Scholars within the field of Leadership-as-Practice (LAP) address the way that individuals ‘transcend their own immediate embeddedness’ to achieve volitional coherence known as collaborative agency. The process of collaborative agency is described as inseparable from LAP, yet it remains a nascent field of enquiry requiring additional empirical research. This article presents an investigation of collaborative agency through an abductive case study using video ethnography and interviews. To interpret our results, we turn to the Japanese ideogram for ‘place’, known as ‘Ba’. Rather than a physical reality, Ba is considered an existential space in which leadership groups weave together to create and ripen collaborative agency. Ba guides us to look across and around a group and its socio-material practice. We find that collaborative agency is trans-subjective in nature and sits on a spectrum on which we identify the outer reaches, from one end where Ba is woven through to the other end, called Collapse. We suggest that the place of leadership is within the warp and weft of collaborative agency, including but not limited to a special place woven in Ba where collaborative agency is high and where the group reports they are able to transcend their individualism.

This study uses the archetype of a ‘trickster’ to reflect back on, and hence problematize, the role of the educator/facilitator identity in leadership learning. This is based on the view that a trickster is a permanent resident in liminal spaces and that these liminal spaces play an important role in leadership learning. Our approach was based on the reading of the trickster literature alongside reflective conversations on our own experiences of facilitation of leadership learning, development and education. We suggest that paying attention to the trickster tale draws attention to the romanticization of leadership development and its facilitation as based on a response to crisis that leads to a further enhancement of the leader as a hero. Hence, it also offers ways to problematize leadership learning by uncovering the shadow side of facilitation and underlying power relations. We therefore contribute by showing how, as facilitators, we can use the trickster archetype to think more critically, reflectively and reflexively about our role and practices as educators, in particular, the ethical and power-related issues. In our conclusions, we make recommendations for research, theory and practice and invite other facilitators to share with us their trickster tales.

The current article focuses on subaltern social groups’ efforts that emphasize the struggle of identity with purposes of cultural resistance and social change. Through a critical approach that incorporates the reality of “coloniality” as the context within leadership emerges, the article draws from the experience of a Native American organization in a middle-size city of the United States that uses identity as a resource to challenge the dominant Eurocentric social order. The construct of “decolonial leadership” is proposed to illuminate the emancipatory process of this organization that aims to decolonize society debunking myths and narratives imposed with the dominant social order and taking control of reality from their cultural perspectives and leadership approaches. A process of decolonial leadership creates spaces from which developing collective actions and sense-making processes that eventually contribute to building symbolic power to change the dominant social order. Using a sociological and anthropological lens that challenges leader-centered perspectives and focuses on the collective dimensions of leadership, the study contributes insights to both the social change and the indigenous leadership literature.

Critical consensus holds that leader-centred leadership theories reproduce romanticism by exaggerating the impact of individual leaders. In contrast, a processual perspective views leadership as an ongoing social interaction involving all organisational actors. Developing such a processual leadership meaning, however, is not easy, especially as formal leaders are embedded in a business world that still supports the heroic image of a leader. Critical literature highlights the difficult road towards meaning development, on which leaders are confronted with various obstacles that can impede development. In order to better understand potential barriers to the development of a processual leadership meaning, we analyse the development of leadership meaning for EMBA students over the course of two years. In particular, we identify two hindering dynamics that show how a leader-centred leadership meaning becomes reconstructed and reinforced over time, despite receiving training input on a processual leadership meaning. Additionally, we generate insights on two patterns that explain why it is so difficult to abandon a heroic image by revealing the crucial role of one’s sense of self-as-a-leader. Finally, we provide important practical implications for future leadership development.

This chapter focuses on the ideas and theories attached to both leader development and leadership development. It highlights the dominance of programmes focused on the development of the knowledge and skills of the leader and considers some ideas of how the development of leadership could be enhanced. The chapter also examines some approaches to leadership learning, including the foundations and application of action learning, coaching and mentoring, experiential learning, and reflection. Social and relational approaches to leadership development and the importance of developing phronesis (practical wisdom) in leadership judgement and decision making are discussed. The chapter concludes by looking at some of the latest thinking on the use of mindfulness to develop leaders.

This chapter evaluates early leadership theories, which argued that leaders are great men or possess inherited attributes that define them as leaders. It describes how this idea led to a belief that traits or characteristics of leaders could be identified and subsequently be used in training and development interventions. The chapter also explores the main critique of trait theory, that is, the idea that leadership is dependent on the situation faced by the leader, and that a leader should be able to adapt their behaviour to different situations. The ideas raised by trait and contingency approaches were linked to the use of competency models by modern businesses. Finally, critiques of these ideas, including a brief discussion of leadership and gender, are reviewed.