Political leadership is afflicted by an enduring split between the biographical idiosyncrasies of individual leaders and the specialist contributions from an array of social science disciplines. This new study is designed to establish an improved balance between this confusing duality of approaches. It engages with an expansive range of empirical, theoretical, and interpretive research into the issue of leadership but does so in a way that ensures that the political character of the subject is kept securely in the foreground. There is a clear emphasis upon leaders embedded in their political c ... More

Political leadership is afflicted by an enduring split between the biographical idiosyncrasies of individual leaders and the specialist contributions from an array of social science disciplines. This new study is designed to establish an improved balance between this confusing duality of approaches. It engages with an expansive range of empirical, theoretical, and interpretive research into the issue of leadership but does so in a way that ensures that the political character of the subject is kept securely in the foreground. There is a clear emphasis upon leaders embedded in their political contexts and viscerally connected to high-level issues of political location and status, political power and legitimacy, and political functions and contingencies. The rationale is to put the subject of political leadership back together. The book engages with leadership’s analytical challenges whilst retaining space for the immediacy, allure, and drama of leadership in action—with a host of illustrations. The cumulative design moves from an in-depth analysis of the core components of political leadership to an examination of a series of key dimensions relating to political psychology, leadership activity, and contextual shifts—including the themes of representation, communication, marketing, followership, rhetoric, business influence, leadership life-cycles, ethics, and the issue of women leaders. It goes on to survey the developmental properties of the international sphere before concluding with a substantive review of the changing ecologies of leadership activity and the different ways that we come to terms with the theme of political leadership in an increasingly complex world.