The Safekeeping of Being - A Leadership Responsibility

Human existence is one entangled with technologies where humans attribute meaning, value and importance to technologies as they integrate them into their daily existence. Technology change frequently creates ethically potent circumstances requiring a response from leaders. This research considers how public-sector leaders might ethically guide existential technology change.

The research draws on selected ontological and phenomenological ideas in light of contemporary leadership thinking and public-sector leadership practice to develop a conceptual model. The model illustrates the uncertain, ambiguous and confused state that hinders leaders’ ability to guide technology change. Its central node is ontological ambiguity, which is probed further in order to provide a foundation for leaders to guide technology change.

The primary proposition is that contemporary leadership presents a diminished and disoriented position to the mediated relation humans have with technology and that an ontological perspective can help public-sector leaders who govern existentially-mediating technologies to overcome limitations in their practice.