Sweet little lies? Towards a mendaciology of leadership

We live in a post-truth society, where lies, deception, and untruth play an increasingly significant role on the grand political stage. But what about everyday leadership in everyday organisations – what roles do lies play there? This paper develops the notion of mendaciology (Lat. Mendacium: ‘lie,’ ‘untruth’) to address this question empirically. The key idea with a mendaciological approach is to look at how lies, deception, and untruth play a part in accomplishing direction and are therefore fundamental to leadership processes. The paper discusses the notion of lies based on classic and contemporary philosophy, and develops it into a sensitising concept. Building on this, the paper presents three areas for empirical studies. First, it discusses disinterest in truth and facts, suggesting that phenomena such as untruth and bullshit are key for leadership processes. Second, it discusses outright lies and manipulation, drawing attention to the roles of lies and untruth in organisational politics – an area often ignored in leadership research. Third, it introduces the notion of functional denialism – the lies that maintain the illusion that there are no lies – and suggests that researchers also need to investigate and problematise this. The paper concludes by outlining implications for empirical studies, for critical leadership studies, and for leadership development.