Radicalization in Leadership: From Over-Positioning to Trans-Positioning

Watching the world, one observes that people tend to take radical positions in their leadership. This article explores how the term radicalization might be applied to leaders in a professional and business environment, and is based on three concepts: radicalization, over-positioning, and trans-positioning. Hermans (2018) refers to the phenomenon of radicalization as ‘overpositioning’ in terms of Dialogical Self Theory (DST): one I-position dominating the entire system of self. From a theoretical perspective of DST ‘trans-positioning’ is introduced by Van Loon (2017) as metaphorically transposing one aspect of a position repertoire to another. The argument is elaborated that trans-positioning can be used in the service of deradicalization for the purpose of opening the system and improving wellbeing. A case-study and examples are presented as exemplification of this process, and how a process of deradicalizing can be enabled by DST principles. To effectively apply trans-positioning in the service of deradicalization, metaphors, meta-language and, teaching how to create conditions for internal and external dialogue are recommended approaches.