Between the legitimation and the criticism of leader in the naval and offshore polo of Rio Grande-RS

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to have an understanding of the reasons provided for taking on a fictive position within a formal hierarchy, as well as its entailed tensions. This paper aims to unravel the strategies employed by employees who undertook responsibilities other than those stipulated in their work record booklet. The methodology comprised the execution of thirteen interviews, in 2016, with employees and a labor union official, as well as a literature review as regards the empirical question. Team leadership requires specific features, such as having "communicative skills". The employees sought to be promoted to the position of supervisor; however, in the meantime, as "leaders", they were not only accumulating functions but were also cooperating to their self-exploitation disguised by a twofold symbolic perspective: either by the fictive position or by the modernizing varnish of the word "leader".