Professor Keith Grint presents 'Leadership'
Enemy of the people?
Location: The Auditorium, UCS Waterfront Building, Ipswich
Date: 17 May 2012
Time: 5.30pm - 7.30pm
Often leadership is not perceived by the people as for the people but against the people, frequently configured as part of the Cassandra complex ‘the person who can foresee the future but whose message is anathema to those that need to hear it’. Indeed, leadership here might well be ‘the enemy of the people’.
This presentation considers the extent to which we remain allergic to ‘leadership’, that is the collaborative decision style appropriate for addressing collective complex problems, and more favourably inclined towards, if not actually addicted to, ‘command’, that is the decisive decision making appropriate to a ‘commander’ in a crisis.
The latter is achieved by configuring the world as one of permanent crises, where the only viable responses are decisive commands. Of course some people configure the world as one full of Tame problems, where the only viable responses are to keep rolling out the same process that normally works but this time has led you into a recalcitrant problem. And there are some who see Wicked problems everywhere, where the only viable response is to delay decision making while engaging in more consultation and collaboration.
Profile
Professor Keith Grint
Professor Keith Grint is Professor of Public Leadership at Warwick University Business School and is Academic Director of the Police High Potential Development Scheme. He was Professor of Defence Leadership at Cranfield University and before that Professor of Leadership Studies and Director of the Leadership Centre at Lancaster University Management School, Director of Research at the Saïd Business School and Fellow in Organisational Behaviour, Templeton College, University of Oxford.
Professor Keith Grint is Professor of Public Leadership at Warwick University Business School and is Academic Director of the Police High Potential Development Scheme. He was Professor of Defence Leadership at Cranfield University and before that Professor of Leadership Studies and Director of the Leadership Centre at Lancaster University Management School, Director of Research at the Saïd Business School and Fellow in Organisational Behaviour, Templeton College, University of Oxford.
Professor Grint spent 10 years in industry before switching to an academic career. He is a founding co-editor of the journal Leadership published by Sage, and founding co-organiser of the International Conference in Researching Leadership.
He is an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences and a Visiting Research Professor at Lancaster, an Associate Fellow of the Saïd Business School and Green-Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Sunningdale Institute, a Fellow of the Windsor Leadership Trust, a Visiting Scholar at Sydney University and a Visiting Professor of Leadership at UCS.