Perceptions of leadership ethics in the Czech Republic: An exploration of the bio-adaptive nature of complementarity

This phenomenological study explores the construct of leadership ethics through the lens of bio-adaptivity, drawing upon the work of Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana as a theoretical base. It inquires into how human beings, as complex organisms, form biologically induced perceptions and cognitively generated perspectives regarding the leadership ethics of their leaders, and draws upon an expanded bio-adaptive lexicon to describe the centrality of the complementarity existing between bio-adaptivity and cognition in the leader-follower dynamic. In-depth interviewing provided data that was then reduced phenomenologically to describe the leadership ethics experiences and derived meanings of six study participants within a Czech cultural context. Oriented for expatriate organizational leaders in the Czech Republic, the study's implications for practice offer insights for any leader exercising authority over another in that country. Implications for research and theory offer culturally generated insights into the relevance, or non-relevance, of the body of Western literature regarding leadership ethics within the Czech context.