ABSTRACT
In addition to developing a more embodied understanding, this chapter challenges many of the assumptions and presumptions of leadership both in theory and practice around, for example, power and resistance, identity and self, and anxiety and insecurity through returning to the body and embodiment. It explores alternative approaches and in particular how the notion of affect can be helpful to understanding leadership as an embodied practice. In order to illustrate some of the arguments, the chapter focuses on the recent leadership battles within British politics surrounding the referendum regarding membership of the European Union (EU). Leadership is often studied quite superficially, exclusively in terms of variables that can be easily observed and measured. For example, leadership effectiveness is regularly associated with physical characteristics such as height, weight, and body type; routinely it is assumed that leaders are able bodied and ostensibly white, Western and male, and many studies have been criticized for a tendency to remain wholly descriptive.
