The "What's the Problem... Leadership?" Episode

The LDA Podcast: An Exploration of Evidence-Informed Approaches to Learning and Development

We have the wonderful Nigel Paine back in the house for an exciting and banter-filled episode about leadership. It's a continuation of the previous Nigel show, The "Follow the Leader" Episode.

Nigel and Matt continue the conversation about the nuance of leadership-- what the heck is it practically as organizations struggle to get their arms around it.

A bulk of the discussion centers on the work of the wonderful historian and leadership expert, Keith Grint from the Säid Business School of the University of Oxford and also the University of Warwick, both in the UK. You can learn more about Keith here: https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/about-us/people/keith-grint

And a wonderful primer on Keith's work is his short book, LEADERSHIP, A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION. You can get it here: https://amzn.to/4elBIeg

They leverage his problem-based model of leadership taking Rittel and Webber's Wicked and Tame problems (and adding Critical Problems) as a basis for prescribing a leadership, management, or command response.

Rittel and Webber. Here is the reference to their work:

Rittel, H.W.J. and Webber, M.M.. (1973) Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences. 4, pp. 155-169.

The classicJames MacGregor Burns book introducing the concept of Transformational Leadership is:

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership (1st ed.). New York: Harper & Row.

Barbara Kellermen's book is:

Kellerman, B. (2012). The end of leadership (1st ed.). New York: Harper Business, An Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers.

Jeffrey Pfeffer wrote a wonder book called LEADERSHIP BS. The reference is:

Pfeffer, J. (2015). Leadership BS : fixing workplaces and careers one truth at a time (First edition. ed.). New York, NY: Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

We also reference Ronald Riggio:

Riggio, R. E. (Ed.) (2018). What’s Wrong with Leadership? New York: Routledge.

Matt incorrectly says Charles Wheelen's name. It is Wheelen and his book is called Naked Economics.

We allude to systems-based leadership. You can learn more about it here:

Raelin, J. A. (2016). Imagine There Are No Leaders: Reframing Leader‐ ship as Collaborative Agency. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 12(2), 131-158.

In Best and Worst, we reference the new book by economist, Alex Edmans, MAY CONTAIN LIES, found anywhere books are sold.