Developing Collaborative and Innovative Leadership: Practices for Fostering a New Mindset

Abstract

“We live at a hinge time in history, a threshold time when societies and cultures are being recomposed. We are learning that the way life used to work—or the way we thought it should— doesn’t work any longer” (Parks, 2009, p. xv). This article is about learning, culture change, practice and leadership. Many wise minds have articulated the leadership mindset we need for the future, and what remains stubbornly elusive is how we get there. We believe the difficult challenge of developing a new mindset--a new view of the world--to address the complexity and dynamic nature of the 21st century is of central importance to leadership education today. As Einstein famously conveyed, we cannot address the problems of today with the same mindset that created those problems. Our inquiry explores the following questions: “How do we develop the skills, capacities and consciousness necessary for bringing creativity, innovation and a new mindset to our most strategic and pressing organizational challenges? How do we practice our way into a new paradigm of leadership?” We invite you to join us in this inquiry into leadership