Laozi, Marx, the Buddha, Ibsen, Machiavelli - these are just a few of the world's great thinkers who have weighed in on the subject of leadership over the centuries. Yet the contemporary student of leadership often overlooks many of these names in favor of more recent theorists hailing from the social sciences. Understanding Leadership: An Arts and Humanities Perspective takes a different angle, employing the works of the great philosophers, authors, and artists found in world civilization and presenting an arts and humanities perspective on the study of leadership.

The authors build their conceptual framework using their Five Components of Leadership Model, which recognizes the leader, the followers, the goal, the context, and the cultural values and norms that make up the leadership process.

Supporting the text are a wealth of case studies that reflect on works such as Ayn Rand's novella Anthem, Eug