Leadership, urban structure and place: evidence from Bristol and Dorset

Abstract

Local leadership has become of increasing interest in the context of a renewed focus on local government and local development. In parallel, new interpretations of thinking about leadership drawing on Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Foucault suggest that leadership needs to engage with a wider range of participants. In the modern context, one way of understanding this engagement has been termed ‘facilitative leadership’. Using this literature, we analyse leadership in two contrasting ‘places’ (urban and rural) and we discuss how prevailing conditions facilitate, or hinder, the emergence of ‘facilitative leadership’ in relation to urban structure, economic structure, institutional capacity, and identity. The wider implications for leadership and local development are then briefly discussed.