Reimagining leadership in social work: A call for a distinctive activist approach to social work leadership

Understanding activist leadership is vital for the future of social work. This article examines leadership styles and models prevalent in social work, exploring their alignment with one of the profession’s central obligations: achieving social justice through activism. Leadership in social work has historically been framed through managerial or hierarchical approaches with effects of neoliberalism often dictating approaches for the profession. More recently, there have been calls for activist leadership within social work literature, however, the profession remains influenced by existing leadership approaches that do not wholly encompass social work values. Using a critical lens, this article examines the applicability of transformational, adaptive, and relational leadership models which are popular within the social work literature, yet do not explicitly engender activism. Our findings suggest it is time for the profession to reimagine social work leadership ensuring it centres activism to achieve ethical and socially just outcomes. The article concludes by calling for a distinctive activist-inspired, social work approach to leadership, and suggests that this is vital for the identity of the profession.