Rethinking rationality
Emotion as an epistemic resource in strategic judgment and leadership
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22451/3002.nbr2025.vol11.1.10106Keywords:
Strategic judgment, emotional intelligence, leadership practice, organizational epistemology, affect in managementAbstract
For years, organizational theory has promoted a disembodied concept of rationality, showing emotion as a danger to objective assessment. But these depersonalized models fall short in an age marked by systematic crises, moral ambiguity, and strategic instability to reflect on how choices are really felt, understood, and carried out. From that perspective, the goal of this paper is to provide an epistemological framework acknowledging the relevance of emotion, not as a distortion but rather as a condition of possibility in the formation of strategic judgment, organizational leadership, and practical rationality. The study shows that judgment is made up of emotion, not accessories. Affective dynamics have proven to be strongly ingrained in strategic thinking, leadership identification and organizational learning. Ranging from ethical emotions to bodily intuition, affective modalities are epistemic tools that shape interpretation, value creation, and moral awareness in organizational life. Rationality must be rethought as an ethical sensitive, affectively modulated, embodied practice that questions current management standards and advocates a reorientation of institutional learning, organizational design, and leadership development toward emotional reflexivity. Acknowledging emotion as a valid foundation for judgment enables more context-sensitive, compassionate and responsible kinds of conduct in a world marked by complexity and interconnectedness.
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