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Dear AIB colleague

 

This email is to remind you that the deadline for this Journal of Management Developments exciting Special Issue is approaching fast, and we’d like to invite you to finalise your paper and submit. The title of the Special Issue is:

 

‘Hero or Human? Transformative approaches to leadership education

in contemporary Business Schools’

 

 

Deadline for paper submission December 1st 2016

 

 

Aims

Following a successful DLC Conference at Hult International Business School from July 12-14th 2016, this Special Issue will further address the merits of reflection and humility in leadership teaching across the business school landscape. Current business schools have and tend to focus on ‘leader centred’ teaching which has been influenced by heroic perspectives of leadership (Collinson and Tourish, 2015). The problem with this approach is that it assumes that leadership is a stable construct as opposed to a social construct (2015:578) which in turn leaves executives and students of leadership in a frustrated state when faced with realities of increasing challenges of uncertainty, disagreements and unpredictability of their environments. The prescriptive recipes of predictability, command and control offered by prolific management and leadership theories (Mumford and Fried, 2014), often grounded in trait and charismatic schools of leadership, do not always help leaders to deal with the increasing challenges of uncertainty, disagreements and unpredictability which they face. These contemporary leaders and managers firstly need to understand what capacities and deficiencies they have as individuals, and secondly how to build an appropriate mix of these skills through understanding and reflecting on their own individual experiences and actions. Petriglieri and Petriglieri (2015) suggest that this humanization of leadership will stimulate behaviours which are more automatic and understandable to the leader and can be used with ease in their role as leaders and managers across many contexts, turbulent or otherwise, which reduces reliance on current business school and textbook approaches to leadership.

 

This pedagogy, where practice and research focuses on how leaders can learn whilst doing, is supported by Pritchard and Chesterman’s (2011) who offer that such an approach improves reflection abilities, instigates a feedback culture to help increase self-awareness and awareness of others, and improved communication and performance. The leader continuously extract the learning from each situation and consolidate these lessons to ultimately increase leadership abilities within their own specific context. This approach to learning using mindful engagement to develop leadership and management capacity is gaining much traction across the literature (Ashfort and Ross, 2012; Bartsch and Mehrwert, 2012, De Rue and Scott, 2009; Gitsham, 2012; Janson, 2012, Muir, 2014).  With this in mind, we understand that on a daily basis the reality of leadership and management today means learning new skills, demonstrating multiple competences and managing multiple situations. Within this context, competencies are seldom called upon or required separately and – from our experience – people adopt and embrace competencies most easily when they are clustered into a coherent and complementary development process in their own context.

 

 

Proposed Special Issue outcome

We are seeking contributions reflecting different perspectives and methodological approaches that explore a departure from prescriptive methods in leadership teaching across a range of international contexts, cultures or industry sectors. While empirical contributions are encouraged, theoretical and conceptual papers which address the contextualization of leadership and management development in the current global context, wider aspects of the debate within management and leadership development are particularly welcome. Specific topics that would be of interest to the special issue editors include, but not exclusively so, the following, in the context of the title of the SI: “Hero or Human? Transformative approaches to leadership education in contemporary Business Schools’

 

•           Contemporary business school teachings – fit for purpose?

•           Heroic leadership – redundant or reality?

•           The Human Leader- merits and pitfalls

•           Action research in evolving leadership and management effectiveness

•           The future leader – skills, what to keep and what to dispense with?

•           Leadership and management development in action: success and failures

•           How can business school teaching become relevant for the contemporary leader?

 

Guest Editors

Kerrie Fleming, Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Ashridge Executive Education at Hult International Business School, UK.

Carla Millar, Ashridge Fellow and Professor of International Management, University of Twente, NL

Vicki Culpin, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Ashridge Executive Education at Hult International Business School, UK.

 

We welcome both empirical and conceptual papers on topics related to the theme of the Special Issue. We are looking for a sound theoretical or practical motivation which helps to build some key literature and prompts some future research, as well as offering proven examples of what management development will look like in the future. For any queries contact [log in to unmask]. For review process and submission, please view the call for papers or see Emerald HRM twitter account,

 

Best Wishes

Kerrie

 

Dr. Kerrie Fleming

Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour

Research Lead for Transforming Behaviours

——————

Carla Millar 

Prof. Carla C.J.M. Millar PhD

 

Fellow, Ashridge at Hult International Business School,

   Berkhamsted, Herts HP4 1NS, UK, 0044 1442 84 1175, 0044 20 7402 4700,

    [log in to unmask]

Professor, International Marketing & Management, University of Twente,

   NIKOS (Netherlands Institute for Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship),

   IGS (Institute for Innovation and Governance Studies), 

   PO Box 217, 7500 AE  Enschede, The Netherlands, 0031 53 489 5355, 0031 33 462 7343;

   [log in to unmask]