1st Edition

Tools and Techniques of Leadership and Management Meeting the Challenge of Complexity

By Ralph D. Stacey Copyright 2012
192 Pages
by Routledge

192 Pages
by Routledge

192 Pages
by Routledge

Many of today’s books on the tools and techniques of leadership and management provide descriptions of long lists for use in decision-making, leading, coaching and project management. This book takes a completely different approach. It contests the claims that the tools and techniques are based on evidence and explains why human activities of leading and managing are simply not amenable to... Read more

1. Introduction  2. The Theory of Complex Responsive Processes: Understanding Organizations as Patterns of Interaction between People  3. Understanding Organizing Activities as the Game: The Social Background of Leadership and Management Activities  4. The Leadership and Management Tools and Techniques of Instrumental Rationality: Rules and Step by Step Procedures  5. The Limitations of the Tools and Techniques of Instrumental Rationality: Incompatibility with Expert Performance  6. The Leadership and Management Techniques of Disciplinary Power: Surveillance and Normalization  7. Taking the Techniques of Disciplinary Power to the Extreme: Domination and Coercive Persuasion  8. Institutions and the Techniques of Leadership and Management: Habits, Rules and Routines  9. The Leadership and Management ‘Techniques’ of Practical Judgment: Reflexive Inquiry, Improvisation and Political Adroitness  10. Conclusion: Frequently Asked Questions  Appendix - Reflexive Narrative Inquiry: Movements in my Thinking and how I find Myself Working Differently as a Consequence

Biography

Ralph Stacey is Professor of Management and founding member of, and currently supervisor on, an innovative Master and Doctoral programme in complexity, leadership and organizational change at the Business School of the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. He is also a member of the Institute of Group Analysis. Ralph has published numerous titles, many of them with Routledge, and is co-editor of Routledge's series on Complexity as the Experience of Organizing

'This book really challenges current thinking on leadership and provides an exciting new perspective on complexity in today’s organizations.'

Jean-Anne Stewart, Director of Corporate MBA Programmes, Henley Business School, UK