Leadership Theory and Behavior: America Takes a Selfie

This paper explores the changing nature of the United States, and to some extent the world at large, and identifies major issues likely to influence and impact leadership theory and behavior in the next 50 years. The paper investigates issues related to world security, population shifts, values and morality changes, technology impact, and other social and political issues. The article emphasizes the role of the millennial generation in securing and carrying out the current or new principles defining leadership theory and behavior. The paper is an idea-generating process and connects its content to the field of problem-based learning. No solutions are given, but the article is left open for personal interpretation and thinking about leadership theory and behavior for the future

'Doing femininity' at work : more than just relational practice

Workplaces constitute one of the more interesting sites where individuals ‘do gender’, while at the same time constructing their professional identities and meeting their organisation's expectations. Drawing on interactional data recorded in New Zealand professional organisations, this paper focuses in particular on how participants manage and interpret the notion of ‘femininity’ in workplace discourse. In much current usage, the concepts ‘feminine’ and ‘femininity’ typically evoke negative reactions. Our analysis suggests these notions can be reclaimed and reinterpreted positively using an approach which frames doing femininity at work as normal, unmarked, and effective workplace behaviour in many contexts. The analysis also demonstrates that multiple femininities extend beyond normative expectations, such as enacting relational practice (Fletcher 1999), to embrace more contestive and parodic instantiations of femininity in workplace talk