Introduction

For a century, leadership theories have focused on the influence of various leadership behaviors on followers. Rooted in humanism, humanistic leadership is a new leadership paradigm that differs from previous leadership theories in multiple ways: 1) it highlights the influence the leaders’ individual attributes as well as their behaviors; 2) it focuses on the holistic needs of the followers; and 3) it takes into consideration the interests of the multiple stakeholders when trying to fulfil the goals of the enterprises. As more and more companies realize the needs to change from the performance orientation to humane orientation, humanistic leadership is gaining increasingly more attention from the researchers as well as practitioners. The book intends to encourage more researchers and leaders to engage in research or practice of humanistic leadership by demonstrating that such leadership has been practiced across the world although the content and forms might be different from culture to culture.