Leadership as Identity

Management has failed; its successor is leadership. Can leadership fulfil the promises that are made in its name? This book is written for those charged with being leaders, and uses poststructuralist theory to provide a language for the confusions and uncertainties that leadership can often bring.

JACKIE FORD is Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies at the University of Bradford School of Management, UK. She has previously worked at the University of Leeds, and embarked on her second career in academe 15 years ago after a 10-year career in Human Resource Management. Throughout her working life, she has been fascinated by people's experiences and this continues to inform her thinking in relation to ways in which leadership and management is conceptualised, researched and practised. 
 
NANCY HARDING is Senior Lecturer in Organization Studies at the University of Bradford School of Management, UK. She has previously worked at the Universities of Leeds and Wales. She was a mature student from a mining background in the South Wales Valleys and her early experiences influence her research and writing, which is concerned with the ways in which work can be exploitative, demeaning and oppressive.         
 
MARK LEARMONTH is an Associate Professor of Organization Theory at Nottingham University Business School, UK. He previously worked at the University of York. Mark has published in journals including Academy of Management Review; Academy of Management Learning& Education; Journal of Management Studies; Organization; Public Administration; Sociology of Health& Illness and Qualitative Inquiry.