I’m in the middle of a study of leadership, and I noticed that I had to constantly refer to the study
of leadership as “The study of leadership.” To make matters worse, some of the material could be referred to as a study of various theories of leadership, or “The study of the study of leadership,” if you will.
I thought to myself “There must be a simpler word for this. I recalled once upon a time as an undergraduate majoring in history, I had to take a class called “Historiography,” or a study of how to write history. I struggled to find something similar regarding leadership, but could not.
Next, I did what anyone with my talent for laziness would do. I looked up the etymology of the word “Leader.” It has roots in Old English and traces backward to the German Leiter and into Gothic. The Germans make clever compound words. Should I check?
Nah.
Then it occurred to me that most modern sciences or branches of knowledge use Greek names to describe them, so I looked up an ancient Greek word for “Leader.” Aha! Hegemon. Or hégemón. Or hēgemōn. Perfect!
The next issue to determine was whether this was a branch of knowledge or just writing
about an issue? In some senses, it’s both.
Therefore, I introduce to the world the following definitions using a style modified from a popular dictionary:
Hegemonology
(noun). heg·e·mon·ol·o·gy | \he-jə-,män-ä-lə-jē. Definition: A branch of
knowledge that deals with leadership. //A study of hegemonology. Words from hegemonology:
Hegemonological, hegemonologist
Hegemonography (noun). heg·e·mon·og·ra·phy | \he-jə-,män-ä-grə-fē.
Definition: 1.a. Writings about leadership. 1.b. The principles, theory, and
history of leadership writings. 2. The product of leadership writings or a body
of leadership literature. //The latest peer-reviewed hegemonography article.
Words from hegemonography: Hegemonographical, hegemonographic,
hegemonographically
The first known use of these words will be in the next few hours. I therefore do not yet have example sentences.
You saw it here first.
Hegemonology – I like it! (And the other one too.)
When will you be done with your studies? Are you working toward a degree?
Hi Jennifer! Thank you for the nice comment.
I was working toward a degree, but am in the process of switching schools and may or may not settle for a graduate certificate. I’m trying to clean up a public administration class that I didn’t finish earlier before I try to cross over to business administration.