Book review: Keith Grint, The Arts of Leadership (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK 2001) 454 pp.; Keith Grint, Leadership: Limits and Possibilities (Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, UK and New York, NY, USA 2005) 192 pp.

Case, Peter

Abstract

[Extract] Keith Grint is arguably one of the most innovative and imaginative scholars currently working in the field of leadership studies. A sociologist by training, his scholarship ranges across several other disciplines within the humanities, including inter alia: history (particularly military history); social studies of science and technology; philosophy; and literary theory. The scope of Grint's approach to the study of leaders and leadership makes him an obvious candidate for attention in this inaugural issue of Leadership and the Humanities, and it is for this reason that I have chosen to review two of his publications here. While Grint has held chairs in several UK business schools, his work is by no means representative of the managerialist orthodoxy that has come to influence, and perhaps even dominate, debates relating to human organization and governance. His is a dissenting voice that eschews the often simple-minded thinking and crude methodological instrumentality which characterizes much business school treatment of the leadership phenomenon. Before offering a critical appraisal of the two Grint volumes, it may be helpful briefly to locate his work in relation to the evolution of leadership as a distinct field of study. His heterodox contribution can only properly be understood, I suggest, as a counterpoint to mainstream approaches.

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2050-8735

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Edward Elgar

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10.4337/lath.2013.01.05