Performing Organizational Paradoxes takes a constitutive, process approach to organizational paradoxes. It underscores the performative nature of paradox through underlying dialectical tensions, its sociomaterial foundations, and power features that bring paradoxes to life, sustain them, and enable their transformation. The book first situates a constitutive approach in the extant organizational paradox literature, by broadening the constitutive approach and addressing the many debates and inaccuracies around it. For the novice, several early chapters devote themselves to considering how paradoxical tensions present themselves, invite responses, and interrelate through their organizing outcomes. For the advanced, latter chapters consider the ubiquity of power and paradox, how bodies escape the quarantine of their paradox narratives, how inventive category work can resist power-imbued paradoxes, and an agenda for future research that challenges scholars to do more on the process side of paradox. Filling an important gap in the existing literature, this book will be a key resource for scholars and students in the fields of communication, management, educational administration, organizational psychology and any other fields that study organizations.

Television informs our perceptions and expectations of leaders and offers a guide to understanding how we, as organizational actors, should communicate, act, and relate. Because of its pervasiveness as a medium and the impact it can have in influencing expectations of leadership and related behavior within organizational life, television can be understood an important pedagogical tool. Leadership through the Lens: Interrogating Production, Presentation, and Power is an edited collection of 11 chapters that address representations of leadership in scripted and unscripted workplace settings, showcasing the innovative ways in which diverse leadership styles are illustrated in a variety of contexts on television. With a unique approach at the intersection of leadership and mass media studies, this book shows how the two disciplines coexist to inform how leadership culture is produced and transformed via presentation and representations on television.

2007 National Communication Association, Organizational Communication Division, "Best Book" Award Citing the well known adage that there are as many definitions of leadership as there are leadership scholars, Fairhurst acknowledges the contributions which psychologists have made to leadership research, before probing the inevitable limitations to their formidable body of work. Fairhurst's work is also thought provoking on the issue of authenticity on the part of leaders." -HUMAN RELATIONS Discursive Leadership: In Conversation with Leadership Psychology presents a new, groundbreaking way for scholars and graduate students to examine and explore leadership. Differing from a psychological approach to leadership which tries to get inside the heads of leaders and employees, author Gail Fairhurst focuses on the social or communicative aspects between them. A discursive approach to leadership introduces a host of relatively new ideas and concepts and helps us understand leadership's changing role in organizations. Key Features: Compares and contrasts discursive leadership with leadership psychology: This comparison facilitates a clearer definition of discursive leadership. Presents new ways to study leadership: By treating each discourse concept as a heuristic device and supporting each concept with examples, new ways to study leadership are introduced by focusing on key concepts from the organizational discourse literature. Addresses some key challenges within leadership psychology: Each chapter begins with an ongoing debate in leadership psychology and illustrates how a discursive approach can join that debate. Charimatic leadership, leader-member exchange, authentic leadership are just a few of the examples. Offers reactions from leadership psychologists: Leadership psychologists and other discourse scholars respond to the author's proposed 'conversation' between them broadening the debate and introducing new perspectives. Provides quick reviews and extended examples: The book includes critical summaries at the end of each chapter and easy-to-reference appendices. Intended Audience: This book helps scholars, researchers, and practitioners understand the complexities of leadership as it continues to evolve due to such influences as globalization, technology change, and democratization of the workplace. It is also an excellent text for graduate courses such as Leadership; Rhetoric of Leadership; Interpretive Studies of Organizational Communication; Organizational Communication; and Leadership & Communication in the departments of communication, business & management, psychology, and educational administration.

Television informs our perceptions and expectations of leaders and offers a guide to understanding how we, as organizational actors, should communicate, act, and relate. Because of its pervasiveness as a medium and the impact it can have in influencing expectations of leadership and related behavior within organizational life, television can be understood an important pedagogical tool. Leadership through the Lens: Interrogating Production, Presentation, and Power is an edited collection of 11 chapters that address representations of leadership in scripted and unscripted workplace settings, showcasing the innovative ways in which diverse leadership styles are illustrated in a variety of contexts on television. With a unique approach at the intersection of leadership and mass media studies, this book shows how the two disciplines coexist to inform how leadership culture is produced and transformed via presentation and representations on television.

2007 National Communication Association, Organizational Communication Division, "Best Book" Award Citing the well known adage that there are as many definitions of leadership as there are leadership scholars, Fairhurst acknowledges the contributions which psychologists have made to leadership research, before probing the inevitable limitations to their formidable body of work. Fairhurst's work is also thought provoking on the issue of authenticity on the part of leaders." -HUMAN RELATIONS Discursive Leadership: In Conversation with Leadership Psychology presents a new, groundbreaking way for scholars and graduate students to examine and explore leadership. Differing from a psychological approach to leadership which tries to get inside the heads of leaders and employees, author Gail Fairhurst focuses on the social or communicative aspects between them. A discursive approach to leadership introduces a host of relatively new ideas and concepts and helps us understand leadership's changing role in organizations. Key Features: Compares and contrasts discursive leadership with leadership psychology: This comparison facilitates a clearer definition of discursive leadership. Presents new ways to study leadership: By treating each discourse concept as a heuristic device and supporting each concept with examples, new ways to study leadership are introduced by focusing on key concepts from the organizational discourse literature. Addresses some key challenges within leadership psychology: Each chapter begins with an ongoing debate in leadership psychology and illustrates how a discursive approach can join that debate. Charimatic leadership, leader-member exchange, authentic leadership are just a few of the examples. Offers reactions from leadership psychologists: Leadership psychologists and other discourse scholars respond to the author's proposed 'conversation' between them broadening the debate and introducing new perspectives. Provides quick reviews and extended examples: The book includes critical summaries at the end of each chapter and easy-to-reference appendices. Intended Audience: This book helps scholars, researchers, and practitioners understand the complexities of leadership as it continues to evolve due to such influences as globalization, technology change, and democratization of the workplace. It is also an excellent text for graduate courses such as Leadership; Rhetoric of Leadership; Interpretive Studies of Organizational Communication; Organizational Communication; and Leadership & Communication in the departments of communication, business & management, psychology, and educational administration.