Doing Leadership Differently

Book excerpt: The Australian workforce is amazingly diverse, with men and women bringing a huge range of cultural backgrounds, skills and life experiences to their jobs. But this diversity, with all its potential for cleverness and creativity, is not reflected in the ranks our of senior business and corporate leaders. Amanda Sinclair argues that Australian organisations are clinging to an outdated concept of leadership. We expect our leaders to be a certain type of person-a tough, heterosexual male. Drawing on interviews with senior executives, male and female, she shows convincingly why our faith in this traditional style of leadership is so strong-and misplaced. Doing Leadership Differently is essential reading for both established and aspiring executives and managers. It offers a challenging and original analysis of: why the traditional style of leadership has failed us how men as well as women can benefit from understanding how gender shapes leadership style how to put power and sexuality at the heart of effective leadership ways of widening the pool of Australian leadership talent.