Routledge Critical Companion to Leadership Studies

The Routledge Critical Companion to Leadership Studies offers a rich and insightful overview of critical leadership studies for students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners. The volume draws together 35 chapters from 56 authors who represent the vibrant diversity of the critical leadership community. It includes chapters from emerging and preeminent scholars who share an interest in directing leadership theorizing, development and practice toward the aims of liberation, justice, and equity.

The Companion is organized into six themes: (1) philosophical perspectives on leadership; (2) processes, practices, and power dynamics in leadership; (3) diversity and leadership; (4) leadership education and development; (5) lessons from the dark side of leadership; and (6) reimagining leadership and leadership studies.

The book has been curated to serve as a "go to" resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, academic staff, and researchers seeking to understand the current state of play on a given topic, as well as inspiration for how they might contribute to its development. Each chapter provides a comprehensive yet succinct review of contemporary literature and offers the reader avenues for future research. Leadership practitioners will also find provocative ideas among these pages to help them interrogate and transform the ways they lead.

David Knights is Professor Emeritus, at Lancaster University where he was a Distinguished Professor until Nov 2020. He has held professorships in 9 universities in the UK and internationally Visiting Professorships in Dublin, Gothenburg, Macquarie, Melbourne, Sydney, Stockholm, and Tampa.

Helena Liu is an Associate Professor of Management at Bond Business School, located on the unceded lands of the Kombumerri people of the Yugambeh language region. Her research interrogates the gender, race, and class dynamics that underpin our enduring romance with leadership.

Owain Smolović Jones is a Professor of Organizational Studies at Durham University. His research focuses on power and resistance in practices of leadership, particularly concerning salient social and global issues, such as climate change, equalities, and housing.

Suze Wilson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Management at Massey University in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research interests pertain to issues of power, identity, gender, ethics, discourse, practice/s, context, character, communication, and crisis with regard to leadership and its development, as well as the history of leadership thought.