terms of deterministic terms, as if space
did something in itself, objectively, to human relations. As it rather emphasizes the lived and
perceived, it functions as a cultural-critical term towards commodifying human spatial
engagement. Our argumentation for spaces performing leadership (‘spacing leadership’)
stems from aesthetic epistemology in leadership and organization studies (Hansen et al.,
2007; Ladkin and Taylor, 2010; Linstead and H€ opfl, 2000; Ropo et al., 2013; Ropo and
Parviainen, 2001; Strati, 1999). The aesthetic approach acknowledges sensory knowledge,
embodied emotions and felt experience as legitimate forms of knowledge (Strati, 2007),
which defines that aesthetics is an epistemological stance, not related to beauty or art
(Hansen et al., 2007). Based on the above, and following Ropo and Parviainen (2001), we
argue that knowledge about the leadership of space has a bodily dimension. This we now
want to illustrate with three empirical vignettes.

Illustrations: spacing leadership

In terms of methodology, our analysis is based on empirical vignettes that serve the same
function as Puranam et al.’s (2014) illustrations: ‘These illustrations are not meant to be an
exhaustive list (. . .); our objective here is conceptual clarity rather than empirical validation,
so these examples help primarily to explain our arguments rather than offer evidence for
them’ (Puranam et al., 2014: 163). The vignettes are meant as illustrations to explain what
we mean by the concept of spacing leadership, and, as such, they neither aim at providing
full empirical validation, nor were they analysed in that fashion.
The vignettes are drawn from a 46-minute documentary film ‘Leadership in Spaces and
Places’ (Salovaara, 2014: https://vimeo.com/95709554) that explores leadership in various
Ropo and Salovaara 9

spatial environments ranging from offices to a chapel, theatre, orienteering in the woods,
and to dry docks and shipbuilding. In the film, the space is narrated both visually and
through the accounts of the informants: how they practice in and feel about the space
and how their way of being is entangled with the spatial context. To depict different aspects
of embodied experience of space, we chose three vignettes from the film to illustrate spacing
leadership: an actor in a theatre, a shipbuilder and electricians in a dry dock. We then
constructed our narratives of spacing leadership. The vignettes connect the informants to
our professional narrative that views leadership through aesthetic epistemology. Both the
informants’ and our felt senses, emotions and memories were employed (Strati, 2007).
We used our ‘full sensory variety’ to watch the film and capture its affective data (Wood
et al., 2018). We followed what Cunliffe and Coupland (2011: 64) call embodied narrative
sense-making, where embodiment refers to bodily sensations, felt experiences, emotions and
sensory knowing.
Our analysis follows a phenomenological and hermeneutic tradition on narrative research
that privileges experience and the way people make sense of themselves and relations in
context (e.g. Meretoja, 2014; Squire, 2013) rather than focusing on sequenced events
(Riessman, 2008). Knowledge is achieved in narrations on self and space through felt
experiences. As discussed earlier, we draw here on the aesthetic organization and leadership
theory (e.g. Hansen et al., 2007; Ropo et al., 2002; Strati, 1999) that pursues knowledge
development based on senses rather than pure logic.
Through a thematic analysis of the vignettes, we brought to the fore three aesthetic and
embodied categories based on what the informants emphasized and how they spoke about
the spaces, their spatial practices and their experiences of the space: How the actor found the
stage of the theatre the safest place to sleep before the opening night (emotional category);
how the shipbuilder needed to physically sense the materiality of the assembly hall (sensuous
category) and how the electricians acknowledged the value of past expertise (memories/
history category). These aesthetic categories are not exclusive, but overlapping, and con-
struct the phenomenon of spacing leadership.
Let us listen to the stories of the informants next.

Vignette 1: Actor in the theatre – ‘The safest place is the stage’

We were all young and newcomers in this theatre. The opening night was to be the next day. We
had no rehearsals that day, surprisingly. It was a terrible feeling. I had not slept at night at
home. I was really tired and wondered what to do, since I was going to be on stage that evening.
I came here [points to a rather crude and uninviting stage with a dark, seemingly hard floor and
red and white pillars not so carefully painted, fallen cabinets, raw wooden boards and ladders
left standing carelessly], I grabbed a mattress and blanket and slept really well here on stage. So,
the safest place was the stage. Earlier at home, all I was thinking [about] was the play, but here I
did not think of the play at all. I fell asleep fast.
It is typical to think that the stage is a holy place to work, but I think it is the informal part that
matters most [walks backstage crossing a multitude of technical equipment towards the actors’
rooms that are messy with tons of theatre materials, through narrow corridors and steep stairs,
finally to a tiny green room where all the workers socialize and have coffee]. Here you can hear
what’s going on. Everything is connected to this space. This space forces [you] to interact.
What is said here goes eventually to the production. We have no room for concentrating.
There is absolutely no creative or inspirational space here. And that is not at all the point.
10 Leadership 0(0)

[Laughs and points to worn-out furniture, dirty coffee mugs and bleak colours]. (Actor in
Salovaara, 2014: 26:21)

Here, the actor explains his relationship with the theatre space. The anticipation and excite-
ment before the opening night grew and even his home did not provide a tranquil space for
resting, although research suggests otherwise (e.g. Buttimer and Seamon, 1980/2015;
Seamon, 1979/2015). While the space seemed to have instilled both fear and insecurity
(Fineman, 2000; Ropo and H€ oykinpuro, 2017; Tuan, 1977) in regard to the outcome of
the play, simultaneously it was the same physical environment where the rough interior
(Strati, 1999), mundane interactions, talks and experiences during rehearsals gave him the
feeling of ultimate safety. Of all the spaces, he laid down on the dark stage – and fell asleep.
While sleeping on a mattress on the open stage, his fear turned into comfort, and he felt safe,
maybe even sacred (Strati, 1999). This is similar to what Springborg (2010) refers to as sense-
making based on present sensing (instead of basing one’s actions on past concepts): in the
actor’s case, the sense-based experience of being on the very familiar and thus safe stage
overwhelmed the (irrational) feeling of fear of the future. The stage becomes a ‘space of
action’ (Crevani, 2015) for re-constructing what it means to be an actor: to confront the very
same space that evokes both the feelings of fear and safety.
Unlike typical institutional theatres, this experiential theatre did not have a carefully
planned, architecturally designed space. On the contrary, the theatre was set up in a
rugged basement that happened to be available and seemed reasonably suitable for theatre
practice. What mattered most was the atmosphere of the place (Pallasmaa, 2014), commu-
nity feeling (Cuba and Hummon, 1993) and doing things together. The cramped space, as
the actor calls it, allowed for discussions around the play.

Vignette 2: Shipbuilder – ‘You need to feel how the water runs’

When I start to build the boat, I see it as a final outcome. In my mind, I make a perfect image of
it. I can see every detail. This is like a finished journey. To avoid the decay . . . I want to make the
water run off the deck as fast as possible. I have carved a drain here that leads the water this way
[shows with hands and strokes the wooden surface back and forth]. This is how the water does
not stay in the corners. This makes the boat last longer. The problem with this assembly hall is
that it is rather dry [lifts his nose to sense the air]. Boats should be made in high humidity
because when they are set to sea, they shift between two extremes . . . That is an unpredictable
factor. Every nook in the boat must be visible to me. Nothing must be hidden or pushed under
the carpet. Quality, design and function form a unity. (Shipbuilder in Salovaara, 2014: 34:18)

The shipbuilder started by emphasizing how he carefully plans and anticipates (‘conceives’
in Lefebvre’s terms) the outcome. As his story continues, it becomes clear that his work is
fundamentally shaped by his previous experience and sensory knowledge (Hansen et al.,
2007) of the materials, both the wood, the crafting tools and the qualities of the assembly
hall, especially its level of humidity as he smells the air and senses the wooden
material (Martin, 2002). He feels the shaped forms of the material in the movements of
his hands by being in embodied touch with it as his hand strokes along the side of the boat,
and his intense breathing aligns with the process. This resembles what Beyes and
Steyaert (2011) write of as flows, instincts and movements. The shipbuilder’s knowledge
is very much tacit, embodied and sensible, cumulated in his expertise and craftsmanship
Ropo and Salovaara 11

(Ropo and Parviainen, 2001; Strati, 2007). With a sense of humility, he acknowledges that
even after careful planning and crafting, the outcome cannot be predicted once the boat is
moved between extreme spaces, from the dry assembly hall to the wet sea. The material boat
and the experience of it are literally in a process of becoming (Hernes, 2014; Tsoukas and
Chia, 2002). In terms of leadership, Crevani (2015) points to the ongoing processual nature
of producing direction of action (a central definition of leadership) as a spatio-
temporal concept.

Vignette 3: Electricians: ‘You would be a barbarian to ignore your history’

[Two electricians walk towards an electricity centre in a still-used historic dry dock that origi-
nates in the 1750s. They open the door of an old building.] There is old machinery left. An old
transformer – and that’s the new one over there [points first to a big, old, dark grey wall of about
4 meters with control panels, and then to something we cannot see]. The meter panel is made for
DC. And the guys that built it are far away now. Some people were about to dismantle it, but
fortunately, someone, I think it was . . . thought it should be saved. The pride in their crafts-
manship has been an essence. Even the thickest cords have been beautifully installed; it is like a
work of art. [The electricians go to an old switchboard that is located in a narrow space where
the electricians have to be in very close physical proximity to the switches.] Safety is the reason
for renovations. [Reaches out to a switch.] This is all in the open. See what a small space this is.
If you stumble, there is not much room to escape. (. . .)
[They continue the dialogue in their messy and over-filled ‘office’.] The will to do a quality job
has to do with this place. The criteria are different on the mainland and here. You can’t mix 21st
century technology with a wall built in 1750 just like that. It stays there for generations. It
requires a sense of style. An old teacher of mine said: If you don’t know your country’s history,
you’re a barbarian. It’s part of your education to know about the past. Old objects talk to us.
They have their own history. . .. They are worth saving. (Electricians in Salovaara, 2014: 38:47)

The electricians take a moment to reminisce about how the past way of planning electric
panels forced the men to work in unsafe spaces and positions. This goes to show how their
profession and its materiality have changed, how the spaces and machinery have evolved,
and how they embody affect (Beyes and Steyaert, 2011). Emotional attachment to the his-
tory of the building and the embodied connection (physical touch) with the old machinery
evokes empathy towards being protective of past achievements and treating them with
respect (Bachelard, 1964; Low and Altman, 1992).
Leadership research has evidenced a similar phenomenon of memory and traditions
guiding the current actions. For instance, how the British Royal Navy seafaring heritage
and ethos are purported on the land bases in the form of naval memorabilia, culture and
references to ships (land bases are not called buildings but ‘shore establishments’) (Hawkins,
2015: 959); also, how the concept of ‘backward reflexivity’ in understanding aesthetic lead-
ership explains that what we hear as music is understood only as a continuation of past,
present and anticipation (Bathurst et al., 2010); and how school class-rooms are still dom-
inated by the centuries old seating order that stresses the teacher’s authority over pupils
(Ropo et al., 2013: 389).
An empathic, sensitive connection to history creates a bridge between time, space and
people. As the electricians saw aesthetic beauty (Strati, 1999) in the way the past colleagues
had performed their work, that history became alive and gave direction to present thinking
12 Leadership 0(0)

and actions. Appreciating the skills and the historical space they work in encourage them to
do their very best job now. Working next to the past workers’ skills, they did not want to
look like ‘barbarians’ either. The pride in the work is shared, and it is seen and heard in the
way they talk about their work. Living with the electric machines and their space also
influenced the rhythm of their work (Strati, 1999); they were considerate and thoughtful,
as mistakes would be fatal.

Discussion and conclusions

While ‘being led’ by materiality – such as offices, meeting rooms, desks, computers and
reports (Oborn et al., 2013) – is an everyday experience, the role of materiality has largely
gone unnoticed in the leadership literature. Apart from the discussions on sociomateriality
in organization studies, materiality has seldom been conceived as leadership. The spacing
leadership concept introduced in this article relates back to the material and spatial turns in
organization studies, which have quite recently reached the leadership field as a discussion
on materiality or ‘thingness’ in leadership (Hawkins, 2015; Salovaara and Ropo, 2018).
To explore how leadership could be conceived of as a sociomaterial phenomenon through
the ways in which people and spaces engage with each other, we built on the aesthetic
approach to organizations (e.g. Strati, 1999) by drawing on embodiment as epistemology.
Thus, our perspective differs from the often-assumed view of materiality and embodiment
referring to qualities and actions of physical bodies in leadership studies (e.g. the Special
Issue on ‘The Materiality of Leadership’ in Leadership, 2013; Ladkin and Taylor, 2014).
Regarding space studies, our conceptualization of spacing leadership (see also Salovaara
and Ropo, 2018) is indebted to Lefebvre’s (1999) triadic concept of social space – conceived,
perceived and lived –, where lived, experienced space was considered as a key element for
understanding the relationship between space and people. Spacing becomes accounted for
through ‘embodied apprehensions of the everyday performing of organizational space’
(Beyes and Steyaert, 2011: 47). Our empirical illustrations on the embodied connection
between people and space show that spacing comprises of rhythms, emotions, sensations,
intensities and atmospheres. Spacing leadership is a concept that depicts human engagement
with space, where space is performative and active, not a passive, empty, non-reflective
container. Furthermore, the spacing leadership concept relies on the process ontology of
becoming. Spacing leadership describes a phenomenon where people and space influence
each other in a mutually constitutive way in an ongoing process. Not only are people active
and performing, but also spaces perform in a dynamic and emerging fashion. However,
spaces do not lead or influence independently, but need human engagement and people’s
embodied experience on the space, we argue.
How is spacing reflected in the above illustrations and what is spacing leadership in them?
This effect is formulated by Hernes et al. (2006) as follows: ‘While space is what shapes
action and inter-action, it is reshaped by actions and inter-actions in turn’ (44). Yanow
(2010) describes it in a similar way by saying: ‘After we have shaped our built spaces and
after they have shaped us – we act right back on those shapes and that shaping’ (142).
While our illustrations of spacing leadership – the actor in the theatre, the shipbuilder and
the electricians – may not represent the most typical work and workplaces, we can notice the
same phenomenon in traditional office environments as well.
Our analysis points out three thematic categories that are profoundly aesthetic and
embodied: senses, feelings and memories. Felt senses of the space were especially present
Ropo and Salovaara 13

in the shipbuilder’s work, the ways in which he touched the wooden material, but also smelt
the dry air of the assembly hall with the anticipation of potential problems later on in the
process. Yanow (2010) emphasizes the ‘feeling space and spatial sensibilities as subjective
and largely non-verbal ways of knowing, achieved through the experiences’ (139). Martin
(2002) found that smells, sights, sounds and touch construct the understanding of elderly
people’s homes. People ‘build’ the houses through all their sensuous qualities, but also the
houses ‘build’ the people through their lived experience of the space. The performative
relationship is reciprocal and mutually constitutive. Even office environments are increas-
ingly built and renovated to appeal to our senses in an attempt to produce creativity, com-
munity building and better interaction (De Paoli et al., 2017). While these are merely
managerial manipulations, the attempted sensuous effect is similar.
Fineman (2000) has characterized organizations as ‘emotional areas to capture the
intense activity of lived emotion in organizational life’ (1). He connects emotions and
aesthetics with material objects by referring to expressions such as ‘my miserable chair’,
‘that cosy room’ or ‘this depressive building’ . . . where ‘the aesthetic captures feelings of
form or flow that are experienced from the places and objects where people work’
(Fineman, 2000: 2). Feeling emotions in and of space is a key element in producing lead-
ership. Phenomenologically oriented architects talk about architectural atmospheres
that are recognized as ‘spaces with a mood, or emotionally felt spaces’ (B€ ohm, 2014: 96).
While exploring the sense of place and drawing from Bachelard and Merleau-Ponty,
Pallasmaa (2014) criticizes modern architecture for its overemphasis on visuality and
form. Instead, he emphasizes an experiential atmosphere that is ‘the overarching perceptual,
sensory, and emotive impression of space, setting, or social situation. (. . .) an experiential
property or characteristic that is suspended between the object and the subject’ (Pallasmaa,
2014: 19–21).
Memories and connectedness to history were elementary to the way in which the elec-
tricians talked about their experience of space. Their appreciation of the expertise of the past
colleagues (aesthetic skilfulness and an unsafe working environment) grew into empathy.
A sense of the historic place and its materials influenced their way of carrying out electrical
instalments. Their aesthetic and embodied experience of space also involved ethical
considerations.
Figure 1 summarizes the origins of the spacing leadership concept and its contributions to
leadership theory. With this figure, we wish to form more dynamic relations between the
origins of the concept and how it affects the way we approach leadership. Additionally to
the theoretical re-configurations around sociomateriality, aesthetic epistemology and per-
forming space, our study brings forth three aesthetically embodied categories: senses, feel-
ings and memories that function as integral epistemological enablers and specify what
spacing leadership entails in our analysis.
In summary, the spacing leadership concept introduced in this article contributes to
leadership theory in the following ways. First, it develops the sociomaterial approach to
leadership by specifying the relationship between the human and the material as embodied
spatial engagement. That leads to the second contribution: Spacing leadership further devel-
ops sociomateriality from an aesthetic, felt experience perspective. To make sense of the
spatial experience, an aesthetic epistemology is needed, because it provides the necessary
sense-based and embodied concepts of knowledge, including emotional experiences and
memories, for defining the phenomenon in more detail. Third, the adverb ‘spacing’ empha-
sizes the dynamic processual nature of human spatial engagement that has the capacity to
14 Leadership 0(0)

ORIGINS PHENOMENON CONTRIBUTIONS

senses
emoons
memories

SPACING
LEADERSHIP

Figure 1. Spacing leadership: Origins and contributions to leadership theory.

impact social interaction and lead people. Fourth, our analysis brings to the fore three
aesthetic and embodied categories to conceptualize the sociomaterial nature of spacing
leadership: senses, feelings and memories. Spacing leadership does not mean that material
spaces would lead in a determined and managerial sense, independent of human engage-
ment, but, as discussed, through human embodied experiences, intuitive feelings and atmos-
pheres, which are influenced by personal history and cultural associations. This
conceptualization was developed based on Lefebvre’s concepts of perceived and lived
space. There are human–space concepts in organizational studies, but the spacing leadership
concept takes the sociomaterial analysis one step further in conceptualizing it as fundamen-
tally based on embodied felt experience. Finally, our analysis extends the work of Lefebvre,
a Marxist sociologist, toward conceiving his triadic space concept in a somewhat unexpected
context, leadership. As we have noted elsewhere, ‘while Lefebvre is not a leadership scholar,
there is leadership in Lefebvre’ (Salovaara and Ropo, 2018).
Understanding the human–material relationship as an aesthetic and embodied experience
holds an inherent ethical undercurrent. Both aesthetics and ethics involve values. Thus, the
aesthetics of materiality warrant an ethical stance: while materiality provides leadership in
relation to humans, this leadership of the material world is supposed to be heard. However,
for example, we have created ecological catastrophes by largely neglecting our close relation
to materiality, space, environment and nature. Only when we set ourselves in embodied
relation to nature does it begin to ‘speak’ to us. As long as we hold on to a separation of
ourselves and the materiality around us, there is a temptation to treat nature, but also other
human beings, in an instrumental fashion. We have developed ever-greater capacities to
form and un-form the physical environment. When people act on these formations, they
confirm the new formations and signify that these are – at least – as valuable as other things.
The human ‘being’ forms and is informed by the materiality. Thus, spacing leadership is not
only an academic concept developed on the drawing board, but a call for action: since in our
Ropo and Salovaara 15

human spatial engagement, we are ‘spacing’ anyway, let us be conscious about how embod-
ied we are in our environment and nature. Even if they cannot defend themselves, they
should not be abused. Therefore, it is our responsibility to be mindful of, in the words of
Introna (2013: 265), the ‘ethics of things’.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

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Author biographies
Arja Ropo is a Professor of Management and Organization in the Faculty of Management,
University of Tampere, Finland. Her continuing interest is leadership from an aesthetic and
embodied perspective. Currently, her research focuses on materiality in leadership, especially
organizational places and spaces. She has published in the Leadership Quarterly, Leadership,
Scandinavian Journal of Management and Journal of Management & Organization, among
others. Her work has also appeared in a number of edited books in Europe and North
America. She serves in the Editorial Boards of the Scandinavian Journal of Management
and Organizational Aesthetics and as an ad hoc reviewer for a number of journals.

Perttu Salovaara is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Stern School of Business, New York
University, USA and university researcher at the University of Tampere, Finland. Having a
background in philosophy, his research interests focus on epistemological and ontological
questions of leadership. He has published on leadership and organizational spaces, embodi-
ment in leadership and process ontology. He has also produced two documentary films on
leadership and is currently studying co-working spaces as locations of leadership as well as
local breweries as community development. Prior to academic work, he has worked as a
leadership development consultant for 15 years.