Editorial transitions: Hail and farewell

Abstract

This issue of Leadership coincides with ‘regime’ change. After eight years in the job, I am stepping down, and the role of editor will be taken up jointly by Doris Scheditzki and Gareth Edwards. I know that they will do an excellent job and wish them well. But I hope that I will be excused for taking the opportunity to offer some thanks, and reflect more widely on what this journal means and the contribution it has made to leadership studies. I remain indebted to our founding editors – David Collinson and Keith Grint – for having the vision and determination to establish the journal, way back in 2005. Additionally, I am grateful to our wonderful team of Associate Editors. This has included Gareth and Doris, plus Michelle Bligh, Richard Bolden, Brigid Carroll, Jackie Ford, Brad Jackson, Owain Smolović Jones, Leah Tomkins and Suze Wilson. They have provided a sterling service, editing papers, offering much needed advice and support, and contributing their own work. I am also grateful to our invaluable editorial board, not least for their numerous reviews of submissions. This role is frequently unheralded, not least by the Universities that employ us, but without it journals would not be able to exist. Thanks are also due to all those authors who have submitted papers to us. Lastly, I must acknowledge the invaluable assistance received from Aina Blanch, publishing editor for the journal at Sage, and the numerous dedicated production staff who work for it in India, particularly Neha Gambhir and Jayapriya Balasubramani. All have been incredibly supportive and efficient. In launching this journal, David and Keith recognised that there was a need for a critical outlet on leadership – that is, one willing to publish papers that pose awkward questions and critique mainstream scholarship. Many years on, this need is still striking. For the most part, our field remains relentlessly positive in its theoretical framing, positivist in its preferred methodological approach and positive in its statistical findings. Bad leadership – evident in Enron, Lehman Brothers, RBS, Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Theranos – is sometimes depicted as not leadership at all. The most influential theoretical models in the field legitimise the concentration of too much power in too few hands. They also continue to produce laundry lists of desirable qualities that they insist leaders should possess. Effective leaders, it seems, must perform miracles thrice daily, walk on water before nightfall, and then turn it into wine (to be sold off in order to further enhance shareholder value), all the while remaining humble servants of the people. Impossiblism is rife. In my view, authentic leadership theory (ALT) is one such approach (see relevant chapter on ALT in Tourish, 2019). It is