A multifaceted ecological and socio-cultural crisis confronts us, and the irresponsible and unsustainable operations and actions encouraging this predicament are bound up with contemporary societal, economic, organisational, and managerial practices. The recent and on-going global economic crisis with its failures of responsibility and pervasive (or existential) threat posed to natural ecologies are among many more manifestations of a profound disintegration, unwise forms of practices, and non-integral ways of living. The current crisis, scandals, and tensions between corporations and civil society, and numerous examples of unethical practices that are partly validated by common practice have helped to intensify demands to scrutinise corporate behaviour and practices. The increasingly instrumentalised contexts and impositions of neoliberal regimes with their systemic constraint call for a rethinking of phrónêtic capacities and dispositions for wise practices in prâxis and corresponding sustainable actions. This book explores how practical wisdom can be conceptualised and applied to practices that respond to the life-worldly realities of organisations. At the same time, it relates to prâxis, understood as situated conduct in an ethico-political configuration. It is this nexus that is mediating between individual and social actions (micro), organisations (meso), and economy/society (macro). This book invites dialogue for thought-provoking reflection on how wisdom can help organisations and leaders deal with our age’s most pressing challenges. It opens a path to considering how such an understanding can help us to more effectively and more critically understand and appropriately respond to complex, multifaceted, emerging phenomena. It will be of value to researchers, academics, and students interested in leadership, organisational studies, wisdom, and business ethics.

In this book, experts discuss whether volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) represent a challenge or a business opportunity. More intense debates on global climate change, increased turbulence in financial quarters, increased job insecurity and high levels of stress at the workplace are attracting attention in the context of organization behavior and entrepreneurship. Fear and confusion have become part and parcel of business, often undermining trust, cooperation and inspiration. As a response, a new way of organizing self-management has emerged. The book combines practical wisdom from East and West, to develop integrative self-management theory and practice; provides direction to support an integrative mind-set, integrative organization and integrative leadership; and presents VUCA as an opportunity and necessity for development and growth, rather than a threat.

The current financial and on-going ecological crises have taught us that without practical wisdom, business, organisations and leadership cannot be sustainable. In response to this situation, the Handbook of Practical Wisdom presents a critically informed understanding of wise practices, contributing to more integrative organizational and leadership studies and practice. The focus on integration emphasises the interdependencies of practical wisdom in relation to members, groups and cultures of organisations in their socio-cultural spheres. Wisdom has long slipped from the scholarly map, and so this handbook provides revived and new mappings for today and the future. Seeking to actualize creative potentials of practical wisdom, this book and series aspires to contribute to the contemporary odysseys and quests for orientation in organisation and management research and practice. Wisdom research, as presented in this book, provides bridges to underestimated, neglected or forgotten knowledge and offers transformative passages between Scylla - the rocks of dogmatic modernity - and Charybdis - the whirlpool of dispersed post-modernity. Practical wisdom allows for a better equipped and more experiential and reflexive journey and fosters the art of mindful travelling, beyond a reactive, moralizing sentimentalism. Accordingly, this handbook serves as a medium for reassessing and rearticulating more responsible ways of ‘praxis’ in the field of organization and management. In this spirit, each chapter opens a space for dialogue and debate, inviting further inquiries, conversations and explorations by and among its readers: students, academics and practitioners.

We don't need leaders who know about leadership - we need leaders who embody the capacity to lead in the midst of ambiguity and complexity. The concept of embodied leadership is derived from somatic coaching, a unique approach that brings the body forward as an advocate in creating a place for change and transformation. It brings together language, action, feeling and meaning and is based on the idea that the mind and body are inextricably linked: to develop one, you must cultivate the other. Embodied Leadership deconstructs our thinking about the body using key discoveries in neuroscience to demonstrate the uses and benefits of a somatic approach, particularity in the area of emotional intelligence.There are practical exercises throughout to develop embodied leadership skills and personal development.

This book by leadership and sustainability experts Giles Hutchins and Laura Storm provides an exciting and comprehensive framework for building regenerative life-affirming businesses. It offers a multitude of business cases, fascinating examples from nature's living systems, insights from the front-line pioneers and tools and techniques for leaders to succeed and thrive in the 21st century. Regenerative Leadership draws inspiration from pioneering thinking within biomimicry, circular economy, adult developmental psychology, anthropology, biophilia, sociology, complexity theory and next-stage leadership development. It connects the dots between these fields through a powerful framework that enables leadership to become regenerative: in harmony with life, building thriving, prosperous organizations amid transformational times. The book is a combination of theoretical frameworks, case studies, tools & practices: Everything the leader needs to be successful in the 21st century. Regenerative Leadership - what's it all about? While the future is uncertain, we clearly see an upward trend towards sustainable conscious business. And this is more than just a trend - we're witnessing a new kind of organization emerging. An organization which is able to rapidly sense and respond to the ever-changing business climate by innovating how and why it creates and delivers value, and the way it engages internally and externally with its ecosystem of employees, customers, suppliers, resources, investors, society and environment. This new kind of organization is the organization-as-living-system that is designed on the Logic of Life: life-affirming businesses that thrive from the inside out, by cultivating conditions conducive for life, internally and externally. These organizations nurture flourishing cultures while focusing on products and services that enhance society and the environment. Regenerative organizations will be tomorrow's success stories.

Unlocking the Source for True Leadership Too many people, men and women alike, have bought into a notion of leadership that exclusively emphasizes traditionally “masculine” qualities: hierarchical, militaristic, win-at-all-costs. The result has been corruption, environmental degradation, social breakdown, stress, depression, and a host of other serious problems. Nilima Bhat and Raj Sisodia show us a more balanced way, an archetype of leadership that is generative, cooperative, creative, inclusive, and empathetic. While these are traditionally regarded as “feminine” qualities, we all have them. In the Indian yogic tradition they're symbolized by Shakti, the source that powers all life. Through exercises and inspirational examples, Bhat and Sisodia show how to access this infinite energy and lead with your whole self. Male or female, leaders who understand and practice Shakti Leadership act from a consciousness of life-giving caring, creativity, and sustainability to achieve self-mastery internally and be of selfless service to the world.

The Handbook of Philosophy of Management addresses the philosophical foundations of management in theory and practice. It covers established branches of philosophy, such as aesthetics, epistemology, moral philosophy, political and social philosophy, philosophy of education, philosophy of practice, and philosophy of science. The Handbook’s broad scope maps out the field and provides a forum where philosophy can be meaningfully applied to the study of management in all its forms. The original, peer-reviewed research published here sheds new light on the complexities of management theory and practice, beyond what hitherto has been possible with the sole application of the social sciences. As philosophy provides a meta-framework for moving beyond paradigm fragmentation within management research and education, this allows researchers and practitioners to find harmony (and discord) in the perspectives revealed by a philosophical lens.