Leaders Lesser Mortals

Do Conventions Matter? provides a complete overview of national party conventions in Canada, from 1919, when the first convention was held, to 1993, including the selection of Stanfield, Trudeau, Broadbent, Clark, Mulroney, Turner, McLaughlin, Chrétien, Campbell, and Manning. Courtney compares leadership selection practices in Canada with those in the United States, Britain, and Australia, and shows that Canadian conventions remain a distinctive means of choosing party leaders. Focusing on modern developments in the convention process, Courtney highlights changes in representation over the last thirty years, addresses criticisms about costs and delegate selection practices, and examines the role of the media. He concludes with an examination of the future of conventions in the context of Canadian democracy, given sky-rocketing costs, the movement to reform political parties, and the push towards a universal membership vote. He argues convincingly that the objectives of greater representation and greater democracy explain both the emergence of conventions to choose the leaders of federal parties and their possible demise in the near future.

This history of medicine collection presents the biographies of five pioneering anesthetists through the lens of leadership. Starting with William Morton who discovered ether anesthesia in 1846, the book continues with an account of John Snow, who studied both chloroform and cholera, and became the world’s first epidemiologist. Three previously untold complete biographies follow to illustrate the transformation of the crude practice of Anesthesia to the sophisticated medical specialty of Anesthesiology of today. Based on original archival research, the life stories of Arthur Guedel (famous for his ‘dunked dog’ demonstrations), Virginia Apgar (who developed the APGAR Score), and Bjørn Ibsen (the ‘father of intensive care’) are related. The book closes with ‘A Leadership Reckoning’—the author’s comparative analysis of each pioneer’s leadership capacity based on the telling of their histories—and concludes that leadership, just like beauty, can manifest differently in different individuals.

This book is part of the Towards the New Millennium Series, featuring the works of thoughtful Canadians who are profoundly interested in the future of Canada and the world. Most democracies do not use Canada's "first past the post" voting system. To give a party more seats than its share of the popular vote warrants is deemed undemocratic by most. Such democracies use proportional representation to ensure a party's seat-share does not exceed its vote-share. Former MLA, Nick Loenen, examines what proportional representation can do for Canadian politics. He finds that a change to proportional representation holds the potential to involve citizens more meaningfully and give political parties a more significant policy development role. It would also move power from the prime minister's office to Parliament, and from the premiers to provincial legislatures, shifting the focus in politics from leaders, style and images, to parties, principles and platforms. Instead of the adversarial politics of confrontation, which aim to exclude and eliminate political opponents, proportional representation holds promise for a consensual, cooperative style of governing that includes a broad spectrum of political diversity. The book also counters many popular misconceptions about proportional representation. It traces Canada's most intractable political problems such as national unity, high taxation, government over-spending, excessive party discipline, the concentration of power in our leaders, and our peculiar archaic voting system. The end product is the most detailed analysis of the effects of proportional representation on Canadian politics ever published.

Smart Leadership provides a completely up to date overview of thecurrent thinking on leadership. It outlines the latest theories andprinciples you need to apply to be a successful leader and includestips and wisdom from the greatest business thinkers andwriters. Smart books are essential primers to the key issues facing businesspeople. They are practical and action-oriented, providing instantknowledge for ambitious and hungry professionals who want to make alasting impression throughout their career. Smart books aredesigned to give killer approaches to key business subjects, anddeliver sound principles in a style that is both informative andhas attitude. They are the prefect resource for time-starved,information-hungry business people everywhere!

Election campaigning never stops. That is the new reality of politics and government in Canada, where everyone from staffers in the Prime Minister’s Office to backbench MPs practise political marketing and communication as though each day were a battle to win the news cycle. Permanent Campaigning in Canada examines the growth and democratic implications of political parties’ relentless search for votes and popularity and what constant electioneering means for governance. This is the first study of a phenomenon – including the use of public resources for partisan gain – that has become embedded in Canadian politics and government.

Throughout Integral Operational Leadership, Park acknowledges that the principles, perspectives and priorities highlighted in his first book Collaborative Wisdom: From Pervasive Logic to Effective Operational Leadership must be translated into practical and operational guidelines. Part I of this new volume briefly revisits the theory and concepts introduced in Collaborative Wisdom and brings to centre stage an alternative organisational framework and culture which has long operated on the sidelines in many business sectors. The substantive content of this volume, however, is dedicated by way of case studies and exercises to offering insights that encourage and facilitate effective day-to-day decision making. This book creates a logical and robust chain from the hidden, often forgotten, subconscious and intuitive element of the leadership cognitive process, to the daily issues, decisions, practices and actions of leaders within the operational environment. It demonstrates how the existence of a collaborative wisdom can influence the implementers, as well as the policymakers within the organisational leadership cadre. Integral Operational Leadership provides support for industry professionals who are seeking to develop their organisational capabilities and performance through clear operational leadership. This book concerns itself with an alternative and 'progressive' leadership logic based upon perspectives, priorities and practices considered more attuned to the realities of the twenty-first century environment within which the business organisation operates.