This book introduces leadership and organizational scholars to the potenial of complexity science for broadening leadership study beyond its traditional focus on leaders’ actions and influence, to a consideration of leadership as a broader, dynamically and interactive organizing process. The book offers a primer on complexity science and its applications to organization studies, and compares the logics of complexity science with those underlying traditional leadership approaches. It describes methodological approaches for studying leadership from a complexity perspective, and offers examples of applications of complexity science to leadership theory. Chapters are written by top scholars in complexity and leadership theory.
For research- the text is good and important. The essays are super dense and require multiple readings for comprehension. The concept of complexity leadership is interesting but difficult to make engaging, I suppose. I read about 1/3 of the book as required text for my PhD coursework but may return to some essays as I continue on my dissertation. I just have to believe that there are clearer ways to explain these topics sometimes!