Emerging complexities have arisen regarding leadership, leadership studies and leadership development requiring new approaches and new styles of organizational leadership. Changing environmental conditions including globalisation, climate change, increased market volatility, and shifts in the balance of power in the global political economy suggest the need for more creative, interactive and longer-term strategic leadership. In order to address and react to these shifts in understanding, one must review some essential questions: what constitutes leadership in the organisation, what is it that leaders actually do, or should do, and what can leadership achieve? Once confronted, the critical question addressed in this work is: how do we develop leadership to be more responsive to contemporary organizational conditions.

This major work on Leadership Development and Practice will engage this question by drawing together some of the most important and influential research from the related domains of leadership practice and leadership development. Volume 1 opens with a newly-written introduction, which explains the rationale for the major work, addresses the key questions set out above and outlines its structure, providing the reader with a clear, concise roadmap for all four volumes.

Volume 1: Individual Leader Development
Volume 2: Leadership Development in Context
Volume 3: Leadership Development in the Plural
Volume 4: Critical Approaches and Perspectives