Adaptive Leadership and Complexity

Theory, Practice, and Future Directions
1. Auflage 2027
ISBN: 978-1-041-26186-5
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Leadership Research

Adaptive Leadership and Complexity: Theory, Practice, and Future Directions offers a critical and comprehensive exploration of adaptive leadership as both a scholarly framework and a practical tool for navigating complexity. Structured around four thematic parts—locating adaptive leadership, core commitments, engaging practice, and adaptive futures—this book provides an integrated examination of adaptive leadership’s intellectual heritage, defining principles, real-world applications, and future possibilities. It is an essential resource for understanding how leadership can address systemic challenges in dynamic and uncertain environments. This edited volume brings together leading voices from academia and practice to deliver fresh insights into adaptive leadership’s conceptual foundations, ethical dimensions, and empirical applications. Readers will benefit from its rigorous synthesis of theory, evidence-based case studies, and forward-looking research agenda, which collectively illuminate the promise and paradoxes of adaptive leadership. Key features include a focus on global contexts, interdisciplinary perspectives, and actionable strategies for leaders seeking to build adaptive capacity in their organizations. Designed for academic scholars, postgraduate students, and research-engaged practitioners, this book also serves as a valuable resource for leadership development professionals, consultants, and executives. Whether exploring adaptive leadership for research, teaching, or practice, this volume offers the depth and versatility needed to address today’s most pressing leadership challenges.

Zielgruppe

Academic

Autoren/Hrsg.

Althaus, Catherine

Lipton, Briony

Rahman, Shibaab

Rooney, James

Blackman, Deborah

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management Strategisches Management
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Organisationstheorie, Organisationssoziologie, Organisationspsychologie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Bereichsspezifisches Management Management: Führung & Motivation

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Situating adaptive leadership in an unsettled field  Part I. Locating adaptive leadership  1. Confronting adaptive challenges: Ron Heifetz in conversation with Catherine Althaus  2.  Towards a relational ontology of adaptive leadership theory  3. Adaptive leadership and systems thinking: Insights for theory and practice  4. Adaptive leadership and the integral framework: Is adaptive leadership integral?  5. The developmental demands of adaptive leadership  Part II. Core commitments  6. Biological foundations of adaptive leadership  7. The burden of adaptive work: Gender, power, labour and leadership in practice 8. Adaptive leadership ideas and social workers of colour: An exploratory conversation  9. Democratising leadership  10. Moving between the town hall and the community centre: How locally elected politicians demonstrate adaptive leadership work  11. Challenging the status quo: Provocation as leadership  Part III. Engaging practice and generating evidence  12. Leadership development is adaptive work: Walking the talk at the Kansas Leadership Center 13. Organisational adaptive capacity in practice  14. Applied adaptive leadership in the political sphere  15. Beyond the balcony: Insights into the impact of adaptive leadership development Part IV. Adaptive futures  16. Ghosts in the system: Improving diagnostic integrity  17. Developing adaptive leadership facilitators: The Australian Adaptive Leadership Institute model  18. Scaling adaptive leadership worldwide: The work of the leadership development acceleration group 19. “But what about power?”: Toward an entangled theory of power for adaptive leadership 20. Artificial intelligence and adaptive Leadership: Transforming practice and pedagogy Conclusion: Adaptive leadership at a crossroads

Über Autor(innen)

Catherine Althaus is Professor in the School of Business at UNSW Canberra. An award-winning researcher, teacher, executive leadership coach and former public service practitioner in the Queensland Government, she is founding Director of the Academy of Adaptive Leadership at UNSW. She is an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria, a University Medallist, and Australia Day Medal winner.

Briony Lipton is a sociologist in the School of Business at UNSW Canberra specialising in workplace gender equality, women and leadership, and the future of work. She is the author of two monographs Academic Women in Neoliberal Times (2020) and We Only Talk Feminist Here (2016). Her internationally recognised research explores how organisational inequality shapes workplace cultures, with a commitment to fostering inclusion, care, and equity.

Shibaab Rahman is a lecturer in the School of Business at UNSW Canberra. His research spans public administration, organisation theory, and leadership, with a focus on social embeddedness, institutional logics, and the micro-practices of administrative decision-making. He champions a practice-based view of leadership as everyday public management.

James Rooney is an Associate Professor in Accounting and Governance at the University of New South Wales in Canberra. Jim’s research concentrates on management and expert decision-making associated with organisational risk and management control. This includes organisational governance influences and implications. The empirical focus of this research is global supply chain sustainability and governance.

Deborah Blackman is Associate Dean (Lifelong Learning) and Professor in Public Sector Management Strategy at UNSW Canberra. Her research focuses on strategy development and implementation in public service management, with expertise spanning organisational learning, knowledge management, and human resource management, all oriented toward improving real-world organisational effectiveness.