The possibilities of leadership: revisiting J.C. Rost’s leadership writings

In the 90s, J.C. Rost highlighted the possibilities for leadership to become inclusive, participative, and socially responsible. He explicitly questioned the leadership paradigm of the previous two centuries encouraging a new paradigm for the twenty-first century. His contribution to leadership studies was recognized through the International Leadership Association’s lifetime achievement award in 2008. However, his work has largely been overlooked within management and organization studies and today’s dominant leadership paradigm remains largely unchanged from that of the previous century. In this paper, the major elements of Rost’s approach; influence relationships, real intended change, and mutual purpose and their implications for developing good leadership are revisited and explained. Rost was unable to shift the dominant leadership paradigm which he encountered, but he was able to highlight the possibilities of what leadership could become. Conclusions are drawn with regards to the enduring separation between leaders and followers, the vested interests of stakeholders in leadership and the influence of a mythical leadership narrative.     

Civics and Student Participation

This article responds to the curricular challenges teachers face with Holocaust education, including cursory treatments and a lack of focus on individual experiences. First, the author argues for a case-study approach to help students reengage concrete and complex features of the Holocaust as a point of departure for subsequent inquiry. In addition to providing a rationale and recommended content for teaching about the Holocaust, the author provides a case-study example in the form of a detailed historical explication of the Holocaust in Latvia. Last, the author situates this case study within social studies pedagogy and offers generative possibilities for practice.     

The Conceptualization and Measurement of Listening

Although far more emphasis has been placed on sending messages than upon receiving them, some researchers have focused on listening and on receiving. In this paper, the authors adopt the position that although listening, as a theoretical concept, may in some meaningful sense be real and measurable through a variety of instruments, inadequate attention has been given to the development of a consensus regarding its conceptualization. In support of this position we first review inconsistencies in current definitions of listening and then discuss problems in measurement. On the basis of our review, we conclude that considerable ambiguity exists concerning conceptualization of the listening construct, and that further investigation of measurement issues involved in the theory of the receiving component of listening should be undertaken.     

Towards Understanding Variations in Social Care for Older People in England

Indicators of the public provision of old age social care are routinely recorded in England and have been used for diverse purposes including performance monitoring. Despite long‐term policy guidance promoting more homogeneous service provision, large variations can still be observed between local authorities (the providers of state‐funded social care). Our aim is to better understand such variations in a small selection of key aggregate indicators. Drawing on multiple data sources and pursuing a two‐step strategy, we first assess the explanatory power of a set of structural predictors and then add to the models a set of specific care management ‘process’ predictors. We find that structural factors beyond the control of local authorities explain a considerable share of the observable variation. The additional explanatory power of care management characteristics is small in comparison. Therefore, our findings suggest that caution must be taken when aggregate indicators of service provision are used for performance monitoring purposes, as a degree of autonomy over outcomes may be implied which in light of the empirical evidence is unrealistic. Past attempts to influence the aggregate pattern of service provision – apparently seeking greater ‘territorial justice’– are likely to have had adverse implications for service users and the uniformity of service delivery across England. Questions are raised about the adequate role of central government in a policy environment characterized by longstanding local government responsibility.