23rd International Studying Leadership Conference

Introduction

The 23rd International Studying Leadership Conference (ISLC) invites scholars, graduate students, and practitioners from a variety of fields to present their research and explore together the critical developments for leadership, and leadership development for sustainability.

Since its inception in 2002, the ISLC conference has provided a forum for rigorous analysis and critical reflection on the nature and purpose of leadership theory, leadership development, and leadership research. ISLC conference participants have contributed critical alternatives to popularised theories of leadership that primarily aim to boost individual leader success inside commercial organisations. The conference has become a space for scholars of leadership studies to encompass relational and social perspectives on leadership in the context of other kinds of organisations, collective organising efforts, and social movements.

We intend that this year’s conference theme extend these developments by inviting contributions that focus on the relationship between leadership and leadership development for sustainability. Sustainability broadly relates to a recognition that organisations, as important collectives for enabling development, are enacted within a biophysical habitat (the world), which has material limits (Meadows et al., 2005; Rockström et al,  2009). A key strand of sustainability debates is about the interconnections between ecological and social sustainability. Less attention has been paid to the roles played by organisations in these interconnections, and connectedly the implications for leaders and leadership.

Attending to leadership’s role in ecological and social sustainability is becoming more urgent by the day, as we witness the eradication of taken-for-granted safeguards for environmental protection and social justice by the Trump administration, and other populist regimes.

Conference programme

Attending the conference

Conference convenors