Leadership Conference Perth 2012
The 11th International Studying Leadership Conference (ISLC) will be hosted by the Maureen Bickley Centre for Women in Leadership at The Curtin Graduate School of Business, Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. The theme this year is 'Leadership at the Crossroads?' — reflecting the often conflicting demands, expectations and applications of leadership in increasingly globally complex and unpredictable climates.
Being at a crossroads can mean a place where ideas connect and cross over each other. It can also mean being at a point where important decisions must be made. What does this mean for studying leadership? Are we at a crossroads? What leadership lessons did we learn from the global financial crisis? Is there a need for us to connect with different forms of knowledge that will help us gain greater insights into leadership theory and practice?
Leadership is often most salient when a crossroad situation arises: whether in the public, private or, not for profit sectors; whether political, economic, commercial, environmental or moral; whether in the global or local context or when having to balance tensions between those exercising power and those subject to it. How does current research help us understand and navigate these often conflicting positions? How do accounts of applied leadership help us understand or reconstruct the landscape within which leaders operate? What insights do academic commentators bring, and fail to bring, to the process of giving direction to the field of leadership research, education and practice?
Is our theoretical understanding of leadership in the midst of an identity crisis, or is it drifting somewhat aimlessly between positions of interpretation that requires a self-critique and re-evaluation. The conference will encourage a critical perspective by re-imagining normative theories of leadership, offering an opportunity to question monolithic and managerialist constructions of leadership and to provoke alternative and context-rich conceptualisation. Thus the conference provides the opportunity to examine current leadership thinking and to link it with a range of ideas regarding leadership knowledge and practice including connecting effectively with Indigenous knowledge about leadership and new forms of leadership that are emerging in the fast growing economies of South East Asia. How can we bring together voices that have not been heard to help to shape new leadership research agendas?