ABSTRACT
In this chapter, to better understand generative leadership, input is sought from all available forms of territorially-oriented leadership studies including place, regional, city, rural, and also cluster leadership. These different types of studies are not defined clearly in the literature, and they overlap in many ways and the concepts are often used interchangeably. Thus, it would be an exaggeration to say that they form clear schools of thought. Rather, they are found in individual publications referring to both different and similar patterns of leadership – here they are placed under the generic rubric of place leadership. The rationale of stretching our search beyond city leadership to cover somewhat different spatial contexts is that this allows us to identify the key dimensions of generative leadership in urban and regional development for further scrutiny. What the many studies on place leadership vividly illustrate is how a new order of leadership emerges with new modes of governance and networks. They challenge some of the basic assumptions of organisationally oriented leadership literature and confirm others. They also show that, in spite of visible differences in the context, there are several similarities between, say, cities, rural areas and clusters, and even countries, as they all are complex social entities, and as leadership is fundamentally about human interaction. In these respects, the differences between countries and different spatial scales may not be as great as we like to think, even though they clearly exist, as was shown in Chapter 3. But of course, nuanced comparative analyses are likely to reveal that underneath the generic similarities, there are grassroots differences in the ways place leaders mobilise themselves and other actors. Earlier studies have shown that leadership in places is indeed identifiable, and that the practices may vary substantially in and across places while meeting similar generic needs. They also show “a place” is a unique constellation in which to study leadership (e.g. Horlings, 2012a and 2012b; Collinge and Gibney, 2010a; Bailey et al., 2010; Blazek, 2013).
