This chapter focuses on authentic leadership, which has been seen as the ‘magic bullet’ to solve the systemic issues in the socio-economic systems surrounding the lives of most individuals, organizations, and governments. Its simple message of ‘being yourself’ appears to be relatively easy to grasp and moves away from trait-based or charismatic models. It can be applied in different contexts and situations too, negating the need to consider a host of different elements and demands. It is also attractive, in that the model prescribes a set of behaviours for leaders. The link between the authentic ‘self’, the authentic leader, and authentic leadership has been made clear with the building blocks based around the need for the individual to act true to themselves before trying to become an authentic leader. Finally, as the process appears defined, so too is the implication that authentic leadership can be developed and learnt.
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Authentic leadership
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Authentic leadership: A solution in search of a problem?
This chapter focuses on the background to the growth of authentic leadership as a popular approach to leadership. The acknowledged normative and instrumentalist goals of authentic leadership explored in the chapter were designed to combat the array of corporate scandals and poor economic performance which had resulted in a loss of faith in previous leadership approaches in the run-up to the turn of the last century. The chapter presents the flaws in the formulation of authentic leadership which are now threatening its ongoing usefulness as a meaningful theory. It also explores the existentialist and psychodynamic critiques of authentic leadership. The recent proposal of the re-grounding of the notion of authentic leadership from a practice perspective is also discussed.
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Behavioural models
This chapter examines behavioural models, considering not who a leader is, but how a leader behaves. Behavioural models began to evolve as a result of dissatisfaction with the Great Man-type theories of leadership which ascribed successful leadership to inherited traits. The belief and hope was that, with the right kind of developmental procedures and processes in place, individuals could be trained to become leaders. This belief was supported by the growing science and theories investigating how humans learn. While there was (and is) disagreement over this process, leadership writers and academics have used the underpinning philosophy—that humans can learn—to develop the behavioural and skills model. Although the approach is not without its drawbacks, the behavioural model can help both organizations and individuals define what they mean by ‘leadership’.
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Being a project leader in SPO
This chapter looks into being a project leader in strategic project organizing (SPO). It discusses the required social competencies for SPO and associated career development, which are symbiotic with the technical competencies. In many organizations, successful project leaders focus on the strategic and relational factors rather than the technical factors of their projects, and the complexity of the project coincides with how important social competencies are. Thus, the profession of the project leader is not for everyone since it demands stamina and high levels of authenticity. The chapter explains the important consideration of ethics for project professionals, especially for issues involving relationships, optimization, and transparency.
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Being a project manager in SPO
This chapter explores the experience of being a project manager in strategic project organizing (SPO). It then considers that the technical competencies are the basis of task orientation of project managers as professionals during project delivery. Moreover, technical competencies are the principal source of routines used in project teaming. The chapter highlights the importance of having a realistic schedule to ensure the delivery of the project outputs at the desired future date and managing the budget to capture realistic costs while considering the outcome of risk assessments and response strategies. It also discusses how essential managing threats are due to the uncertainty surrounding the SPO.
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Born versus made: Early approaches to understanding leadership
This chapter evaluates early leadership theories, which argued that leaders are great men or possess inherited attributes that define them as leaders. It describes how this idea led to a belief that traits or characteristics of leaders could be identified and subsequently be used in training and development interventions. The chapter also explores the main critique of trait theory, that is, the idea that leadership is dependent on the situation faced by the leader, and that a leader should be able to adapt their behaviour to different situations. The ideas raised by trait and contingency approaches were linked to the use of competency models by modern businesses. Finally, critiques of these ideas, including a brief discussion of leadership and gender, are reviewed.
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Change Management and Innovation
This chapter discusses change management and innovation. It first sets out a rationale for the reasons why change is necessary in modern organisations. Then, it outlines detailed accounts of types of organisational change, such as incremental, step change, and business reengineering. It discusses management issues relating to the change process such as identifying areas of change, design, implementation of change, and managing resistance to change. The chapter introduces the concept of innovation with an emphasis on managing and influencing the development of innovation. It also includes a deeper discussion on influential contributions from academic writers on information systems as a catalyst for change. Finally, the chapter identifies barriers to change and discusses how to manage resistance to change.
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Charisma and transformational leadership
This chapter evaluates charismatic leadership and transformational leadership, which are both subjects that have attracted a degree of attention recently. Most of the empirical research supports ‘the notion that transformational leadership has a favourable influence upon followers’ performance’. Indeed, there is a powerful anecdotal pull towards this notion of a heroic leader, with many historical examples available to support the idea of a singular person striding through the haze to lead a bedraggled and confused group towards safety. Hollywood and popular fiction also support this idealized image; however, there are some concerns that need to be considered. This heroic leadership focuses too much on the leader and how the leader manipulates followers towards a goal. Tied to this is the view that such a model is elitist, with the transformational leader creating change and directing effort regardless of the needs of the followers.
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Clients, Procurement, and the Request for Information
This chapter demonstrates the consultant–client relationship, which is central to both the theoretical understanding and the practical success of consultancy projects. It emphasizes the importance for a consultant to understand and empathize with the needs of the client. It also focuses on consultancy from the point of view of those buying and using consultancy services. The chapter analyses the processes underpinning the client–consultant relationship and the variety of roles the consultant may need to take on. It also traces the gradual shift from personal to procurement models of client engagement. It outlines the pros and cons of the procurement function for both consultants and clients and reviews the procurement process from finding and defining a project to recruiting consultants and negotiating fees.
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The commercial interface
This chapter explores the notion of the commercial interface in relation to collaborating to deliver the project mission. It notes that commercial relations between the owner and the suppliers are some of the most contentious in strategic project organizing (SPO). The commercial interface is fronting the important issue of probity and corruption that became pervasive and the effective management of projects is impossible. The chapter then covers the commercial interface from the perspective of the owner and its contracting strategy, and then from the perspective of the supplier and its project strategy. It explains how the strategies can align to gain the mutual benefits of collaborative working and trust.
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Community, national culture, and place
This chapter assesses leadership from a societal perspective, with a particular focus on community, national culture, and context and place. It reflects on the similarities and differences between leadership in organizations and communities, suggesting that attention be given to the manner in which we create meaningful and enduring relationships with others and a sense of trust and belonging. The chapter then considers how, while the world is becoming increasingly inter-connected and ‘global’, we must still embrace and value local differences. Place affects leadership and leadership affects place—the chapter suggests a ‘worldly’ approach to leadership practice and development that enables us to situate ourselves in the wider scheme of things while also embracing the richness and diversity of local contexts. It concludes with some observations on the nature and importance of context and place in studying and understanding leadership.
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Conclusion: Where next for leadership studies?
This concluding chapter addresses the question of ‘where next for leadership?’ It considers issues of responsibility, spirituality, and alternatives to leadership before outlining a call to re-route leadership theory, research practice, and development. The chapter looks at the principles underpinning the neoliberal, ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR)/stakeholder, and interactive/revised stakeholder models of the corporation and the implications for leadership and management practice. It then suggests that the topic of leadership requires us to grapple with fundamental questions about purpose and meaning for which there are no universal answers. Instead, we must develop a deep curiosity and a capacity and willingness to reflect and learn from experience if we are to achieve what is best for ourselves and others.
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The Consultancy Career
This chapter describes the consultancy career and the options associated with it, including the access points to consultancy and measures to take to be recruited successfully. It describes the challenges of moving up the consultancy ladder and highlights the reasons why consultants leave and the options available when doing so. It also addresses questions that students frequently ask when facing the challenge of applying to consultancies. The chapter covers the consulting career structure and the salaries that can be expected, as well as the different entry points to the career. It elaborates how to succeed in the recruitment process and how best to land a promotion after getting into the consulting profession.
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Consultancy Skills
This chapter takes a practitioner's view of the skills required to perform well as a management consultant which is based on years of personal experience and on the observation and teaching of many management consultants. It clarifies why a consultant needs skills that are different from any other managerial occupation. It also covers the challenges of working in a consulting role and three key processes in consulting: selling the work, delivering the work, and managing a consulting business. The chapter demonstrates how consultants should manage their time and set priorities for what they do in selling and management. It looks at key communication skills that consultants find useful in performing their work well.
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Consulting Approaches, Methods, and Tools
This chapter focuses on key approaches, methods, and tools that the consultant can draw upon in order to help their clients. It highlights what approaches, methods, and tools are and how they can be useful, but also discusses the limitations of the tools and techniques of consultancy. The chapter provides an overview of the main analytical frameworks in consultancy and explains how consultancies develop their own tools and products before classifying the different types of tools and methods consultants have developed. It discusses how consultancies and consultants create “bespoke” tools that can then be used for marketing purposes or licensed to other firms.
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The Consulting Industry
This chapter begins by explaining what consultancy is, its history, and the recent trends in the market. It highlights the existence of consultancy, the institutions that sustain it, and the main ways in which events like the dotcom crash, the IT boom, and the credit crunch have affected the industry. It also examines consultancy across the world in terms of the differences in markets and how consultancies operate in each region. The chapter considers that consulting firms' strategies and fortunes are determined by the decisions of the clients, governments, and economies that encapsulate them. It explains that organizations that possess highly trained workers, high trade union involvement, and a participative style of management rely less on management consultants than countries that have a low-skilled workforce and weak participative management styles.
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The Consulting Life-Cycle
This chapter explains the consultancy life-cycle and introduces the concept of the five stages it incorporates: pre-sales, sales, research, delivery, and exit. It provides a realistic and practice-informed overview of consultancy work to give real insights into the day-to-day lives of consultants. It also reviews the different sales approaches that consultancies utilize and determines how to write and manage proposals. The chapter describes the main research skills used by consultants to find and analyse data and clarifies how consultancy projects are planned, controlled, and delivered. It concludes that the life-cycle is a way of describing most of the work that consultants perform, but advises considering it as a simplification that should be treated as a guide rather than a rule.
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Controlling
This chapter examines the controlling function of management. It begins by providing an overview of the types of control and an explanation of its necessity. It analyses the management control system and the different types and levels of control in the context of different organisational settings. The focus of analysis is on issues of production and quality, human resources, and finance. Total Quality Management (TQM) is discussed since the issue of quality is one that has gained in prominence in recent decades. The chapter presents control systems for both strategic (long-term) and operational (short-term) objectives, as well as control mechanisms to ensure business continuity in the face of threats such as natural disasters, terrorism, or reputational damage. It concludes with an outline of the key characteristics of an effective control system.
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Crafting leadership practice and identity
This chapter integrates the many strands and themes on leadership presented in the book. It offers some frameworks and suggestions for how the themes and theories can be assimilated and digested. It also provides possible ways in which leadership practitioners can make comparisons and connections in order to decide which theories and ideas are likely to add value for them now or as their careers progress. It gives some touchstones that can be revisited at regular intervals in creating and maintaining a sense of leader identity. The chapter concludes with an encouragement to bring theory and practise together in a way that is practical and productive, thoughtful and evidence-based.
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Critical approaches to leadership
This chapter presents a range of critical perspectives in relation to the mainstream leadership literature. It begins by examining the origins of Critical Theory in Marxism and the assumption of ‘natural’ class-based divisions between leaders and workers, together with the implications for leader/follower power relations. It goes on to consider how critical management studies has challenged the hegemony of mainstream management theory, and how a separate critical leadership study (CLS) genre is developing. The chapter explores how CLS has added to our understanding of leadership and highlights its specific contributions in relation to the key emancipatory standpoints of gender, class, and ethnicity. Lastly, the chapter examines the prevalence of a Western cultural bias in leadership writing and the emergence of alternative, Eastern perspectives on how leadership can be practised and understood.
