The Democratic Leader

Democratic leadership is the most familiar form of leadership and yet the least well understood by people in democratic countries. This book explores the tensions and dilemmas that beset such leadership in order to explain why democracies produce simultaneously the strongest and weakest of leaders.

How does a government get the people to accept its authority? Every government must make unpopular demands on its citizens; the challenge is that power is not enough, the populace must also be willing to be led.

`This is an important book for anyone who is serious about introducing or sustaining democratic leadership in schools. Busy practitioners will get much from it by going straight to the chapters about how democratic leadership could be made to work`- Kate Myers, Times Educational Supplement `I found this an interesting and stimulating book. The book's ideas are a useful counterpoint to some of the daft notions of macho leadership and management being peddled in education and indeed the public sector more widely. Woods' book has the merits that, though radical, it seeks to base its recommendations in the real world and to argue that there are possibilities for change that can bring about real improvements in everyone's experience and outcomes. Matching the rhetoric of democracy with reality - or at least making them closer - might also improve the quality of our political process, and hence increase interest and reduce cynicism about politics, something which surely should be welcomed. Woods' agenda is significant and his book certainly worth reading' - ESCalate `Philip Woods productively refocuses our attention, not on heroes and visions but on how we understand and practise within educational institutions in ways that are social and relational. He provides a realistic and yet challenging analysis of democratic leadership in ways that speak to practitioners, policy makers and researchers. We deal everyday with issues of social justice, and Philip Woods shows us how we might think differently about it, and so work for a better system of learning and schooling' - Professor Helen Gunter, School of Education, University of Manchester 'Not another bunny, but a welcome academic fox' - Kevin Avison, Steiner Waldorf Schools' Fellowship 'The theory and practice of democracy and democratic leadership have implications for how we understand what ought to be counted as `improving schools' In this book the author focuses on the idea of democratic leadership. He examines what is meant by democratic leadership, and what forms it can take, and shows how it is relevant to school education and learning. The author shows how the ideals and theories of democratic leadership can translate into practice, and sets out some of the challenges that democratic leadership poses in the context of contemporary education . This book challenges many of the assumptions inherent in educational policy and conventional approaches to leadership. It is about understanding and exploring both the idea of democratic leadership and its practical relevance through examples drawn from practice and research. This book is for practitioners and students on professional development and academic courses. It will be essential reading for all policy-makers, academics and others (such as inspectors) who critically examine leadership and management of educational institutions. 'Every now and then a book is written in the field of leadership that stands out, says something different, is coherent, original and makes us really ponder and think. This is such a book - it will provoke policy-makers, academics, experienced practitioners and advanced students' - Camridge Journal & Education

In a blend of history, biography, political science, and political theory, he offers examples of the finest democratic leadership as well as cautionary tales of prominent leaders whose styles were essentially aristocratic."--BOOK JACKET.

Thirteen former presidents and prime ministers discuss how they helped their countries end authoritarian rule and achieve democracy. National leaders who played key roles in transitions to democratic governance reveal how these were accomplished in Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, and Spain. Commissioned by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), these interviews shed fascinating light on how repressive regimes were ended and democracy took hold. In probing conversations with Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Patricio Aylwin, Ricardo Lagos, John Kufuor, Jerry Rawlings, B. J. Habibie, Ernesto Zedillo, Fidel V. Ramos, Aleksander Kwasniewski, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, F. W. de Klerk, Thabo Mbeki, and Felipe González, editors Sergio Bitar and Abraham F. Lowenthal focused on each leader’s principal challenges and goals as well as their strategies to end authoritarian rule and construct democratic governance. Context-setting introductions by country experts highlight each nation’s unique experience as well as recurrent challenges all transitions faced. A chapter by Georgina Waylen analyzes the role of women leaders, often underestimated. A foreword by Tunisia’s former president, Mohamed Moncef Marzouki, underlines the book’s relevance in North Africa, West Asia, and beyond. The editors’ conclusion distills lessons about how democratic transitions have been and can be carried out in a changing world, emphasizing the importance of political leadership. This unique book should be valuable for political leaders, civil society activists, journalists, scholars, and all who want to support democratic transitions.

Political leadership has made a comeback. It was studied intensively not only by political scientists but also by political sociologists and psychologists, Sovietologists, political anthropologists, and by scholars in comparative and development studies from the 1940s to the 1970s. Thereafter, the field lost its way with the rise of structuralism, neo-institutionalism, and rational choice approaches to the study of politics, government, and governance. Recently, however, students of politics have returned to studying the role of individual leaders and the exercise of leadership to explain political outcomes. The list of topics is nigh endless: elections, conflict management, public policy, government popularity, development, governance networks, and regional integration. In the media age, leaders are presented and stage-managed—spun—DDLas the solution to almost every social problem. Through the mass media and the Internet, citizens and professional observers follow the rise, impact, and fall of senior political officeholders at closer quarters than ever before. This Handbook encapsulates the resurgence by asking, where are we today? It orders the multidisciplinary field by identifying the distinct and distinctive contributions of the disciplines. It meets the urgent need to take stock. It brings together scholars from around the world, encouraging a comparative perspective, to provide a comprehensive coverage of all the major disciplines, methods, and regions. It showcases both the normative and empirical traditions in political leadership studies, and juxtaposes behavioural, institutional, and interpretive approaches. It covers formal, office-based as well as informal, emergent political leadership, and in both democratic and undemocratic polities.

This collection of essays seeks to explore the unique way democracy disperses leadership, and the significant opportunities and challenges it presents to democratic leaders.

Learn the techniques used by the most successful IT people in the world. About This Book Get real-life case studies for different IT roles, developers, testers, analysts, project managers, DBAs Identify with your IT scenarios and take the right decision to move up in your career Improve your EQ and face any difficult scenario confidently and effectively Who This Book Is For This book is for professionals across the IT domain who work as developers, administrators, architects, administrators system analysts, and so on, who want to create a better working environment around them by improving their own emotional intelligence. This book assumes that you are a beginner to emotional intelligence and will help you understand the basic concepts before helping you with real life scenarios. What You Will Learn Improve your observation skills to understand people better Know how to identify what motivates you and those around you Develop strategies for working more effectively with others Increase your capacity to influence people and improve your communication skills Understand how to successfully complete tasks through other people Discover how to control the emotional content of your decision-making In Detail This book will help you discover your emotional quotient (EQ) through practices and techniques that are used by the most successful IT people in the world. It will make you familiar with the core skills of Emotional Intelligence, such as understanding the role that emotions play in life, especially in the workplace. You will learn to identify the factors that make your behavior consistent, not just to other employees, but to yourself. This includes recognizing, harnessing, predicting, fostering, valuing, soothing, increasing, decreasing, managing, shifting, influencing or turning around emotions and integrating accurate emotional information into decision-making, reasoning, problem solving, etc., because, emotions run business in a way that spreadsheets and logic cannot. When a deadline lurks, you'll know the steps you need to take to keep calm and composed. You'll find out how to meet the deadline, and not get bogged down by stress. We'll explain these factors and techniques through real-life examples faced by IT employees and you'll learn using the choices that they made. This book will give you a detailed analysis of the events and behavioral pattern of the employees during that time. This will help you improve your own EQ to the extent that you don't just survive, but thrive in a competitive IT industry. Style and approach You will be taken through real-life events faced by IT employees in different scenarios. These real-world cases are analyzed along with the response of the employees, which will help you to develop your own emotion intelligence quotient and face any difficult scenario confidently and effectively.