A deeply insightful approach to cultivating leaders of character centered on the arts and humanities
What does it mean to lead? Whom do we consider to be leaders? And how might viewing leadership through the many lenses of the humanities expand our understanding of how it is imagined, represented, and enacted?
Drawing on insights from eminent scholars in the classics, philosophy, religion, literature, history, art, music, and theater, The Arts of Leading reveals the power of the arts and humanities to unsettle common assumptions about leadership. Rather than instrumentalizing the arts and humanities or reducing them to mere management resources, this series of thoughtful and refreshing essays engages a litany of diverse and nuanced perspectives to uncover alternative ways of imagining and embodying leadership across different historical, moral, political, and cultural contexts.
By exploring how a wide range of disciplines can illuminate and humanize complex aspects of leadership that are often obscured in a discourse hooked on reductive paradigms and quick fixes, The Arts of Leading invites leaders, scholars, and citizens to expand their practice of leadership in our ever-evolving world.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Leading Stories and Stories of Leaders
Elleke Boehmer
Introduction
Humanizing Leadership: Reimagining Leadership as a Liberal Art
Edward Brooks and Michael Lamb
PART I. CLASSICS
1. Conversant Leadership: Ciceronian Ideas for Our Precarious Age
Joy Connolly
2. Tragedies of Leadership: Sophocles, Aristotle, and Shakespeare on Tyranny
Edith Hall
PART II. PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
3. Leadership Lessons from Plato's Republic
Noah Lopez
4. Mosaic Leadership
Alan Mittleman
5. Just Leadership in Early Islam: The Teachings and Practice of Imam Ali
Tahera Qutbuddin
6. Women's Work and the Question of Leadership
Marla Frederick
PART III. LITERATURE
7. Shakespeare, His Books, and Leadership
John Miles
8. Crooked Politics: Shakespeare's Richard III and Leadership in the Twenty-First-Century United States
Kristin M. S. Bezio
PART IV. HISTORY
9. Lincoln and Leadership in a Racist Democracy
Paul Escott
10. Leadership from the Ground: Enslaved People and the Civil War
Thavolia Glymph
PART V. VISUAL ARTS
11. Leadership in Bronze: Boston's Shaw Memorial and the Battle over Civil War Memory
David M. Lubin
12. Visual Leadership: The Power of Art in the Obama Presidency
Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw
PART VI. PERFORMING ARTS
13. "O Clap Your Hands!": Leadership Lessons from the Experience of Music
Pegram Harrison
14. Acting to Uncover: Theater and Inclusive Leadership
Melissa Jones Briggs
Conclusion
Demos and Deep Democracy: Leadership, the Humanities, and a New Human
Corey D. B. Walker
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Index
Reviews
"As a performing artist who had an unintentional pathway to academic leadership, I would have relished this compendium of essays forty years ago! At a time when there is so much emphasis on business innovation and inventive problem-solving, this book reminds us that it is through active engagement with the arts and humanities that one acquires the habits of mind and character necessary to be a truly authentic leader."—Ronald A. Crutcher, president emeritus and professor, University of Richmond
"This eloquent and profound collection examines leadership through the looking glass of the humanities. The book shows us leaders as reflections of our passions and products of our imagination. The history articles tell us there isn't much new about leaders and followers. At the same time, the arts chapters chronicle their fraught relationships along with their tragic and sublime imperfections and perfections. I heartily recommend this book to scholars and anyone dismayed by today's leaders. The humanities help us make sense of our world and remind us that, like almost everything, bad leaders don't last forever."—Joanne B. Ciulla, professor and director, Institute for Ethical Leadership
"This book skillfully emphasizes the crucial role of humanities in shaping exceptional leaders, seamlessly merging age-old wisdom with modern perspectives of human nature, culture, and ethics."—Santiago Íñiguez, president, IE University
"A fascinating collection of essays premised on the idea that the arts and humanities show and support ethical leadership in its many forms, cultures, and contexts. In a time of rising polarization and tech-fueled disruption, when the public is yearning for trustworthy leaders, The Arts of Leading is essential reading."—Daniel R. Porterfield, president and CEO, Aspen Institute
About the Author
Edward Brooks is executive director of the Oxford Character Project and director of the Programme for Global Leadership in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. He is also cofounder of Oxford's SDG Impact Lab and coeditor of Cultivating Virtue in the University (2022) and Literature and Character Education in Universities (2022).
Michael Lamb is the F. M. Kirby Foundation Chair of Leadership and Character, executive director of the Program for Leadership and Character, and associate professor of interdisciplinary humanities at Wake Forest University. He is also an associate fellow of the Oxford Character Project and author of A Commonwealth of Hope (2022) and coeditor of Cultivating Virtue in the University (2022) and Everyday Ethics (Georgetown University Press, 2019).
Elleke Boehmer is Professor of World Literature in English at the University of Oxford. She is a founding figure in the field of colonial and postcolonial literary studies, and internationally known for her research in the anglophone literatures of empire and anti-empire.
