Executives love to sneer at “theory”—too abstract, too slow, too far from the action. It’s sold as hard-nosed pragmatism: ‘academics debate, we get shit done’. But the theory-practice cliché doesn’t really sort thinkers from doers. It sorts managers from leaders—and shuts leadership down.

Management is about means: hitting targets, scaling up operations, driving down costs. Leadership is about ends: which targets are worth hitting, whose interests those operations serve, which costs are worth incurring. Managers ask “can we?” and “how fast?” Leaders ask “should we?” and “for whom?”.

These aren’t variations on a theme—they’re different questions entirely, demanding different kinds of thinking. Kant made the split clear: science operates under the logic of nature—what is, what follows from cause and effect. Ethics, by contrast, begins with freedom—our capacity to determine what should be, to act responsibly, independent from natural constraints or instrumental success. Both require serious theory: explanatory management theory for what works, evaluative leadership theory for what’s right. But badge one as “practice” and the other as “theory,” and, abracadabra, ethics becomes optional: material for HR offsites and annual reports, not for the Monday morning steerco.

Watch how quickly the pivot happens. An associate tentatively asks, “Should we even do this?”—a rare moment of leadership. Seconds later, the room self-corrects: “We’re drifting—let’s keep this productive.” “We need to move on.” “The real question is how do we make this work?” The question shifts from should-we to how-we. Moral judgment turns into project planning. Everyone exhales: technical questions have tidy answers; ethical questions invite arguments—and arguments are inconvenient.

This isn’t intellectual confusion—it’s the logic of capital. The whole system promotes those who stop asking “why?” and get fluent in the “how.” Managers climb by hitting numbers, not by raising awkward questions. Consultants sell optimisation, not wisdom. Shareholders reward profit, not principle. Business schools teach analytics, not ethics. Call someone “too theoretical” and you've ended their career; call them “execution-focused” and they’re earmarked for promotion.

The truth is: good organizations need both management and leadership; but the system keeps real leadership away from the decisions that count. Organisations get brilliant at means and blind to ends. They hit targets, maximise metrics, and optimise processes—chasing goals nobody questions, serving interests nobody examines, producing harms nobody owns.

The theory-practice divide doesn't describe a problem. It shields power from questions it cannot answer. Every call for “less theory, more practice” is just that: an invitation to trade judgment for convenience—and let power, not principle, call the shots. Sadly, in business as in politics, moving fast means nothing if you're headed the wrong way.

#Leadership #Transformation #Ethics #Management #OrganisationalCulture

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References:

Kant/Meredith, The Critique of Judgement, Left of Brain Books, 2025