Original Thinking Lecture with Simon Hayward

Our Original Thinking Lecture series showcases some of the world-leading research from colleagues at Alliance Manchester Business School.

Simon Hayward, Professor of Leadership Practice, will give his inaugural lecture at this event.

The role of leadership in business and society: a call for a more concerted approach to responsible business

At this event Simon will trace the evolutionary history of leadership theory, research, and practice, from great man theories, trait definition and theories of authentic and charismatic leadership, to the notion of distributed leadership.

He will argue the case for a greater focus on responsible leadership in the context of the significant challenges presently afflicting the world, as viewed from the perspective of the purposeful organisation.

Simon will draw on his own experience and wider research to describe how leadership practice has evolved in changing economic, technological, and political contexts, and how leadership practice can contribute to system-wide reforms in capitalism to meet the challenges of the climate emergency and global inequalities.

He will describe the need for greater societal responsibility among leaders of business and public services and explore the need for a more coherent research agenda in responsible business and leadership.

In this lecture, Simon will outline the research programme he is working on with colleagues at AMBS and beyond to address this need and discuss how this relates to several disciplines of management research.

Simon Hayward

Simon is Professor of Leadership Practice at AMBS.

He has had two books published: Connected Leadership (FT Publishing) was short-listed for UK business book of the year in 2017 and translated into simple Chinese and Arabic, and The Agile Leader (Kogan Page) is in its second edition and has been translated into Korean, Russian, Vietnamese and Hungarian.

Simon built and sold two award-winning international consulting firms focused on leadership and management development at the organizational level. He is currently researching responsible leadership and agile team leadership. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Chartered Management Institute.

The event will be facilitated by Gerard Hodgkinson, Professor of Strategic Management and Behavioural Science at AMBS.