Public And Third Sector Leadership

What can we learn from leaders in the public and third sectors? This book is unique in that it provides an opportunity for the voices of these individuals to be heard. Each leader considers what leadership means to them, their experience of it, and the complex challenges they face as a result of profound changes in the economy, polity and society.

Winner of the 1994 Best Book Award presented by the Public and Nonprofit Sector Division of the Academy of ManagementThis handbook goes beyond strategic planning to show how an organization can be managed strategically. Comprehensive in scope, it provides an innovative framework for understanding strategic issues in the public and nonprofit sectors, explains strategic management concepts and describes the process step by step, details support techniques, discusses specific case examples, and includes useful forms and worksheets.

Taking an unusual approach to the study of leadership, the authors find examples to learn from among the many non-profit organisations currently extant.

Drawn from the results of five seminars this unique book looks at the four areas of: public sector reform; essential features for public leaders; public leadership in action; and the outline of a public leadership approach for the future. It seeks to give public leadership a firm foothold within the study of leadership in general.

Contrary to popular conceptions that ethical failures in leadership are correlated with economic downturns and other stressful market conditions, this book argues that such transgressions are an intrinsic element of leadership, as it is defined under the current prevailing paradigm. In recent years the crisis of failures in ethical leadership across organizations, particularly corporations, has been highlighted more than ever, both in academic discourse and the public sphere. Psychological maladies leading to higher number of sick leaves, general feelings of disillusionment among employees, loss of motivation and employee loyalty, even suicide (both in Western corporations and in other parts of the world) are just a few examples of how ethical failures in leadership are expressed. In order to gain original insight into the phenomenon of ethical leadership, the author explores the origins and effects of the current leadership paradigm along two dimensions: (1) a revisit of the leadership construct from a historical and philosophical perspective, with a focus on the relationship between theory and practice; and (2) the theoretical roots of the ethical component of leadership theories, identifying the reasoning behind the value system in our paradigm. Subsequently, by linking these constructs together, a meta-theory emerges suggesting that the three main ethical departure points of virtue ethics, teleology and deontology (all of which have emerged during the past three thousand years through a confluence of the Abrahamic religions’ and Greek value-systems) are the basis for our reasoning about leadership, its construct and the practice of leadership itself. Challenging traditional views of ethical leadership, the author goes beyond theory and philosophy to consider practical implications, including alternative ways to improve executive recruitment, training, and involvement of followers in decision-making; experiments like rotating leadership; and a peek into other paradigms, such as the Zoroastrianism, hence making an original contribution to the field of leadership both for scholars and practitioners.

Drawing its origins from the Human Relations movement of the early 20th century and from public leadership orientations emphasising human aspects, human-centred public leadership approaches leadership from a system ́s perspective. It explores societal institutions, organisations, and phenomena as an emergent system structure that manifests its existence through the multilateral and reciprocal interaction of its parts. Systems thinking and the need for systemic change suggest that one can only understand and improve a system by looking at how all the parts interact with each other and how they are integrated. The systemic nature of public leadership refers to dynamic learning mechanisms as they relate to the contents of leadership development tools which are derived mainly from the changing mode of the operating environment, from the leaders’ own experience, from their own personalities, from a learning-by-doing approach to leadership development, and from the ways in which leaders learn and unlearn. This book presents key concepts, approaches, origins, applications, and best practices to understand the evolution and nature of human-centred approach in public leadership. It introduces a new public leadership paradigm that is needed in a complex, internationally interconnected social, economic, cultural, and political environment. Based on scholarly public leadership research in addition to the authors’ professional experience as academics, managers, practitioners and consultants, this volume offers guidance for decision-makers, public, business, and non-governmental sector leaders, managers, and practitioners about how to create a context and contents for human-centred leadership in the age of complex society and turbulent operating environment. It will be of value to researchers, academics, and students in the in the fields of leadership and public management.

This practice-orientated book explores the nature of leadership in higher education during three key stages of the leadership cycle: becoming, being, and leaving leadership. Providing perspectives on leadership from a range of professional sectors, this book presents considered views on contemporary and future leadership practices in higher education from a global network of contributors. Included within each chapter are prominent questions designed to engage the reader to think about their own leadership experiences to date and leadership development needs. Key points covered include: the complexities of leadership in higher education in a changing world discussion of internally resourced leadership development frameworks and programmes currently used across the sector leading complex education systems perspectives on leadership from a range of professional sectors such as corporate, military, elite sport, and public, that can be used to improve the quality of higher education leadership case studies of academics’ leadership practices that provide readers with authentic personal insights into discipline-specific leadership experiences from around the world. Full of practical examples of personal leadership experiences which can be used to help inform readers’ leadership aspirations, development, and legacy planning, this is the ideal read for anyone interested in understanding their identity and practice as a leader in higher education.