Preface

This book brings together educational and sustainability leadership scholars and those studying similar leadership-adjacent topics to consider how we might better cultivate great leadership practices and good leaders in these two contexts.

The first section introduces the topic.

The second section focuses on sustainable leadership. In Chapter 2, Muhammad Arshad, Chen Kun Yu and Aneela Qadir use a PRISMA-informed systematic review to identify 80 studies relating to effective leadership and sustainable innovation. Three key themes emerge relating to innovativeness, innovation performance, and innovative behavior at work. The authors note that transformational leadership seemed to be the most prevalent in their sample, with less than half the sample using empirical research (31 of 80). In Chapter 3, MacDonald Isaac Kanyangale considers the contemporary pitfalls of sustainable leadership in the development of sustainable organizations (from a longevity perspective). Using a conceptual analysis, the author identifies a lack of sustainable human resource management and absent organizational support for sustainability as key pitfalls in creating organizational longevity. In a reflection on several experiential studies in Chapter 4, Boy Van Droffelaar discusses the key competencies of authentic leadership developed through wilderness leadership experiences. The author curates three key studies that inform current knowledge on authentic leadership development using the wilderness.

The third section focuses on leadership for the purpose of educational outcomes and attainment. In Chapter 5, Fred Awaah, Emmanuel Ekwam Okyere and Andrew Tetteh approach leadership broadly to support student leadership in the African context. In Chapter 6, Michèle Schmidt et al. consider how leadership theory might support international students (particularly from eastern contexts) who settle in Western universities during transnational study arrangements. The authors use a pra-colonial approach to consider how transformative leadership might create humanistic conditions for their students. In Chapter 7, Joseph Seyram Agbenyega and Emmanuel Semanu Asiam consider how the work of Bourdieu may enable the rethinking of school leaders' behaviors in the context of Ghana. In Chapter 8, Tshimangadzo Selina Mudau et al. speak to the importance of considering leadership as a driver for community engagement in the South African higher education context.

The final section focuses on how leadership is represented in the academic development context and considers developmental approaches to educational leadership. In Chapter 9, Chandra K. Massner et al. examine the role of relational leadership as a mechanism to support mentoring given the challenging context of gender differences. In Chapter 10, Tshimangadzo Selina Mudau et al. explore how Afrocentric approaches to leadership can be a catalyst for decolonizing knowledge in African higher education. In Chapter 11, Kaone Bakokonyane considers the role and influence that headship teacher professional development has in supporting effective educational outcomes

using two primary schools in Botswana as cases. Finally, in Chapter 12, Ahmed Alkaabi et al. describe the initiatives of the Abu Dhabi Education Council to develop principal supervisor capacity to lead and influence school principals.

The aspiration of this text is to create space to begin considering new ways of leadership from broad geographic and theoretical perspectives. In doing so, some early ideas around how leadership theory and leaders can influence sustainability (both environmental and social educational outcomes) were considered. Most chapters draw on specific contextual conditions that are challenging in a specific geographical location, and there are opportunities to reflect on the transferability of these works to broader social and physical locations.

I hope this book inspires interest in non-conventional approaches to leadership and novel applications of existing leadership theory.

> **Dr. Joseph Crawford** University of Tasmania, Launceston, Australia

Section 1 Introduction
