Systemic Leadership for Local Governance: Tapping the Resource Within

Description

“A truly expansive and valuable book that challenges the assumptions and constraints of current leadership thinking... Its focus on integrating theory and practice is particularly helpful in linking its key ideas to current public sector management concerns.”—Gareth Morgan, Author of Images of Organization “While other authors have offered general principles of systemic leadership or given readers single approaches, Hobbs is much more ambitious: she brings together diverse, well-tested theoretical, methodological and practical approaches to provide today's leaders with a multifaceted resource that can aid them in thinking systemically. In this respect, her book is a significant advance on previous offerings, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to leaders, aspiring leaders and leadership academics around the world.”—Gerald Midgley, University of Hull, UK “This is an impressive and innovative work that draws together the disparate strands of complexity theory, systems thinking and operational research to build an adaptive social learning approach for local governance, helping to shift it from a service-led to systemic-deliberative model. This is essential reading for local government actors, students of local policy and for the public policy generalist.”—Robert Geyer, Lancaster University, UK Addressing matters of complexity systemically rather than mechanistically is now an ethical and practical paradigm-changing challenge for public policy. This optimistic book explores how action could be led in a joined-up way, signposting resources to thinking differently. Attention is paid to leading the design of adaptive social learning around what matters, re-connecting with public purpose to enable tailoring towards contemporary needs and constraints. Relevant to postgraduates, academics, local government managers, curious practitioners and the wider public, private and third sectors where there is interest in interpreting leadership via the cognitive capabilities of Systems Science. Front Matter ....Pages i-xv Introduction: Local Government Reform and a Journey to the Empty Quarter (Catherine Hobbs)....Pages 1-42 Thinking Differently Matters (Catherine Hobbs)....Pages 43-54 Assumptions Matter (Catherine Hobbs)....Pages 55-74 The Wider Context Matters (Catherine Hobbs)....Pages 75-105 People Matter (Catherine Hobbs)....Pages 107-136 Systemic Effectiveness Matters (Catherine Hobbs)....Pages 137-149 An Adaptive Learning Pathway for Systemic Leadership (Catherine Hobbs)....Pages 151-160 With or Without? (Catherine Hobbs)....Pages 161-172 Conclusion: Systemic Leadership as Design for Adaptive Social Learning (Catherine Hobbs)....Pages 173-199 Back Matter ....Pages 201-204