Many assume that leadership is about leading people towards the goal of their employer or their group. This is a partial and bounded form of leadership, unsuited to the complex challenges of our time. We need people to transcend the boundaries around their job, community or nation, and engage others in dialogue and action to address systemic problems. We can call this ‘Transcending Leadership’. It is a form of leadership that transcends a limited conception of self, as the individual leader identifies with ever-greater wholes. Ultimately, Transcending Leadership is a form of action that transcends the need for a single leader, by helping others to transcend their limited states of consciousness and concern and inspire them to also lead for the common good.

Perhaps the best modern example of transcending leadership is Mohandas Gandhi, who aroused and elevated the hopes and demands of millions of Indians and whose life and personality were enhanced in the process. He called on us to understand our connectedness to ‘all that lives’, and identify with ever greater wholes. The transcending leaders of today are not necessarily charismatic figures in positions of institutional authority, but are serving systemic transformations from all levels of organisation or none.

Initiatives in the field of ‘authentic leadership’, ‘transformational leadership’, and ‘servant leadership’ all relate to aspects of the personal qualities described above. The aim of the Transcending Leadership Study Circle is to integrate insights from these different fields with a focus on global social change, and to share the learning with all who are interested in this area.

Lifeworth is supporting the launch of the study circle but we need organisational sponsors, or individual donors of time or resources to help develop it. Please contact Jem Bendell to discuss. jem --at-- lifeworth.com