Publishing the article and participating in the webinar reflects the culmination of 50 years of exploring, researching, and theorizing about leadership and how to cultivate it in others. This journey has been a labor of passion and love allowing me to arrive at this moment in peace - I did all I could, I kept the faith that the work was worthwhile, and I shared with numerous wonderful colleagues along the way.
One of the things I've advocated most consistently is sharing the work of leadership cultivation across programs, disciplines, sectors, cultures, and every type of possible different perspective. Regardless of whether it brings fear or enthusiasm, the AI era is upon us and it will require different capabilities than we previously had, or sought to nurture through education of all sorts. The blog post on my other blog, Future proofing graduates, addresses how the current graduates of higher education can best prepare for a promising future. The Gemini 3 AI generated response to the question of future-proofing asserted that graduates will need to develop increasing metacognition agility, ethical discernment, empathic leadership, and fuller systems thinking and application. Complementing these ideas and driving them more deeply into the self-awareness required to thrive in the future, Otto Scharmer proposed that we are at a "new axial" in human experience. This new axial is at least as monumental as when humans moved from hunter-gatherers to communities of shared purpose and destiny.
I believe that the most powerful driver of dysfunction and discord today derives from one central issue - fear. Fear of change, fear of others, fear of not getting our fair share, fear of missing out, fearing the loss of meaning. Boiling down all that I've said or written to the central challenges of leadership, I believe that the primary purposes of our work are 1) deeper understanding of self, 2) honoring the interdependence of humanity, 3) optimism that there is enough, and 4) facing the future with hope.
