Leading in an Upside-Down World: New Canadian Perspectives on Leadership

Robert W. Sexty is a professor of commerce and business administration
at Memorial University of Newfoundland and the author of Canadian
Business: Issues and Stakeholders.

Students in any Leadership 101 course learn that the characteristics of
the leader, the followers, and the situation combine to determine an
effective leadership style that, in turn, results in organizational
effectiveness and satisfied participants. The editor of this book is
correct in stating that leadership has always been a challenge, is
complex, and is evolving. He misleads his readers, however, in
suggesting that the present circumstances of an “upside-down world”
are different today than at any time in history. Change has always been
present, it has been quick and unpredictable, and it is influenced by
technology and forces such as globalization.

Boyer is a journalist, lawyer, former parliamentarian, and adjunct
professor of political science at the University of Guelph. Leading in
an Upside-Down World comprises 17 chapters and a foreword by Paul
Martin. The 16 contributors include civil servants, politicians, and
academics. Leadership in business enterprises is barely mentioned, which
is strange as business operates in a very unstable environment.
Boyer’s introductory chapter is a modest discussion of leadership
that, in addition to pointing out the importance of the context of
leadership, makes distinctions between leaders versus followers,
leadership versus authority, and leading versus managing. Little of this
discussion is fresh or new as claimed. A closing chapter describes a
conference Boyer attended and presents some different paradigms of
leadership. The opening and closing chapters fail to adequately indicate
how the chapters in between contribute to an overall thesis on
leadership.