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This application brief describes the implementation of a leadership education experiential and reflective written and presentation exercise to assist graduate and executive-level students to develop, articulate, and present their leadership philosophy to a small group of peers in effort to advance their leadership identity and prepare for an eventual presentation to the workforce. This classroom activity fulfills multiple objectives to: a) to understand the importance of a personal leadership philosophy; b) develop a personal leadership philosophy and advance a leadership identity; and c) prepare and present a personal leadership philosophy to a group of peers.

As the global presence of Chinese firms grows, increasing numbers of Chinese managers are working abroad as expatriates. However, little attention has been paid to such Chinese expatriate managers and their leadership challenges in an inter-cultural context, especially across a large cultural distance. To fill the gap in the literature concerning the leadership challenges for expatriate managers in an inter-cultural context, the purpose of this paper is to elucidate the leadership styles of Chinese expatriate managers from the perspectives of three traditional Chinese philosophies (i.e. Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism) in the inter-cultural context of the Netherlands.

The data for this qualitative study were collected via semi-structured, open-ended, narrative interviews with 30 Chinese expatriate managers in the Netherlands.

The results clearly show that the leadership style of Chinese expatriate managers is deeply rooted in the three traditional Chinese philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism, even in an inter-cultural context. Specifically, the study reveals two salient aspects of how Chinese expatriate managers frame and interact with a foreign cultural context from the perspectives of traditional Chinese philosophies. First, the Chinese expatriate managers reported an initial cultural shock related to frictions between the foreign cultural context and Confucianism or Taoism, but less so in the case of Legalism. Second, the Chinese expatriate managers also reported that their interactions with the Dutch culture are best described as a balance between partial conflict and partial complementarity (thus, a duality). In this sense, the leadership style of Chinese expatriate managers is influenced jointly by the three traditional Chinese philosophies and certain elements of the foreign cultural context. This is consistent with the Chinese perspective of yin-yang balancing.

This study is among the first to offer a more nuanced and highly contextualized understanding of leadership in the unique case of expatriate managers from an emerging market (e.g. China) in an advanced economy (e.g. the Netherlands). The authors call for more research to apply the unique perspective of yin-yang balancing in an inter-cultural context. The authors posit that this approach represents the most salient implication of this study. For practical implications, the authors argue that expatriate leaders should carefully manage the interplay between their deep-rooted home-country philosophies and their salient host-country culture. Reflecting on traditional philosophies in another culture can facilitate inter-cultural leadership training for Chinese expatriates.

The purpose of this paper, drawing on the authors' experiences in leadership positions, is to suggest the importance of having a written core leadership philosophy that transmits who you are loudly and clearly and permeates everything you do. It also aims to offer suggestions for consideration for the practitioner.

The paper summarizes the importance of having a core leadership philosophy, coupled with guidelines on development and refinement.

The insights provided through this manuscript should encourage individuals, particularly managers, to develop a core leadership philosophy.

Leadership is a quality highly coveted by individuals, groups and organizations. The philosophy that serves as a foundation for the actions of leaders is of paramount importance. This core philosophy, as the foundation, is examined in this article with guidelines provided to help practitioners develop a personal core leadership philosophy.

This article makes a unique contribution to the literature by providing an intentional process for developing a core leadership philosophy.

This chapter discusses a number of well-known African Philosophies of Education (APE) that could significantly improve the development of an international educational leadership curriculum. These include Preparedness/Preparationism, Utilitarianism/Functionalism, Communalism; Holisticism and Perennialism, Ethnophilosophy, Ubuntu, Community, Reasonableness, Moral Maturity, Maat or Ma'at African philosophies discovered from papyrus manuscripts including Imhotep, The Teachings of the Vizier Ptahhotep, The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, and The Dialogue of a Man with his Soul, Kemit and As Above so Below, etc. In so doing, I identify the salient values of these philosophies, bringing out their qualities as well as their limitations, and discussing ways in which they could be incorporated into the contemporary field of developing an international leadership curriculum. This chapter first reviews contemporary literature on African Indigenous Education (AIE) and APE and their relevance in developing an international leadership curriculum using a descriptive and analytical interpretive approach then proposes an epistemic leadership theoretical framework to guide the delivery of APE in educational leadership learning. Such a leadership curriculum framework could be developed as part of the de-colonial epistemic movement within the Global South. The chapter concludes that while the link between APE, policy and practice is significant and new in the context of educational leadership curriculum research, its survival depends on the establishment of such a de-colonial epistemic theoretical framework.

The article aims at examining the ethical limits and risks of servant leadership. During the Second World War, the German army officer Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg is a loyal servant to his nation and homeland. But when he learns about the Nazis’ mass murders and crimes, he begins to have doubts about whom he should serve. Being confronted with numerous moral dilemmas, he finally decides to join a resistance group. Of course, Stauffenberg's situation as colonel and leader was an extreme case. Time and again, however, managers and leaders are faced with similar dilemmas. Indeed, the current COVID-19-crisis shows that even today’s leaders are repeatedly faced with almost insoluble dilemmas. The recent literature about ethics and leadership suggests a philosophy which is almost portrayed as a panacea to any ethical issues: servant leadership (SL). This study, however, questions the commonly held view that SL is always ethical. The purpose of our historical case study is twofold. First, this study explores the ethical challenges Stauffenberg (and other officers) faced and how they dealt with them. Second, this study elaborates on what responses (if any) SL would provide to these challenges.

The applied method is a historical case study, in which the authors draw on a plethora of secondary literature, including books, reports, and articles.

By analyzing the historical case of “Operation Valkyrie,” this study elaborated and identified risks and limitations of SL and pointed out ways to address these risks. In particular, SL poses risks in the case of a too narrow understanding of the term “service.”

While other leadership styles, e.g. transformational leadership or charismatic leadership, have been extensively studied with regard to ethical risks, in the case of SL possible risks and limitations are still largely unexplored.

An increasingly popular argument proposes that the problems in public schooling may be solved through stronger, more morally imaginative leadership. School administrators ought to set forth a vision growing out of this moral responsibility, and may be trained to utilise moral imagination in directing teachers and students towards certain moral visions. A critique of the argument is presented and alternative (and conflicting) meanings of “moral imagination” surveyed. Four models of moral imagination are located: as discovery; as moral authority; as faculty of mind, and as super science. It is argued that each of these conceptions has inherent difficulties. The logical relationship of these views is explored. The notion of “school leadership” is traced in the literature as it has been attached to “moral imagination”. The work of W. Greenfield is examined and a philosophy of school administration, with certain assumptions, regarding values and authority, that reveal key difficulties for the unfettered use of “moral imagination” in school administration, is found. It is concluded that “moral imagination” ought to be replaced with “critical imagination”, coupled with “democratic value deliberation” and by so doing a richer leadership will result, leading to the empowerment of teachers and a fuller serving of the public good.

Within this application brief, we propose a comprehensive model for mapping the shape and optimizing the effectiveness of leadership education in campus-wide university settings. The four-level model is highlighted by inclusion of a philosophy statement detailing the values and purpose of leadership education on campus, a set of skills and competencies that serve as learning goals, a map of formal educational and informal practice opportunities for leadership development, and a plan for assessment and evaluation of effectiveness in both formative and summative contexts. We provide the example of leadership education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to illustrate how the model might look on one campus.

The purpose of this study is to identify and explore what leadership characteristics constitute humanistic leadership in the South Korean context. Moreover, this study examines how these leadership characteristics are connected to Korean culture.

Based on the information gathered from semi-structured interviews and other sources, including books, case study articles and news articles, this study captures a more comprehensive perspective of Mr. Kook-Hyun Moon, the former CEO of Yuhan–Kimberly.

The key characteristics of Mr. Moon's humanistic leadership that are identified in this study are: respect for all mankind, benevolence (seeking the greater good), sincerity (building trusting relationships with stakeholders) and continuous learning and innovation (developing self and others). These key characteristics set Mr. Moon apart from other leaders and are connected to the fundamental values and philosophies of Korean culture.

This study contributes to the current leadership literature by identifying and exploring Mr. Moon's humanistic leadership characteristics that enable him to gain respect and contribute to communities and society in the South Korean context. This study also finds that the humanistic leadership characteristics of Mr. Moon reflect three major attributes of Korean culture: the ideology of the Dangun mythology, the principle of Neo-Confucianism in Korea and jeong – an indigenous cultural concept in Korea (these attributes will be discussed in detail in the South Korean values and philosophies section). Such reflection suggests that investigating how humanistic leadership characteristics are connected to local cultural roots is important to enhance the understanding of humanistic leadership.