Chapter 1 - The Role of Hybrid Heroes in Popular Stories and Moral Leadership

Summary

“We are the heroes of our time

But we’re dancing with the demons in our minds.”

Zelmerlöw (2015)

Winning song at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest

This chapter will zoom in on the villain-hero dynamic in fictional narratives and its impact on career identity and conceptualizations of moral leadership in business contexts. Illustrated by empirical research, I will describe how hybrid heroes and their journeys can influence career identity via different pathways. Second, I will explore the influence of the hybrid hero on the field of leadership—presenting a more dynamic perspective on leaders in the context of situational and temporal change. A link between heroic leadership and hybrid heroes will be theorized. Can we be the saint-like heroes we often initially aspire to become? A more complex and holistic perception of heroism may broaden our understanding of moral leadership. Moreover, the hybrid hero spectrum could offer people a window into the morally ambiguous parts within themselves, stimulating conscious, critical reflection.

In my chapter, I consciously use the term “hero” to refer to all genders. This is partly because I am not keen on the word “heroine” to specifically refer to female heroes, and also because the traditional male connotation feels outdated. Everyone can be a hero.

Villain-Heroes in Fictional Narratives and Literature

“I’m a very neat monster.

How many more bodies would there have been had I not gotten to those killers? I didn't want to save lives, but save lives I did.”

Dexter Morgan (Lindsay 2004)

Jeff Lindsay's books featuring Dexter Morgan tell the story of a man with a troubled childhood who grows up to be a hero and a villain at the same time. Early on, his adoptive father realizes that Dexter has psychopathic traits that fit early onset conduct disorder (formerly labeled “psychopathy”) with an insuppressible urge to kill. His father teaches him to at least follow a strict moral code when he kills, and he becomes a dark vigilante. During the day, Dexter works as a blood spatter analyst for the police, yet at night he kills rapists and murderers who are slipping through the cracks of the legal system. This makes him both villain and saint—a morally ambiguous hybrid hero (Amper 2010; Brophy 2010; Van Tourhout 2019).