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School library media specialists (SLMSs) often struggle with assuming leadership roles. Discrepancies existed in perceptions of SLMSs of their leadership preparedness, their opportunities to exert leadership, and their assumption of leadership roles. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the perceptions of SLMSs regarding their instructional leadership and to examine the extent to which they practiced instructional leadership. The study was designed to determine whether there were differences between SLMSs perceptions of the importance of their leadership roles and their opportunities to practice those roles. The results of the study indicated that SLMSs perceived all of the leadership roles to be more important than they were able to carry out in practice and that supportive administrators were the most essential factor in providing SLMSs the opportunity to practice and expand their roles as instructional leaders.

Based on a critique of reductive understandings of physicality, this chapter explores the significance of embodied materiality, the artefactual physical, the role of the living body and embodiment in relation to ‘intra and inter’ practices of leadership from a phenomenological perspective. Using a phenomenological and cross-disciplinary approach, issues of an embodied physicality in leadership are systematically explored and implications discussed beyond physicalist empiricism and meta-physical idealism. Furthermore, the chosen phenomenological approach reveals problematising limitations of naturalist and constructionist approaches.

Following Merleau-Ponty an extended understanding of physicality as well as the significance of the co-constitutive role of embodiment, inter-corporeality and intra-action in and of leadership practices in organisational life-worlds are identified and discussed. Insights into the role of corporeal materio-socio phenomena and expressions of meaningful practices of leading and following are rendered. The chapter concludes by noting limitations and implications of embodied physicality and physical inter-becoming of ‘bodiment’ for a more integral and sustainable conception of leader-and followership in organisations. Through its specific post-dualistic approach the chapter provides an innovative perspective on the interrelations between living, material, bodily and embodied dimensions of physicality in leadership.

Leading inclusion is a complex field of practice that is framed in traditional conceptions of school administration. Leadership in inclusive schools is a constant struggle with fluctuating dimensions, often compounding difficulties for students with difference and disability. Nevertheless, inclusive school leadership remains an important component of successful practice of inclusive education, where all students with diverse abilities equally benefit. This chapter provides an introduction to different types of leadership practices that promote inclusive practices. A key focus of the chapter is to discuss the social theory of Bourdieu in relation to understanding and measuring what we consider as effective inclusive school leadership. This framework provides both theoretical and practical approaches in developing inclusive school leadership practices and ways effective inclusive leadership practices could be measured.

Leadership studies, as an academic discipline and field of practice, have predominantly been developed in relation to Western forms of knowledge, norms, and cultural practices. Knowledge and ways of practicing leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa contexts are often unseen or marginalized in formal leadership studies literature. This is also true for the way leadership is practiced throughout the networks of the African Diaspora. The influence of uniquely African ways of knowing, doing, and experiencing leadership is even more challenging in the context of the African Diaspora. Often contextualized within the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trades, and increasingly shaped by contemporary dynamics of globalization, the African Diaspora and leadership exist at the intersection of multiple cultures and contexts. Leadership theory and practice must account for these inter- and multicultural contexts to better understand and practice leadership in the African Diaspora. The objective of this chapter is to develop a collective, constructionist, and practice frame capable of teasing apart cultural and contextual influences of leadership in the African Diaspora. This is not a comprehensive account of approaches to African Leadership, but instead a preliminary effort to mark out collective, constructionist, and practice approaches to leadership in the African Diaspora as it exists in practice and might inform future research and leadership learning and development efforts.

Mentoring has been shown to positively affect student engagement, confidence, leadership, and skills. It is through the development of relationships, knowledge sharing, increased engagement, and a sense of belonging that mentors gain confidence and build leadership skills. However, little is known about the types of leadership, practices, and behaviors that mentors develop when undertaking the mentorship role. The purpose of this study is to examine the development of exemplary leadership practices that the mentoring role nurtures in undergraduate female student mentors. In particular, this study adopted the Kouzes and Posner (2002) transformational and servant leadership practices model to collect data from undergraduate female mentors (n = 94) and mentees (n =142). Results demonstrated significant correlations among all Student Leadership Practices Inventory Scale (S-LPI) subscales – Inspite a shared vision, Model the way, Challenge the process, Enable others to act, and Encourage the heart – and provided evidence for the association of the mentoring role with the development of transformational and servant practices. However, among the five transformational leadership practices, Inspire a shared vision was not correlated with the mentoring role. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that curriculum developers of undergraduate programs create curricula containing an array of peer teaching/mentoring experiences based on clear roles and job descriptions for mentors. Further research is recommended to explore the impact of mentoring programs with a wider sample of students from diverse backgrounds.

This chapter examines the impact of adopting a global strategy upon leaders’ roles and identities in an engineering consultancy firm. Drawing upon process and social practice perspectives on leadership; our results explain leaders’ resistance to changing practices despite major process changes as due to the threats to their identity caused by the new role requirements to implement a global strategy. Our emerging process and social practice model of leadership highlights the complementary nature of process and practice change, creates a distinction between good and malign ambiguity in professional services firms and has implications for regulating the pace and timing of major changes which impact upon professional identities.

Academic and practitioner attention to the constructs of authentic leadership and work engagement and their implications for organizations has grown dramatically over the past decade. Consideration of the implications of these constructs for high-performance human resource practices (HPHRP) is limited, however. In this monograph, we present a conceptual model that integrates authentic leadership/followership theory with theory and research on HPHRP. Then, we apply this model to systematically consider the implications of skill-enhancing, motivation-enhancing, and opportunity-enhancing HR practices in combination with authentic leadership for authentic followership, follower work engagement, and follower performance. We contend that authentic leadership, through various influences processes, promotes HPHRP, and vice versa, to help foster enhanced work engagement. By cultivating greater work engagement, individuals are motivated to bring their best, most authentic selves to the workplace and are more likely to achieve higher levels of both well-being and performance.

This chapter features leadership practices sourced from more than 25 Māori (Indigenous) and non-Māori women in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) who are leaders of schools where Māori-based best practices benefit Māori and other systemically underserved students (e.g., children in poverty, Pasifika [i.e., Samoan, Fijian, Cook Island, Tongan] descent). This study, by Auckland-based scholars of North American, Indigenous, and international descent (Māori, Latino, African American/American Indian [Choctaw], and East Indian immigrant) examines the expression of Applied Critical Leadership (ACL) in women leaders participating in Te Ara Hou or The Māori Achievement Collaboratives (MACS), an initiative aimed at challenging status quo leadership practices, which result in persistent inequitable educational outcomes for Māori learners. Based on an analysis of data, women leaders demonstrated leadership that mirrored and exemplified leadership practices suggested in ACL research. Qualitative stories evidenced from women leaders in MACS provided exemplars of authentic and appropriate pathways for implementing effective leadership practices aimed at promoting whānau (family), iwi (tribe), and hapū (subtribe) engagement, context-specific pedagogy, tikanga (cultural protocols), and whanaungatanga (relationships) within mainstream school contexts. These findings affirm and validate research on the benefits of critical and culturally appropriate leadership around the world in a number of diverse contexts.

Leading change oftentimes comes down to creating the conditions to shift the status quo of an organization, community, or nation. In the case of the pan-African movement, this is about a shift of the status quo continentally. We look back and learn how these changes took place, we study the impacts, the moves that allowed people to emerge differently, to lead effective change. The outcomes of leading this effective change often point to a shift in the status quo. That shift in how people organize and led change gets written in history books. In this scenario, we have the unique opportunity to examine these cases as emergent, hearing firsthand accounts of those individuals, people, organizations, and communities that are shaping the movements. This is that account of how leadership is conceptualized, redefined, and practiced by emerging actors across the continent today.

“Action without thought is empty; thought without action is blind” (Kwame Nkrumah). Nkrumah's sentiments describe a practice of leadership that is intentional and disrupts arbitrary borders and dividers to build a strong pan-African movement. Emerging actors today are leading change on the African continent by shaping a new vision and framework for African leadership. By understanding their stories, we deepen understanding of this framework.

In this chapter, we will share the stories of three individuals (chapter co-authors) who are exercising leadership at the intersections of grassroots organizing and political engagement, and in doing so, who are seeking to shift the status quo. Each practice-based account offers insight and firsthand accounting of how a rising generation is redefining leadership at local, regional, and transnational levels.