Responsibly led boards of directors make it possible for modern companies to survive and prosper under conditions of change. Despite the importance of boards of directors, their activities are often lionised or vilified by shareholders and stakeholders which obscures how boards enact responsible leadership. Responsible Leadership in Corporate Governance: An Integrative Approach introduces an integrative model of responsible leadership in governance that positions the board as a nexus of all corporate participants. In this model, responsibly led boards seek to make decisions in the best interests of the modern company as an entity that operates in a dynamic business environment. This book provides a timely focus on in-depth cases of board led responsible leadership. Examining boards of directors in listed companies, state-owned enterprises, and private companies, the book connects insights from corporate governance and leadership to behaviours that affect boards' relationships with shareholders and stakeholders. In addition, these insights underscore key requirements and challenges of responsible leadership in governance: from the importance of purpose and the crucial role of value creation to the difficulties of ownership transition and accountability. Far-sighted and experienced-based, this book will not only help students connect to real world situations but also will benefit those that interact with and support boards of directors.

Revitalising leadership connects leadership theory and practice with context. It argues that the universal prescriptions favoured by most leadership scholars ignore the reality that context always matters in leadership practice - and so it should matter in leadership theorizing too. Addressing this gap, the book offers a novel framework that enables the development of context-sensitive leadership theory and practice. This framework directs theoretical and practical attention to the key challenges for leadership in different organizational contexts. It involves developing a specific purpose for leadership in a given context, as well as formulating the values, norms and domains of action which should guide leadership efforts in that context. Determining these various matters then informs the role, responsibilities, rights, behaviours and attributes relevant to leaders and followers for that context, and the focus, purpose and boundaries of the leader-follower relationship. Deploying this framework, six in-depth illustrative theorisations are provided, showing how leadership practice might best take shape in the contexts of supervisory management; HR management; innovation and entrepreneurship; strategy; governance; and leadership studies itself. Revitalising leadership will appeal to diverse audiences, due to its theoretical novelty, its diversity of illustrative examples, its practice-focussed orientation and its clear, engaging style. These include leadership scholars concerned with the lack of attention being paid to context in leadership theorizing; organizational scholars wanting to learn how leadership thinking can be brought to bear on the different management functions the book explores; practitioners seeking leadership ideas that are tailored to the context they lead and follow in; and those involved in MBA or leadership development programmes who are looking to combine the personal reflection sought by such programmes with a tho

Business celebrities such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch are among the most widely recognised, admired and sometimes even vilified individuals in the world. Like their celebrity peers from the entertainment, sports, arts and political worlds, business celebrities exert an influence that is pervasive, but difficult to assess, evaluate and explain. Business celebrities have been around for as long as big business itself, but this is the first book to provide a systematic exploration of how they are constructed and why they exist. Business celebrities include entrepreneurs, CEOs, and management gurus. The book argues that these individuals are not self-made, but rather are created by a process of widespread media exposure to the point that their actions, personalities and even private lives function symbolically to represent significant dynamics and tensions prevalent in the contemporary business environment. Demystifying Business Celebrity raises questions about the impact and significance of the production of celebrity upon our understanding of, and our ability to promote the practice of leadership in an enlightened manner. The book will prove a useful addition to the enlightened business student's bookshelf and will be informative reading for all those with an interest in business and management.

Why do just a few management ideas become hugely popular, while many others remain virtually ignored? What distinguishes a management guru from just another consultant? Why are we such dedicated followers of management fashion? Since the 1980s, popular management thinkers, or management gurus, have promoted a number of performance improvement programmes or management fashions that have greatly influenced both the everyday conduct of organizational life and the preoccupations of academic researchers.;This book provides a rhetorical critique of the management guru and management fashion phenomenon with a view to building on the important theoretical progress that has recently been made by a small, but growing, band of management researchers. Fantasy theme analysis, a dramatistically-based method of rhetorical criticism, is conducted on three of the most important management fashions to have emerged during the 1990s: the re-engineering movement promoted by Michael Hammer and James Champy; the effectiveness movement led by Stephen Covey; and the learning organization movement inspired by Peter Senge and his colleagues.; In addition to its rhetorical and empirical contributions, this boo

'This stunning book makes sense out of the enigma of Management Gurus..' - Educational Book Review

'Jackson offers insightful accounts of recent management history ... interesting and original critical readings for advanced students in management studies.' - Scandinvian Journal of Management

Revitalising leadership connects leadership theory and practice with context. It argues that the universal prescriptions favoured by most leadership scholars ignore the reality that context always matters in leadership practice - and so it should matter in leadership theorizing too. Addressing this gap, the book offers a novel framework that enables the development of context-sensitive leadership theory and practice. This framework directs theoretical and practical attention to the key challenges for leadership in different organizational contexts. It involves developing a specific purpose for leadership in a given context, as well as formulating the values, norms and domains of action which should guide leadership efforts in that context. Determining these various matters then informs the role, responsibilities, rights, behaviours and attributes relevant to leaders and followers for that context, and the focus, purpose and boundaries of the leader-follower relationship. Deploying this framework, six in-depth illustrative theorisations are provided, showing how leadership practice might best take shape in the contexts of supervisory management; HR management; innovation and entrepreneurship; strategy; governance; and leadership studies itself. Revitalising leadership will appeal to diverse audiences, due to its theoretical novelty, its diversity of illustrative examples, its practice-focussed orientation and its clear, engaging style. These include leadership scholars concerned with the lack of attention being paid to context in leadership theorizing; organizational scholars wanting to learn how leadership thinking can be brought to bear on the different management functions the book explores; practitioners seeking leadership ideas that are tailored to the context they lead and follow in; and those involved in MBA or leadership development programmes who are looking to combine the personal reflection sought by such programmes with a thoughtful analysis of the context in which their leadership practice takes place.

An engaging guide through the cacophony of competing perspectives and models of leadership, the new edition includes an expanded discussion of contemporary topics like followership, gender, ethics, authenticity, and leadership and the arts, set against the backdrop of the global financial crisis. Conceived by Chris Grey as an antidote to conventional textbooks, each book in the 'Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap' series takes a core area of the curriculum and turns it on its head by providing a critical and sophisticated overview of the key issues and debates in an informal, conversational and often humorous way. Suitable for students of leadership, professionals working in organizations and anyone curious about the workings of leadership.

An engaging guide through the cacophony of competing perspectives and models of leadership, the new edition includes an expanded discussion of contemporary topics like followership, gender, ethics, authenticity, and leadership and the arts, set against the backdrop of the global financial crisis. Conceived by Chris Grey as an antidote to conventional textbooks, each book in the 'Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap' series takes a core area of the curriculum and turns it on its head by providing a critical and sophisticated overview of the key issues and debates in an informal, conversational and often humorous way. Suitable for students of leadership, professionals working in organizations and anyone curious about the workings of leadership.

Leadership pervades every aspect of organizational and social life, and its study has never been more diverse, nor more fertile. With contributions from those who have defined that territory, this volume is not only a key point of reference for researchers, students and practitioners, but also an agenda-setting prospective and retrospective look at the state of leadership in the twenty-first century. It evaluates the domain and stretches it further by considering leadership scholarship from every angle, concluding with an optimistic look at the future of leaders, followers and their place in organizations and society at large. Each section represents a distinctive slant on leadership: - Macro perspectives - including strategic leadership, organization theory, charismatic leadership, complexity leadership, and networks. - Political and philosophical perspectives - including distributed leadership, critical leadership, ethics, the military and cults. - Psychological perspectives - including personality, leadership style and contingency theories, transformational leadership, exchange relationships, shared leadership, cognition, leadership development, gender, trust, identity and the 'dark side' of leadership. - Cultural perspectives - including spirituality, aesthetics, and creativity. - Contemporary and emergent perspectives - followership, historical methods, virtual leadership, emotions, image, celebrity, and the quest for a general theory of leadership

Business celebrities such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch are among the most widely recognised, admired and sometimes even vilified individuals in the world. Like their celebrity peers from the entertainment, sports, arts and political worlds, business celebrities exert an influence that is pervasive, but difficult to assess, evaluate and explain. Business celebrities have been around for as long as big business itself, but this is the first book to provide a systematic exploration of how they are constructed and why they exist. Business celebrities include entrepreneurs, CEOs, and management gurus. The book argues that these individuals are not self-made, but rather are created by a process of widespread media exposure to the point that their actions, personalities and even private lives function symbolically to represent significant dynamics and tensions prevalent in the contemporary business environment. Demystifying Business Celebrity raises questions about the impact and significance of the production of celebrity upon our understanding of, and our ability to promote the practice of leadership in an enlightened manner. The book will prove a useful addition to the enlightened business student's bookshelf and will be informative reading for all those with an interest in business and management.

This Element deals with leadership and governance of corporations from the point of view of the board. We expand our understanding of board leadership by focusing on the modern company as a legal person comprised of a capital fund and the relationships among directors, shareholders, management and stakeholders. We propose a model which integrates insights from the fields of leadership and corporate governance and establishes a theoretical link illustrated by empirical findings in three intersections: team leadership on the board, the chair's leadership of the board, and strategic leadership by the board. We maintain this integrative model provides a powerful means to further an understanding of the board as the nexus of leadership and governance. We close this Element by identifying the new research directions that our integrative model opens up. We also identify the implications for practice for those who either serve on boards or provide support to them.