The Sasin Research Seminar Series continues with a fascinating talk about Global Leadership Perspectives by Dr. Éric-Jean Garcia, Affiliate Professor of Leadership at Sciences Po, Paris (France). The research draws on work conducted by Dr. Garcia and Dr. Simon Western that also appeared in a book by the same name. The lecture began with Dr. Garcia introducing himself and Dr. Western and their backgrounds in academia and leadership. The research focuses on the concept that leadership is culturally bound and examines two significant gaps in the dominant literature. The first of these is the divide between theory and practice – the rhetoric of performative leadership versus “what is really going on” in organizations. The second gap is the marginal body of critical theory that challenges the empirical and reductionist research findings focusing on individualism, behaviourism and “organisationalism”, reflecting Westernized pervasive ideas about what constitutes a good leader. The research aims to provide a more in-depth understanding of leadership and to liberate it from how it is typically portrayed in the dominant academic and popular literature. It also seeks to discover local and regional variations of leadership thinking and practice. Dr. Garcia then explained the research methodology and the literature used. He looked at some of the more important factors that can shape leadership in different regions, including a country’s history, life expectancy, education, and standard of living. Other factors can be the importance of how language can reflect and influence “reality” and how leadership can be defined from a critical theory standpoint. The aim of the methodology is to deliver heuristic learning rather than empirical knowledge. Three methods were used – unravelling leadership, discourse analysis, and “in search of lack”. Unravelling leadership involved gathering insights from 40 authors and academics from 20 countries or regions. The authors selected a prominent aspect related to leaders and leadership in their area and discussed a variety of perspectives. Next was discourse analysis of the 20 chapters, using Simon Western’s work on the four non-exclusive and dominant leadership meta-discourses that emerged in the West over the past century. These meta-discourses of leadership still co-exist and were labelled: Controller, Therapist, Messiah, and Eco-Leader. These types of leadership were then examined in more detail. Controller leadership aims to increase productivity by maximizing efficiency and control based on science and rationality. Therapist leadership is the idea that performance factors aren’t rational, and that worker efficiency doesn’t just rely on salary levels but also on the informal structure of the organization. Messiah leadership involves a charismatic leader who creates a strong and dynamic culture. Finally, Eco-leadership is made of connectivity, interdependence, CSR, and ethics and enables distributed leadership. Dr. Garcia then explained the idea behind “In search of lack”. This is the concept that a frontal view of an object or text can result in a distorted and limited perspective. To see what is happening, it’s necessary to look awry at a subject and take a shifted view. The idea is that there is always a remainder, gap, or “lack” that doesn’t fit into the symbolic realm. The talk then moved on to the preliminary findings, presenting the data resulting from the discourse analysis in a series of pie charts and graphs. The findings for “In search of lack” found a variety of themes favored by different regions. Dr. Garcia explained some of these in more detail, including Melancholic leadership in the USA, Transmission leadership in Russia, Trickster leadership in France, and Collaborative-controlling leadership in ASEAN. This was followed by a look at related aspects such as the influence of the economy, social laws, digital technology, and environmental issues. The lecture was then followed by a Q&A session that discussed a range of issues, including how the topic has been investigated and approached by other academics; how difficult it can be to identify leadership trends worldwide; the complexity and problems relating to leadership research; the trends of cosmopolitanism and uniformity; the effect of Covid on leadership and the acceleration toward working from home.