Reimagining ethical leadership as relational, contextual, and political

Although existing theories have made considerable achievements in highlighting the crucial connection between ethics and leadership, this paper proposes three key limitations of the field: an overwhelming focus on the individual at the expense of the relational; a cursory understanding of how context informs the exercise and enactment of leadership; and the depoliticisation of leadership. • In a context seemingly besieged by crises, leadership theories in recent years have intensified their focus on ethics (Ciulla & Forsyth, 2011). This trend is further driven by the pervasive reporting of corporate malfeasance and corruption in the last decade, leading to the collapse of companies such as Enron in the United States, HIH Insurance in Australia, as well as the more recent case of the Libor scandal in the United Kingdom. At the core of media reporting on the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) was the idea that the credit crisis was brought about by unethical bankers and inadequate leadership (Ho, 2009; Hosking, 2012; O’Reilly, Lain, Sheehan, Smale, & Stuart, 2011; Willmott, 2011). However, much of what has been theorised about leadership is limited by modernist assumptions that organisations are unitary entities, characterised by order and predictability, and clearly demarcated and differentiated from their environment (Dale & Burrell, 2000). Leadership research then, as follows, was preoccupied with identifying the universal traits and behaviours that allowed leaders to effectively control organisational functions, and mobilise followers towards the organisation’s purpose (Townley, 2002). For seven decades, this preoccupation drove the proliferation of leadership theories from charismatic to visionary, transactional to transformational, spiritual to authentic; sustained by the unprecedented growth of business schools and consultancy firms which benefited from the commoditisation of ‘leadership’ (Townley, 2002). Most of these leadership constructs display the epistemic foundations of modernity, namely, the belief in decontextualised rationality, linear cause and effect relationships, objective decision-making, quest for certainty, and hierarchical authority structures (Townley, 2002). Ethical leadership theories are no exception

The media play a role in deciding who is an authentic leader

What is the electoral appeal in political candidates as different as Corbyn, Trump and Macron? Political commentary indicates that it is because they are “real”, true to themselves, and in that way, unlike the “typical” politician

Leadership for a divided world

We need to rid our power systems of domination and enable a radical engagement with diversity, writes Helena Li

Leadership through crisis: The social construction of authenticity among banking CEOs

Despite a growing body of research around authentic leadership, our understanding of this concept has been limited by the assumption underpinning much of this work that there exists a ‘true self’ that is real and given. To counter this limitation, this study adopts a social constructionist perspective. Such an approach reveals how leadership authenticity is negotiated among social agents. Moreover, it challenges the taken-for-granted assumptions of existing theories that see ‘authentic’ traits and behaviours as being in some way ‘fixed’, rather than their being informed by context. The diverse ways in which the authenticity of Australian banking CEOs was portrayed by the print media during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) present an ideal site in which to explore the role of context in the social construction of authentic leadership. The application of Grint’s (2005a) framework of leadership and problem-solving is applied to the research case in order to examine the role of context in authentic leadership. According to Grint, leaders can construct ‘problems’ as Tame, Wicked, or Critical in order to respectively suit a ‘management’, ‘leadership’, or ‘command’ response. This study extends Grint’s framework by illustrating how the same ‘problem’ can be concurrently depicted by the media in different ways for different leaders. Additionally, the study identifies how leader responses to ‘problems’ are also framed in terms of consistency, coherence, and conformity. Specifically, leaders’ responses to the GFC needed to appear consistent over time and resonate with their constructed core values; be framed in line with an ongoing coherent persona; as well as embody Australian values and gender stereotypes. The neglect of any one of these aspects saw the CEO’s authenticity called into question, even when they appeared to match their response to the construction of the GFC. The study makes an original contribution to our understanding of authenticity by identifying the hitherto misunderstood role of conformity. Whereas the existing literature has been restricted to an individual level of analysis, assuming authenticity to be straightforwardly conveyed from leader to follower, this study shows that the media’s use of verbal and visual structures in order to select, frame, and organise what a leader says and does cannot be ignored. By examining how the composition of newspaper layouts, graphic elements, and CEO portraits enhance or even subtly challenge the written text, this study demonstrates that representations of authentic leadership are necessarily constituted via interactions between multiple modes of discourse. The thesis shows that authenticity cannot be understood in isolation from context, because understandings of what it means to be an ‘authentic leader’ are invariably shaped by the economic environment, wider societal values, and the history of the Australian retail banks and the banking sector. For this reason, conformity to cultural and gender-based norms is a particularly important component of authenticity in this case. In the context of Australian banks and the media, this study has identified highly parochial and patriarchal notions of what it means to be ‘authentic’

Collider phenomenology of a unified leptoquark model

We demonstrate that in a recently proposed unified leptoquark model based on the gauge group $SU(4)_C\times SU(2)_L \times U(1)_R$ one can explain $R_{K^{(*)}}$ without the need of extra heavy fermions. Low energy data, in particular lepton flavour violating $\mu$ decays and $K_L\to e \mu$, severely constrain the available parameter space. We show that in the allowed part of the parameter space (i) some of the lepton-flavour-violating tau decay branching ratios are predicted to be close to their current experimental limits. (ii) The underlying scalar leptoquarks can be probed at the LHC via their dominant decay modes into tau-leptons and electrons and the third generation quarks. (iii) The constraints from meson oscillations imply that the masses of scalar gluons, another pair of coloured multiplets around, have to be bigger than around 15 TeV and, thus, they can be probed only at a future 100 TeV collider. In both neutral and charged variants, these scalars decay predominantly into third generation quarks, with up to $O$(10%) branching ratios into family-mixed final states. Moreover, we comment on the phenomenology of the scalar gluons in the current scenarios in case that the $B$-decay anomalies eventually disappear.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Response to Midgley : the costs of reproduction cannot differ between the sexes

Non peer reviewe

Neddylation dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease

Ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis is a major mechanism that downregulates misfolded proteins or those that have finished a programmed task. In the last two decades, neddylation has emerged as a major regulatory pathway for ubiquitination. Central to the neddylation pathway is the amyloid precursor protein (APP)-binding protein APP-BP1, which together with Uba3, plays an analogous role to the ubiquitin-activating enzyme E1 in nedd8 activation. Activated nedd8 covalently modifies and activates a major class of ubiquitin ligases called Cullin-RING ligases (CRLs). New evidence suggests that neddylation also modifies Type-1 transmembrane receptors such as APP. Here we review the functions of neddylation and summarize evidence suggesting that dysfunction of neddylation is involved in Alzheimer's disease.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH/NIA RO1 AG034980

Plant sex affects plant-microbiome assemblies of dioecious Populus cathayana trees under different soil nitrogen conditions

Background: Dioecious plants have coevolved with diverse plant microbiomes, which are crucial for the fitness and productivity of their host. Sexual dimorphism in morphology, physiology, or gene expression may relate to different microbial compositions that affect male and female fitness in different environments. However, sex-specific impacts on ecological processes that control the microbiome assembly are not well known. In this study, Populus cathayana males and females were planted in different nitrogen conditions. It was hypothesized that males and females differently affect bacterial and fungal communities in the rhizosphere soil, roots, old leaves, and young leaves. Physiological traits and transcriptome profiles of male and female plants were investigated to reveal potential mechanisms that control the microbiome assembly. Results: Our results showed strong niche differentiation that shapes microbial communities leading to a rapid loss of diversity along a decreasing pH gradient from the rhizosphere soil to leaves. Sex had different impacts on the microbial assembly in each niche. Especially fungal endophytes showed great differences in the community structure, keystone species, and community complexity between P. cathayana males and females. For example, the fungal co-occurrence network was more complex and the alpha diversity was significantly higher in young female leaves compared to young male leaves. Transcriptome profiles revealed substantial differences in plant-pathogen interactions and physiological traits that clearly demonstrated divergent internal environments for endophytes inhabiting males and females. Starch and pH of young leaves significantly affected the abundance of Proteobacteria, while tannin and pH of roots showed significant effects on the abundance of Chloroflexi, Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria, and on the bacterial Shannon diversity. Conclusion: Our results provided important knowledge for understanding sexual dimorphism that affects microbial assemblies, thus advancing our understanding of plant-microbiome interactions.Peer reviewe

Ammonium and nitrate affect sexually different responses to salt stress in Populus cathayana

Nitrogen (N) fertilization is a promising approach to improve salt tolerance. However, it is poorly known how plant sex and inorganic N alter salt stress-induced Na+ uptake, distribution and tolerance. This study employed Populus cathayana Rehder females and males to examine sex-related mechanisms of salt tolerance under nitrate (NO3-) and ammonium (NH4+) nutrition. Males had a higher root Na+ efflux, lower root-to-shoot translocation of Na+, and higher K+/Na+, which enhanced salt tolerance under both N forms compared to females. On the other hand, decreased root Na+ efflux and K+ retention, and an increased ratio of Na+ in leaves relative to shoots in females caused greater salt sensitivity. Females receiving NH4+ rather than NO3- had greater net root Na+ uptake, K+ efflux, and translocation to the shoots, especially in leaves. In contrast, males receiving NO3- rather than NH4+ had increased Na+ translocation to the shoots, especially in the bark, which may narrow the difference in leaf damage by salt stress between N forms despite a higher shoot Na+ accumulation and lower root Na+ efflux. Genes related to cell wall synthesis, K+ and Na+ transporters, and denaturized protein scavenging in the barks showed differential expression between females and males in response to salt stress under both N forms. These results suggested that the regulation of N forms in salt stress tolerance was sex-dependent, which was related to the maintenance of the K+/Na+ ratio in tissues, the ability of Na+- translocation to the shoots, and the transcriptional regulation of bark cell wall and proteolysis profiles.Peer reviewe

Are males and females of Populus cathayana differentially sensitive to Cd stress?

This study clarifies the mechanisms of Cd uptake, translocation and detoxification in Populus cathayana Rehder females and males, and reveals a novel strategy for dioecious plants to cope with Cd contamination. Females exhibited a high degree of Cd uptake and root-to-shoot translocation, while males showed extensive Cd accumulation in roots, elevated antioxidative capacity, and effective cellular and bark Cd sequestration. Our study also found that Cd is largely located in epidermal and cortical tissues of male roots and leaves, while in females, more Cd was present in vascular tissues of roots and leaves, as well as in leaf mesophyll. In addition, the distributions of sulphur (S) and phosphorus (P) were very similar as that of Cd in males, but the associations were weak in females. Scanning electron microscopy and energy spectroscopy analyses suggested that the amounts of tissue Cd were positively correlated with P and S amounts in males, but not in females (a weak correlation between S and Cd). Transcriptional data suggested that Cd stress promoted the upregulation of genes related to Cd uptake and translocation in females, and that of genes related to cell wall biosynthesis, metal tolerance and secondary metabolism in males. Our results indicated that coordinated physiological, microstructural and transcriptional responses to Cd stress endowed superior Cd tolerance in males compared with females, and provided new insights into mechanisms underlying sexually differential responses to Cd stress.Peer reviewe