Book excerpt: Subversion, Power and Hierarchy in Organisations and Society: Carnivalesque Leadership explores a leadership strategy that dates back centuries but has become so normalised that it can be invisible as a strategy. Extrapolating Mikhail Bakhtin’s ideas on carnival and its potential for communal freedom and subversive challenge to existing hierarchies, this book identifies components of the carnivalesque, considers why and how they have impact and then maps the application of Carnivalesque Leadership to a series of case studies. Exploratory in nature, these diverse case studies focus on the historic evolution of carnivals in Trinidad and Notting Hill, the safety-valve mechanisms ubiquitous in the education sector, the standardisation of control and release within the corporate sector and the dynamic tension between protest, challenge and fun in Pride events. Readers will benefit from an increased awareness of a strategised Carnivalesque Leadership model and a greater understanding of the potential not only for the safety-valve release of pressure in society and in organisations but also for longer-term change through exposure to alternatives to the official norm.