Oct. 26, 2007
The Values of Presidential Leadership,
edited by
Terry L. Price and J. Thomas Wren, was published this
week. In this inaugural book in a new series,
presidential scholars from the fields of communications,
history, law, philosophy, political science, and
psychology explore the broader phenomenon of leadership.
Like leadership more generally, presidential leadership
is a value-laden activity, an exercise in communication,
and a collective enterprise. It is also subject to
psychological and historical barriers to interpretation.
Finally, presidential leadership is instrumental:
presidents must achieve their valued ends. Contributors
address these aspects of leadership in essays on how
presidential values are determined or constructed, how
they are condoned and criticized, how they are packaged
and conveyed, and how they are interpreted and acted
upon. The Jepson Studies in Leadership
book series, published by Palgrave MacMillan, is
envisioned as being the home for the best scholarly work
on leadership in both the humanities and the social
sciences. No other published approach offers this
distinctive liberal arts perspective on leadership. The
Jepson School has faculty representatives from the
disciplines of literature, economics, history,
philosophy, political science, psychology, public
administration and religious studies.
“This book was truly a collective effort—of both the
Jepson School and the participants in the inaugural
Jepson Colloquium," said co-editor Price.
Each volume in the series will be dedicated to
important themes related to leadership. This
approach reflects the Jepson School’s broad-based,
liberal arts approach to the study of leadership.
The editors
invite contacts about submissions.
Jepson Studies in Leadership (JSL) charts a
new path in scholarship. The primary journals and books
in leadership studies focus almost exclusively on
organizational leadership. As a result, our
understanding of leadership often remains uninformed by
the humanities and the social sciences. This new series
is thus targeted for a wider scholarly audience.
