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Traditional, hierarchical views of leadership have been under development and stress, increased complexities of the contemporary systems requires a process orientation. Leadership theory must transition to new perspectives that account for the complex adaptive needs of organizations. We advocate that leadership (as opposed to leaders) can be seen as a complex dynamic process that emerges through involved people and ideas. We introduce the concepts of complexity, situation and adaptive leadership. We show how these dynamics can be placed in practice through the introduction of the Rotterdam Central District case study; through which important insights about the nature of leadership and its outcomes in organizational fields are expressed.
 
The role leadership in Urban Management; management in the built environment involves acting in a goal-directed manner. It does not represent random activity but rather activity with a purpose and a direction. This means that the management of products and processes in and inter organisations in the domains of the built environment is focused on, among others, goal realization and effectiveness. What’s more, it is focused on problems not in a scientific way, but in practice. And: problems are not objective; they are “in the eye of the beholder”. Sometimes a manager wants to solve the problem, sometimes he can’t, and sometimes he applies strategies to master the problem. Therefore, the manager’s orientation is not only to analyze the problem, but also to design solutions and implement the measures to reach his (new) goals. Goal-oriented and instrumental are key words in the domain of management in the built environment.
 
Understanding Public Leadership styles in realizing Iconic urban Projects. Successful realization of an iconic project involves the manipulation, often over decades, of a complex web of numerous interrelated physical and social variables. this research set out to study the leadership styles that public development authorities adopt in the process from initiation to realization of iconic urban projects. Based on an indepth case study of three iconic projects (Rotterdam Central District; Bilbao Abandoibarra; and Paris rive Gauche), the presenter will share theories concerning leadership styles of urban planners and public leaders.
 
What the public and private roles should be is one of the main issues in contem-porary urban development. This paper builds upon findings from international-oriented Master and PhD studies at the TU Delft. It advocates for adaptive public leadership on a strategic level, and calls for committed private leadership on a tactical level. We argue that – when applied with conscious – both public and pri-vate leadership hold great potential to sustainable collaboration in Dutch urban development. 
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Today, I am pleased to announce that I have graduated from the Delft University of Technology. My Masters thesis was on strategic planning, focusing on the role of (semi)public development authorities in realising strategic projects. I investigated the way public authorities can translate a vision into outcomes through adaptive leadership. I enclose the abstract of my study to this email.

What inspired, motivates and sometimes frightens me is the enormous challenge of my generation in urbanizing over 1.3 billion people in the next 40 years. I strongly believe in the power of strategic planning as an economic engine, and as a means to empower society. The global financial crisis has amplified the need for collaboration; aligning public interests and involving market and civic stakeholders at an early stage. Specialised knowledge (and academia) has a lot to offer in the complex practice of urban development, particularly in matching local conditions such as politics, economics, culture, legal frameworks and environment.