Abstract
Although journal articles often take pride of place on many academics’ CVs in our contemporary academic context, books still offer a format in which important ideas can be introduced and fully developed. There is a satisfaction associated with following an argument through a number of chapters, delving into the weft and weave of how a construct is formed and anticipating its implications, which is hard to experience within an 8000 word journal article. Think of seminal ideas in leadership and organizational studies: could James MacGregor Burns have conveyed the nuances of transforming leadership in a form other than a book? Imagine what would have been lost had Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organization been slashed to a journal article or two. The landscape of a book enabled these authors and so many others to steadily unfold their ideas in the unhurried way possible in texts of over 50,000 words. Books provide the space to convince, to transform a reader’s worldview and maybe to rearrange something in their hearts as well.
Through re-introducing book reviews to the Journal, Leadership re-commits itself to engaging with significant ideas which books can address more fully than is possible in a journal article. Although we will be looking to review recent publications within the field of leadership and related fields, we also invite reviews of significant books written in earlier times, which a reviewer may wish to reassess in relation to more current thinking and theorizing. Our aim is to stimulate thoughtful conversations about leadership ideas both old and new, and how they can help us to address the many pressing issues we face today.
In particular, we welcome reviews of books with a ‘scholarly content’ - that is, they must be more than ‘how to’ manuals or victory narratives. We are especially interested to see reviews which: Critically interrogate leadership theory warhorses (heroic leadership, charismatic leadership); Engage with issues of contemporary concern and leadership’s role within it (for instance, climate change, racism, wealth inequality, populism, the contested nature of truth) Offer insights into new forms of leadership (for instance, virtual leadership, collectively based leadership) Offer insights into new contexts in which leadership is required (for instance, leadership in networked organizations, leading in the age of artificial intelligence)
Ideally, book reviews should be between 2500–3500 words long.
If you have an idea for a book you would like to review, please contact me to discuss it. Alternatively, you can submit the review directly to Manuscript Central as you would for an article.
I look forward to seeing where this new (old!) initiative takes us.
