Leadership and Human Resource Management: Oil and Water in the Same Vessel

The task of integrating projects pursued under the banner of human resource management (HRM) with conjecture about leadership axiomatically requires that such integration be possible. However, the extent of compatibility between the substance of HRM and reflection on leadership has largely remained unexamined. Using examples to illustrate the points being made, this article prosecutes the case that much HRM theory as well as its practice and leadership conjecture invoke divergent ways of speaking about collectively pursued objectives and entail differing perspectives of obedience. One way to reconcile the two domains is to revisit the conceptual underpinnings of mainstream contemporary HRM scholarship and, in particular, this corpus' well‐documented emergence from Alan Fox's conception of a unitarist frame of reference. Such a reappraisal of the nature of HRM enables concerned scholars to benefit from insight provided by their peers writing about leadership and provides an opportunity for improved practice.