Leadership literature is really all over the map with some of it brilliant and some of it really less so.
A lot of it is internally focused (increase your discipline, increase your effectiveness ala Jocko Willink from Extreme Ownership). The onus of effective leadership lies largely within you, and relies on your willingness to move into difficult situations powerfully.
Some of it is externally focused (change your organizational focus and increase your effectiveness ala Jim Collins Good to Great. Here the onus of effective leadership lies on your strategic discernment, and requires patience, understanding and wisdom.
Both are very good, complementary ideas.
However sometime there are people who are thinking outside of my current box and their efforts make me pause and consider how I view leadership.
One of those writers is Edwin Friedman. He wrote a Failure of Nerve and his focus is on family systems theory which can be applied to organizations. Relational dynamics often trump rational decision making, and the more aware we are of these dynamics, the more we can utilize or mitigate them (as may be needed).
The other writer is Ronald Heifetz. His calling card is adaptive leadership. Adaptive leadership is a style of leadership that allows for the unknown to be discovered. When a leader knows what comes next and what needs to happen next, they practice technical leadership. When no one knows what happens next, they practice adaptive leadership. There are helpful pdf articles summarizing where adaptive leadership is helpful if you Google them.
For expats, both of these writers are fantastic tools because they are thinking outside of the norms of normal cause and effect. Expats need to work in environments where there are dynamics (cultural, familial, historical) that they can’t quite understand. Or the dance of culture, authority, opportunity and respect are more delicate then they anticipated. Cultural challenges create new opportunities and challenges that aren’t going to be easily googled.
In both these cases Freidman and Heifetz provide a new set of tools to incorporate into your leadership toolbox.