Hardback
Leadership as Stewardship
Honouring Our Past While Ensuring Our Future
9781035319411 Edward Elgar Publishing
Exploring different understandings of stewardship across a range of research domains and cultures, this insightful book examines the tensions between competing perspectives and their implications for leadership. Marian Iszatt-White proposes ‘leadership-as-stewardship’ as a new signifier for leadership research, providing practical guidance to leaders navigating the challenges and trade-offs of the Anthropocene.
More Information
Critical Acclaim
Contents
More Information
Exploring different understandings of stewardship across a range of research domains and cultures, this insightful book examines the tensions between competing perspectives and their implications for leadership. Marian Iszatt-White proposes ‘leadership-as-stewardship’ as a new signifier for leadership research, providing practical guidance to leaders navigating the challenges and trade-offs of the Anthropocene.
Leadership as Stewardship identifies how the apparent inadequacy of modern leadership coincides with a shift in scholarship away from practical inquiry and towards a range of aspirational approaches, including authentic, sustainable, responsible and ethical. Iszatt-White proposes stewardship as an alternative to these aspirational forms of leadership and challenges the ability of Western, Enlightenment-based thinking to solve global issues created by that same thinking. The book concludes that it is time to place the more enact-able construct of stewardship at the heart of leadership aspirations and scholarly activities.
Interdisciplinary in scope, this book will be vital for scholars of leadership, management and organization studies. Highlighting the ability of stewardship to combat perceived failings in leadership as both a construct and a practice, it is also valuable to policymakers, management educators and leadership practitioners.
Leadership as Stewardship identifies how the apparent inadequacy of modern leadership coincides with a shift in scholarship away from practical inquiry and towards a range of aspirational approaches, including authentic, sustainable, responsible and ethical. Iszatt-White proposes stewardship as an alternative to these aspirational forms of leadership and challenges the ability of Western, Enlightenment-based thinking to solve global issues created by that same thinking. The book concludes that it is time to place the more enact-able construct of stewardship at the heart of leadership aspirations and scholarly activities.
Interdisciplinary in scope, this book will be vital for scholars of leadership, management and organization studies. Highlighting the ability of stewardship to combat perceived failings in leadership as both a construct and a practice, it is also valuable to policymakers, management educators and leadership practitioners.
Critical Acclaim
‘In this ambitious book, Iszatt-White challenges us to critically examine the current fascination with “leadership” and to consider replacing and/or complementing it with a focus on ‘stewardship’. Leadership, she suggests, is a “debased currency” that has become so entwined with capitalistic notions of economic growth and shareholder profits that it is unable to support the kinds of change in thinking and practice that are needed to facilitate the transition to a more just and environmentally sustainable society. Her book takes the reader on a journey through the roots of enlightenment and post-enlightenment thinking to reveal the ways in which they have shaped, and continue to influence, contemporary notions of leadership. Leadership as Stewardship outlines the potential contribution (and challenges) of stewardship, and how it might inform future leadership theory, research and practice. The book concludes by calling on academics, practitioners and policy-makers to consider the implications of stewardship as, in and of leadership. This is a timely and thought-provoking book that will provide important insights and opportunities for reorientating the nature and purpose of leadership in addressing complex challenges such as climate change.’
– Richard Bolden, University of the West of England, UK
‘A thoroughly enjoyable read, focusing on “aspirational” forms of leadership (ethical, authentic, responsible, sustainable), shifting from inquiry to advocacy. It will resonate for Māori Indigenous scholars, whose history of stewardship, collective, relational and servant leadership is at the fore. The Ambidexterity and Indigenous models balance the past, present and future.’
– Ella Henry, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
– Richard Bolden, University of the West of England, UK
‘A thoroughly enjoyable read, focusing on “aspirational” forms of leadership (ethical, authentic, responsible, sustainable), shifting from inquiry to advocacy. It will resonate for Māori Indigenous scholars, whose history of stewardship, collective, relational and servant leadership is at the fore. The Ambidexterity and Indigenous models balance the past, present and future.’
– Ella Henry, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Contents
Contents
1 Introduction: why stewardship?
2 What’s wrong with the Enlightenment?
3 Stewardship across different research domains: getting to
a core understanding
4 Tensions and questions
5 A return to relational ontologies: what’s old is new again
6 Corporate biosphere stewardship
With Jan Bebbington, Director of the Pentland Centre for
Sustainability in Business, Lancaster University Management School
7 Conclusion: quo vadis, stewardship?
References
1 Introduction: why stewardship?
2 What’s wrong with the Enlightenment?
3 Stewardship across different research domains: getting to
a core understanding
4 Tensions and questions
5 A return to relational ontologies: what’s old is new again
6 Corporate biosphere stewardship
With Jan Bebbington, Director of the Pentland Centre for
Sustainability in Business, Lancaster University Management School
7 Conclusion: quo vadis, stewardship?
References
