Wicked Leadership in Film offers a novel theory of how leaders can contend with so-called “wicked problems,” a class of important, entrenched, and far-reaching political and social challenges (such as climate change or mental illness) that resist ordinary policies and problem solving. Bruce Peabody’s relational theory is built on two central claims. First, it holds that we cannot confront wicked problems without understanding how they relate to other leadership challenges such as confronting crises or managing relatively routine decisions. Second, the model contends that our leaders’ approach to wicked problems must be understood through their ongoing cooperative or antagonistic relationship with the existing political order—a status that shapes their authority and overall, the potential for success. Besides its original argument about wicked leadership, this book provides a distinct method for testing this theory: by studying a series of cinematic case studies ranging from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Solving today’s environmental and sustainability challenges requires more than expertise and technology. Effective solutions will require that we engage with other people, wrestle with difficult questions, and learn how to adapt and make confident decisions despite uncertainty. We need new approaches to leadership that empower professionals at all levels to tackle wicked problems and work towards sustainability. Leadership for Sustainability gives readers perspective and skills for promoting creative and collaborative solutions. Blending systems thinking approaches with leadership techniques, it offers dozens of strategies and specific practices that build on the foundation of three main skills: connecting, collaborating, and adapting. Inspiring case studies show how the book’s strategies and principles can be applied to diverse situations: Coordinating the activities of widely dispersed individuals and groups who may not even know they are connected, illustrated by the work of urban planners, local businesses, citizens, and other stakeholders advancing ambitious climate action goals via a Community Energy Plan in Arlington County, Virginia Collaborating with diverse stakeholders to span boundaries despite their differences of opinion, expertise, and culture, as illustrated by the bold actions of a social entrepreneur who transformed the global food service industry with the “plant-forward” movement Adapting to continuous change and confounding uncertainty, as a small nonprofit organization mobilizes partners to tackle poverty, water scarcity, sanitation, and climate change in rural India Readers will come away with a holistic understanding of how to lead from where they are by applying leadership principles and practices to a wide range of wicked situations. While the challenges we face are daunting, the authors argue that these situations present opportunities for creating a more just, healthy, and prosperous world.

Cinema of Swords is a history, guide, and love letter to over four hundred movies and television shows featuring swashbucklers: knights, pirates, samurai, Vikings, gladiators, outlaw heroes like Zorro and Robin Hood, and anyone else who lives by the blade and solves their problems with the point of a sword. Though swordplay thrives as a mainstay of current pop culture—whether Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings or Star Wars—swashbuckling was if anything even more ubiquitous during Hollywood’s classic period, from its foundations in the Silent Era up through the savage bursts of fantasy films in the ‘80s. With this huge cinematic backlist of classics now available online and on-demand, Cinema of Swords traces the roots and branches of this unruly genre, highlighting classics of the form and pointing fans toward thrilling new gems they never knew existed. With wry summaries and criticism from swordplay expert Lawrence Ellsworth, this comprehensive guidebook is perfect as a reference work or as a dazzling Hollywood history to be read end-to-end.

“This book claims to be ‘like no other’ and that is so true. The editors and authors each add quality guidance around distributed leadership to readers, providing evidence-based examples, useful websites and key reading material to support and supplement the ideas being presented.” Bridie Kent, Professor in Leadership in Nursing, University of Plymouth, UK “This book, thankfully, isn’t about self-defined heroic organizational leaders or power-hungry political leaders – it tells the stories of the people doing leadership every day in their work to make healthcare happen.” Scott Taylor, Business School Director of Admissions, University of Birmingham, UK This innovative book brings together experts from health sciences, nursing, business and management backgrounds to provide a broad analysis of the growing field of distributed leadership. The book offers health professionals practical guidance on applying distributed leadership, resulting in more effective forms of collaborative clinical teamwork and lasting improvements in care. The text: •Offers a comprehensive collection of perspectives, featuring chapters by expert clinical, nursing and management studies contributors •Synthesizes and explores recent developments in the leadership and distributed leadership research literature •Supports research and theory with examples of cases of effective distributed leadership in clinical practice, service quality, patient safety, leadership development, general nursing, midwifery education, oncology services, intellectual disability, evidence-based practice and organizational change and development •Provides an international focus, to encourage reflection on learning from experiences across Europe and beyond Distributed Leadership in Nursing and Healthcare is essential reading for health professionals, undergraduate and postgraduate students, and researchers working in the field of leadership. Edited by: Elizabeth A. Curtis, Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Martin Beirne, Emeritus Professor of Management and Organisational Behaviour at the University of Glasgow, UK John G. Cullen, Associate Professor, Maynooth University, Ireland Ruth Northway, Professor of Learning Disability Nursing, University of South Wales, UK Siobhán M. Corrigan, Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

The Routledge Critical Companion to Leadership Studies offers a rich and insightful overview of critical leadership studies for students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners. The volume draws together 35 chapters from 56 authors who represent the vibrant diversity of the critical leadership community. It includes chapters from emerging and preeminent scholars who share an interest in directing leadership theorizing, development and practice toward the aims of liberation, justice, and equity. The Companion is organized into six themes: (1) philosophical perspectives on leadership; (2) processes, practices, and power dynamics in leadership; (3) diversity and leadership; (4) leadership education and development; (5) lessons from the dark side of leadership; and (6) reimagining leadership and leadership studies. The book has been curated to serve as a "go to" resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, academic staff, and researchers seeking to understand the current state of play on a given topic, as well as inspiration for how they might contribute to its development. Each chapter provides a comprehensive yet succinct review of contemporary literature and offers the reader avenues for future research. Leadership practitioners will also find provocative ideas among these pages to help them interrogate and transform the ways they lead.

An in-depth view of the way popular female stereotypes were reflected in—and were shaped by—the portrayal of women in Disney’s animated features. In Good Girls and Wicked Witches, Amy M. Davis re-examines the notion that Disney heroines are rewarded for passivity. Davis proceeds from the assumption that, in their representations of femininity, Disney films both reflected and helped shape the attitudes of the wider society, both at the time of their first release and subsequently. Analyzing the construction of (mainly human) female characters in the animated films of the Walt Disney Studio between 1937 and 2001, she attempts to establish the extent to which these characterizations were shaped by wider popular stereotypes. Davis argues that it is within the most constructed of all moving images of the female form—the heroine of the animated film—that the most telling aspects of Woman as the subject of Hollywood iconography and cultural ideas of American womanhood are to be found. “A fascinating compilation of essays in which [Davis] examined the way Disney has treated female characters throughout its history.” —PopMatters

Most Holocaust scholars and survivors contend that the event was so catastrophic and unprecedented that it defies authentic representation in feature films. Yet it is precisely the extremity of 'the Final Solution' and the issues it raised that have fueled the cinematic imagination since the end of World War II. Recognizing that movies reach a greater audience than eyewitness, historical, or literary accounts, Lawrence Baron argues that they mirror changing public perceptions of the Holocaust over time and place. After tracing the evolution of the most commonly employed genres and themes in earlier Holocaust motion pictures, he focuses on how films from the l990s made the Holocaust relevant for contemporary audiences. While genres like biographical films and love stories about doomed Jewish-Gentile couples remained popular, they now cast Jews or non-Jewish victims like homosexuals in lead roles more often than was the case in the past. Baron attributes the recent proliferation of Holocaust comedies and children's movies to the search for more figurative and age-appropriate genres for conveying the significance of the Holocaust to generations born after it happened. He contends that thematic shifts to stories about neo-Nazis, rescuers, survivors, and their children constitute an expression of the continuing impact the Holocaust exerts on the present. The book concludes with a survey of recent films like Nowhere in Africa and The Pianist.