The book offers a critical account of the nature of leadership and management in modern organizations. Specifically it examines the forces that affect the influence relationship between leaders and followers in public sector organizational settings.

Paul Evans is Lecture in Business Analysis at Manchester Business School, UK

John Hassard is Professor of Organizational Analysis at Manchester Business School, UK andis a Visiting Fellow in Management Learning at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University, UK. His main research interests lie in the areas of organization theory and change and he is co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Organizational Change (2011)

Paula Hyde is Senior Lecturer in Organization Studies at Manchester Business School, UK and is co-founder of the cross-faculty Healthcare Workforce Research Network at the Institute of Health Sciences, University of Manchester, UK. Her main research interests lie in the areas of psychodynamic theory and organizational change and she is the co-editor of Culture and Climate in Health Care Organizations (2010, Palgrave Macmillan)

1. Introduction Part I: Literature, Context, Methodology and Design 2. Leadership Studies 3. Organization in Context 4. Methodological Considerations Part II: Field Research: Data Illustrations and Interpretations 5. The Challenge to Leadership and the Dynamic of Ambiguity 6. The Limitations to Leadership and the Dynamic of the Environment 7. The Negotiation of Leadership and the Dynamic of Resource Acquisition 8. The Balance within Leadership and the Dynamic of Symbiosis 9. The Negotiation of Leadership and the Dynamic of Politics 10. The Agency of Followers and the Dynamic of Game Playing Part III: Discussion and Conclusions 11. Conclusions