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The purpose of this paper is to review and critique three conventional assumptions about leadership and put forward an alternative framing, with leadership presented as a distinct form of intervention in particular moments to management. The paper also presents a structure for supporting leadership action by individuals and groups as an alternate to management action, which is seen as the dominant form.

Reflects an elaboration and distillation of concepts developed by the author since an earlier paper on essentially the same topic, drawing on his 20-plus years’ experience as a leadership developer.

Although not an empirical account, the paper seeks to demonstrate how, when conventional but infrequently challenged assumptions about leadership are “peeled back”, a new way of understanding leadership, especially in connection with management, is revealed.

Suggestions are offered as to how the concepts and tools presented here could be evaluated, including in comparison with established leadership frameworks.

Outlines three practices for supporting leadership action in public sector organisations. These practices are working from observation, attributing reasonableness (allowing that others are reasonable) and speaking with authenticity. Collectively, these are known as the OBREAU Tripod (with “OBREAU” comprised of the first two letters in each of the pivotal words, observation, reasonableness and authenticity).

Conceiving of leadership as a different form of in-the-moment action to management in a public sector context is a distinctive contribution to the literature.

This chapter examines the involvement of finance companies in the purchasing and leasing of Australian farmlands. This is a new global phenomenon as, in past decades, finance companies have lent money to farmers, but have rarely sought to purchase land themselves. We investigate and discuss the activities of the Hancock company – an asset management firm that invested in farmland in northern NSW. Material on the activities of Hancock and other investment firms were obtained from documents on the public record, including newspaper reports. Semi-structured interviews with community members were conducted in the region of NSW where Hancock operated. Australian agriculture is being targeted for investment by companies in the finance industry – as part of a growing ‘financialization’ of farming. While it is financially beneficial for companies to invest, they do not do so in ‘empty spaces’ but in locations where people desire to live in a healthy environment. The Hancock company was criticized by community residents for failing to recognize the concerns of local people in pursuing its farming activities. To date, there have been few studies on the financialization of farming in Australia. By investigating the operations of the Hancock company we identify a number of concerns emerging, at the community level, about an overseas company running Australian-based farms.

This chapter investigates ways in which civility and mindful speech within the library workplace can improve the quality of employees’ interactions with each other. While most examinations of communication within libraries focus on the exchange between patrons and providers, this case study focuses on the vehicle of communication among co-workers and examines how civil discourse coupled with mindful speech reinforced by mindful actions can foster an atmosphere of cooperation, leading ultimately to empathy. We highlight common points within national and local civility initiatives which allow institutions to preserve their own unique culture while adhering to accepted benchmarks of civil dialogue. Although we present a mix of suggested strategies for cultivating mindful words and actions, based on empirical research limited to our own institution, we recommend civility and mindful speech leading to mindful action as gateways toward the adaptation of healthy shared values. Emphasizing civility, one of the cornerstones of civilization and peaceful coexistence, has widespread practical and social implications for countering the detrimental effects of poor communication. This effective, affordable, and attainable practice can repair the underdeveloped, fractured, and even dysfunctional relationships which lead to low workplace morale.

At a meeting of the Council of the Royal Borough of Kensington, on November 22, Councillor J. BROOKE‐LITTLE, Chairman of the Public Health Committee, brought up a report as follows:—

Leadership matters in public contexts. It influences employee development and, in turn, the effective delivery of public services. Harmful leadership limits the fulfilment of both these requirements. Although there are many studies of public leadership, few explore aspects of poor leadership focusing on leading people, in the unique public sector context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the public sector environment as one that can enable harmful leadership, and identifies what those aspects of harmful behaviours are. In particular, it focuses on common, day-to-day forms of harmful mediocre leadership rather than more dramatic, but rarer, forms of destructive or toxic leadership.

The study was conducted over three phases. In study one (N=10) interviews using the critical incident technique identified harmful behaviours. Study two (N=10) identified perceived causal processes and outcomes of these processes. Study three was a validation check using two focus groups (n=7) and two further interviews (n=6).

Four dimensions of harmful behaviour were found: micromanagement, managing up but not down, low social and career support and reactive leadership. Several pathways to harm were found, including lessened employee confidence, motivation, collaboration, learning and development.

This research is limited by a small sample and data collected in one public sector system. But its implications are still meaningful. The research identified some ways that harmful leadership can occur, that is missed in existing studies of harmful leadership, which tend to focus on more toxic forms of harm. The role of NPM and other reforms as important shapers of current leadership behaviours are also discussed.

To address these behaviours further investment in leadership development, selection and performance management is recommended.

Social implications include the hindering of effective service delivery and limited ability to deal with increasingly dynamic and complicated problem.

Public sector leadership studies are often rose tinted, or describe what should be. Instead, this paper describes what sometimes is, in terms of day-to-day mediocre but harmful leadership.

In those frightening years between the two Wars and governments in France came and went with dismal frequency, it used to be said that any French Government which permitted food prices to rise had no chance whatever of surviving, and the result was that food was bountiful and incredibly cheap. Times have changed dramatically but not the attitude of people to the price and availibility of food and, in particular of political control; this is very much the same as always. Mostly, it revolves around the woman and what she sees as an abuse, greed and taking mean advantage of prevailing conditions and, make no mistake, this will be reflected in the political field; in the way she votes. It has happened in previous elections; it will happen in even greater degree in the next election and, although not decisive, it can have a not insignificant impact. None know better than the housewife how meaningless is the smug talk of the politicians when it comes to food prices. Their attitude may not have been the main factor in throwing out the last Conservative Government; this was undoubtedly the fear that their continuance in office would result in widespread strikes and the serious effect these upheavals have on food prices (and other household necessit ies), but the votes of woman were an unimportant contribution. As it was, it mattered little to the muscle men of the trade unions which party is in power. Women's talk around the shops and supermarket's, up and down the High Street to‐day is one long grumble and disillusionment with politicians generally.

In a 31‐month period, 1,184 questions addressed to the Internet Public Library's (IPL) reference service remained unanswered on the grounds that they were “out of scope”. This paper aims to analyze the questions as artifacts of users' expectations to better chart the distinction between user and librarian views of reference service.

Each question is examined to identify two user expectations, i.e. what kinds of information librarians could provide and what kinds of needs librarians could help meet. Emergent coding with a code‐recode rate of 97 per cent identifies 23 types of expected librarian assistance and 28 characteristics of expected applications of that assistance.

Users expect IPL librarians to provide personal advice, analysis, facts, procedures, instruction, technology guidance and evaluation. IPL librarians are expected to help users in making decisions, solving problems, completing processes and developing understanding.

Limitations include the use of a single coder and the use of single institution's data set. Mapping these user expectations suggests a need for librarians to consider further development of reference service in terms of its judgment, form, and involvement parameters.

Reference service policies and training should be examined to enhance librarians' abilities to consider judgment, form, and involvement parameters primarily from the user's perspective.

This paper analyzes that which is rarely seen, i.e. e‐mail reference questions which are considered beyond the scope of service. Additionally, the IPL question pool provides a broader range of user mental models than would be found in any geographically bound institution.

Regional development authorities extol the attractions of a move from congested urban areas to the open spaces of the countryside. Less publicised is the conflict which can ensue from this ‘re‐location’ drive. Report by Mary Jarratt.

The purpose of this paper is to articulate the shifts in the theoretical conceptualization of, and the practice of leadership in health care in Canada that are happening as a response to challenges of system transformation; and the implications of those shifts for individual leaders, for health services delivery, for research into health system leadership, and for leadership development approaches in university and health agencies.

The paper begins with an analysis of the historical, contemporary, and futuristic context that shapes the conceptualization and practice of leadership now and into the future. The context consists of two parts. First, the need for leadership in health systems in Canada will be established. Second, a conceptual and practical exploration of leadership in health care, beginning with a review of the literature and moving on to exploration of two key projects pertaining to health leadership and health leadership development in Canada, commissioned by senior leaders in health care, will be analyzed for their contribution to defining leadership.

The findings outline key shifts in leadership that must take place to respond to changes in the national health environment and be pro‐active in shaping it. A typology of those shifts in order to show the constituent elements framing the evolution of leadership is outlined.

Further research on different models and approaches to leadership being promulgated in Canada, their impact on health system capacity building for change, and on new models of education for leaders, is needed.

As the speed of change in health service delivery grows, the form of leadership required to steward it in a productive fashion changes. As a lag grows between “old” models of leadership and “new” models, leaders themselves experience frustration at their ability to be effective in creating system change. This has implications for our expectations of, and ability to practice leadership; and for our developmental approaches to developing leadership.

The paper helps to explain what kind of leadership is required to truly transform health systems on a national scale. It also contributes to the international dialogue around health systems transformation, capacity building, and improving health service delivery.

“To complain of the age we live in, to murmer at the present … to lament the past, and to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common disposition of the greatest part of mankind.” So wrote Burke, the better part of two centuries ago, and it is an interesting if idle speculation to wonder what he, or other great men of history, would have to say about the present world and of its future. An eminent American physicist, Dr. Percy W. Bridgman, has been pondering on this subject, and in his essay under the rather familiar title of “ Science and the Future ”, he deals briefly but ably with the ever deepening impact of science on society, and on the need for what he terms “a basis for the peaceful co‐existence of the scientific and the non‐scientific temperaments”. He looks over his shoulder at past episodes among the changes forced by science on world outlook; Newton's laws of motion, that shocked his generation, and those that followed, into realizing what an insignificant part their earth played in the movements of the stellar universe; Darwin, on evolution, putting into words, with chapter and verse, what had been suspected and hinted by many before him, shaking man's pedestal of Special Creation. Others followed, succeeded by Einstein, who greatly upset what we had learned at our mother's knees; and now, the atomic age, with new moons for good measure.