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Leadership
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Performing Leadership: Towards a New Research Agenda in Leadership Studies?

Edward Peck

University of Birmingham, UK, e.w.peck{at}bham.ac.uk

Tim Freeman

University of Birmingham, UK, t.freeman{at}bham.ac.uk

Perri Six

Nottingham Trent University, UK, Perri.6{at}ntu.ac.uk

Helen Dickinson

University of Birmingham, UK, h.e.dickinson{at}bham.ac.uk

The notion that leadership involves performance is not new, but there has been little detailed exploration of the implications of theories of performance for contemporary leadership practice. This article differentiates between leadership `is' performance and leadership `as 'performance as one means of investigating contemporary leadership. We suggest that this distinction allows for more sustainable accounts of the relationships between leaders, followers and the institutional settings within which they are generated and, consequently, the spaces in which there is potential for change to occur. The article argues that such insights may be made by combining ideas derived from writers on performance studies and performativity with new-institutionalist theory, the latter emphasising the crucial role of context in shaping the behaviour of leaders, so that their agency is always situated in specific settings.

Key Words: agency • identity • leadership • new institutionalism • performance • performativity

Leadership, Vol. 5, No. 1, 25-40 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1742715008098308
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