Images and emotions in leader-follower communication. Exploring the shadow of followership in Orwell and Loyola’s literary accounts

This article explores communication processes between followers and leaders who are not physically co-present. It focuses on the role played by images to mediate such communication. Empirical evidence is provided by two literary texts offering rich accounts of leader-follower relationships relying extensively on the mediation of images: Orwell’s 1984 and Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. These two quasi-diaries adopt the followers’ point of view and give insights respectively into leader-follower communications characterized by a lack of
reflexive consideration for emotions that are unleashed without restrain Orwell’s novel) and into a method to systematically control, harness and ponder over emotional responses (Loyolas’s piece). The paper contributes to the literature on leadership as discourse by considering images as linguistic units particularly suited to the ‘antithesis’ rhetorical figure consisting in conveying strong contrasting emotions likely to prompt original reflexion. It then theorizes the relevance of considering together cognitive and emotional aspects of leaderfollower communication by introducing the concept of intersemiotic translations - the translation from one system of sign to another (e.g. from images to text) - as instrumental in followers’ attempts to make sense of, and contribute to leadership discourse. The article concludes by arguing that sufficient time, quietness and image complexity are necessary conditions to foster meaningful followers’ engagement with leader’s messages.