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Interdisciplinary leadership education programs attempt to integrate students from diverse backgrounds and ideologies within contexts that facilitate cognitive growth and allow students to engage with real world problems. Specifically, the development of agency and effective decision-making can provide students with a powerful toolkit replete with the necessary capacities and dispositions for addressing complex global problems. However, recently counter- reality has created significant challenges for leadership educators. Counter-reality, or the pervasive and persuasive replacement of objective truths with subjective opinions grounded in falsehoods, lead perceptions and provide barriers to developing leadership students primed for sustainably addressing complex organizational and community challenges. The following educational framework intends to address the challenge posed by counter-reality by developing agency in leadership students, so they are better equipped to ask incisive questions when presented with counter realities. Addressing counter-reality through the development of agency is incredibly timely as false claims and misinformation are presented on nearly a daily basis.

Complex and adaptive challenges threaten human well-being and sustainability. However, our leadership graduates often lack the capacity and or commitment to address these challenges in a meaningful way. This paper details a five-year study exploring the impact of an interdisciplinary undergraduate course on the development of global capacities, complex Adaptive Leadership, Socially Responsible Agency, and systems thinking. The course instructors used innovative and intentionally divergent learning methods to challenge students to serve as stewards of their own knowledge and facilitators of their own learning through the confrontation of authentic and complex challenges. The researchers note transferable qualitative findings that demonstrate the profound impact of the noted leadership learning experience on the development of Socially Responsible Agency, along with Adaptive Leadership capacity and systems thinking.

The inaugural National Leadership Education Research Agenda was created to establish a foundation for scholarship that will guide the field of Leadership Education and develop it as a discipline. Its timely research priorities present a framework for scholarship and resulting applied and basic implications. This paper provides perspective about the agenda’s conceptualization, development, and application. It establishes perspective for the applied nature of the agenda and transdiciplinary scholarship that can lead to powerful implications for the field of Leadership Education and the constituents it serves. Further, it explores the agenda’s priorities and how the resulting collaborative dialogue can advance the fields of Leadership and Leadership Education globally.

This commentary details the process aimed at developing the Inaugural National Leadership Education Research Agenda. The goal of the project is to create a guiding document to assist in further defining Leadership Education as a discipline and provide directional research priorities for that discipline. The commentary provides a foundational understanding and creates transparency for the process in an effort to solicit collaborative partnerships and dialogue that will ultimately provide more holistic research priorities and enhanced opportunities for scholarship within Leadership Education.

The overwhelming rise of leadership learning programs and experiences within higher education merits the exploration and identification of best practices, reduction of limiting educational methodologies, and strategies for promoting efficient and effective leadership education has never been greater. This study explores the barriers inherent to leadership learning environments from the learner, environmental, and instructor perspectives. Qualitative interviews of leadership faculty members allowed for naturalistic themes to emerge. The transferable findings suggest that best teaching practices, including positive student-instructor relationships, critical reflection, adaptive leadership application within real-world settings, will have profound implications on the ever-growing field of leadership education and the development of the leadership learner.

Now and into the foreseeable future, both effective leadership and creativity are going to be important when addressing complex problems. The connection between effective leadership and creativity will be critical as leaders look to turn big ideas into innovative solutions. However, it seems that there is often a disconnect between the two constructs of creativity and effective leadership. The article draws upon scholarly research within the field to address this gap and better understand the power of humility to mitigate this disconnect. The goal of this article is to encourage the field of Leadership Education to look inward into how we as a community are creating an environment where creative leaders can be developed.

Leadership educators are faced with the challenge of preparing students to serve organizations and people in dynamic and ever changing contexts. The purpose of this study was to examine undergraduate leadership students' self-perceived level of moral imagination to make recommendations for moral imagination curricula. Moral imagination is the foundation of moral decision-making, which is critical to develop for aspiring leaders. It also has the potential to develop resilience and hardiness in organizations and people, which is paramount for community sustainability. Students in leadership courses at two universities were surveyed to measure their level of moral imagination in terms of three constructs: reproductive, productive, and creative imagination. One hundred fifty-one leadership students completed the instrument. It was found that participants had moderate moral imagination abilities with their highest scoring abilities in productive imagination. Recommendations lie in educational opportunities, curricula structure, and teaching techniques.

Engaging students emotionally is the key to strengthening their dispositions toward critical thinking. Elder (1997) contends that it is critical thinking which leads us to a rational and reasonable emotional life. The link between thinking and emotions is essential in leadership education. With this in mind, the researchers sought to examine the relationship between the skill sets of emotional intelligence (Developing Your Emotional Intelligence) and the dispositions of critical thinking (EMI). The researchers identified positive relationships ranging in magnitude from low to substantial. The overall skills associated with emotional intelligence showed positive moderate relationships with cognitive maturity, engagement, and innovativeness. In considering EMI critical thinking disposition scores and emotional intelligence, the relationship was substantially positive. The conclusions and recommendations encourage educators to take advantage of this relationship by providing students with experiences which elicit their emotional intelligence. In so doing there is opportunity to strengthen their disposition toward critical thinking.

Prior COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that less than 50% of the world's population was able to obtain essential health services. These numbers have decreased with the onset of the pandemic. Concurrently, the pandemic has amplified the gaps in access and extended inequality in African contexts. This requires a concerted effort to reimagine and rebuild Africa's healthcare system to inclusively attend to the needs of society's most vulnerable populations. Women in leadership provide an opportunity to do this. Through the advancement of strategic leadership development focused on women and girls, developing African healthcare contexts have the potential to aid in the eradication of endemics like gender-based violence, extend community sustainability, and elevate the collective consciousness for women, girls, and other marginalized populations. Through this chapter, the authors present a compelling and holistic conceptual model and the accompanying practice grounded in transformational and adaptive leadership, systems thinking, and strategic social influence that creates the foundation for the development of women in leadership to advance developing African healthcare contexts. The implications for this emergent strategy advance the field of leadership calling for applied leadership within African healthcare contexts, advance society through a coordinated and integrated approach to healthcare service and patient care, and create direct linkages to the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 – Good Health and Well-being, SDG 5 – Gender Equality, SDG 10 – Reduce Inequalities, and SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities, while advancing our collective global community.

Administering healthcare within developing contexts of Africa presents a myriad of challenges. This includes competing priorities, cultural differences, language barriers, resource limitations, supply chain management disruptions, and an infinite array of ever-changing political, social, environmental, and economic dynamics. However, leadership and more specifically, intentional relationship development grounded in strategic diffusion networks have the potential to mitigate these challenges and maximize the adoption of life-saving technologies, pharmaceuticals, and treatment plans. This chapter provides context for the systemic healthcare challenges facing developing contexts across Africa, utilizes the theoretical frameworks of adaptive leadership and complexity leadership to create a holistic approach to relationship-building within these contexts, and illuminates the strategic influence, agency, and adoption and diffusion strategies that ultimately have the potential to create pathways to promise and save lives within underserved and under-resourced communities.